Chapter One: Tears in the Rain

The rain splattered hard against the sliding screen doors of the Price family home. The gentle hum of the music played from the record player in the corner and in the centre of the room, two girls sat cuddled together on the old, faded, yellow couch. The tallest of the two, Chloe, lay with legs crossed on Max's lap. She was trying to think of a way to get Max's attention away from her boring photography book and spend time with her. This was the first weekend that they had both been free to be with each other in what felt like ages and Chloe had planed on a picnic at the lighthouse but the stupid rain had come and crapped on her plans. Max had been looking forward to it after the hellish week of homework she just had and then along with the weather ruining things, her new photography teacher had assigned them a last minute reading to do over the weekend. She had planned on reading it the night before, but Kate had needed her help after her rabbit escaped and then Chloe and Rachel had dragged her to a Firewalk concert later on. So, here she was spending her first free weekend in months at Chloe's reading about a photographer that she didn't really care for. How fun?

Chloe looked at Max and saw she was pulling her famous "trying to concentrate" face and that's when she struck. She pulled Max's hood down and grabbed the book out of her hands. She then leaped off the couch and put the book on the top shelf of the living room cabinet, a place that she knew Max couldn't reach without either her help or a box to stand on. Max flipped her hood back and glared at Chloe, who ran over and kissed her. "You can get that back after we have some fun, and by that I mean Max & Chloe fun not BlackWell fun" said Chloe as she leaned back onto the couch. " Are you cereal? You know I could just rewind and stop you, right?" Max replied as she stood up and walked over to the DVD drawer. "I know, but that means you'd get me kissing you again and again, and to be honest shaka bro, that isn't fair on me" Chloe retorted as she stretched herself across the couch, like a big blue punk cat. Max reached down and grabbed the well-worn and battered copy of Blade Runner and popped it in the DVD player and went to grab the box of walnut cookies her mum had sent her in that month's care package from Seattle. The two of them sat there on that faded couch, that in their youth had been the pirate ship of Captain Blue Beard and Long Max Silver when the sea storms came a blowing, and as the landscape of a futuristic and dystopic L.A. opened up to them and the rain that threatened a storm battered across the glass, the two girls sat and held each other in a way that was both comforting and scary. Max glanced at Chloe one last time before she settled down and thought to herself, "I wish I could stay in this moment forever, and I can but then it would no longer be a moment".