Chapter Text
Victoria
July 21, 2015
Chase Residence
Seattle, Washington
“You know, it’s possible we’ve been coming at this from the wrong direction.”
“What direction is that?” Max asks, half-turning to look at me, her hands still in the sink as she finishes doing the dishes, just like she always does on the nights I cook.
It’s weird how, despite not actually living here, she still manages to be an amazing roommate. She always puts the towels she uses in the laundry hamper, always makes the bed if she crashes in the guest room, and I’ve never had to remind her to take off her shoes at the door. She’s even sorted the recycling a couple of times, because apparently ‘doing chores helps her think’.
Then there’s the money that mysteriously appears on the fridge every Sunday, pinned under a smiley-face magnet and somehow always enough to cover her share of the week’s groceries.
Honestly, if we weren’t planning to rewrite the last two years, I’d seriously consider just asking her to move in.
“I’ve been thinking about this since your drug-fueled crash-landing last week. Up until now, we’ve been trying to increase the length of your rewinds by looking for ways to counteract the pain. And that’s been working, more or less. But what if we went the opposite direction? What if instead of a painkiller, you tried a stimulant?”
“Like what? Caffeine pills?”
“I was thinking something a little stronger.”
“There is a guy at school who keeps trying to sell Adderall to people,” she says, adding, “But I’m pretty sure he’s a cop.”
“I’m not talking about Adderall either, Max. Do I look like Frank fucking Bowers to you?”
She looks over her shoulder and gives me a slow once-over, pretending to think about it first. “No.”
“Asshole,” I mutter, trying not to smile. “I’m talking about Epinephrine.”
She puts the last plate on the rack next to the sink and starts drying her hands. “And for those of us who aren’t great big closet nerds?”
“I’m not a...” I swear to god if she wasn’t such a good sorta-roommate. “Epinephrine is another name for adrenaline.”
“Then why didn’t you just say adrenaline?”
Because adrenaline is a brand name and for some reason that bugs the shit out of me. “Because it’s called epinephrine, and it might be the solution we’re looking for.”
“Uh-huh,” she mutters, skeptically. “But wouldn’t you know it, I’m fresh out. Don’t suppose you happen to have any epinephrine kicking around?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Walking over to the kitchen counter, I reach into my handbag and pull out a cylinder, about six inches long and bright yellow.
“What’s that?”
“It’s an EpiPen,” I say, adding, “I’m allergic to bee stings.”
“Okay.” She eyes it suspiciously. “And what are you suggesting I do with that EpiPen?”
“I’m suggesting you inject yourself with one before rewinding.”
She blinks, slowly, like she’s having trouble with the concept. “I’m not a doctor, but that sounds like a terrible, terrible idea.”
“Fucking around with time is a pretty terrible idea, too. So objectively speaking, who’s the irresponsible one here?”
“It won’t give me a heart attack or something, will it?”
“They sell these things over the counter, Max.”
“See, that’s not a no,” she points out. “Which I find concerning.”
“Look, it was just an idea. We can look into it more later on.” I return the EpiPen to my bag and turn back to see Max pulling my old checkers set out of the cupboard. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously,” she insists. “I’m going to beat you at this. I don’t care if you’re some kind of freaky checkers prodigy.”
“I’m not a ‘checkers prodigy’, Max. I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing.”
“Then how do you always win?”
“Have you considered the possibility that you just suck at checkers?” I laugh, and she shoots me a glare.
She’s actually getting pretty good at glaring. I must be rubbing off on her.
Max lost the first game pretty quickly. She made it a little longer in the second, and actually offered a hint of a challenge in the third. I guess her luck ran out after that, though, because the fourth game was a massacre and the fifth is going just as badly.
Lifting one of my pieces, I deftly take four of Max’s on my way to the far side of the board. “King me.”
“Damn stupid piece of...” she grumbles, glaring at the offending checker piece in annoyance.
“Oh, quit your bitching and king me.”
“Y’know what?” She leans forward, eyeing me suspiciously. “I think you’re cheating.”
“Oh, really?” I place an elbow on the table, propping up my chin and adopting a look of mild amusement. “And how, exactly, am I doing that?”
“If I knew that, it wouldn’t be working, would it?”
“Well, if we’re just going to start hurling around baseless accusations, how do I know you’re not cheating?”
She rolls her eyes. “Maybe because I keep losing?”
“A clever ruse, I’m sure. You’re just trying to get me to drop my guard.”
“I’m not cheating, Victoria,” she insists, rolling her eyes.
“So you say.”
“Oh, whatever. Nice try, but I’m onto you and your...mind...games...” The words slowly trail off as her eyes drift out of focus.
