Archive of Our Own

The first time they see each other, Victoria is 14 and tuning out her parents' arguing with Maroon 5 in her earbuds. The car is stuck in usual morning traffic and she is staring out the window, watching a crowd gathered around a bus stop.

She's there among them. A thin little thing with brown hair in a ponytail and her chest pushed inward into herself. Fidgeting uneasily, squeezing the strap of her loaded backpack in some kind of nervous tick, dressed in Goodwill from head to toe. A dull little thumb among a throng of vibrant, colorful other thumbs. She sidesteps nimbly when a tall woman in a business suit squeezes into her space and shrugs. Glances at the road.

Their eyes meet. The distance is a few yards at least, but Victoria feels herself pull back from the window anyway. Their gazes hold. Linked by some kind of channel of electricity, just staring and staring back for a long, tense moment, and then it's gone. The girl smiles at her. Small, shy, uncertain. Her grip on the strap of her backpack seems to tighten.

Victoria turns away quickly. Swallows, fingers digging into the creases of her tote bag. She watches her father in the driver's seat, gesturing with his hand in some angry proclamation. She swallows a second time and turns back to the window.

The girl is still looking at her. Curious somehow. A little worry line materializing between her eyebrows, lips parted in thought. She tilts her head in some wordless inquiry and the way she looks is so... dopey Victoria just smiles.

The traffic eases at that moment. Before an incoming bus could cover her view of the bus stop, Victoria manages to catch sight of the girl smiling again.

The second time, the smile the girl gives her is braver. Happier, almost. Victoria is smiling back before the realization of it even sets in. The hand the girl has wrapped around the strap of her bag flexes, loosens a little so four of her fingers can give a small, awkward wave. Victoria lifts her own hand and waves back. Her forehead and palm press on the window in her attempt to keep the girl in sight when the traffic loosens and the car starts to move.

The next time the car stops in traffic next to the same bus stop, the girl isn't there in the usual rabble of daily commuters. Victoria's brows furrow. She pulls her face close to the window, eyes squinting, searching - but a deadpanned call of her name drags her out of the reverie. She turns to see her father has reached over and pulled off one of her earbuds.

"Didn't we already talk about earbuds in the car, Victoria?" Her father's voice is deep, cold, sounding displeased. But then again when does it sound otherwise when he's talking to her? "I've been calling your name for the past minute."

She swallows apprehensively before taking out the other earbud from her ear. Her father drops the one he's been manhandling, lets it fall and dangle over her lap. "Sorry." She mutters. She's thrown a sharp look through the rearview mirror.

"I certainly hope this isn't the kind of attitude you pull when you're at school."

"It isn't," She sounds indignant. Indignant isn't good. Another pointed look through the rearview mirror has her ducking her head between her raised shoulders. "Sorry."

"I know you know I went to Garfield. I was a brilliant student. Smart, confident, hardworking, and attentive," Her father drums his fingers over the steering wheel. When he glares at her this time he actually looks at her over his shoulder, and that's even worse. "They know you're my daughter. I really hope you have a better behavior than this in class."

"I do. I'm sorry."

She shoves her phone and connecting earbuds into her bag for emphasis. Her father doesn't see. He's scowling at his phone and typing up a response with rigid fingers at some untimely intruder. Victoria can probably count the wrinkles on his dour face if she concentrates hard enough.

"I have to head back to the house." He says, like he's in court laying down some law. Her mother bristles on the passenger seat.

"Right now? Do you know what time it is? Victoria is going to be late for school! Goodness, after the discussion about behavior, too."

Victoria sees her father's hands tighten on the steering wheel. She fights the urge to reach for her earbuds and phone again. "I know what time it is. But I have to head back to the house. They moved the meeting, and I don't have my documents here. You want me to go there unprepared? What will they think of me -"

"How about me? I'm already late for the gallery show we have scheduled today and you want to go back -"

"- this traffic will ease up in a few, and I could just turn the next corner after the gallery. This shouldn't even be a problem -"

"- what about Victoria? She's going to be late for her first class -"

"Just drop me off here," Victoria cuts off, voice firmer and harsher than she means it to come out. She looks down at her bag, rummages for her wallet, head bent low to hide a scowl. She bites her lip to keep it from wobbling. When she finds her wallet, she pulls it out. "I can take the bus. You can go take mom to the gallery and head back afterwards."

Her parents' stares burn right through her skull but they don't argue. They're too concerned about work, schedules, and public image to argue. Victoria hears hums and grunts of assent and she nods her head, still not glancing up. She opens her car door to clamber off.

"Do you have enough money on you?" Her mother asks flippantly. Victoria just nods her head again. Enough money for about five high school kids is what she has on her right now.

The car drives off without much fuss when the traffic disperses. Victoria stands off to the side at the sidewalk, distanced from the commuting crowd. Someone stands next to her but she doesn't acknowledge whoever it is, sets her jaw and puts on a deep frown instead to dissuade attempts of interaction. A boy, maybe middle school, looks at her when he passes but her expression doesn't change.

The bus comes pulling into the curb a good few minutes later and the waiting crowd swarms it like insects skittering to their home. She follows, ambles slow, fingers curling daintily around the metal railing of the steps as she climbs in. The bus driver glances at her with deep grooves on his forehead when she hovers at the top of the steps. He looks expectant, looks from her to the sleek silver box on the dashboard. Victoria gawks a little more before a nudge and whisper from behind her has her flinching.

"It's a dollar-fifty for high school students."

She twitches, pries her wallet open to pull out a bill and chuck it into the farebox. It's the smallest bill she has: a cursory glance has the driver raising his brows. A twenty dollar bill right into the chute. The first vacant seat she finds is next to the window, at the very back, and she plops onto it breathlessly.

