Chapter Text
Two days ago, Max Caulfield watched her best friend’s body as it fell to the ground. She watched Safi lay there, just as cold and motionless as the snow beneath her corpse.
One day ago, Max locked herself in the silent confines of Hellerton House. She spent the night staring up at the ceiling from her bed, as she ignored texts and calls, words of condolences, that she couldn’t bear to look at. Because then that’d just make everything feel real.
Today, Max is sure she must be hallucinating. Because now the ghost of Safi moves blurrily in the North Quad, bathed in marigold.
But tossing the word ‘hallucination’ around just sounds like a rushed excuse. And it can’t be just that, not when she can feel an unknown force tugging at her, a bad itch that digs into her skin, screaming at her: She’s real. Do something, Max.
She has to try.
“Safi, I’m right here! Right in front of you!”
And so, driven by instinct, she pulls and pulls and pulls, and it feels just like plucking at the tight-knit seams of some fabric. She unravels the threads as she goes, dragging the tear as hard and wide as she can. When the world around her changes, her knees buckle under the weight, and a wave of vertigo hits her as she acclimates to her surroundings. And once her vision finally adjusts, she sees it.
She’s there.
“Jeez! There you are, thought I was going to freeze to death.”
God, that voice.
Max nearly stumbles in her mad dash, crushing the taller girl in a hug.
“Woah there! Miss me that bad, huh?” Safi happily sways into their hug, fondly stroking the back of Max’s head with a chuckle. “Thought you already had enough of me last night.”
Her laughter is a melody soothing Max’s ears, and while she can’t see Safi’s face from here, she can certainly hear the tender smile in her tone.
She nuzzles into Safi’s shoulder, breathing in deeply. She’s hit with the scent of the fancy foreign perfume that Max could never quite pronounce right. The sweet, sophisticated vanilla, as warm as the arms currently around her waist. The familiar smell combined with the feel of Safi’s body is overwhelming yet comforting all at once.
There’s a cluster of emotions warring in her chest—relief, confusion, elation, and the sorrow that comes with how could you ever leave me? Max can feel the tears nearly coming out, so she tightly shuts her eyes, setting up the dam before it can pour out.
Safi isn’t dead. She’s here, living and breathing in her arms. Their embrace is the warm proof, the anchor keeping Max grounded.
Max is the first to pull away, with a faint sniffle.
She needs to see her eyes.
“I’m just…feeling excited.” Max wants to memorize them. She feels a little frantic, like their light could slip away again at any moment. “Seeing you made the shitty morning I just had a lot better.”
A hint of red crawls up to Safi’s cheeks. The cold getting to her, maybe?
“God, you can get so disgustingly cute sometimes,” Safi sighs, then tugs on Max’s cheek teasingly, trying but failing to sound stern. “Still, cuteness won’t let you get away with poor punctuality. What took you so long?”
Max lets out a small shrug, to pair with the big, dumbstruck grin plastered on her face. “I had a long night.”
Safi puts on a smirk, leaning in ever-so-slightly, with a faint heat in her eyes that sends a befuddled shiver down Max’s spine. “Oh, I’m sure,” she drawls, her voice suddenly dripping with innuendo.
At that, confusion starts to overtake the ongoing brawl within her emotions. As Max has no idea how to begin unpacking that tone combined with the sudden suggestive look in Safi’s eyes. It all feels like they’re sharing a little secret in the quad that only Max is privy to.
But she doesn’t have long to dwell on her confusion, not before she’s hurriedly dragged away to the Snapping Turtle. And so, she settles on focusing on the feel of Safi’s hand instead, tightening her grip, tracing shapes over the taller girl's knuckles along the way.
Once she finally lets go, she still can’t quite shake the underlying fear that she'll wake up at any moment.
The Snapping Turtle today is a sharp contrast to the melancholic doom and gloom she’s grown accustomed to in the last 24 hours.
Now that she’s taken a chance to finally sit down, Max’s head starts to spin like a ceiling fan out of control, her vision blurry. There’s been a dull humming that’s been quietly building, prominent enough to disturb her focus.