“Max?” She doesn’t respond, just staring into space. I snap my fingers in front of her face. “Earth to Caulfield. You still in there?”
I’m reaching out to touch her shoulder when she abruptly blinks about six inches to the right and lets out a shuddering breath. Gripping the edge of the table and squeezing her eyes shut, she sways back and forth like she just got off a roller coaster. “Whoa...”
“You alright?” That must have been a pretty long rewind; Max never looks great coming out of those.
“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” She shakes herself, and glances around the room. “Well, I guess that worked.”
“What worked?”
“Your idea,” she says, as if that explains a fucking thing. “Today is the eleventh, right?”
“Yes, it is,” I say, annoyed. “What worked, Max?”
“Using adrenaline.”
“You actually used my EpiPen?”
She shakes her head. “Epi Junior. Half-dose versions for little kids.”
I didn’t even know those existed. “That sounds like a cartoon character.”
“You said that the first time, too,” she chuckles, picking up her water and taking a shaky sip. “We figured it’d be safer for the first few test rewinds.”
“First few?”
“Yeah.” She takes another sip of water, already looking better. “We did a couple of one-week tests and a three-week test before this one.”
For the moment, I’m just going to ignore the fact that she referred to a three-week rewind as a ‘test’.
“Uh-huh...and where, exactly, did we get four EpiPens?” You don’t need a prescription for them, but I think most pharmacists might find that a little suspicious.
“From your doctor.”
That’s even higher on the crazy scale. “I really don’t see Dr. Spencer just handing four of those over, no questions asked.”
“No, it wasn’t your regular doctor. It was another guy, something-lock.”
Oh god, seriously? “Tell me it wasn’t Kinloch.”
“Yeah, that’s the guy.”
“Ugh. I must have been desperate.”
In Seattle, Dr. Duke Kinloch (and if that’s his original name I’ll eat my goddamn shoes) is basically Frank Bowers for the rich and famous. The guy the city’s wealthy residents go to when they’re looking for a specific medication that they might not necessarily need. After all, where else would all those aging trophy wives get their precious no-questions-asked valium prescriptions?
Max shrugs. “You said you needed insurance to cover the cost, and you needed a doctor to sign off for that.”
That...actually does make sense. If those kid versions are anything like the adult ones, four of them would’ve cost about $1200, at least. And that’s about the only thing that would’ve driven me to go see that quack. Just the idea that I stepped into his office makes my skin crawl, but I guess the Chase name still meant something there.
“Well, at least it was worth it. Right?”
“Yup. And it seems like rewinding burns off the extra adrenaline in my system. I barely even feel it when I’m done.” She laughs. “Six weeks is still kind of a wild ride, though.”
“Six weeks?!”
“That’s right. Six weeks, no nosebleed, no migraine.” She grins and gives me a little bow. “Cue applause.”
Her proud declaration triggers a familiar and unpleasant twinge in my stomach. I wish I could just ignore it and be happy for her, but every time Max emerges from one of her trips back I feel a small but annoyingly persistent sense of loss. While I’m genuinely glad she’s making progress, all that looped time adds up. For me, it’s only been about six weeks since this whole thing started. But as far as I can tell, it’s been a little over four months for her.
If someone told me how much that’d bother me, back when Max first knocked on the gallery’s door, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I actually liked hanging out with Max. I haven’t had any close friends since Arcadia Bay, and until she showed up I hadn’t realized how lonely I was. I like having a friend again, and it pisses me off that I only get to remember a quarter of it.
“Y’know, this is really starting to bug me.” The words come out a little more bitterly than I meant them to. “I don’t like that...”
“I’ve technically been your friend for longer than you’ve been mine?” she interrupts, and the sympathetic look in her eyes just pisses me off more.
“See, that’s the kind of shit I’m talking about! How many times have I told you that?”
“Once or twice.” She winces. “Sorry.”
“Stop fucking apologizing!” She doesn’t even flinch under my glare. But then, I guess she’s had time to get used to it.
“Here, I’ve got something that’ll help.” She reaches into the pocket of her hoodie, looking briefly surprised to find it empty. “Ugh, hang on.”
Tapping her fingers lightly on the tabletop, she stares at the sleeve of her hoodie impatiently. It takes me second to realize she’s waiting for the lag time to pass. I’m still adapting to the concept, but she seems to be used to that, too. Another annoying example of how far behind the curve I am.
She said it was a six-week rewind, so that should work out to a little over a minute of lag. And sure enough, I’ve barely finished the thought before her hoodie shifts from light grey to maroon and her hair gets longer. I’ve seen it all before, but for some reason, her ever-lengthening hair always catches me a little off guard.
