#NoFilter

-Chapter 21-

I sneeze, the cold starting to get to me. I've been up at the lighthouse for god knows how long... 6, maybe 7 hours maybe? School should have let out by now though... I know that. So that means that Chloe is probably freaking out because I haven't shown up to any of our classes and she knows I have perfect attendance.

Had... you had perfect attendance.

Yeah... sure, whatever. I'm alone and that's all I care about right now.

Even more than your girlfriend?

As a matter of fact, yes.

Damn... somebody's salty.

I groan a bit and pull my knees away from my chest as stand up and stretch my legs. I've been sitting on the small bench at the top of the cliff for a few hours, trying to keep myself warm the snow and cold spray from the ocean not helping my case at all. I walk around for a bit, grabbing the disposable phone out of my pocket. I figured that by now Nathan already told Chloe I have it (or she forced him to tell her since it's his phone and he was the last person to see me) because I'm getting spammed with messages.

"You have 40 unread messages".

I sigh and decide it's time to actually look at the damn messages... who knows, I might even answer a few.

Pfft, doubt it.

I shrug and open up the messaging app, thankful that I inputted all the numbers and info I could remember. *sigh* let's see now, first up we have Chloe, of fucking course. 29 of the 40 messages are actually from her. I ignore them and decide to read Nathan's texts first. I sigh yet again and tap into the 3 messages he sent:

---

[From: Nathan P.]

Received | 10:02 AM

[Enjoy the phone :D]

Received | 2:15 PM

[dude, where r u? Ur GF is freaking out!]

Received | 15 mins ago

[hello?]

---

Welp, I just hope Chloe isn't giving him too much of a hard time. I swipe Nate's texts aside and move onto the next one. Now... let me see. Hmm, maybe Kate will have something more interesting in her text:

---

[From: Kate Marsh]

Received | 2:31 PM

[Max,

I hope you are okay. Everybody is very worried about you, especially Chloe. Just know that if you are in trouble you can always come to me, and Brooke. We're all here for you, Max. Remember that.

~Kate]

---

I smile a little, touched by her sincerity and kindness. But in the end, I still swipe her messages away. Next, we have Brooke with a simple "Where the hell r u?" message which I dismiss without a second thought. Up next we have... hmm... I don't actually recognize the number but I tap into it anyways:

---

[From: Unknown]

Received | 2:17 PM

[Hello, Max! This is Victoria Chase from Mr. Jefferson's 3rd-period Photography class. You don't know me well, but I'm a good friend of Chloe's and she's really worried about you! I hope this isn't about what happened in class because if it is I totally understand! It's okay to be embarrassed about messing up, but I do it all the time, but it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's okay. Please call if you need to talk, anything you say will be confidential if needed. Ciao]