She’s tucked away in a table near the bar entrance, Safi across from her, while Yasmin drones on beside her. Though Max has been drifting in and out of the conversation, her body stuck on autopilot, her mind veering entirely elsewhere.
Her powers are supposed to be gone. What is happening?
“I am grateful we finally get to spend time together, Maxine. With us three, ever since you two have begun your…” Max can barely make out Yasmin’s figure through the blur of her peripheral vision, waving a hand to complete whatever word she seems to be stuck on. “But it is quite different now. To be with Safiya like this...I have to ask. What are your intentions—”
Hearing her name spoken out loud strikes a chord in Max’s already-throbbing chest.
Safi.
The aforementioned girl lets out a groan that rings out in front of Max, though it sounds more like white noise in the background. “Oh my god, Mom, we literally just sat down like, two minutes ago. Also, newflash: Max and I are adults.”
Fuck. How can you mourn someone that’s sitting right across you?
So Safi is alive?
“Yes, but you are still my daughter. Is it so wrong of me to ask?”
But how?
“So Maxine—” The rest of the sentence is lost to the ringing again.
The night at the overlook…she knew something felt off even then. But she never expected that—
“Max?”
Did she actually do it? Rewind time?
“Maaaax.”
Or is what’s happening here something else entirely?
“Max!”
Oh.
She’s met with the perplexed face of Safi, hands folded, her brows knitted in concern.
“Are you okay? It kind of seems like you’re on drugs.”
Max settles for the truth. “No. I’m just…really happy you’re here. With me.” Then she feels a piercing stare on her right, quickly remembering they actually aren’t the only two people in the room. “And your mom.”
“Cute, but definitely on drugs.”
She feels the urge to grab Safi and get the hell out of here, as if the woman could answer any of the hundreds of nonsensical questions running in her head.
“Maxine, as I was saying…”
But then the piercing noise grows once more, completely overwhelming all of her senses, leaving no room for any of Yasmin’s words to reach her ears.
“Oh shit. Dude. Your nose,” Safi exclaims.
Max wipes at her face, and she’s met with a red streak smeared across her skin.
A nosebleed, a phenomenon that can’t be described as anything but supernatural—this all feels terrifyingly familiar.
“It’s fine, just a nosebleed. Um, back in a sec.” She sharply stands from her seat, sending an apologetic nod to the other two.
She needs to figure out what the hell is going on.
Max finds her feet moving of their own volition, eager to follow the sound. The humming calls to her like a siren at sea, and as she drifts across the floor, she can vaguely make out the outlines of overlapping figures, striking in light blue, and the faint echoes of distant conversations. Here, but not here.
When she arrives at the source of it all—right near the bathroom door, for some reason—she sees a haze of particles, pulsing in the air.
She lifts her hands, dragging at the air just as she did in the North Quad, hoping whatever she pulled off back then will work the same way again.
When Max steps out of the corner, the Krampus decorations are gone once more, the vibrant background cheer replaced by the solemn whispers and mumbles of stoic patrons.
There’s no need to even question it, this is her world, the one without Safi.
When she glances towards the bar, she sees Amanda, the same one that visited her doorstep just this very morning.
If there are two Amandas here, then what else has changed? Maybe speaking to them both will help her decipher more of this mess.
Time to test that theory.
Walking back to the pulse point, she puts her arms up once more, attempting to cross between worlds and—oofa doofa—that’ll definitely have to take some getting used to.
Back in the other world, the bun-haired bartender is nowhere to be found anywhere near her station. But a quick survey of the area shows that she’s out on the patio, presumably taking her break.
Max walks out into the open, the winter chill hitting her face. Strolling over to the railing, she speaks, “Hey, Amanda. Do you mind if I ask something weird?”
“Shoot.”
“Did we make plans the other day? Sorry, you have to bear with me. My head’s kind of wonky today. I, uh, don’t really remember anything that happened this week.”
