PROLOGUE - A Doe in Flight
The flapping of blue butterfly wings, the way the lighthouse stood solemn and ever watching on our cliffface, a gunshot, tears in my eyes, crackling lightning above. I remember it all. And it will forever be ingrained in my memory. A printed polaroid of pain and passion.
We stood in terror, and in love. Terror: watching our childhoods end, of the uncertainty there would be a tomorrow and of all the hurt, both that which we had experienced and inflicted. Guilt suffocated me then and would continue to, for every night after. Even now. Years later, you would think I could have grown, adapted and let it become part of me just as a caterpillar emerges from its chrysalis.
But, the truth is, you could never escape this feeling. The way it crept upon you even in the quiet moments of calm. Making hairs stand on end, crippling speech and paralysing warm thoughts. Trust me, I tried running. I ran for a long time. But it was always there, watching me in the night, a bright light guiding my thoughts into the familiar scenery of Arcadia Bay, lost. That lighthouse might not have lasted on the cliffs, its beam lightning the waters on every turn, but it will forever alight my memories and guide me back to the darkness of the storm. We had stood there hand in hand, facing our consequences. Her warm grip, firm with fear.
Of course we were uncertain. I was uncertain. Every moment I had spent from Seattle to San Francisco in every timeline, taking photos in Arcadia Bay, capturing those small moments we often overlook and forget, never cling to but let pass us by, wash into the next, more or less exciting instant, had led me to that precipice, overlooking my history, the destruction of my home, and in turn the choice that would define my future. I had grown too comfortable with choices, with the ability to turn back in a single instant and wander down a different path that to be thrust forwards along a concrete road of no more ifs buts and maybes was some sort of recompense. My dreams have given me this burden, and in part I must forgive myself for no one should be given the keys to destiny, fate and the lives of your own home town, let alone a girl as naive as my younger self; That version of me I feel I have left behind. Me and Chloe both assure ourselves that. That we have left those us-es behind. A slight saving grace for when the nightmares do come knocking.
I once met myself and she warned me of all the versions of myself I ignorantly do that to: leave behind. The ones I throw under the proverbial bus of life, or in this case, thrust into the storm of life. If the Max who made that choice is one such max that I evade in my comfortable hiding place that is the present, then I apologise, truly. I hope you follow your own string more carefully than I did. I wish you nothing but the best, as infuriating as that sounds. I’m afraid there’s little more I could do to aid your efforts without destroying another Max who, like yourself, must pick up the pieces of the storm I leave and, hopefully, make more sense of them than I ever did.
I Had no idea what would come next. And I refused to know if all that shit was truly a consequence of me. What we did know is that we had each other and everything else that had once tied us to that little town in Oregon instead pulled us together and pushed us forward to seek better, find a way through: find the eye - that seemingly impossible calm where we could finally be comfortable in our decisions. (our choices) leaving the lighthouse, our childhood, our friends and what little family Chloe had left behind. There we were: Max and Chloe, on train-tracks that led to an unknowable future, a violent start that we would need to reckon with time there after. Max and Chloe driving in that little truck, away and onwards, the remnants of Arcadia Bay waving us away. Away and into a brave new world. A world after the storm.