Chloe Price hates emojis (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} no_emoji) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} valarlogs,@ 2018-03-22 21:56:00 |
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What: Chloe opens up about her past and about Rachel. Also she has some things pointed out that she needs to think over.
When: Later tonight
Where: Jaina's apartment
Warnings: Talk of suicide attempts, death of a parent, and discovering that Rachel's a cam girl
Of all the things that Chloe had thought would happen during her stop here in Orange County, running into Rachel Amber had not been anywhere on the list. But she was definitely in a very good mood once she finally made it back to Jaina’s apartment. She wasn’t certain if the woman was still awake or not, so she was quiet when she stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind her.
There was quite a smile on her face, and her lips were probably a bit bruised from Rachel’s kisses, but she was definitely glowing. It was almost a far cry from how Chloe had been when she and Jaina had first met. And she wasn’t on any drugs currently. She hadn’t even smoked a joint. She’d just had a cigarette on the walk back from the train yard, which had been finished before she’d gotten near to Jaina’s apartment.
Chloe didn’t even know what time it was, but it didn’t actually matter to her. She’d found Rachel, and they were making plans to decorate the old train cars for themselves. Life was very good in this moment.
Jaina was half asleep, a book on her chest and some documentary on the tv. She came to when the door closed, and looked over at it. “God, what time is it?”
It wasn’t really an accusation, more of a general query and a little bit of ‘is everything okay?’ in her tone. As she woke up more, she started to pick up on Chloe’s mood, and her eyebrows rose. “Have a good time?”
“Oh shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.” Chloe scratched the back of her head a little awkwardly as she walked over to the living room area. “I’d gone for a walk and lost track of time.” Which wasn’t completely out of character but still.
“Yeah...yeah I did. I uh...ran into someone I didn’t expect to see again.” Chloe was sort of pacing, though it was out of the elation she felt. She hadn’t felt this good in a long time.
“It’s okay, I wasn’t trying to sleep.” She should be, but she’d gotten too into her book. “So you ran into someone and lost track of time, and now it’s… “
Jaina squinted, “Two am. And you look like you’ve found your best friend.”
Chloe rubbed the back of her neck and she felt a bit shy all of a sudden. Rachel had that effect on her. “More like girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. Fuck, I don’t know what we are now. But yeah, it was amazing to see her again. I...really fucking needed that.”
It was kind of cute, Chile’s bashfulness. “So you ran into your ex, but it wasn’t a bad thing?” Jaina had an ex or two she never wanted to see again, but if she went by her dreams - well hooking back up with Arthas wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. If they survived the undead, at least.
“It’s complicated? We were together for the better part of three years. Then six months ago she just up and left town without a word. Obviously I was upset at first, still kind of am, but she and I talked a bit. Among...other things.” Chloe knew how that must sound.
“She never explained why she left?”Jaina got up, too polite to make any comments about what Chloe might have gotten up to. The only comment she made was to toss her a bottle of water, since that was thirsty work.
Taking the bottle of water, she took a breath. “Not really. She has a boyfriend. Apparently.” That deflated her bubble a bit and she opened the bottle and took a drink of water. Maybe she shouldn’t get her hopes up that Rachel would come back to her.
This girl sounded like she might be trouble, and Jaina’s heart went out to Chloe. She hesitated for a moment, then got some wine coolers out of the fridge and came over the to couch. “Lets sit. You can talk if you want, I can listen.”
Chloe nodded a bit and finally moved to sit down on the couch. It was nearly impossible to talk about how much Rachel meant to her without starting with the two events that had put her on the path to meeting Rachel. Her expression grew serious and solemn. “When I was fourteen, my dad was killed in a car accident. He and I were very close, and then he just gone. As if that wasn’t bad enough, my best friend that I’d grown up with, was moving. She and her family moved away the day of my dad’s funeral. She wasn’t there when I needed her, and my calls and texts never were answered. Eventually I gave up trying and learned to only rely on myself.”
It wasn’t easy to talk about this, and she was trying to keep her tears inside. “I got angry and started lashing out at everyone, but inside I was fucking dying. Things got...really bad, until one day, I tried to kill myself.” She turned her right wrist over and showed Jaina the scar that was there. “My mom found me and got me to the hospital. No surprise to anyone, I had depression and was put on medication. Saw a couple therapist, but they were shit, so I eventually stopped seeing them. I started smoking weed because that would at least take me out of my own misery for a while. And then one day, I snuck into a concert and ran into Rachel Amber. She was so beautiful. She was the popular girl at school, top notch student, involved in theatre and several other things. I was the fuck up, the rebel who didn’t give a shit if I lived or died. We became fast friends, spending a lot of time together. I guess from the moment I met her, I knew she’d change my life. And that turned into a crush on my part.”