The bus jerks and weaves back to the road, into the throng of bustling coupes and bright yellow taxis. She sighs, rubs her cheek, and then turns her head when someone sits next to her. A brooding expression is readied but - brown hair, ponytail, loaded backpack hugged close - her eyebrows rise high on her face instead.

"Hi." She blurts. The girl next to her turns to look at her and smiles a little. It's nervous, and her shoulders raise like a frightened rabbit ducking into itself.

"Hello," The girl's voice is as anxious as her posture, as unsure as her expression. She fumbles with the pins on her bag (logos, references to some shows and others Victoria doesn't know of) and apparently decides to say some more. "Good morning."

Her voice is a sound Victoria recognizes, and she should: a dollar-fifty, someone whispered. A dollar-fifty for high school students. A trickle of electricity runs down her spine, a foamy warmth rushes up her neck. She smiles sheepishly."Thanks for... you know. That."

"Never ridden a bus before?"

Victoria shakes her head. The girl seems to find this amusing because she smiles a little wider. The look is more endearing than it is offending.

"I'm Max," She says, voice wobbly but otherwise clear. The blue of her eyes is captivating. "What's your name?"

"Victoria." Victoria supplies. The girl - Max, Max - nods her head and smiles some more, angles her head to get a better view of Victoria.

"You go to Garfield." It's not a question. Max has a finger out to gesture to the purple Bulldogs pin on Victoria's tote bag and she pulls it back into her space when she's done with it. She's shy it seems. So shy.

"I do," Victoria answers. She lets her eyes drop to the Bulldogs pin momentarily before letting them glaze over Max again. "How about you?"

"Nova."

"Well hey, neighbor."

Max actually laughs at that, short and kind of high pitched but it's a welcome sound. "Yeah, good neighbors. We don't hate each other. Nova doesn't have an athletics team."

"That's good, 'cause I really don't want to hate you."

They smile and talk some more. Her father always said Nova kids are weird and funny in the head, because alternative schools are all kinds of unpleasant, and that she should never associate with any of them. But Max is nice and shy and gentle. Victoria never believed her father anyway.

Max is fun to talk to, about shows, about movies, about music. About a lot of things. She likes photography and tells Victoria one sunny day in the bus how she wants to be a photographer someday. Victoria tells her she wants to be one, too, and the grin Max gives her is so goofy she just sits there laughing for a couple of seconds.

"I want to see your photos!" Max says giddily, bouncing on her seat. "Show me!"

"I will, I will." Victoria answers breathlessly. Max doesn't calm down for the rest of the trip.

Victoria keeps her promise and brings her photo album with her the next day. She guides Max through her compilation (she called it a portfolio, all professional-like and haughty, and Max had snorted) and tells her things about her photos. The day, how she took the shot, the inspiration and whatnot. She rambles on about her favorite photographers and about having her shots on exhibit someday, about being famous, and Max smiles at her through the whole monologue.

"You're gonna be a great photographer someday, Victoria." Max says, and Victoria only grins.

And then it's Max's turn to whip out her portfolio (cue snort.) She doesn't say much, just sits back and chews her lip while Victoria sifts through her album with careful eyes and fingers. They're polaroid printouts, all raw and unedited, snapshots of landscapes and animals, some everyday faces in the middle of mundane city activity. A man walking his dog, a woman peeling the wraps off her food, a couple smiling fondly at each other.

There's genuineness in them. An unguided purity. Victoria tells Max these, and Max lights up like she's never heard the words said to her before.

"Maybe we can be famous together." Victoria says with a broad grin. Max rubs the back of her neck and smiles lopsidedly, rises to her feet to get off her stop. She waves to Victoria and says see you later in happy, strong pitches. Victoria says it back. Her parents don't mind her not riding with them on the weekday mornings now anyway.

Victoria has a lot of friends at Garfield. Rich little girls just like her who watch Pretty Little Liars and gossip about each other every chance they get. Victoria likes them because they're funny, and they're good company to go shopping with on the weekend afternoons. They're wild and loud and unapologetic. They like expensive things and fabulous hairstyles, and think boy bands disbanding are the end of the world as people know it. They're idiots.

Victoria likes Max because she's nothing like her friends at Garfield. She's quiet, shy, and the kind of girl who'd be stammering out apologies if you knocked her on purpose right on her butt. She likes simple things and laughs at simple things, and dances like a handicapped toddler to corny hipster music while singing a pitch too high to the lyrics. She's an 80-pound wallflower fidgeting on the side with a bitten lip and nervous eyes, and she's bright like a bonfire on a beach party at night with wide grins and loud laughs when you get to know her.

She's also pretty. Victoria loves taking pictures of her. Max doesn't like it when she does, but she does it anyway.

"You have really nice eyes." Victoria says while she's appraising her latest shot on the window of her digital camera. She lifts it between them. Max groans at the image of her scrunched face mid-laugh.

"I told you not to do that. I look hideous."

"You do not. It's cute. You look cute."

Max nudges her and they engage in a playful nudge fight. It ends with Max snorting a guffaw when Victoria almost topples over.

"You have a really nice everything," Max mutters as they turn a corner. She shrugs a little, fidgets, some pink lighting up her freckles and nose. It's cute. It really is. Max is cute. "I really like your hair. How do you make it do that? Not get shaggy I mean. I need to keep mine in a ponytail all the time because it gets so shaggy."

