Dreamcatcher

Chapter Sixty-Two: Suffer With Me

Max was speechless at the sight of her tetraplegic friend.

In spite of her efforts, Max ran into another wall, and this wall just came to prove that what Max attempted to do to make her reality better, was futile.

Cupping her mouth and nose, Max blinked back tears that were fighting to run down her face.

"Chloe... w-what happened?!" Max muttered in shock.

Chloe sighed. "You'd better come inside."

The smile that was on Chloe's face the moment she saw Max standing outside her house dropped when reality set in. The wheelchair rotated on the spot very slowly. When Chloe had her back to Max and her father, she rode back down the hall into a room that was once a guest bedroom, now officially Chloe's room.

Expensive medical equipment covered half of the room; a bed and other medical electronics that kept Chloe in stable life support - Joyce and William spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for Chloe's treatment prior to her accident.

"It's weird hanging out with you again," said Chloe. It was very awkward for them to be hanging out again, but deep down they both knew there was some level of satisfaction being together again.

"I know," Max replied quickly. "I'm glad we are, though."

William entered the room and assisted his daughter into her bed.

It felt strange that Max had yet to be reunited with Clark and Joyce. Given that she'd now only seen half of the family, Max was mostly eager to hang out with Chloe and Clark equally.

"It was nice that you sent me actual letters. That's more than any of my other friends have done... And you even wrote on that cool parchment paper. I thought, 'that's so Max.' "

"So pretentious. But I love writing on it, like an English poet."

"We were always glad to hear from you, Max. It was like you never left." William commented as he tucked his nineteen year-old daughter comfortably in her bed. "There ya go, kiddo. If you need anything, just shout. I love you, Chloe."

"Love you too, dad." Chloe replied raspily, lacking the energy in her voice.

"Nice to see you again, Max. Feel free to stay for as long as you like."

Max smiled and waved faintly as William walked out of the room, leaving the two girls to catch up.

Even when they had much to talk about, they still fell short on words. The silence became so awkward that neither were able to look at one another; in Max's case, it was still too difficult to even look at Chloe without feeling emotionally ill at the sight of her being disabled.

"Chloe..." Max began, unable to get her words out properly due to how tormented she was by looking at her old friend lying in a bed hooked up to expensive specialised equipment to keep her alive.

"You wanna know about the accident. The accident was after my nineteenth. Dad bought a hybrid for me - we were financially struggling, but dad thought I needed this more if I could nail a job that paid decently. Of course, my brother was stupid jealous, but he eventually got over it. But if there's one thing they can't get over, it's for what happened. Clark wanted me to take him to some stupid rock concert up at the old mill with some chick when some asshole cut me off and sent us into a ditch. I saw everything in bullet time. I felt my back snap and... and that was the last thing I ever felt in my body. When I woke up, I literally couldn't move a muscle."

"Jesus... I-I-I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything. I'm just happy I get to see you again."