Jaina wasn’t a therapist. But she was a good listener and a natural problem solver, the kind of person who could broker peace between two warring factions. Given time and some basic knowledge of a situation she could probably mend just about any fence.
“I’m sorry.” Jaina reached over and rubbed her shoulder. To lose a parent and a best friend at the same time? To have that friend just abandon you? Jaina was sure there was more to it, but that would require actually finding that person and asking. It didn’t really matter right now, though.
“She kind of turned your head around, didn’t she?”
Perhaps there was more to Max’s radio silence, perhaps not. Whatever the case, Chloe knew that if Max showed up, she’d take her back. Of course, not without some pointed comments given it had hurt. But like with Rachel, Chloe could forgive and move on so long as the other person was willing to do the same.
Chloe nodded a bit. “Yeah. I fell fucking hard for her, but it was more than that. She’s my angel.” She took a breath and kind of slumped against the back of the couch. “One night, I was in a really bad place, and I was texting with Rachel. I was getting completely fatalistic, and leaving little doubt that I would kill myself. She and I had built our own little fort in a junkyard, and there were train tracks that ran right by it. Eventually I stopped responding to Rachel’s texts and I stood on those tracks, waiting for a train to hit me. Rachel found me, and she talked me off the tracks not that long before a train would have hit me. That was the night we both said ‘I love you’ for the first time.” That night had meant everything to her. That Rachel had come to talk her down, that Rachel loved her.
“We’re not perfect, we’ve had our share of fights as we’re both stubborn and headstrong. But fuck she means the world to me.”
It was clear there was a connection there. Jaina wondered at the hand of fate that had somehow led those two to meet again. And Rachel was something else if she could get Chloe to spill like this to someone she barely knew.
“I can barely imagine that kind of connection.” It all did confirm a few things she’d suspected, especially since she had noticed the scar.
It was weird to talk about this with someone she barely knew, but Chloe also knew she needed to talk about it. Otherwise she might explode, and that was never a good thing. Chloe and her emotions weren’t exactly easy to control.
“It’s intense. There is definitely something to the whole knowing someone will change your life the instant you see them. I wouldn’t exactly go as far as saying it was love at first sight, but Shakespeare couldn’t have written a better love story than ours.” Chloe looked at Jaina. “But then Rachel just disappeared one day six months ago, and everything just fell apart. With nothing left in that shit pit that was worth anything, I just left. I had no real destination in mind. I hadn’t intended to stay here very long. But knowing that Rachel’s here, and she’s not telling me to fuck off, I think I’ll be staying.”
Which obviously, meant she probably needed to look into finding her own place. And maybe find the money to pay for said place. She definitely didn’t want to impose on Jaina for the long term.
“Which, by the way, don’t worry, I’ll look into finding my own place. I don’t want to inconvenience you too much.”
“Take as long as you need,”Jaina assured her. She wasn’t about to throw anyone onto the street if she could help them. Though she should probably be careful, she might end up collecting strays. Though Chloe was probably the only one she’d sleep with. Jaina kind of sort of had regrets.
“Did she tell you why she cut off contact?”
“Thanks. Guess I’ll need to actually find a job.” Stealing money wasn’t exactly a safe bet for having enough to pay for a place to live, even if she found some shitty apartment in the bad part of town.
“She said she lost her phone after her and her boyfriend left Tillamook and she’d gotten a new one.” Believable, even if she felt the boyfriend was kind of a dickhead. Or she could just be jealous. Probably both. “She gave me her number so I can keep in contact with her.” At least when they weren’t together. And as far as Chloe was concerned, no one was going to be told of their new hideout in the train yard.
Jaina nodded. “These days, I don’t know many people who memorize phone numbers any more. Probably a downside to smart phones, they make us a little dumb.”
Not that she’d ever give hers up in a million years. As much as she loved the smell and feel of books, she could carry a thousand on her phone, and thousands more on her tablet. It was like magic!
“Yeah.” Maybe Chloe was still a little stuck in the past with memorizing phone numbers that meant a lot to her. Course she also didn’t exactly have many people that mattered enough to her to memorize their numbers.
“Do you want to see a picture of her?” She asked, partly to shift the subject a little.
“I’d love to!” Jaina let Chloe change the subject. She wanted to bring back that smile from earlier, and the subject matter had gotten very heavy.