She gestures to Victoria's blonde hair for emphasis with a dramatic flourish. Victoria snorts and looks over her shoulder, reaching behind her to finger the fine tips of blonde strands. They reach the middle of her back now. "Expensive shampoo," She says with a wiggle of her eyebrows. "I was actually thinking of getting it cut. I think it's getting too long."

"Don't. I like your hair long. You look pretty, like a Disney princess or something."

Victoria hums as they stop on a spot. Max is too busy with her cup of frappe and rummaging through her blown up backpack to notice Victoria's pink cheeks, nor the flattered smile plastered on her face. The smile is gone when Max is upright again, but she sees the flush. Or, Victoria thinks she does, because she stares and her nostrils flare in that way that says she's trying not to laugh. Victoria swats her shoulder.

"Here," Max says timidly. She's pushing a small album toward Victoria, black and glossy, suspiciously similar to the album they just bought some few days ago. Victoria takes it tentatively and looks at it with raised eyebrows. "It's your birthday tomorrow, right? Tomorrow's Saturday so we probably won't get to see each other, so..."

Max waves awkwardly, thanks Victoria for the Starbucks and continues down the sidewalk for the bus stop another block down. Victoria doesn't scan the album until the family car finally arrives and she's sitting hands-free behind her driving mother.

It's all pictures of her, just her face on bright polaroid printouts captured both in moments opportune and inopportune. Laughing, smiling, face pinched, mouth open around a burger. She actually snorts and ducks her head to keep her flushing face off the rearview mirror.

The last page is a photo of her and Max she remembers being taken on a Saturday they spent taking pictures around Seattle together. She had lied to her parents about a school project. She's smiling, bright, full, and happy, but somehow, just somehow, Max's face is a little brighter.

She's so pretty. She really is.

Victoria is 15 and sitting with her parents in a fancy restaurant with strangers. They have a very strange idea of celebrating their daughter's birthday.

Victoria is on autopilot. Elbows off the table, maintain eye contact, say these words and those words, laugh now, smile this way and that. Manners drilled into her since childhood full blown on her birthday night.

The strangers are Prescotts, from some small town off the coast of Oregon and apparently somebodies if her parents have taken so much of an interest on them. The man of the family smiles in the same way her own father does, and the woman has worry lines all over her face and the bleary look in her eyes of someone who's already had too much to drink. Their son is pale, thin, and a brooding mess with shameless eyes that rake her face every waking moment.

It's all so terribly uncomfortable, but the proper daughter manual tells her to smile through it all.

Later, her mother excuses them both for a minute in the women's restroom. Her mother dabs on some more make up on them both.

"We own a gallery but they own a town," She tells Victoria while she's smoothing over powder on their cheeks. "They're nice people, aren't they? Classy and well-mannered. That boy they have seems to have taken a liking to looking at you. Wouldn't you like to own your own town soon, honey?"

Victoria forces a smile and it's the right reaction. Her mother turns away to rummage her purse for more make up, maybe a perfume, and she's saying something else but Victoria doesn't listen.

Victoriavthinks of Max. Max and her polaroid camera, her classless way of eating and laughing, her freckles and her round cheeks. Her shy glances and breathless stutters. Max, and how dorky and pretty she is.

She is so, so pretty.

A month later, Max turns 15. Victoria goes through her classes that day grumpy with a loaded tote bag and an aching shoulder. She's told her parents she'll be coming home late for another school project and would text when and where to pick her up.

After class, she bolts out of Garfield and leaves her friends screaming after her. Nova is a couple of blocks away and she has to move fast, really push through the people and rush the red lights and - oh god, just run, Victoria. Run like the wind, run that stop light, push that guy, run past the - okay, fine, help the granny with her bags - tell that kid to go play on some other side walk -

She's sweating bullets by the time she reaches Nova's gates. Her shirt is soaked right through, her legs and shoulders ache and throb like hell, and she's panting out something fierce when Nova kids start pouring out into the streets and scrambling for rides home. Some look at her but they get turned off from staring pretty quickly with some grunting and solid glaring. Vicious snarls go to the some who are pretty resilient.

She's still panting when Max comes ambling out of the gates with some friends. They're gushing over her, linking arms and coddling her with greetings and hugs. One boy in particular pinches her on the cheek before shying away. Victoria isn't given much opportunity to ponder on that boy, because Max sees her doubled over some ways down and runs, all open arms and giddy grins.

"Victoria!" She practically screams as she slams right into Victoria, arms wrapping around Victoria so tightly that all much needed air comes wheezing right out. Victoria wants to hug back, she really does, but her arms are trapped under the fierce embrace. She kind of wishes Max would quit it so she could.

But Max wouldn't quit it, so she settles with laughing and swaying them both, pressing her chin on Max's temple. "Happy birthday, Max."

Max pulls away but keeps her hands on Victoria's arms, going pink in all the right places and smiling that stupid, camera-worthy grin. Her eyes are wide, bright, happy, and so so blue. "Did you come to class? How did you get here so fast?"

"I ran."

"You ran?"

"I ran."

Max squeezes Victoria some, looks at her head to toe. "You're sweating." She observes.

"I'm sweating."

"You actually ran."

This time Victoria just grumbles and rolls her eyes, but Max is cackling and it's hard not to grin at the giddy sound of it. This high-pitched tinny laughing that is so dorky, so contagious you'd have to be heartless not to love it. Victoria adjusts the tote bag on her shoulder, peels it open to pull out a big brown box. The browns of it are dotted with embossed prints of birthday cakes and wrapped presents (the best wrapping she was able to find) and she pats it a little before handing it over, looking away deliberately with rolled lips.

"Your present." She says pointlessly. She feels the present being taken and not shortly after, the air is being squeezed out of her again in a hug that would shame all other hugs in history and to come.