“Okay…” Amanda looks terribly confused by Max’s sudden bout of apparent amnesia, but she’s kind enough to oblige anyway. “Yeah. I asked if you wanted to hang out after work. I think you were about to say yes. But your phone started ringing like crazy, thanks to Safi. Then you ran off and…”
Max nods at her to go on.
“You know I’m always happy to make time for you. But I never got to properly ask: is this going to be a friend thing, or—”
Wait a second.
Amanda’s mouth is still moving, gaze fond on her. But Max can hardly hear anything, not when she’s thrown off by that one contradiction.
Safi was at the Snapping Turtle with Max, just a few feet away while she went up to Amanda that night. She never got a phone call from her, because she was already right there.
This can’t just simply be a rewind, no, not when there are this many inconsistencies.
Am I in a different timeline?
It feels absolutely crazy to even consider it, but no other explanation makes sense.
Her head starts running through all the possibilities, what other differences there could be—before her thoughts are interrupted by a knocking on wood.
"Max! I was wondering where you wandered off to.”
Safi appears in the doorway, glancing between Amanda and Max with an arched eyebrow. "My, what's this? Secret meetings without little old me?"
There’s the familiar teasing lilt to Safi’s voice, but the look on her face is otherwise unreadable as she makes her way over to Max’s side. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Max feels like a deer caught in the headlights, though it isn’t even like she’s doing anything remotely wrong. Amanda's her friend, there's nothing wrong with having other friends…even if said friend was just about to awkwardly ask her out on a date again.
She draws some distance from Amanda anyway, the sudden, baking feeling of some unknown shame crawling into her skin.
“Max and I were just making some plans. I was asking if she wanted to go out with me tonight…”
And as if things weren't weirdly tense enough, Safi draws herself closer into Max’s space, slipping an arm around the other woman’s waist, with a grip that’s far too territorial to be just friendly. A movement much louder than any words.
“Oh? Do tell,” Safi speaks, in a tone that indicates challenge more than anything else.
Well. That’s new.
The pointed glance Amanda throws towards the two of them says that she's definitely thinking the same thing.
Max stiffens at the sudden contact. Sure, she and Safi were no strangers to sharing physical affection, but their touches have never felt like this. Safi’s grip is firm on her waist, and there’s a certain intention behind the action that Max is unable to get a grasp on.
Something is off.
She can’t quite find the right adjective for it, so she glances up at Safi’s face, hoping to find more of an answer there. There’s a certain glint in those amber eyes, and it feels…
Competitive?
Close, but that’s not it.
…Possessive?
That doesn’t make sense—and yet it’s the word that fits best at the moment.
But then again, nothing about today makes sense. Max’s new powers don’t make sense. This weird tension in the air doesn’t make sense. And for some damn reason, Safi somehow makes even less sense today, as if the woman wasn’t already elusive enough.
Max is only pulled out of her train of thoughts when the awkward silence breaks from a sharp clap.
"Well! Disappointed. But not surprised. Honestly, I'm only amazed it didn't happen sooner. Safi's practically been all over you since day one." Amanda speaks, her gaze lingering on Safi’s not-so-subtle grip, as if proving her point.
Um.
"Look at you, so smart!” Safi shoots a finger gun towards Amanda and clicks her tongue, acting as if the other woman just aced some hidden test.
What?
“But yeah, surprise, surprise. You’re one of the first to hear the news. So, yup. It's a no-go for Max over here, we already have a date night planned for later.”
Date?
“Right, Max?" Safi turns her head toward Max, trademark smirk settled on her face, as if she didn’t just drop the most baffling sentence she’s heard all day.
The? Huh?
Max realizes she’s been gaping like a silent goldfish for far too long once she hears an awkward cough in Amanda’s direction.
She blinks rapidly. "Um. I—”
Amanda cuts her off with a raised hand.
"Hey, no hard feelings here. Now if you'll excuse me, if I leave the bar for too long, Reggie might go and fuck up another glass.” Amanda sends them a quick wave, before turning away completely.
Max swears she can almost make out something along the lines of “the cute ones are always taken”, as Amanda awkwardly scatters back inside the bar, leaving her alone with…
Safi, who’s currently letting out a low whistle. Carefree smile on her face, if she wasn’t just staking her claim over Max two minutes ago.
