Onward

Chapter 1: Impossible Amends

The engine roared and roadside vanished in a blustery flurry. Max didn't look back, eyes fixed on the horizon. The sky was blindingly bright, a terribly inappropriate forecast for the mood. Her eyes wandered until they caught Chloe's gaze, and an unpleasant growth of guilt made itself comfortable in her gut. Her hand found the car radio and fixed it on an acoustic station. Syd Matters strummed a melancholy yet familiar tune. That's better.

"It's OK." Chloe, as always, read her mind. "Everything will work out, I promise." Max forced a sickly smile and focused back on the road ahead.

"It's never going to be ok." Max sniffled. "They all died, and it's my fault." Chloe exhaled a shaky breath and steadied her driving hand. Max could see tears form in her eyes as well and tried to think back to the last time Chloe had cried in front of her. She drew a blank.

Trying desperately to find a distraction from the painful silence that followed, Max found herself rummaging through the compartment in front of her. Pushing aside empty beer bottles, magazines, and a few bullets she pocketed just in case, Max found the rolled up roadmap. Just as they had planned.

"When I get a car," 11-year old Chloe gazed up at the sky, a vacant grin resting across her visage. "It'll be all black and we can draw little stars in glow-in-the-dark paint." she glanced at Max, a twinkle in her eye.

"We should hide a roadmap in the passenger's compartment, so we can go away anytime we need to. Just in case."

Max giggled and shook her head so her ponytail whipped back back and forth. "Don't be silly, Clo. We're never going to need to leave Arcadia Bay. It's our home, now and forever."

Max flattened out the map on the dashboard and scanned it up and down. It was a roadmap, passing through the coast and stretching from SoCal to Seattle, Arcadia Bay unmarked of course,the miniscule, mystical little town in the middle of nowhere, the town no one seemed to know about besides it's inhabitants. Max doubted anyone on the entire Earth but them knew of it at that time, now that it's citizens were...elsewhere.

"Where to, m'lady?" Chloe's voice cracked but Max was grateful her friend was trying to ease the tension.

Max circled Northern California with her finger.

"Why not Washington?" Chloe asked, already fully aware of the answer.

"I can't... face them." Max winced at the thought. She loved her parents, but she couldn't find a way to explain to them what had happened.

"Cali it is." Chloe's rusty old pickup made a ear-wrenching screech as she turned onto the highway.

By the time they pulled up the small, rickety motel 10 miles from the California border, the daylight was already engulfed by a plethora of glittering stars. Their room was about the size of Max's old dorm, it's contents two twin beds, a wardrobe and bathroom that smelled strongly of febreze crammed together. The carpet had visible wine stains that had evidently been sprayed with some cheap cleaning substance in a failed cover-up attempt. The girls had no luggage aside from a small backpack Chloe had stashed with essentials recovered from the disaster. Toiletries, emergency cash, clothing, and the like.

"This is home, for now." Chloe pounced on one of the beds and laid back, legs crossed and hands behind her head. "I Have enough money for a month of this dump. But we still need gas moo-lah and... y'know... food and shelter." Max laughed, laying down on the other bed, and staring up at the peeling paint on the ceiling.

"What are we going to do, Clo?" she sighed. "We have nothing."

Chloe was silent for a moment. Max heard a bed creak and suddenly, Chloe was beside her. Chloe gently nudged her over and they laid together, Max nuzzling herself under Chloe's arm. A burst of adrenaline brought her lips to Chloe's. Chloe tasted like gum and weed and grape lip balm, reminding Max of the balm her friend used to purchase at drugstores with lemonade money back in her "girly" phase. It comforted her that Chloe had held onto some memories of the past, even something so subtle. When their lips parted Chloe bent over to whisper in her ear.

"You're wrong." her voice was still dented and worn but it had a lightness Max hadn't noticed before. "We don't have nothing. We have one another."

The two fell asleep in holding tight to one another, in love and terrified and overwhelmed. They knew their lives would never be the same since the incident in the Blackwell Academy restroom, and no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn't be able to forget what had happened. No superpower could change their fate, but nothing could take away the faith and trust they had in each other either. No one could break a bond like theirs, not Jefferson, not Victoria, not Nathan, not even those unexplainable events leading up to catastrophe. In Chloe's arms, for a moment, Max felt safe. For a moment, she forgot all about the week before. For a moment, it was only Max and Chloe in that motel room and they were happy.

To be continued...