Perfect with You

Chapter 16 - It's All We Know

"It's smaller than I had imagined," Max said a few seconds after they walked inside.

Chloe stayed silent for a second, squirming her eyes together until she began nodding very convincingly. "I'm better than that. Not gonna make a 'that's what she said' joke" she said mostly to herself.
"Say something else" Chloe looked intensely at Max while walking alongside her.

Max knew Chloe challenged herself to come up with a joke based on casual conversation, so she wanted to help her out by setting up a decent joke and being in this charming little mall, there should be enough inspiration. "Ehh... There's a guy in a wheelchair over there, if you... wanna go down that road" she let out quietly with an unsure voice.

"Err, I think... I think I'm just gonna postpone this challenge" Chloe responded, grinding her teeth slightly, as she looked around the open space.

"Yeah, you have to be wheel chair-ful making fun of the disabled" Max said with a blank face, her lips forming a straight line and only emptiness in her eyes.

Chloe looked as if she had just aged two decades, her cheeks falling down and her forehead wrinkling when she lifted her eyebrows. Her body dispensed of all of her energy, making her bend her legs with her arms
lazily swinging around her body. "I will have your head on a platter" Chloe whispered as she closed her eyes tight, trying to recover. 

Max barely paid any mind to Chloe, feeling dandy about the executed pun as she moved her head around, seeing the different shops ahead of them, but felt slightly disappointed by the fact that only after a few minutes, she had nearly seen everything in the small mall Chloe decided they should visit. It was a wide concourse they were walking through, benches and trashcans in a pattern placed in the middle, with signs popping out from the shops and open doors all the way to the end. Even though Chloe must have known the place better, Max still took it to herself to find the pharmacy, as that was the main reason for their little trip.

"Hey," Chloe spoke up as Max looked to her right, seeing her friend looking down her phone.
"Teddy wrote another message"

"You're really going to call him Teddy?" Max slid her left foot across the floor, getting the sense of the surprisingly smooth floor.

"Yeah, I'm going to make a pun with it later" Her flat, non-expressive voice prepared Max for the worst pun yet. When it would arrive, however, was a mystery.
"Oh, by the way, we need to buy some spateddy" And thus, with Chloe's comedic brilliancy, the world was at peace yet again.

Max opened her mouth to condemn Chloe but was instantly interrupted.

"HI AGAIN" She nearly yelled, intentionally breaking off her friend as she began reading the message.
"I dug up some information about the guy and all that shit. Apparently he was once a psychologist and a quite respected one at that. I found some files of some his patients" Chloe's voice suddenly cracked, before she paused, seemingly reading ahead. "Ehm... he has dealt with numerous cases, mostly involving people with schizophrenia and similar diagnoses, but a few psychos as well. Like, murderers and shit. It seems like he helped a lot of people. He quit his job about 5 months ago, due to a car accident. It hints that someone died, but it's very... foggy. It says that his right arm is paralyzed, though, but I don't know if it's in connection with the accident. I can't find any files that date past that. Hope that helps" Chloe ended as she stopped walking and looked at Max. "Paralyzed?" She questioned.

Max stopped walking as well, showing a baffled expression.
"That doesn't make any sense. When I met him, he was waving that arm all over the place"

"Guess he could have falsified that bit" Chloe stood still, pressing buttons across the screen on the phone.
"Or maybe his arm was paralyzed for a while, but rewound time and prevented whatever did it"