"Come to my house," Max wheedles, present tucked under one arm and the other arm looping around Victoria's. She's pulling a look. The same one she pulled when Victoria refused to take that picture of them together that one Saturday. "There's food and a party and everything. My parents really do some mean birthday cooking. Please come, I really want you to."

And who is Victoria to turn down such a pretty begging face?

The party is modest, just some friends and Max's parents. The music is the same kind Max dances to, except her parents are doing it too and it's taking all the proper little girl in Victoria not to break down laughing.

Max fusses over her throughout the whole event, holds her hand wherever and makes sure she has enough food to last her 20 years in a desert alone. When the birthday cake is cut, Max gives her the biggest piece and Victoria scratches her face, determinedly avoids the amused looks she's given when she horks it down. Max helps her with it in spite of already having finished two regular-sized slices on her own. They laugh through mouthfuls.

"Mom, dad, this is Victoria." Is how Max introduces Victoria to her parents, their arms linked at the elbows and lips stained with chocolate icing and crumbs.

"Pleasure to meet you." Victoria mutters, very unsubtly trying to wipe away the chocolate mess, smiling, all flushed cheeks and fidgeting feet. Max's parents, Ryan and Vanessa, fuss over her in a much healthier way than their daughter did. They look for a place for her to sit, ask her if she's comfortable, all the party host formalities while Max is swept away by some of her friends from Nova.

"Max tells us you also like photography." Ryan supplies with a fond smile.

Victoria looks vaguely surprised, maybe from the fact that Max told her parents that, or that Max had told her parents about her at all, period. Either way she gawks before she could stop herself.

"I-I do, but I'm still an amateur at best. I really want to become a professional photographer though. A really good one, maybe someday."

"From what we've been told so far, you're already a good one, Victoria," Vanessa says, smiling around the rim of her punch glass. She lowers the glass to grin when Victoria rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. "Max speaks of your photos very highly. She really loves your pictures."

Later, when Max is dragging the both of them to the backyard and most of the guests have already gone home for the evening, Victoria gives her a playful nudge to the ribs and a toothy grin.

"You told your parents about me?"

Max grins, sticks her tongue out between her teeth, and pulls them both down to plop on the grass. It's dark out now, the sky littered with bright stars blinking down at them. The way they're scattered is making Victoria think of freckles.

"Of course I did. You're the first friend I made here on Seattle."

"The first?" Victoria sounds incredulous. She smiles, but it wavers on one corner when she sees Max biting her lip, absentmindedly thumbing the still wrapped brown present she's brought out with the two of them. She insisted to open it when the party has died down and they're alone. For full effect, she said.

"We just moved here about a year ago. My dad got a good job here and found a nice house, so..." Max trails off, lips pursing upward a little. "Anyway, I was new here and kind of alone. Kristen and Fernando were nice," Waving her hand at the names, names Victoria can't place faces to. "But you were really the first person I felt comfortable around with. And I guess I started being comfortable around other people too, after that."

A flutter in Victoria's insides doesn't go ignored. "And where you moved from? You must've had friends there too, right?"

"Well, just one really. A best friend. But we haven't gotten in touch since."

A lingering silence crowns them. Max is gnawing on her lip, drawing vague shapes on the present's wrapping with an index finger, eyes blanking with the replay of some distant memory playing back in her head. Victoria reaches over and holds her hand. Twines their fingers tentatively, apprehensively, wary of any negative reaction at all. There's none beyond a small flinching but it's made up for with a squeeze and a small smile from Max. Victoria snaps the crown of quiet in two.

"We're friends now, though. You're never gonna be alone again."

And then she tells Max to open the present, because she really needs the excuse to pull back her sweating hand and catch her breath a little. But all air is gone and running from her again when Max opens the gift. She takes one look at the piles of polaroid film, stacked neatly inside a big box, and breaks into a happy squeal and a tackle that has Victoria falling on her back. They laugh through facefulls of grass, dirt, and blonde and brown hair, and Victoria swears on the stars above them.

Max is so beautiful.

Victoria is crying in her room. Her parents are downstairs, yelling at each other again and throwing vases and fancy china all over the house. The lasagna dinner the maids have prepared is probably already dumped in a trash can somewhere.

She curls into her duvet, shoulders trembling and snot running. Sticks her hand out of the covers to reach for her pillow, maybe to pull and scream into it, or gnaw it to shreds or strangle it with her shaking hands, but she just slides her fingers under it and pulls her cellphone into the sheets with her. She dials a number.

There's five rings before an answer. A very sleepy answer, complete with lip smacking and audible spit gurgles. It makes her smile through the tears. "Nnghello?"

Victoria thinks a little. Chews her lip, closes her eyes because it's 2 in the morning and whoever she's calling needs the sleep for school in a couple of hours, but something breaks downstairs again and she sobs into the receiver before she can stop herself. "Max?"

Some shuffling, and then an audible knocking sound of something hitting on wood, the headboard, probably. Max sounds more awake afterward. "Victoria?" More shuffling, maybe Max sitting up. "Victoria? What's going on? What happened? Are you okay? Where are you?"

Victoria sniffs grossly and fists a chunk of her blanket to mush her face on. "I'm at home."

"... Are your parents fighting again?"

She actually laughs into the receiver but it's all messed up, a guffaw caught into a sob halfway out of her mouth. It makes her cringe. It probably also makes Max cringe. "They are. I can't sleep."