There’s no way you could interpret that as anything but jealousy, right? But…Max and Safi have always been just friends. Nothing more. Hell, Safi was even the one to encourage her to go out with Amanda just the other day. So why…
"What was that all about?” Max lets out an awkward laugh, though it’s more of a what the actual fuck is happening right now laugh, than her actually finding any humor in the situation.
"Sorry, was that too much? I know we're only a month into our relationship and all that…” Safi turns around, facing Max with a seemingly apologetic smile on her face. Though, the way she also looks like she’s about to burst into laughter at any moment gives away that she isn’t actually all too sorry about her behavior. “It's just that you make a girl want to get clingy sometimes."
A month into our relationship?
No.
There’s no way.
“It’s…fine? Just. Surprised. You know what? Why don’t we head back inside, Yasmin—”
“Whaaat? And waste a precious, stolen moment alone? I don’t have any mistletoe on me at the moment but…” Safi tucks a loose strand of hair behind the shorter girl’s ear, and Max twitches at the action. Safi's voice drops an octave lower, and so does her gaze, quite distracted by the look of Max’s mouth. “We can still make do.”
Then Safi loops her other arm around Max, pulling her in. The hints of vanilla draw even closer, and the lure of it is oh-so-tempting and—
Wait. Ohhhh fuck. What the fuck. Abort mission, Max! Abort whatever the hell is going on here—
Safi’s mouth, meet Max’s palm.
Mission: success?
Max can’t feel very sure of her victory though. Not when her eyes are darting all over the place, a sudden heat rising up to her neck. Not when she can still feel the recent memory of Safi’s breath ghosting her lips, just an inch away. This is too much, far too much to process all at once. And so she ungracefully settles for shutting her eyes completely tight, as if it’ll block out all of the sensations.
If she was looking for any more differences in this world…well, here’s another one to add to the list. The Safi she knows would definitely not just go in for a kiss like that. The context clues are practically blatant at this point, alarm bells going off in her head.
The possessiveness, the near-kiss— it all could only mean one thing: there’s something different going on between her and Safi in this timeline.
But if there’s anything she’s learnt from being dealt with the hand of weird timeline-fuck powers when no one else is aware of said time-fuckery going on—it’s that the best course of action is to always act natural, no matter how strange that ‘natural’ is.
A clumsy mumble reaches her ears. “Mmhm?”
"Sorry, um.” She peeks one eye open, with Safi’s confused gaze staring right back. “Not now?”
“Mmphay. Mhhm mmm?” Safi points at the hand that is very much still on her mouth.
Oh, right.
Once her mouth is finally free, she speaks, “Hey, it’s fine. But are you okay? You’ve been out of it all day, Max. You’re pretty quiet today, I mean—a lot quieter than usual. And that’s saying something. And then your nosebleed—”
Max attempts to put on her most believable tone. “I’m fine. Really. It’s just like I said earlier. Shitty morning.”
Safi narrows her eyes, unconvinced. “Yeah, no. Not buying it. Is it because of Yasmin? We can ditch her if you’re not feeling too good.” She glides her hand up, cupping Max’s cheek. “Tell me, what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”
The look in Safi’s eyes is far more tender than usual, a contrast to the typical teasing gaze she’s used to, and Max can already feel herself warming up from the intensity of it all. Then she blurts out the most persuasive excuse she can conjure up, “Um…I guess I just feel bad for Amanda?”
Safi swats away the concern. “Ah, she’s a big girl! She’ll get over it. But, can I just say: told ya so. Poor Amanda's been flirting in your face for months, but you…” Max’s nose is met with a playful flick. “...little goody two shoes that you are, absolutely refused to believe it!”
“H-Hey, at least it got us a few free drinks from time to time,” Max attempts to quip.
Safi lets out a dramatic gasp, mockingly putting a hand to her chest. “Ooh, you little heartbreaker, you! What am I to do with you?”
