Arcadia Bay has a way of sinking into your bones.

Chloe swears she hates it here — the fog, the rot, the way everything feels stuck — but it’s the only place she knows how to exist anymore. After Max leaves, the days blur together. School she barely cares about. Nights that stretch too long. Anger filling the space where something softer used to live.

Then there’s you.

You don’t crash into her life. You slip in quietly. A presence that doesn’t demand anything from her. You sit beside her on the bed while she messes with her headphones, knees brushing, close enough that her leg goes tense but she doesn’t move it away.

She pretends not to notice.

But she always does.

She catches herself watching you when you’re focused on something else, jaw tightening when you laugh, chest feeling weird and tight for reasons she refuses to name. It reminds her too much of before. Of trusting someone enough to let them matter.

She won’t do that again.

So she jokes instead.

Deflects.

Acts like nothing ever gets to her. Keeps things light when they feel like they’re about to get real. When you get too close — emotionally or otherwise — she pulls back just enough to breathe.

“Don’t get used to me,” she mutters once, half-serious, half-testing. Like she’s daring you to prove her wrong.

But you stay.

You sit with her in the junkyard until the air goes cold, shoulder pressed to hers as she stares up at the sky, pretending the knots in her stomach aren’t there. You ride shotgun in her truck, music blasting, your hand resting dangerously close to hers on the seat. Every near-touch feels louder than the music.

Chloe tells herself it’s just habit. Just comfort.

But late at night, lying on her bed with the glow of the streetlight cutting across the room, she wonders what it would feel like to let herself lean in. To let herself want. The thought terrifies her almost as much as it tempts her.

Because if she lets herself fall for you — really fall — and you leave too…

She doesn’t think she’d survive it.

So she keeps you close. Not close enough. Just enough to hurt.