Perfect with You

Chapter 50 - Last Blues for Bloody Knuckles

"Aw, fuck!" She exclaimed loudly.

The drops of blood falling to the floor weren't getting smaller; it brought a sickness to her stomach to watch the red drip from her feet. She was gently pulling out pieces of broken glass from under her foot, and although the biggest pieces were the most painful, they were also the easiest. The small ones, the ones she couldn't even see, only feel, would be the worst.

Chloe had placed herself on the toilet in the upstairs bathroom, having calmed herself enough to at least let out sounds again. Sounds of pain, albeit. Her heart had settled on a dangerously slow rhythm, no longer having the energy to alarm her body. She felt tired but growled at the thought of sleeping. She was hungry but had no appetite. She thought of what to do next, but it got her nowhere.

All the broken pieces of her life were shattered on the floor in her room and she only had ten minutes before she had to confront Max's father. Ten minutes before she had to lie again. There would never be a break longer than such a fleeting amount of time until she finished what every nerve in her body still screamed at her to do.

Do I really have it in me to kill Ethan? Does the thought of revenge control me that much?

Gently rubbing her feet with the palm of her hand, Chloe felt a moment of perspicacity. Her thoughts guided by what Max said only minutes before the incident.

She told me I was in the wrong. That killing Ethan wouldn't fix anything, and only make me more messed up... I still don't agree, but that doesn't mean that I am right.

Chloe got up on her feet to feel the slight sting from the remaining pieces of glass, quickly brushed it off and walked over to the sink. A glance in the mirror showed what she expected, although marginally worse. Her face was pale- a sick grey color spreading from her eyes that had heavy bags under them. The mascara was smeared all over her cheeks, her lips were dry, her hair messy and grotesque.

Should I just give up? If I do, I'll never see Ethan again...

Taking her attention away from the mirror, Chloe looked down to see her dirty hands and found several stains of blood on her fingers. To her surprise, when she used her thumb to rub it off, it showed to be dry. This was not blood she had gotten from the glass under her foot. This was not recent.
This was Max's dry blood on her hands.

I'll never see... Max again.

An inching chill ran up her spine, prompting her to turn her head and ended up looking at the shower to her right. The white ceramic glaring in the reflection of the bathroom lights, and although she had taken a thousand showers in there, the only one she could truly remember was the one with her friend.

Because of Ethan.

She remembered they told each other what makes them happy. Max's last sentence stood clear in her mind, the one thing she said that made Chloe's heart skip a beat and urged her to say, for the first time, that she loved her. But although she remembered the answer, she couldn't repeat those words in her head. It would be too painful.
Instead, she hastily substituted her thoughts to recall the event that was always stuck in the back of her head. The tornado that destroyed Arcadia Bay.
All this time, she had classified that single event as the worst day of her life, but it had slowly changed into something else. Transformed into a different stamp. It was the time Max eminently proved how much she loved Chloe.

Max had to live with the guilt of being responsible for hundreds of deaths. She did it for me.
I will never be able to repay that... but it's my turn now. She sacrificed an entire town for me.
The least I can do is the kill the fucker that was responsible for where Max is now.
I love her. And he took it away. Took my life away. Took hers away.
I'll take his away.