Chapter 3

Clearly, Max realised as she walked into the kitchen, her parents must have been hoping that a good night's sleep would bring about a better mood the next day. As Max was prepared to demonstrate to them, the very thought of her getting any sleep at all last night was hopelessly optimistic. She walked in to the smell of Vanessa cooking pancakes. Max liked her cooking, of course she did. But Vanessa always used that bottled pancake batter that always left the pancakes claggy, made them sit like a rock in her stomach and left her feeling queasy. And no, sugar and lemon juice were not enough to fix the issue. Unfortunately, this was the consequence of having a mother who refused to cook anything that took more than ten minutes to prepare except on a Sunday: every short cut known to man and woman alike being taken.

"Hey, kiddo!" Ryan said cheerily as she entered. It was put on. She could tell it a mile away. It sounded so excruciatingly forced that it almost made her turn around and head back upstairs. Unfortunately a growl from her stomach immediately put pay to that.

"Hey." Max couldn't even feign enthusiasm as she trudged in and sat down heavily in her seat.

"Oh, well if you're in that kind of mood then go back to bed." Ryan let out a frustrated sigh as he finished eating and got up to take his plate to the sink, his knife and fork clattering angrily onto it.

"Wish I could." Max muttered. Her inner war from the previous night was still raging on in her head and the less she wanted to focus on it the louder it got. Chloe had been in most of Max's thoughts for most of her life. Somehow, it was like it had become a habit. Infuriatingly addictive and half the time she didn't even know she was doing it. The other half was spent reflecting on their past adventures both recent and ancient. Come to think of it, she still had that old pirate cannon on her swing set. Maybe they should rebuild the ship if they had the time- No. Of course that wasn't going to happen. That split-second false hope was enough to somehow push Max's mood even lower. She didn't even notice when Vanessa put the pancakes in front of her. She didn't notice that these were actually proper home made ones to try and make up for yesterday. She didn't notice that these ones were chocolate chip or the bottle of maple syrup on the side.

She just sat there, staring at the table and knowing she was supposed to be doing something at that moment. But now that her mind was on the times she and Chloe had their whole lives ahead of them together, she decided that the outside world wasn't important. Those moments were the ones she could cling to. She wanted nothing to do with the present. If there was ever a time she'd wanted to rewind- to turn back the clock and go back to the times she knew that she'd be happy day in and day out when seeing Chloe was the one true constant in her life.

"Max!" Max was jolted back to reality by Vanessa's scream. The hand gripped her shoulder harshly at the exact moment the sensation returned to her body in a rush. Re-entry like that was almost painful. All of her nerve endings screamed as one as the real world slammed into her like a freight train. She looked up and gazed around, briefly having forgotten where she actually was. Her parents were giving her worried expressions she hadn't seen before. These breaks from the norm had really stopped worrying her over the last fifteen hours. If anything, it was becoming the new normal and she hated it.

"Sorry." She hated the sheepish tone of her voice but couldn't hide her embarrassment. "I kinda zoned out there." She could see Vanessa and Ryan trading glances like baseball cards. She hadn't fooled them at all. Trying to shrug it off, she started eating. She was too depressed to even taste the pancakes and the entire meal seemed to come and go about as quick as a dead chicken. In the end, she gave up with only half of it eaten and excused herself to go and change, realising that she'd forgotten to even put pyjamas on last night.

She kicked her shoes off, grabbing another pair from under her bed where they were all lined up and putting them to one side. After that, she started ransacking her wardrobe and trying to find something comfortable for hot weather. Eventually she pulled out a breathable t-shirt with a picture of a Christmas dinner on it and a slogan that said 'An Animal is not just for Christmas!' on its grey fabric.

'I don't remember this.' Max thought to herself. 'Where did I get it?' She pulled back the neck and scanned the label.

'Made of Vegan propaganda.

Hand Wash Only.

No Machine!

Made in China.'

"And that instantly explains everything." Max muttered as she tossed it on the bed and went back to rummaging. The next one she pulled out had a cartoon kitten on it that was relaxing back on a couch, its ginger fur getting on everything. She remembered buying it when she was out with Chloe because they'd laughed for almost ten minutes because they'd found the slogan hilarious.

'Eye of the Couch Tiger!

It's a thriller tonight!'