“Now come, this is supposed to be our ‘big first lunch together together’.” She turns Max towards the door, interlocking their hands. “And as tempting as it is to die of hypothermia out here with you, I don’t think Yasmin will approve very much if we linger too long. I even had to go defend milady’s honor with the way you kept spacing out.”
For the second time that day, Max is dragged off like a silly little balloon, all tied up around Safi’s grip.
The two of them have just made back into their seats when Safi lets out a frustrated swear, brows furrowing at her phone screen.
“Seriously? The fuck?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Apparently some asshole threw a skull through my car. Look at this shit.”
Safi turns her phone, showing the drastic damage done to her windshield, a menacing cow skull as the sole culprit. Yeesh. It does not look good.
A faint feeling of recognition stirs within Max as she stares at the screen. “This is gonna sound bananas, but I feel like I’ve met this cow.”
“You have, it’s from right over there.” Safi points up above the bar's live stage, where an empty mount hangs.
“Wait. Hold on…” Re-examining the photo, Max can make out the faint markings of some text. “The broken horn. It looks like there was something written on it.”
Safi squints at the phone, but the image is overtaken by the screen of an oncoming call. She scrunches up her nose. “Okay, as much as I’d love to hear you talk detective all day, I’ve got to go meet the tow truck.” She stands from her seat, then plants a quick peck on Max’s cheek. “Rain check on our date tonight?”
“I’ll head out with you, Safiya. I can pay for the repairs,” Yasmin says.
“Right…” Max mumbles, completely befuddled for what feels like the fiftieth time that day.
Fuck. If Safi’s being threatened in this timeline, then who’s to say that the events of that night at the overlook won’t occur again? She can’t let that happen.
So it's time for Max to do what she does best: nose around.
After one enlightening timeline-jumping/snooping session later, Max sits down on a bench in the North Quad, pondering over all of the info she’s gathered. She narrows down the car vandalism incident to three suspects: Lucas, Vinh, and Gwen.
Gwen doesn’t have much of a case built against her at the moment, but her shiftiness back in the Dead World after Safi’s death was pretty odd, odd enough to be worth looking into.
Lucas’s name was embedded onto the back of the skull…and a total dick to boot. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s done it. And what good reason would he have to target Safi anyway?
Then Vinh is—well—Vinh. She may be on friendly terms with the guy, but there’s no denying the man is shadier than a palm tree in every way, and that’s before she’s even taken the Abraxas-ness of it all into consideration.
Though in her experience, it’s best not to point at anyone until she gets the full picture. Sometimes the unlikeliest suspects are the guiltiest ones. She learnt that one the hard way.
But before she gets to any real interrogating, she might as well get a good grasp on what the Max of this timeline was up to…especially in regards to Safi.
And hey, speak of the devil.
When she turns on her phone, it isn’t her usual lockscreen that meets her eyes. Instead, she’s greeted by a candid photo of Safi, laid out on the couch in Max’s home. Her hair is free from its usual ponytail, the flames of the fireplace framing her face elegantly. It’s far more intimate than any other photo Max has managed to take of her.
Looks like this Max was lucky enough to get the perfect shot she’s always wanted.
She feels a faint pang in her chest, a bit too bothered at the thought of this world’s Max getting so much closer to Safi in a way she’s never allowed herself.
Pushing the feeling away for now, she opens up her messaging app, and her thumb moves up as far as she can. She scrolls past all the differences, all the conversations she doesn’t remember having. She finally sets it down when the message history reaches back to around a month ago.
November 7, 2023
Safi
mother dearest and i got into a yelling match again. i feel like shit. u free?
Max
For you? Always. Do you want anything on the way?
Safi
just bring your cute self and kiss it better
November 14, 2023
Max
Thinking of you again. What are you up to?
Safi
thinking of *me*? at 3 in the morning?
how scandalous. is this a booty call?
i believe the kids start with ‘hey u up’ these days
Max
Oh hush, I’m not that old.
You have my spare key. Why not make good use of it?
Safi
i was just about to tuck in but…
good thing i’m hot for teacher.