Genuinely happy smiles tended to be rare with Chloe. Though sometimes her mood could change very suddenly, especially if she was talking about the more painful aspects of her past. Shifting a bit, Chloe pulled a picture out of the back pocket of her jeans and held it out to Jaina. “Sometimes I wonder how I was lucky enough to catch her eye.”
Both Chloe and Rachel were in the picture. A blue-haired Chloe, at that. And she was smiling in the picture as well, looking genuinely happy. And, well, after their night together, it could be apparent that Chloe had a thing for blondes.
The blue hair was cute, and Jaina once again wondered how she’d look with different colored hair. “She’s beautiful. And don’t discount yourself, Chloe. You’re hot too.”
“Oh I know I’m hot. It’s the fucking mess that’s actually me that I’m referring to. I don’t know how anyone else can put up with me when I can’t put up with myself most of the time.” Chloe should probably take her medication for depression. Doing so might help keep her from falling too deeply into the black pit. But when she didn’t give a fuck, it was hard to find a reason to make herself take the medication.
“People on the outside can see things that we can’t see about ourselves,” Jaina offered. “But for some people, even that’s hard to believe. Like I think it is for you. It’s like the mental equivalent of needing glasses, it’s not something you can help.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Chloe wasn’t exactly big on taking a look at herself because she didn’t always like what she saw in the mirror. She gazed at the picture of Rachel for some moments before she slipped it back into her pocket. “But what matters is that she’s here, and I found her again.”
“I wonder what she does here. Is she in school? Do you know if she has a job? You said she did acting right? Maybe she’s going for a drama degree.”
“Yeah, she mentioned school and a theatre production she’s in. Beyond that, all I know is that there’s a boyfriend in the picture.” One that Chloe wanted to make be out of the picture.
Jaina winced. Boyfriend? That’ll make things a little more difficult than necessary. Part of Jaina was concerned for Chloe’s emotional well being. Getting involved in a situation like that might not turn out well for her, no matter how much she thought she was in love with Rachel. “At least she’s still pursuing something.”
“Yeah, she always knew where she wanted to go in life. Unlike me.” Chloe had no direction, no drive. Whatever she’d one day dreamt of being had died along with her father. She was broken, angry and had no real wish to make something of herself when she could die the next day.
“It’s never too late.” Jaina leaned over, picking a tablet off of the coffee table and opening it. “Have you considered looking for jobs? I wonder how many mechanics are available. I know a couple of bars are hiring, I noticed when I was searching.”
She’d also found a couple of strip clubs but she wasn’t about to suggest that to Chloe.
“Is that even legal? The bartending, I mean. I’m not twenty-one yet.” After the words had left her mouth she suddenly realized she hadn’t actually mentioned her age to Jaina before. Did that make things awkward given they’d had sex? “And really, would a mechanic worth their shit even want to hire someone that’s not officially trained?”
“Apparently you can serve, just not drink yourself,” Jaina replied. She didn’t seem phased, but she was going to need a drink later. Another drink. A nice heavy one.
“If you can show you’re good, maybe they’ll do some kind of apprentice ship?”
“What’s Rachel’s last name?”
“Huh, interesting.” A possibility, but the not drinking herself would definitely get annoying very quickly. Chloe rubbed the back of her neck. “Maybe. I’ll have to look into shops around here.” That would probably be the better option. At least as far as not driving herself crazy, at any rate.
“Amber. Rachel Amber.”
At least two of those owners wouldn’t give a damn, but they couldn’t know that.
Typing the name in and narrowing the search to the county, Jaina found a few hits. The first was what looked like the drama class Rachel was in. “Here she is. Now we know she’s going to UC Irvine.”
Safesearch was off, and the next link looked … suspect.
Chloe leaned in to get a better look at what Jaina had found. “Good for her. She’s really smart, so I’m glad that she’s doing something with it.” Chloe was also really smart. She could’ve been a straight A student if she’d applied herself. But then life had happened and she no longer cared.
However, that next link caught her attention. “What’s that?” Obviously, Chloe knew google searches tended to yield things unrelated sometimes. But she was rather curious. Especially with the name of that link.
Jaina didn’t point out that Chloe could do something with it and Rachel would probably like that. Still, she eyed the link dubiously. “If my tablet somehow gets a virus this is your fault.”
She clicked the link, which took them to a blog site, with a banner of Rachel at the top in a seductive pose and wearing nothing but an arm covering her chest.