Another expensive piece of china breaks downstairs and Victoria is sure Max hears that one because she sucks a breath fiercely, muttering something incoherent under her breath. "Max?" Victoria ventures. There's only some footsteps and more shuffling, and then a thud and a horrid whining sound from the other end. Victoria sniffs. "Max? What are you doing?"

"Vic? Hey," Something shatters again. Max speaks with a little more force. "Hey. Just listen to this, okay? Just listen to this."

A pause, and then music from the other end. A guitar being strummed and plucked, a melody pulled out of six steel strings in a song Victoria easily recognizes. She's heard it once or twice, one day or maybe two when Max shared her earbuds and music with her on the bus ride to school. The tune drags on and then Max's voice joins in. She's singing, whispered but otherwise clear, soft but still so loud to Victoria's ears.

Max sings to her. Lovesick lyrics dragged out with mellow breaths, drowning out the next shatter from downstairs and then the next. Victoria closes her eyes.

A sea of music from a guitar a gentle voice. Rocks back and forth with waves, to the beats of Victoria's heart. She can almost sleep to it. Almost, but she doesn't.

"But I promise you this," The song goes. "I'll always look out for you. That's what I'll do."

I say, oh.

Victoria pulls the phone from her ear and puts it on speaker, cranks the volume up while she curls further into herself. The phone is pressed up against her chest, held there by shaking hands. Her heartbeat slows, her breathing calms. The shivers eventually stop.

The song drags on, unbridled by other sounds that don't matter.

She breathes in, out. Chases away the tears by basking in the music.

I cry, oh.

"And I saw sparks," Yeah, I saw sparks. "I saw sparks."

There's silence after Max hits the last chord. Victoria breathes quietly, air in and out in gentle rhythm, opening her eyes to the view of shadows and her knees under the soft duvet. She counts Max's breaths on the other line until her heartbeat synchronizes with them. "... Vic?" Max treads after a time, voice small and timid. Searching, so worried that Victoria's breath leaves her again for a moment.

"Max," She starts, steady. "Max, thanks. Thank you."

"... Do you feel any better?"

"I... think so. Yeah."

"Go to sleep," Max coos. "I'll be here. Everything's going to be okay."

Victoria believes her.

Victoria is 16 when she has her first kiss. She's jiggling all over when she tells Max, telling the tale giddily, and maybe a little smugly when Max just curls and flushes throughout the whole thing. Victoria tells her about Harry, a boy from a higher grade with tousled brown hair and piercing green eyes. He has pearly white teeth and a classically baritone voice, talks like a young actor starring in some tragic love story. He's been taking her out for milkshakes and hushpuppies for the past 2 weeks and just this afternoon, he kissed her when they were out strolling at Powell Barnett. He has a car and a license too, so that's a bonus.

"He's taking me out on a date again tomorrow!" Victoria squeals in rampant delight. She bounces on her spot before diving onto Max's bed, bowling over Max who groans at her exasperatedly. "We're going to watch a movie and then he's going to treat me to dinner at some fancy restaurant or whatever. God, I'm so excited!"

"That sounds nice," Max deadpans from under Victoria. She squeaks, tries squirming away to no avail so just lies there, sprawling. The mattress is bouncing with Victoria's excited flailing. "I hope you have fun. And kiss some more I guess. I don't know."

Victoria pauses, smirks with a stink eye as she stares down at Max. Max wriggles, still flushed. "Grumpy baby," Victoria chides mildly, poking her at her side. Max is ticklish there so it's no surprise she snorts and wriggles some more. "Grumpy baby. What's wrong with you? Aren't you feeling the love right now?"

"I'm feeling too much love, Vic. Please get off me."

"No, nuh, seriously, what's wrong?"

Victoria straddles Max, hands on either side of Max's head, blonde hair draped over their faces like golden curtains. The sunlight from the window is catching on the strands and they shimmer somewhat. Max is looking at Victoria's hair. "Nothing. Really, nothing. It's... uh, nice that you got your first kiss now and all. I'm just..."

She trails off lamely. She's looking everywhere except where Victoria's face is, but Victoria is chases her gaze with a broad grin and one raised eyebrow. Max eventually gives up trying to avoid Victoria's eyes. Stares up, cheeks puffed, brows furrowed. There's the worry wrinkle between her eyebrows that Victoria likes so much.

"You," Victoria starts, bends her arms so she's going lower. Max squirms. "You've never kissed anyone before, have you?"

The silence is telling. That and Max's wide eyes and horrified expression, mouth opening and closing in feeble attempts of retorting, and Victoria just collapses backward and laughs. She howls like a hyena and Max reels on her, red faced and shushing. Eventually, Max just slaps a hand on Victoria's mouth and gives Victoria an eyeful of a pinched face and scarlet cheeks. Victoria has tears in her eyes. Downstairs, Ryan's meeting with his boss and coworkers continues in dull hums, seemingly uninterrupted by the outburst.

"I can't believe you."

"I can't believe you," Victoria throws right back. She palms her face, eyes watering, grin splitting her face in half. She lowers her hands and struggles not to laugh again at Max's crumpled, vaguely constipated-looking face. How can a person even get that red? "No first kiss yet? Wow. You're like, sixteen, Max!"

Max mutters some unintelligible garbage about awkward encounters and says, louder, "I'm fifteen, Vic. And I don't know. I guess I just don't feel like kissing anyone. Yet. I mean... it's supposed to be special right? Or - shit," She laughs and covers her face with both hands. Victoria snorts. "Like. You're supposed to have your first kiss with someone special. Someone you really care about. It works that way, doesn't it?"

Victoria continues to grin, winds her fingers around Max's hands to lower them. Snorts, when Max looks away. "That's cute," Victoria says, licks her lips, rolls the bottom one between her teeth. "Someone special, huh?"