That settles it, as if the whole almost-kiss incident earlier wasn’t proof enough, these messages were basically gigantic, flashing billboards screaming, “Hey everyone, Max Caulfield is getting it on with her best friend!”
The conversations get flirtier—steamier—the farther down she scrolls, and her face reddens considerably as she reads through the back-and-forth banter, feeling a bit too exposed to be reading this out in the open.
It soon gets to be a bit too much about 2 ½ weeks into the text history, so she starts skimming through the texts instead of fully reading through them.
Then her scroll stops, gaze drawn to one of those special texts you can hide behind an effect.
Hmm. What secret message lies beyond this fog? Curiosity gets to her, so she taps the text bubble and—
Ohmygodthat’sSafipracticallywearingnothing.
Her heart nearly drops right there in the quad, while her phone definitely does, the loud crash attracting the looks of a few nearby passing students.
Max throws out a rushed string of sorries to a disinterested audience, but the apology is directed towards the spirit of Safi more than anything, feeling like she just looked at something she really, really wasn’t meant to see.
Does it count as an invasion of privacy if Safi sent it for Max’s eyes only? Well, another version of Max, that is. She’s leaning towards a maybe? A yes? Man, this timeline stuff is too much for her head.
Not wanting to dive any more into the ethics of whether or not witnessing the nudes of her dear best friend—who she’s technically dating, but also not really—is morally wrong, she picks the phone off the ground. Once it’s in her hands again, she frantically keeps her gaze off her screen while swiping her messaging app closed, praying it resets and blurs the Very Naked Safi photo once more.
No such thing as being too careful though, she thinks, and so she settles for reading their most recent text exchange instead of scrolling back up.
December 5, 2023
Safi
sooo, i’m lingerie shopping right now. do you think red or black would be cuter?
Max
Not sure this is the best question to ask over text.
I’ve always been more of a visual learner.
Safi
oh my god
this is what i get for bagging the photography nerd
though…you know what’s one thing even better than a photo? ;) [➢ Location]
Max
On my way. :*
The verdict is in: this timeline’s Max Caulfield is a terrible, gay horndog.
God, I really said that? Am I seriously that thirsty? The answer is yes, apparently.
She squints her eyes at the date. Oh geez. And that last message was just yesterday? No wonder poor Safi was lost at how shifty Max was acting on the patio.
And speaking of the patio, as if things weren’t already messy enough, Max has to come out and address the elephant in the room.
She brings a hand to her mouth, brushing a thumb over her lips. The memory is already playing in her head like a broken TV on loop. She can still smell the faint traces of vanilla on her sleeve, leftover remnants from their embrace.
Safi was about to kiss her. And for a split-second, Max nearly let it happen.
Hell, she wanted it to happen.
There’s no point in denying it any longer, Max has been holding in a silent attraction to her friend these past few months. And despite all the jabs that Max gets for her supposed obliviousness, she isn’t that blind. There’s always been an underlying current of tension between the two, and she’s sure Safi’s felt it as well. Heartfelt glances across the room when the other wasn’t looking, faint touches that linger a second too long…
Her and Safi, constantly waltzing around the line in the sand.
Now she’s in a whole other universe. One where she never hesitated, one where she doesn’t need to contemplate on every what-if scenario with Safi, because the proof of who they could be together is right in front of her. Then there’s the thought of just giving in and graciously accepting the new role of girlfriend in this timeline—and it all feels like a scarily tempting daydream.
But she can’t do that. This is a whole different version of Safi she’s dealing with. And while her attraction to the girl is still real in every sense, that doesn’t change how she isn’t the same person that this Safi has been dating. It wouldn’t be right to her, and she’d feel like a fraud, a ventriloquist playing puppet as this timeline’s Max.
She wishes she could run and tell Safi everything, but she can’t gamble with letting that kind of info out. These powers are so new to her, and who knows what’ll come out of it? Safi stands at the center of these two timelines, the common chaotic denominator, and there’s too many unknown variables to risk messing with anything too much.
And Max knows painfully well what goes wrong when you fuck with the natural order of the universe.
