Perfect with You

Chapter 49 - Tread on the Heels

It was the last drop working its way unpredictably down the windshield. The rain had subsided. She wished it hadn't. She had enjoyed the noise of water hitting her car, millions of tiny explosions creating the white noise that made her yells seem quieter. Now it was just dark outside with calm puddles on the side of the road, the only disarray was in her body and mind. She didn't have a single thought after driving from the horrible scene that she still had trouble comprehending. Or maybe that was false. Maybe she had a lot of clear thoughts, but didn't process them, didn't really acknowledge them as a part of herself. It was more like voices from the outside, entering her ears and becoming her thoughts.
She slowed the car to a halt and looked out the left window in her car. Like every color becoming the absence of color, her emotions had become nothing. Every feeling was rushing through her and it was impossible to feel so much at once, so it had simply become a single feeling of emptiness.
She wasn't parked outside of Ethan's home. She had instinctively driven back home. Back to her grandfather's small, faded-yellow house.
She didn't know why she was here, and not in the process of putting a bullet through Ethan's skull.

Why am I home? It doesn't make sense. I am not thinking straight.

The car door felt cold to the touch, light to open. The colors of the outside seemed so bright, yet so bleak. She kept hearing her own voice in her ears, not in her mind. If she were to think about it, however, the voice didn't sound that much like her own. As she stepped out of the car, she chose to forget to close the door, chose to leave the car keys in the ignition. She felt so out of touch with everything around her as if everything was floating. Perhaps as if her surroundings were actively trying to get away from her.

No. It makes perfect sense. If Ted is working with Ethan, he would have warned the police by now of my plan to kill him. He'd tell them where he lives, and they'd be waiting for me right now. That's what is actually happing. That is the reality.

She walked the short path from the car to the house, everything happening in a second. Every step being a leap. She hadn't looked up from her feet, her body just walking to her destination by instinct. It was too bleak to see anything anyway. And if she were to look at her hand reaching for the door, would she even be able to see anything but Max?

So how do I even get to Ethan? I can't... I can't drive, they'd... oh God, they'd recognize my car and shoot me right away. They know I'm dangerous. They'll kill me. The police will kill me.

With a mental image of herself being shot, she entered the house and the warmth she had become so used to expect, passed over her. Her skin covered in a thin bubble, keeping the temperature stable. She imagined a line in front of her feet. A red line painted on the floor, leading her forward, up to her room. From the corner of her eye, she saw a figure sitting in a chair. No. She could be more specific. She saw her grandfather in the living room, sitting in the chair that Chloe usually was sitting on. The TV was off. Perhaps just black and muted. He was holding a phone in his hands, but he wasn't speaking. Many more details could be seen but failed to be processed. His expression being one of them. Because one expression had been burnt into her brain, an expression that every person's face would have from this point on. The expression of Max screaming for help.

Max... What would Max do? Maybe she'd bait Ethan to go somewhere else. Somewhere I could kill him in peace. Perhaps she would wait it out. She always was so cautious. I mean... she is cautious. Was. Is.

As she interchanged those two words, Alfred suddenly got up from his chair and walked over to Chloe. His mouth was moving, it may had been for a while. She could hear him, she could recognize that it was words he was speaking, but he was still too confused with what had happened with Ethan. Chloe didn't need another confused person. She didn't need someone to ask her questions. So she ignored him and continued to think up a strategy to get to Ethan, but the more she tried to piece together what Max would have done in this situation, the louder the voices in her head became.