The mattress bounces when Max fidgets. She mutters a tiny yes and continues staring at some far off wall, ears bright red. That's really cute. Really, truly. Victoria stares at Max, still smiling, still holding her hands away from her face, and kind of just blurts out:

"How about you kiss me, then?"

The air in the room turns a tad warmer. Under Victoria's touch, Max's pulse jackrabbits and then she's whirling, gawking at Victoria with raised brows and a loose jaw. Max stammers, swallows some, and then does a quick double take: "What?"

"You know," Victoria is shy and small and flushing all of a sudden. "If you want to. I guess. I mean, I'm someone special, aren't I? And you really care about me. Like... you do, right?"

"O-of course! Is that - is this okay though?"

Victoria feels her blood, climbing and rushing and warm. She rubs the back of her hand. "Cool. It's cool. And besides... I'd rather you get it from - from me, you know? I think. I guess. I don't know," She looks up at Max with hooded eyes. "We're really good friends. You're a really good friend. And I really care about you. I think you're better off having me for a first kiss than some other person who's a total loser."

She glances down at her hands, twines and untwines her fingers at a brisk beat while Max seems to think it through. The mattress shifts again and Victoria swallows, clamps her hands together, watches Max's knee brush hers.

"Sure. Let's do it."

Okay. Victoria is pretty sure she meant to say it out loud, but she's looking up and they're staring at each other, both flustered and flushing with wobbly smiles and awkward chuckles and the word kind of just dies. Victoria lifts her hands and they hover over Max for a moment. They're shaking, for some reason.

"So how do we do this?" Max mumbles uncertainly.

"Well... Harry did this, and..." Gently, so very gently, Victoria cups Max's face, swallows a little when she feels a twitch under one of her palms. Victoria proceeds to slide one of her hands down, down Max's delicate jaw, her throat, and then settles it behind Max's neck beneath shaggy brown hair. There's sweat there but she doesn't pull away. The moist sensation is comfortable somehow, if that even makes sense.

"So... we just? ..."

Yes, they just. Victoria is the one who pulls them together. Their lips meld, light, tender, stuck in a chaste tableau until Max's lips starts to move around hers. Max's lips are so soft and warm and slow and... okay. Okay. Oh - okay.

Max touches her shoulders and Victoria feels her pulse jolt, her blood whisking furiously to the thundering beat of her heart. Her throat locks around a lump that lodges itself there and her muscles flutter, burn, melt. Turn to useless jelly around her bones. A comfortable warmth makes a home in her stomach and spreads, bursting so suddenly to her limbs that she breathes shakily into the kiss, ribcage stuttering.

They pull away eventually and Victoria is blinking away tiny stars, dragging a much needed length of air down her lungs. She's quite positive her brain has decided to wander away sometime during the kiss because she feels extremely lightheaded. She might faint. She just might. But that would be horribly uncool so she clings to consciousness.

"Okay... I guess that was... really nice." Max mumbles dopily, breaking into snorts and giggles when Victoria topples over laughing. They nudge and cling to each other, little giddy flushing things that they are, communicating in stupid giggles and wide grins. Victoria stares at Max when they sober up. The flush has died down from Max's face mostly but there are still pinks on her cheeks and nose, and she's wriggling and trying to look away but Victoria pins her head where it is. She's so beautiful. With her round cheeks and smooth jaw and thick lashes. Her cute little nose and pouty lips, her freckles and her bright blue eyes.

Victoria's always thought of Max as beautiful. But right now it's different. It's different because her heart is racing and her fingers are trembling, and she's warm everywhere her blood is running.

It's just different now, somehow.

They're both 16 when Max goes to her first school dance. She sends Victoria a photo of herself in a cute little pink dress and Victoria tries to text back, but Harry is pulling her into his car and her parents wave them off as they drive away. Garfield is lit up with red shimmering lights and heart-shaped cutouts because it's the Valentine's dance, and Victoria takes pictures with Harry on the gym steps. She feels so pretty in her gold dress and pinned up hair.

Apparently, Harry thinks so, too, because after about three dances he's kissing her breath away and guiding the two of them to his car. When he looks at Victoria his eyes are wide, shining, pupils blown and teeth pearly white in a sinister grin. His hands are on her hips and they slide down, nails dragging on the brilliant fabric of her dress. She's squirming away.

"Come on, Vic." He purrs into her jaw, pulling with more force now, hiking the hems of her dress up with enough strength to tear through. She smacks him behind his head, squeaks when she's thrown back harshly. Her handbag jiggles around her wrist and then clatters to the pavement. Harry chases her with two long steps but she reels again, and he's going down, tripping over a cracked piece of the pavement sticking out.

Harry is angry. He calls her a prude and a thankless bitch before storming into his car and driving away without another look back. Victoria is dazed, shakily picks up her handbag off the pavement, lip wobbling and eyelids fluttering. She should call her parents, ask to be driven home, but she doesn't. Instead she hails a cab. It'll be torture to walk long lengths in heels.

When Max sees Victoria wobbling into the Nova Valentine's dance, pale and visibly shaken under the blinking red lights, she bolts to Victoria without a second thought. Her touch is gentle. Her embrace is warm, tight without ever being strangling or uncomfortable. Victoria is sinking into her without realizing.

"Are you okay?" Max keeps asking over and over again, worried and scared because Victoria looks unhealthy. Terrified, just stands there nodding her head and blinking like mad. Max asks what happened and Victoria tells her in whispers and gritted syllables. The embrace grows tighter.