So for now, she’ll play solo, but only with the barest minimum needed from the girlfriend role. It might hurt Safi, seeing her supposed girlfriend in this world put some distance between them, but it’s better this way. And she has to keep it this way, otherwise she risks falling to the lure of the act.
Like she didn’t already have enough secrets to keep.
“One of these days I’m gonna find out what you’re running from, Max Caulfield. That’s a promise.”
Attempting to pull any bit of info from Max outside of Caledon and surface-level topics is akin to prying out teeth. But could you blame her? There’s only one other person that could ever understand what she’s gone through, and she’s lying six feet in the ground.
She did try seeing a therapist for a while. But it turns out therapy isn’t so helpful when she can’t quite bring up a kidnapping that technically never happened, a town that was never destroyed, and the many, many different ways she’s watched her first love die.
She had to act as judge, jury, and executioner for Arcadia Bay and Chloe, the weight of their lives on her shoulders. Her hand, bringing down the lever to the guillotine.
All at the age of eighteen.
So, what do you even do in that situation? Run away from it all, of course. Go drifting from motel to motel, state to state. She still claims it was a “road trip of art and self-discovery”, though really, the sad truth is that she just couldn’t stand to be in a town where she saw the ghost of her lost love in every corner of the room. Her lifeless form bleeding out on the ground, her blood pooling and growing, consuming every bit of space until there was no more air left to breathe.
It’s been a decade since then, and every now and then Max still feels like every bit the lost teenager she was, all those years ago.
She’ll never truly escape from the role she played, and there’s only so much she can do to lessen the nightmares. But at least the pain is somewhat better, a dull, muted thing now. So long as she never allows her thoughts to stray from what’s in front of her.
She’s learned her lesson. She can be polite, hold friendly conversations, but she can never dare to let anyone get past the walls she’s put up.
Because anyone that gets close to Max Caulfield is destined to be cursed.
And yet, enter: Safi Llewellyn-Fayyad.
She spent years building construction work around her heart, only for the cracks to start forming the moment Safi stole her away from Yasmin’s office. And despite all the warning signs Max tried to throw into her face, Safi was persistent, breaking through the crumbling cement, pulling apart at every brick set on the ground.
Safi was a comet crossing, landing right into her sky. And Max was the all-too-happy little victim, fortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire.
But despite all her efforts, it still wasn’t enough to break through the final layer of defenses Max set up. The impenetrable glacier, hard as steel, molded by a decade’s worth of dwelling on what-ifs and regrets. Sometimes she wishes she was weaker, just enough to let herself go and welcome her in.
Unfortunately, it was never going to be that easy when one carries around this much baggage. And so, Max settled. Perfectly content to play the role of the faithful moth, forever circling a safe distance around the flames of Safi’s fiery being. Hoping one day, there’ll be enough time for the ice to thaw between them.
That’s what Max thought, and yet, what good did all of that restraint do anyway? At the end of the day, she was still left to mourn another best friend, another ghost, dead from a bullet. In mocking contrast, the Max of this world chose to embrace Safi, and was rewarded for it. A willing participant, flying headfirst into the wildfire.
She feels the terrible pang of jealousy sinking its teeth into her skin. This timeline’s Max gets to have her cake here and eat it. Why couldn’t she have that too?
Ha.
Getting envious of her own self, now that’s a new one.
She can already sense the thunderstorms clouding over her mood, her brows furrowing into a tight knit—but her growing stupor is interrupted by boisterous laughter hitting her ears—a group of nearby students, playing around in the snow.
No, quit spiralling, Max. All of this doesn’t matter.
She slaps her face lightly, bringing herself out of it. There’s no time for wallowing in her sorrows, not when Safi might still be at risk. She’ll just have to compartmentalize like always, sort through her screwed up mush of feelings later.
Her eyes hone in on her lockscreen once more, on Safi, and the ever-secretive smile she adores.
She’s been given a second chance, and she won’t waste it. No more self-loathing. No more running away.
She’s not going to lose anyone anymore.