That settled it. Max stripped off her top half, grabbing a new bra and pulling the shirt on. Next she moved over to the drawer for her jeans and grabbed a fresh pair, changing quickly and finally feeling a bit more human now. But feeling human wasn't going to solve this problem. That was down to her. Somehow.

"Max?" That was her dad's voice. She hadn't heard him come up the stairs but he was there outside her door now. "Are you dressed yet? Can I come in?" Frantically, she scanned around to make sure there was no contraband from Chloe on view. No magazines or over-age DVDs left out in anyone's sight line. After turning the pirate copy of Dawn of the Dead around so that it was out of sight and she knew her dad wouldn't bother to investigate it properly, she sat on her bed to distance herself from it.

"Come in!" Ryan opened the door, walking in and sitting down on the bed next to her. Carefully, he looped an arm around her and pulled her closer.

"You're not doing too well, are you?" Max looked at him incredulously, wondering how that wasn't a rhetorical question. "Look Max, I'm sorry about your mom last night. She doesn't do the awkward conversations very well. You get a lot of that from her. Listen: I've just been on the phone with William. Joyce has taken Chloe shopping for a bit of a mother and daughter morning. He wants to see us before they get back so we're heading over in ten minutes. You have until then to do anything you need to or we're heading there without you."

"Got it." Max jumped up quicker than she'd moved since she left Chloe's house the previous day. She was in the upstairs bathroom in an instant and reaching for her toothbrush. Less than five minutes later, she was sitting by the door impatiently as Ryan and Vanessa ran around trying to keep up.

"I've never seen her this energetic!" Ryan remarked as he grabbed his car keys. They hurried out to the car and for Max the drive there could not be over quick enough. It seemed like an eternity until they were standing in front of the house with William opening the door for them.

"Hello there, Max." He stood aside to let them in as she, Ryan and Vanessa all wiped their feet and took their shoes off. "Come in, all of you. Have a seat." They all sat themselves down on the couch with William grabbing a chair from the dining table and perching on it, giving all of them an even look. "Okay Max, so as you probably guessed from Chloe's genius eavesdropping technique your parents are moving to Seattle because of your dad's job." Max nodded, feeling her mood dipping again.

"What eavesdropping technique?" Vanessa asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Chloe set her phone up on the stairs on speaker and then headed to her room to make us have no reason to believe she was listening in." William told them. "And we didn't. Because she wasn't. What she was doing was letting Max listen in because they both knew something was up." Max couldn't hide her smile. It was so typically Chloe that it almost hurt.

"That girl is an evil genius."

"Yes, well she's such an evil genius that she forgot to pick the phone up again afterwards." William told them. "It's confiscated for a week. Four days with good behaviour." With that, he turned back to Max. "Now I asked Joyce to take Chloe out this morning so we could all talk privately. Your parents were on the phone to us last night to discuss Seattle further and they're saying you got pretty depressed after you found out. From how red your eyes are, I'd say that carried over to today, didn't it?" Max didn't trust herself to speak. She could only nod. "Right." William sat back in his chair. That was when Max noticed he was smiling. "Well, Joyce and I have been talking and we've made a decision. If Ryan and Vanessa are happy for it, we come baring an olive branch." Suddenly, it clicked in Max's head. She worked out what William was getting at. She looked to her parents who were sat on each side of her. Both of them were smiling. Her dad offered her a supportive nod. In that moment, her heart was beating so fast that she knew it couldn't be healthy.

"You have a choice to make, sweetie." Vanessa told her. "But whatever you choose, make sure it's what you want. All we want is for you to be happy."

Author's Note: So I'm looking to stick to this update schedule of every four days or so for this story. That being said, we're about halfway through now. As always with my multi-chapter stories, the final chapter and epilogue will be posted up together. Now as you all know, tomorrow's Christmas. Suffice it to say that this is the most uncertain Christmas that we as a planet have had in roughly seven-hundred years. I just wanted to take a moment to say that whether you celebrate it or not, I hope you enjoy the day. It's the one day of the year that you shouldn't let anything ruin. Now I'm not saying run out into the street and have mass parties, although that hasn't stopped a lot of people. What I'm saying is to stay safe and just take the day to relax. This is the one day of the year where all the problems that have piled on throughout 2020 don't matter. I hope you have as merry a Christmas as possible given the situation and I hope hear from you all in the new year following new chapters and stories that are to come. Merry Christmas and here's to a hopefully better 2021.