Someone wanders over to them and Victoria recognizes him somewhat - the boy with the shy smile, the one who pinched Max on the cheek on her 15th birthday. She remembers that. He has a quaint little flower pinned to the breast of his suit and it matches Max's corsage.

"Let's get out of here." Max says anyway, eyes forward, completely brushing off the confused boy. She leads Victoria out and back to the streets. She sheds her corsage and shawl, the latter placed daintily around Victoria's shoulders, probably to help with the trembles. It doesn't.

They end up in Max's house, the two of them smiling sheepish smiles when Ryan and Vanessa come hobbling over with furrowed brows to let them into the front door. Max speaks for them both, makes up some excuse that Victoria doesn't hear, and then they're climbing up the steps and slinking into Max's room.

Victoria cries that night. Max holds her through the sobs and tears, tracing soothing patterns on her back, her shoulders, her arms. She tells Victoria it's okay, tells her she shouldn't be scared anymore, tells her she's here and will always be here.

"Always." She emphasizes with a kiss to Victoria's forehead. Victoria nods against her, unknowingly smearing snot and wet make-up all over Max's pink dress. Max sees though, because she laughs and when Victoria sees the mess, she starts laughing along too.

They scour the fridge without changing clothes. Ice cream, lasagna, sandwiches, chips, and leftover fried chicken all brought up to Max's room. They play some Guitar Hero on Max's Xbox, throw around trash talks through mouthfuls of ice cream and cold lasagna, and then they get sick of that and slap on some Halo to blow up alien brain matter. At one point Vanessa wanders up with apple juice and watches with some awe as Victoria gobbles up a tall glass in one go. Max is having a laughing fit.

They put on Blade Runner and turn off the lights when they get sick of dying in the same spot on Halo's campaign. Victoria sits cross-legged on the floor and Max is leaning against her, chowing down on some Lays like a sloppy toddler. Victoria pokes her on the side during the opening credits.

"I'm sorry about ruining your Valentine's day dance." She mumbles lowly. She feels Max shift and lift off of her.

"You didn't ruin anything," Max mutters. Her breaths skate over Victoria's bare shoulder - right, they haven't changed yet. "The dance was getting kind of boring anyway. I had a lot more fun here with you."

"But what about your date? That... guy?"

"You're more important." It's said so simply, like it's just another fact of the world explored by Science and discussed by brilliant minds day in and day out. Victoria whirls when Max gets to her feet. Max pauses Blade Runner, dusts off her dress to skip over to her hi-fi. She fingers the buttons, tosses Victoria a small wink over her shoulder, and then music plays.

It's familiar. It's heartwarming. It's the song Max sang that one night, when her parents had been fighting too loud again.

Hey, it could be their song. Just... maybe.

"But if you really feel that bad, why don't you dance with me then?" Max asks meekly, walking back to Victoria with one hand already stretched out at the ready. Her fingers are shaking. Victoria wonders if for the same reason her own hands are trembling, too.

They're still dressed up for it, so they do dance. Max's arms are around her neck, and Victoria is rubbing vague shapes all over the small of Max's back with her fingers. The room isn't really the ideal scene for a romantic dance. There are no blinking red lights and heart-shaped cutouts, no cameras going on and off in every direction, but they have Blade Runner's hazy light on the TV and food scattered all over the floor, and that's close.

Victoria's heart definitely isn't complaining. It just wants to climb up her throat and out of her mouth, maybe to join in with the dancing. It's ridiculous. It's so hard to breathe. It becomes even harder to when Max whispers into the skin of her collarbones.

"You know I care about you, right?"

Victoria pulls back enough to look at Max, pulse jumping into overdrive in half a second flat when blue, blue eyes peer up at her. Max continues. "Like, more than anything in the world probably."

"Do you?" Victoria's voice is small. Quivering, scared, hopeful. She clutches Max's dress a tad tighter, and Max must feel it because she smiles. Such a shy curl of her lips, the smile of the brown-haired girl with the loaded backpack standing at the bus stop when they were both 14. Victoria feels her throat lock when she pulls her face closer, repeating, demanding, pleading: "Do... do you really?"

Max tells her I do and they kiss in the glow of Blade Runner frozen on the TV screen, sink and melt and fit into each other in the mess of Max's floor and the song playing from the hi-fi (this is definitely their song, this is definitely their song now.) Max pulls away later but Victoria chases her with a sticky mouth and mussed lips, both their chests rumbling in quiet laughter and cheeks twitching in cheeky smiles.

Max is beautiful. Max is amazing. Max cares. And Victoria cares too, and she feels so weightless she clings a little tighter than she should, afraid she'll float away and lose this moment forever.

This is different. This is definitely different now. Victoria wishes it stays this different for the rest of her life.

I say, oh.

I saw sparks.

Victoria is 17 when they have their first time. It's awkward, mostly, because Victoria won't stop laughing and Max is already shaking and flushing before they can even figure out where they should put their hands and knees. Max becomes a bumbling mess of an armadillo when Victoria finally gets both their clothes off, and she has to be poked and tickled all over just to get her to spread out. Victoria seizes the opportunity and goes down on her in a split second. Man, does Max really spread out.

They made plans to go out on a date afterwards, grab some Chipotle or some Starbucks maybe, but Max presses against her like candy melted and dried when they finish and fine, this is better than Chipotle or a stupid cup of Starbucks.

"I'm going to take so many pictures of you and put them up in galleries all over the world when I become famous." Victoria says. Max blows a raspberry right into the skin of her throat and they swat at each other, giggling and squirming. Max loses to a tickling fit.

