SHOULD SHE RETURN TO THE PARTY INSIDE, meet a new set of eyes, seek out someone else ? the clock will soon strike twelve and if the world is truly set to end .. maxine’s train of thoughts halts. gravity has pulled her to reyna. fate, even. she couldn’t be anywhere else had she even wanted to.
she wonders if she’s willingly walked into a spider’s web, tangling herself with intention while she awaits judgement. she looks at her best friend and initial confusion is wiped away by the thing she knows — the warmth, the love, so without condition and question. no matter how she tosses and turns this situation in her mind it seems obvious: maxine sinclair and reyna jeffrey are meant to be out here tonight, together. finally.
max chuckles, envisioning marty as the final person in the apartment. « you’re right, » she agrees, though a part of her knows reyna could’ve held on too by sheer willpower alone. and max would watch from whatever universe came after.
it had been like this forever, maxine trailing after reyna wherever she went. where would she follow her ? to what end ? whichever. hand stretches out in search of its mate, its twin. it finds reyna’s. « seems only fitting we go out with a bang, » she beams. she doesn’t say together, but the other knows, will always know. « at least we get a good view from here, i guess. »
she used to wish on shooting stars. max might have been the one to teach her that, or perhaps it was her father, in those blissful days before illness wasted his body and then his mind. she used to wish on them, crawl out to her own personal roof piece and gaze up. she used to wish for boys to kiss her gently, and for miracle medicine cures. then, later on, she wished for girls to make a feral creature out of her, tear her apart with their lips. reyna long stopped wishing, but out of the corner of her eye, she spots movement in the night sky.
if she could have anything, what would she seek? for time to fall away, so she could journey back to a beginning, their beginning perhaps; and make anew? how would she relive those seconds differently? would it be worth the risk, if they were to just end up like this? should she instead wish for this moment to stretch out into infinity?
hands. max’s hand in her own, interlocked, belonging. inside, reyna can hear the chants begin, counting down to newness or destruction, who is to know? but if they are to die, crisp up in an inferno, she’ll have no regrets. reyna’s spare hand moves to max’s face, tucks a loose strand behind her ear, meets her gaze with a fierce intensity, the only sort of like reyna has ever known. “yeah.” her eyes don’t flicker away for a second. “i like this sight.”
