Paying the Price - Chloe Price x Reader a Life is Strange Fanfic

18 - Backtrack

I wake up the next morning and check my phone to find a text from Chloe.

"Hang with me today? I'd like to talk."

I send a confirming reply and turn over on my pillow to be faced with a small paper wrapped parcel sitting on the other half of my bed.

The note was in my mother's handwriting, saying it's an early birthday gift. Curious, I open it to find it's my Dad's old video camera.

heading downstairs my mother is out of sight, I lazily skip breakfast and make myself a coffee.

I flip open the camera and open the footage panel, noticing that it's been completely wiped. I sip my coffee and glance through the settings. Finding nothing particularly out of the ordinary, I close the camera and turn it off, glancing around the quiet room as I finish my coffee.

I decide to bring the camera along, maybe I would come up with an idea of what to fill the film with while hanging around Chloe.

Grabbing my jacket and helmet, I walked out the door towards my bike. Climbing on and fastening my helmet I saw movement in the corner of my eye and turned towards the upstairs window of my Mom's room, where my mother was looking down at me with a simple smile on her face. In a better mood today, I smile and wave to her before starting the engine and turning onto the road.

I drove to Chloe's house, now pulling into her driveway. When I knock on her door, David opens it. He glances behind me at my bike and after letting me know Chloe is upstairs asks if he can take a look at my ride. Smiling, I hand him the keys and my helmet for a spin around the block.

I say hello to Joyce in the living room then head up to Chloe's room.

I knock before I enter, but when there's no answer I slowly open the door. Chloe is sitting on her bed, Max and Rachel's box contents strewn across her bedspread. Chloe's back is turned to me, and she's bent over an array of Max's Polaroid photographs.

"Chloe?"

"Hm?" Chloe hums and then turns to me. "Oh, Y/N, you came."

I notice immediately that there's bags under Chloe's eyes and the rims of her eyes are puffy and red from crying. "Have you slept?" I ask.

Chloe looks away and squints back at the photographs. "No." she replies.

There's silence.

"She sounded so scared sometimes in those journals, Y/N" Chloe mutters picking up the blue butterfly photo.

I took a seat on the edge of the bed next to her, folding my legs up to my side and lean against Chloe.

"I miss her so much" she mutters as she picks up another picture, this one of max.

—

Eventually I dragged Chloe away from the photos and convinced her to take a shower. While she did that, I went downstairs and David was excitedly talking to Joyce about the motorbike.

When Joyce caught my eye I asked if I could make a couple sandwiches for Chloe and I. Joyce waved me on with an 'of course' before turning back to David's chattering.

David came over to ask me about the cost of the bike and the maintenance. While we talked he helped me make a sandwich for Chloe because I didn't know what she liked and made a (insert preferable sandwich) for myself.

When Chloe was ready she came downstairs just as I was telling David about a crash I had in the city from a car cutting me off, I ran into their front tire and went rolling over their windscreen, leaving me with a broken arm and minor scratches.

I take the keys back from David and we head out the front door, David mentions to Chloe she should probably get a helmet if she's going to be riding with me often. Chloe brushes off his warnings, but as soon as we're out of earshot I shoulder bump her. "You should really listen to him on this, crashes are no joke."

Chloe shrugs, "I trust your driving"

I laugh, "you shouldn't"

—

First we go to the cemetery and I give Chloe some privacy while she talks to Rachel and Max. There's little purple and white flowers growing around the graves and in the sky, clouds are rolling over in big fluffy tufts.

I dig out my camera and turn it on and make a short video of a closeup on the little flowers and then panning up a grave to the sky. Unbalanced and knowing little of filming, my hands shook and ruined the clip.

Just as my finger hovered over the erase button, a blue butterfly landed on the grave I'd just filmed.

Quickly, I started a new video and filmed the butterfly delicately flap its wings in warning before pushing off the gravestone and fluttering into the sky. Satisfied with this video, I stoped it and looked carefully at the saved clip icon. It was hard to tell but that butterfly looked like the same one in Max's polaroid.

Before I can think too much of it, Chloe walks towards me, putting the blue butterfly photo back in her pocket. I take the cue to put my camera away and get ready to leave.

Chloe is quiet again until we reach the junkyard. We sit on the hood of a rusted car and I play with the camera, making a couple videos of the forest with Chloe photobombing or trying to take the camera to film me. A couple times I oblige but it was nothing but short clips of me laughing and looking at Chloe behind the camera.

I was lying in Chloe's lap while she glanced through the fifteen or so videos now on the camera and noticed the blue butterfly on the gravestone clip.

"Hey Y/N, what's this clip?"

Chloe opens the clip and clicks play on the video and shows it to me. As my eyes focus on the small pixelated screen I get this sinking feeling in my stomach like I'm falling, my head is becoming dizzy and then all of a sudden I'm filming the blue butterfly again. I stubble back just as I instinctively click the finish video button.

I look up, my head still kind of dizzy as Chloe approaches. She meets my gaze and she looks at me worriedly.

"Y/N, you feeling alright? you look a little pale."

"How did we get here..? We were just in the junkyard...?" I mutter.

Chloe looks at me with confusion, "What are you talking about we haven't been to the junkyard yet."

***A/N***

Thanks for the 15K reads guys! I promised another chapter before June so here you go. See you next time!

***Reminder*** I DON'T OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS OR PLACES MENTIONED