Max & Chloe's Hella Shitty Coffee (Life is Strange)

Chapter 12

Max had begged Chloe to let her buy them flights to Oregon, but Chloe had insisted on taking her truck. "I gotta be free when I get there Max, my truck is my freedom." The road to Arcadia Bay was a long one. Thirteen hours long to be exact, and Chloe planned on driving all through the night so that they would arrive in Arcadia Bay at lunchtime on Tuesday morning. Max was only going to miss her one Wednesday lecture since Thursday and Friday were public holidays and her Tuesday lectures were finished. Max didn't mind, Wednesday was her 'introduction to business unit' and if Max had any interest in business, she would have chosen it as her major.

Max spent Monday evening completing her online quizzes, and trying to understand multiple regression, so that Chloe would have her undivided attention over the next few days. Max was just about losing the will to live when Chloe messaged her to say she was in the car park. Max had never been more excited at the prospect of a thirteen-hour drive, though it was also the first time Max had had to consider a thirteen-hour drive. Grabbing her rucksack, camera and her journal, Max made her way to Chloe.

"Ready to hit the angry road Mad Max?" Chloe chirped, clearly proud of her ridiculous and inaccurate pun.

"It's fury road. And totally, if your seats become horizontal and equipped with blankets." Max replied, already yawning.

"You can't be a sleepy Max already, it's only 11. Come on, let's go hit a gas station for snacks and energy drinks."

"I just hope you don't get sleepy; I will reiterate that this is a stupid plan, we should fly to Oregon, or in the very least drive when you are well rested."

"The only thing sending me to sleep is your attitude, where's your sense of adventure Max?" Chloe teased.

"Same place as my desire to live." Chloe's face turned serious then.

"Don't worry Max. I slept all day, if there's one thing I am it's a safe driver." Max's face washed with guilt at her insensitivity, she nodded and joined Chloe in the truck. "Now let's fill our bodies with copious amounts of sugar."

"Cheers to that," Max said trying to echo Chloe's enthusiasm.

Chloe and Max did just as Chloe had said – they filled their bodies with copious amounts of sugar, and it left them both giddy for the first few hours of the journey. Chloe even bribed Max to stay awake by putting her in charge of the speaker. For the first few hours it was a 2000s throwback singing party, featuring songs like 'sk8er boi', 'girlfriend' and 'Stacey's mum' making Max and Chloe reminisce of the times they would sing those songs in Chloe's room. Something changed between three and four am though as Max came down from her sugar high and the true level of her fatigue hit her. Chloe exited the highway for a toilet break, as she parked up, she looked over at Max who was quietly snoring against the door frame.

"Sleep tight Maximus." Chloe whispered to her best friend before pulling a blanket off the back seat and laying it over Max's resting body.

It was a few hours later when Max awoke to Chloe's cold fingers gently slapping her cheek.

"Max wake up." Max took a second to adjust to her surroundings and remember why she had fallen asleep in a position that was surely unhealthy for her neck. "Come on Caulfield, I'm parked up and the sun is rising." Still confused, Max felt Chloe carefully drag her out of the truck and helped her stand until she was self-supporting in the crisp air.

When Max finally looked around and took in the landscape around her, she saw that Chloe had driven them to a vantage point with the view of a valley glowing under a luminous orange sky that cracked through the cloud bank. The early morning chill provided a layer of fog, that made Max shudder but couldn't mask the beauty before her. Between two hills that made Max want to join Julia Andrews singing as she danced through them, was a small body of fire that Max wished she could drown in.