Not Letting Go

Chapter 19

It was hard to give the photo back, but Max would have given her left hand to stop Kate's distress. With its departure, the brunette felt she was also committing to a weak hope that somehow this would all end okay.

When the bus came, Max waited to let Kate go in first. The blonde smiled at the chivalry and passed her to enter inside. She went straight to the back in a corner, moving past just a few passengers spread out evenly through the seating. Max followed her friend and sat beside her. They were quiet at first, but then Max spoke up, thinking of the photo and remembering something.

"So...there's something else I forgot to mention about, umm..." She looked around to make sure no one appeared to be listening and, even while satisfied, then quietly said, "What I can do, I mean...what I used to be able to do with time..."

Kate waited patiently for Max to continue as the brunette still hesitated. She felt bad for not yet telling Kate this fact, not sure why she did not mention it during her confesssion about her former powers. Somehow, this felt the most ridiculous thing to say, so the freckled girl guessed that this might have been why she held it back. Max reminded herself that she had told her enough crazy things already, and so said, "I...can, er, could use photos to jump back into my body at that moment in the picture."

She looked to Kate for her reaction and saw some confusion, but then a realization came to her and the blonde said, "The butterfly photo..." remembering the lone Polaroid on the bulletin board.

Max frowned while nodding and added, "I was trying to save her...trying to save Chloe one last time. She kept...dying though..." Max thought of Nathan, the train, Chloe accidentally shooting herself, and finally Jefferson. Fate finally won she thought. Max couldn't explain all this to her friend, but began to quietly cry as she relived all those horrible moments.

"Oh Em...I'm so sorry for bringing that up. Please don't cry..."

Max crumpled down and Kate guided the broken girl's head down to her lap. She felt the brunette shake a little and the rise and fall of her irregular breathing, but the sounds of her cries were mostly muffled as Max buried her face further into the blonde's leg. Kate stroked Max's hair and said, "Shh shh, oh Em...I'm so sorry..." and let her friend get it out as she lightly stroked Max's back and looked out worriedly into the distance lost in her own thoughts.

Max stopped and was able to return to a calm state after a few minutes. She sat up and wiped her face with a sleeve before saying, as if trying to force conversation back to a normal tone, "I...I forget everything I did between the point I jump back to and the present after a little while after arriving. It's very...confusing to explain. It's worse to go through. I barely understand it."

"You don't need to explain it to me. You don't need to talk about anything...difficult for you. I don't want you doing anything that hurts you."

"I don't want to keep anything from you."

"You don't have to tell me anything you're not ready to talk about. Okay?"

"Yeah...okay."

They were quiet for a little while before Max spoke up.

"So tell me about Lynn."

Kate brightened up with the question and said, "Oh...well, we're very close like I told you. Both of my sisters, really. I love them so much. But Lynn...I think you could say she's the most curious of us. Kind of like you. Smart, always trying to figure out everything."

"You mean nosy?" Max said playfully.

"No...well, yeah. Hmm, what else...Well, right now she's a little obsessed with her Furby. You can control it with an app on your phone. It's kind of creepy actually, but she loves it. She named it Chester."