The day after the storm lacked every sign of the seemingly all-destructive power of nature that had torn the little town of Arcadia Bay apart the
previous evening, with nearly no clouds in the sky, just a light breeze from the sea and the sun shining brightly as if it wasn't autumn but summer.
To cut it short, it was a surprisingly good day in autumn.
But not for Max. Definitely, it was NOT a good day. It was the worst. Not one of the worst, but the worst, and that including everything she had gone through, the entire hell the last week had been to her - and Chloe.
As the truck Chloe was so proud of - that rusty, old thing, which surprised Max with even still being able to move an inch - passed through the shattered wrecks once carrying the name "Arcadia Bay", she didn't feel good at all. She felt disgusted of herself. Grieving and sad, but also with a wide range of hateful thoughts targeting no one but herself. She sighed, as if that would help her let out the pressure inside her. If only she could blow out her emotions like the air in her lungs.
Chloe, who slowly was driving her rusty and yet precious junkpile of a truck, noticed. Of course she did. She knew Max, maybe even better than Max did herself. The hand she placed on Max' shoulder helped, like it drained out the self-hatred, the sadness, the loss, everything, out of the young photography student. But only a little. Because even Chloe wasn't a saint.
"Don't think too much about it, Max."
It was a - obviously - weak attempt. Max looked back outside the window, releasing another sigh.
"You haven't reached the Hitler-level of kill count yet.", Chloe added even with a slight sarcastic grin, and normally, Max would have at least chuckle about Chloe's crude kind of gallows humor. But now… it just felt wrong.
"Chloe.", Max hissed at her, but not very loudly, "You are not helping."
Now it was Chloe sighing, slouching her shoulders.
"I am sorry. I just…"
"You did not think."
"You are reading me."
Max did not reply. Her eyes were gazing out of the window again, searching for something she couldn't define. She did not know what she was looking for - surely not the absolutely false hope of finding some life sign in the debris - but she couldn't get her eyes off the ruins the storm had turned Arcadia Bay into. She pleadingly hoped she wouldn't get to see anyone she knew, lying on the ground, dead, with his or her life spirit already gone - or even worse: parts of someone she knew.
Luckily, the image of a Kate Marsh shattered by debris burying her from the torso, her bones cracked and with blood all over her, stayed an image inside Max' head.
As they passed by the diner, she felt her heart bursting into millions of shards impaling her chest from inside. Now, she couldn't even hold her tears back, knowing that it was her who had chosen all those people's fate - their doom - in order to save Chloe. A single person. One. All of Arcadia Bay, doomed by her decision, annihilated by the storm, because Max could not let go. Unfair wasn't even close to being the right word - everyone in Arcadia didn't even have a chance, a decision. Max knew she had put a death sentence on everyone knowing what consequence her decision would have. She let them die. And the moment she thought about that, she couldn't stop another liquid outburst of her body - but this time it was her vomiting on the floor of Chloe's car and parts of the side window. Chloe made a sound of disgust, but didn't say a thing.
There were no words, neither good nor bad ones. Neither could she comfort Max nor scold her in any way. All she could do was drive the truck onward in silence, which was exactly what she did right now. And Max, pale like a ghost, now huddled on her seat, with her arms around the legs which she had pulled close to the body, sobbing in helplessness and grief, did not even blame her.

It did not help that they left Arcadia Bay. Not at all. Chloe expected Max would get at least a little bit better, the farer they would get from the little town by the seaside, but that was not the case. Of course not. Chloe pretended to be happy, to be untouched, as if it was just an incident, a piece of the puzzle called past - she turned up the music, stepped on the gas as soon as they got out of the ruins of Arcadia Bay, and she even managed to fake a little grin she typically had on her face whenever she had a Chloe-Price-kind of idea.
But Max knew her long enough to know better. Chloe attempted everything, put every effort in seeming strong, untouched by the events and just like herself, but Max just looked through that. She knew that on the inside, Chloe was as shaken as herself, maybe even worse. Max couldn't - and didn't want to - imagine how she must feel knowing that her hometown, her family, everything and everyone which and who ever mattered to her apart from Max and her truck, had been exchanged for her own life, even after she had begged Max to let her die in favor for Arcadia Bay.
It took Max several hours leaned against the, on the lower half vomit-stained, window of the car, staring outside at the sea next to the road they drove on, to even speak a word again. With the sun setting, Chloe's happy and careless masquerade fell, and she was silent again instead, just driving onwards, without any direction but straight, only following a road no matter where it would lead them.
The first words Max spoke in hours were simple. Nothing special.
"Where do we go?"
An obvious question both of them had refused to intone until this point even if they both had it in mind.
Chloe turned her head a bit, just shrugging.
"I mean… we have to go somewhere."
"Max.", Chloe finally broke her silence, "Glad you talk again, but… I have no fucking idea."
Normally, Max would have reminded her in a humorous kind of way that that was another dollar for the swear jar, and normally, they would have laughed about it.
But now, Max just replied with: "We need to move on. I just need… anything to do now. Anything to think about but…"
She didn't say what they both knew she would have said.
"Max, following this road, we will get to some shithole of a motel or a fucking gas station or even a road diner at some time, right?"
"So we are leaving it to the coincidence."
"I just don't wanna make decisions, that's all."
The words, as they left Chloe's lips, hit Max like knives thrown at her. She lowered her head, sighing again, then nodding.
"You are probably right."
"If you say so.", Chloe answered, "Honestly, if that's the life worth saving over Arcadia fucking Bay, regret your faults, Max."
And the cold bitterness in her voice crushed every little piece left of Max' emotional stability.