to keep living in spite of the unimaginable trauma you've faced, in a world where that trauma never even happened, how in god's name could you even do that if you weren't living for someone else?

in the spanish sahara ending (bae ending vs bay ending is stupid sorry), i like to think max keeps living, keeps dragging herself out of bed every morning, not because she herself wants to live, but because she's terrified of letting the people she left behind die.

the kindness rachel amber showed the entire town, it has to live on in somebody.

the selflessness and dedication that chloe, not the chloe killed by nathan but rather the chloe that max got to knew over that week, showed for her peers, has to live on in somebody.

the maxes that max forces herself to leave behind in other timelines, who only ever wanted to do the right thing. it has to live on in somebody, god, it HAS to.

and that brings us to the max we see in the final moments of the story. a max broken in pieces by dozens of worlds that fell apart by her hand. a max who wants everybody to be okay and happy, but life isn't always like that. to push back against that change, invites much worse change.

and so, i like to think that in order to keep living, max lets the memory of her other selves, of her chloe, and of rachel, live vicariously through her. she shows a love to kate that kate has never known, she stands up for alyssa and warns her of incoming danger, she inspires daniel to chase his dreams of becoming an artist, she inspires self confidence in victoria.

she spends the rest of her life helping the ones she loves, because god, how else could you possibly live with what she knows? it's tragic, but perhaps it will lead her to a joy she's always wanted. maybe there's always a little bit of hope at the center of tragedy.