Chapter Text
Max was tied to that chair again, still in her pajamas, dressed as she had gone to sleep the night before.
Had someone kidnapped her in her sleep?
-No, no... No! - She screamed trying to free herself, but the ropes were tight, she was hyperventilating, she had to calm down.
Safi appeared in front of her, but Max's lips were now sewn together, she couldn't talk to her.
She wanted to ask her for help, but she immediately understood that all of that was her doing.
Safi began her monologue, while looking at her with a murderous look.
"So you left me, you decided to give up, as usual, you ran away from our friendship."
"I thought you had changed."
"I'll show you what I can do, Max."
"Even without you."
"We'll show the world what we can do."
"They'll have to respect us."
"You'll have to respect me, Max."
"You'll come back to me on your knees."
"You said we'd stay together."
"Traitor."
No!
"Liar."
No!
"Coward."
No!
"You lie to me!"
-That's not true!- Max screamed, sitting up in bed and trying to calm her breathing.
It had only been a nightmare, yet it had seemed so real...
She tried to calm her breathing, she was so sweaty that she had even wet the bed and she immediately got up to go to the bathroom and vomit all the fear she still had in her body into the toilet.
The nightmares had been haunting her for nine years, Safi had only been a recent addition to those terrible dreams.
She undressed quickly and immediately dragged herself to the shower, to get rid of that feeling she had, the feeling of hands on her body. Professor Jefferson's hands, Nathan's and now Safi's.
The only hands she wanted on her face had never appeared in her dreams.
She spent the whole day at the university, as usual, the less she was home alone the better she felt.
It had only been two weeks since Max's big revelation, all her friends already knew, but they were also all very polite and always avoided the subject until Max was the first to talk about it.
Just as the university had banned journalists and all the kids defended Max from intrusive cameras and web personalities, who had heard rumors about certain "parallel worlds" and "transformations".
Even the police were often around there now.
Max had managed to have her safe places anyway.
Plus, Yasmin's media and financial coverage was definitely helping her.
At dinner time, as usual, she sat down on what had become her own chair at the bar of the pub, to chat with Amanda and try to distract herself as much as possible.
-Everything okay? You look like a ghost tonight.- Amanda asked her, giving her a hot tea, since it wouldn't have helped to give her alcohol in the condition Max was in.
-It's just, um... I've been having more bad dreams than usual lately.- Max answered hastily, warming her hands on the hot cup of tea.
-And they scare my heroine with superpowers?- Amanda asked her, still enjoying flirting with Max, even if they hadn't started seeing each other again on a regular basis, even though they both seemed to want to.
Max was convinced that only by starting to date someone else could she forget the blue-haired girl, but every time she got close to Amanda she felt guilty, as if she were cheating.
-Usually not, but they seem so real.- Max replied, sighing and looking at the tea. She felt like throwing up just smelling it.
-Do you want to talk to me about it?- Amanda took her hand and smiled.
"You're too sweet, I don't deserve you, Amy..."
-Do you really want to hear me talk about Safi?- Max asked her, knowing the animosity that had existed between Amanda and Safi since Max had told her how it ended between them.
-I'll pretend that you're not talking about her...-
Max smiled at her.
-Maybe for another time, I'm going to bed early tonight.- Max told her.
-Oh, Maxine, are you a child again?-
They exchanged a couple more jokes, hugged each other and Max left the place again, but not to go home, she had lied.
That evening, as had happened other times, she just couldn't go back to that house alone, she was afraid of it.
So she went back to the university, having the keys at her disposal and she used the personal bathroom in her office as a red room to develop old photos.
She loved doing it, it always calmed her down.
That evening, however, the nightmares didn't let her go.
After wetting and hanging another photo in the red room, she turned to the mirror and there was no reflection, but Safi's face, which made her scream in fear.
-Max!-
The figure in the mirror screamed, but the voice wasn't Safi's, but Professor Jefferson's.
-Leave me alone!- Max screamed, covering her ears with her hands, but the figure in the mirror started screaming and transforming into other people Max knew, so Max herself screamed in pain at those voices that were destroying her and punched the mirror instinctively, to stop them.
She succeeded, but the mirror shattered, as did her hand, which began to bleed.
She began to cry in pain and fear, slipping on the floor, terrified.
-Max!- She heard her name called again, but this time it was a different voice, it came from the silent and dark corridor of the school, she knew that voice well.
The blue-haired girl opened the door of the red room, ruining all the photos that had just been hung with light.
Max raised her tear-filled face and saw her.
This time it was Chloe who had come to save her in a school bathroom, unlike nine years ago.
-Chloe...- Max muttered, thinking it was another hallucination.
But the blue-haired girl saw her, her eyes filled with worry and she immediately took off the scarf she still had on to use it to wrap Max's hand. She knelt down next to her without even asking for explanations.
Max could barely breathe now that she had the girl she had hoped would come back to her, right in front of her eyes.
-Max...- Chloe called her again and the two finally looked into each other's eyes.
-Why did you come here?-
Of all the questions you could ask? Really, Max.
-You didn't reply to my message, I was worried.- Chloe answered honestly.
And she was right to worry.
You shouldn't have come here... I don't want to drag you into my problems again.
-C-Chloe... There's so much you don't know...- She told her with tears in her eyes, she was about to lower her gaze, she was ashamed of how weak she was showing herself in front of her, but there was no need to hide in front of the girl she had loved for years and who maybe still loved. But Chloe caressed her cheek and brought her gaze back to her.
So finally Max felt the hands she had wanted on her, after so long.
-I'm here, Max, I'm listening. I'm not going anywhere.-