"I'm going to be a photographer too, you know," She professes breathlessly. She gives Victoria a kiss on the shoulder, and then her neck, before nuzzling into the dip of her collarbones. "Ten bucks says I could beat you in putting up as many pictures of you as I can in galleries around the world."

"Make that a hundred."

"A thousand."

Victoria snorts and Max just grins, wobbling her eyebrows and sticking her tongue out between her teeth. That look never gets old.

They hold each other a little longer, heartbeats and breathing synchronizing, skin brushing with gentle caresses and playful nuzzles. Victoria palms on Max's cheek, thumb swiping on a careless splash of freckles on pinking skin. She kisses her on the forehead.

"I love you." She says. Clear and bright and sure. Max's cheek lifts under her palm.

"I love you too."

"This could be forever." Victoria mutters, closing her eyes and humming to the sensation of Max's lips pressing against the heel of her palm. She smiles when those lips find her own, laughs when the kisses flutter off and away to her throat and down, lower until she's red and breathless.

"Maybe it is." Max tells her with a wink. And maybe isn't enough, realistically. Maybe is standing on a cliff with a blindfold on and strong winds whipping on your face.

But Victoria's heart is swelling - swelled big enough that her ribs feel too tight and her chest feels too narrow. Beating so quickly that at that moment, maybe is okay. Maybe is perfect, maybe is as good as a yes.

Maybe is enough.

They're both 17 when they get caught. Victoria's parents come home a little too early and come ambling up the stairs to check on her in her room (she had said she was sick, lied through her teeth to get off of school) and they throw the door open before they could get off of each other.

She had never seen her father look so angry, or her mother so horrified.

They scream at Max to get out of the house, and then scream some more when she's gone and Victoria is all tears and pleading sobs. "I love her!" She cries. Her mother leaves and walks back downstairs, and her father rounds on her like a raging beast with frenzied eyes and a pale face. He slaps Victoria hard enough that she falls to the floor.

"No, you don't," He says with his cold, hollow voice, his stern tones that denote a finality that cannot, should not be argued. "You don't."

He leaves Victoria in her room without another word and locks her there for the next few days. She doesn't know if Max has texted. Doesn't know if Max is scared, or crying as hard as she is. They've taken everything. Her phone, her laptop, her camera, even her albums and all the photos with the two of them in them. The maids bring her meals but she barely nudges each one besides a few nibbles.

She cries all the time. She cries even harder when a doctor comes bustling into her room, some kind of psychologist with a certain expertise, and repeatedly tells Victoria she does not love Max.

She does not love her she does not love her she does not love her.

And she only keeps screaming she does she does she does until he finally decides to leave.

Her father visits her in her room after two more days. He shoves a deep blue dress in her face, points to it with a thick, jerky finger and bites out, "Get dressed. You're coming with us to dinner."

"I want to see Max. Has she called at all? Texted? Visited?"

A searing ache whipping across her cheek has her biting her tongue. Her father repeats, grim and increasingly shuddery after each syllable. "Get dressed. You're coming with us to dinner."

Victoria nods her head and sniffs, angling the dress away as to not stain it with her tears. "Yes, dad."

Right answer.

Victoria is a few more months to 18 when she sees the Prescotts again. They're the same people but older, with more wrinkles and some white hair. The son is taller but still thin, still gaunt, still throwing her shameless looks boldly over their meal and Victoria lets him.

She says the right words, eats the right way, and maintains enough eye contact.

But she doesn't smile. She rarely smiles these days.

"You're moving to Oregon, to Arcadia Bay," Her father tells her with a hollow look that goes right through her skull. He stabs at a chunk of his steak and appraises it with some interest. "You want to be a photographer, right? Sean here told me Blackwell Academy, the senior exclusive high school there, has specialized programs for art and science. There's Photography, too."

Her mother continues around the rim of her wine glass. "You know Mark Jefferson, right, honey? He's teaching the Photography classes there. Isn't it exciting? You're going to learn right from a professional. A great professional."

Her parents look at her expectantly. She wants to cry, to break down screaming, to disappear into the linoleum floors of the restaurant. To flee and run to Max, hold her and kiss her and tell her all about the terrible things in her life. Her terrible parents, their terrible empty house.

But those are wrong answers.

So she gives the right one and cracks a smile in response. It's the first in so many weeks.

They tell her to forget about Max. There is no Max, they say. You love no Max, the doctor says. So when Victoria gets up that day, she looks at herself in the mirror and says,

"Who's Max?"

She cries that morning in front of her mirror, saying it over and over and over again like a chant, until it hurts her mouth and throat to say it and she has to stop. Her heart is wrenching itself to bits. She hopes it kills her.

Max liked her hair. Her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth. Her easy smiles and snorty laugh, her gentleness and quiet kindness.

So Victoria cuts her hair, so short that the bone at the nape of her neck sticks out above her shirts and sweaters. She dabs on make-up until her eyes, her cheeks, and her mouth look different. She does not smile and does not laugh.

She becomes calloused. She tells her maids they're lousy at cleaning and throws away the meals they prepare with a vicious sneer and gritted expletives.

She is not gentle. She is not kind.

She makes a best friend out of Nathan Prescott. He's improper, arrogant, and likes breaking things whether they're breathing or not. There's a permanent stink to his eyes and smiles. Max would've hated him, she would've told Victoria not to come near him.

She steals cigarettes and alcohol from her parents' room. She kills the throbbing in her chest with them. Max wouldn't have wanted her to do this.

Who's Max?

Victoria is 18 and walking into Blackwell Academy for the first time.

She knows no one who goes by the name of Max. She doesn't know a girl with shaggy brown hair and freckles and bright blue eyes. She has never fallen in love before.

She hates everything.