The contents themselves were censored out with conveniently placed mosaics. They appeared to mostly be pinup type poses, though there were a couple of video links and one post that promised a good show for ‘daddy’.
Jaina was suddenly beet red.
It was sometimes hard to tell, really. Rachel liked the rebel that Chloe was. Though maybe she also liked watching her work with her hands and using her brain when it came to fixing up her rusted truck.
“If it gets a virus, I’ll help scrub it.” Chloe meant pay for it. She wasn’t exactly a computer genius in that way.
But once she realized what the website actually was, she blinked a bit. And even with the mosaics censoring the images of Rachel, Chloe knew exactly what she looked like under them.
“Holy shit,” she commented, swallowing hard. She was...very suddenly turned on. And she knew she should instead be focusing on why the hell Rachel was posing like this on the internet.
“She’s an… adult.” A very attractive one. Jaina cleared her throat. “And… I suppose this is actually a good way to make money.” She wasn’t going to slut shame like her father might have, anyway, even if she couldn’t entirely understand or ever see herself do that sort of thing. At least, in public.
“College is expensive?” How did Rachel even make money? Was it a subscription? Pay per photoset? Both? Patreon?
“Yeah...definitely a good way to make money.” It would at least have better hours that allowed her to keep doing theatre without having to juggle a work schedule on top of that and school. Chloe couldn’t exactly take her eyes off the screen, but she couldn’t really help herself. Rachel was hot. And Chloe was a moth to the flame right then.
“You realize you have access to the real thing, right?” Not that Jaina could blame her. She sighed, and handed over the tablet.
“Um...yeah. Yeah I do. Believe me, I know.” Curiosity won over, and Chloe scrolled down the page. She didn’t click on any links, mostly because Jaina was right there, but she was also figuring out what all Rachel did. “I’d heard of cam girls and so forth, but never actually looked into it. Then again, I never needed to.” Not with Rachel having been at her side.
“Is it just solo stuff?” Jaina asked, then covered her mouth like that was somehow inappropriate. And maybe it was, but she was curious. And looking studiously at the blank TV instead of at Chloe.
Chloe glanced at Jaina with an arched eyebrow. She smirked a bit as she looked back at the site. “Yeah, looks like all solo stuff.” If there were other people involved, Chloe’s jealous streak would definitely appear.
Jaina had seen a calendar, and if it was inspected it had times and dates for cam shows.
“You’re happy about that, aren’t you.” Jaina supposed the boyfriend was bad enough.
“Yeah, I am.” It wasn’t much better than Rachel having a boyfriend, but it didn’t set Chloe off as much. Though she wasn’t quite going to complain about seeing the images. She just wished that Rachel would dump the asshole’s ass and come back to her.
That was going to be a conversation that Chloe would have to have with Rachel. There was only one thing Jaina could think to say, “Have you talked to her about how you’re feeling? Are you going to?”
“She said she’d leave her boyfriend soon, but that she couldn’t just yet.” Chloe responded. That soured her a bit on looking at the site, so she navigated away from it, then handed the tablet back to Jaina. Though that response didn’t actually answer Jaina’s question.
“It’s not easy to break up with someone. And that’s assuming it’s a healthy relationship.”Jaina set the tablet aside, suspecting her history might end up filled with those pictures at some point. “But I don’t know enough about her situation to guess. Maybe she’s in it for a roof over her head.”
“It was easy enough for her to just fucking leave me.” Chloe snapped. She rubbed a hand over her face. “Fuck. Maybe I should’ve just stayed in fucking Tillamook and wallowed.” Or try to kill herself there. No one was left there to keep her from doing so.
Jaina frowned, then put her arm around Chloe and pulled her close. “I don’t have an easy answer for that.”
As far as first impressions went? She didn’t like this girl. No matter how amazing her tits were.
“I don’t want comfort.” Chloe said as she pulled away from Jaina. Really she could probably use a hug, but she didn’t want one. She sighed heavily. Was she being stupid? She suddenly wanted to go back to the train yard and just spend the night there baking and probably getting high on the speed she had in her pocket.
“Okay.” Jaina didn’t pursue it. She knew what it was like to get unwanted attention from someone, so she gave Chloe her space. “Call her, or don’t. But don’t dwell on it.”
“Yeah,” she responded and stood up. Chloe went to retrieve a hoodie and a jacket from her stuff, along with making sure she had a couple joints in the pocket of her jacket. She pulled the hoodie on, then the jacket. She definitely needed to bake, and wasn’t going to do that here. “I’ll see you later.”