Except for a few trims, I don’t think Max has had it cut once since Arcadia Bay. The short bob she sported at Blackwell is a distant memory, replaced by a loose ponytail that just about reaches the middle of her back. It’s actually visibly longer after this rewind, probably because even though she’s from six weeks in the future, the ‘practice’ trips she took beforehand mean that she’s roughly three months older than she was a minute ago.
I swear, no matter how many times I think about that, it’ll never stop being weird.
Grinning, she fishes a small leatherbound book from her previously empty pocket and hands it over. “Here you go.”
“What’s that?”
“Your recap journal.”
“I actually made one of those?” I’ve been thinking of starting a journal that Max would take with her everytime she goes back, just to keep myself up to date. It’s weird to be holding something that, until now, had been nothing but a half-formed idea. Especially when it looks as though I’ve already used up nearly half the pages.
Looking back up, I tap the small lock on the book’s clasp. “What’s the combination?”
“No idea. You won’t tell me.” She smirks. “But whatever it is, it’s never taken you long to figure it out.”
She’s right; looking down at the three-digit lock, I guess the answer almost right away. 2-2-4. What else would I pick?
The inside is almost as eerie as the journal itself. It’s unquestionably my handwriting but seeing pages and pages of text that I have absolutely no memory of writing (and technically, never actually wrote) is the tiniest bit unnerving. I can look through the whole thing later, though. For now, I flip right to the most recent entry.
Recap Notes: Rewind #46
Length : -42 days
Purpose : Epinephrine Test #4 Adrenaline Epinephrine Adrenaline It's fucking Epinephrine, Max!
Things To Remember
- Bolognese in the fridge has gone bad. Don’t eat.
- I thought it’d be funny to hide that blue beanie Max always has in her bag and pretend it got thrown in the trash by accident. It was Chloe’s beanie. She cried a little and almost rewound to save it. I spent the rest of the day feeling like an asshole.
- A blonde guy in a blue pinstripe suit will come into the gallery on the morning of August 5th. He’s the featured artist’s ex-husband and plans to spray paint her work.
- Pan’s Labyrinth scared the living shit out of Max. She spent half the movie hiding under a blanket. It was hilarious.
- Empty out the lint trap, dummy! Are you trying to light the house on fire?
- Don’t bother asking Max if can join her on her morning runs. You already did and she already said yes. It’s too late to back out now, so go buy extra icepacks.
- You and Max have watched up to S4 Ep11 of Parks & Rec.
- Finally figured out what that chicken marsala recipe was missing. See notes at the back.
Then I hit one that stops me in my tracks.
- Max knows you hate being called Vicky, but she doesn’t know why and she’s promised never to ask.
Shit.
There’s a pretty powerful message hidden in that statement. Not because Max called me Vicky at some point. She’s not the first and definitely won’t be the last. It’s because she knows it bothers me, and I never tell anyone that it bothers me. People who know that tend to ask why, which usually ends with me telling them to fuck off.
Nobody knows why. My own therapist doesn’t even know why. That means I trusted Max enough to tell her that, and enough to know she’d never press the issue.
“Anything good in there?”
“Huh? Oh, uh...it says don’t eat the Bolognese sauce in the fridge.”
“Ugh, good call. I’ll go throw it out now.” She stands, yawning loudly. “Would you mind if we went over the rest of this tomorrow? I kinda want to head to bed.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know it’s technically early, but I’m seriously wiped out and my pillow is calling.” She smiles, like she didn’t just casually invite herself to stay the night, then adds, “I’ll even make breakfast tomorrow, okay?”
“A little presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“What is?”
“Just assuming you can sleep here whenever you want?”
“Why wouldn’t I...” She stops, looks down at her phone, and murmurs, “Oh, right. Three days early.”
“Don’t worry. Because I’m such a nice person, I’m still going to let you stay.” I wave toward the guest room. “But maybe you ought to ask next time?”
“And maybe you ought to read the rest of that journal entry. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.” She smirks. “Good night, Victoria.”
The rest of the journal entry?
Going back to the small book, I flip to the end and pick up where I left off. It goes on for a couple of pages and none of it seems very dramatic. Mostly just notes on what we’ve been doing to extend Max’s rewind range, punctuated with points about things Max and I have done or talked about. It really is reassuring to get caught up on the stuff I missed, so to speak.
I’m almost ready to think that Max was messing with me, then I reach the last point and just about choke.
- I probably should have written this first, but guess what? You’ve got a new roommate!
“What?!”
From upstairs, I just barely hear Max's laughter before the guest room door closes.