“You are a very smart girl,” Max said, hoisting her on his shoulders. She counted further, confident that now she was much closer to the stars.
In their last private moment together during his stay, Jenny and Max walked down the street together.
“Max, how did you know?” Jenny suddenly blurted out.
Max felt his heart stop. His brain pounded. He cocked his head. “Know what?”
“How did you know I was going to elope?”
Max’s mind froze. He wasn’t sure what to say.
“I mean, ever since you shocked me in the park back in high school, I’ve been thinking it over and over, again and again. How did you know? I didn’t tell Mom or Dad. Len swears he only told two of his friends, and none of them know you. So how did you guess?”
Max stammered. Why take the chance? Why tell the truth and give up the new life he’d worked so feverishly to construct? “Oh, you know,” he said awkwardly. “I’m just a good judge of human character.”
“Incredible,” Jenny breathed out, her eyes wide open. “I’m really glad you talked me out of it, Max. That meant a lot to me.” She gave him a hug.
They continued walking. “Another thing I couldn’t figure out,” Jenny went on, scratching her head. “Ever since I met Len, I’d been thinking of names for my children. Sarah was my first choice. You thought of that name before I said anything to you.” She glanced at Max. “How is that?”
The pain in Max’s head began to climb to a sizzling peak. He drew a blank stare. He forced a smile at his sister. “You always loved Sarah Ferguson.”
“The Duchess of York.”
“Right.”
“You must be a mind reader. I didn’t even tell Len that.”
“Well, I am, after all, your brother.”
“You certainly are. You’ll have to come visit more often.”
Max’s thoughts raced ahead. Sure. As soon as you get rid of Len.
Jenny reached down and took his hand in hers. “Well, thank God we still have time,” she innocently said. And smiled.
Chapter Forty-Two
September 10, 1995 at 6:45 p.m.
The telephone woke Max at a quarter to seven. He stumbled to answer it with his mind half asleep still on the couch. His back hurt from weeks of oversleeping and tossing and turning in dreams and the muscles in his ribcage felt like limp spaghetti noodles.
He grabbed the phone, certain it would be Pamela. But there was just a dial tone on the other end.
Max dropped the receiver back in its cradle, while he groped to remember how long he’d been sleeping. Outside he heard the wind rattling around leaves on the lawn. Max put his head in his hands, and was scrubbing it when suddenly Pamela walked into the house.
“Hey, Max,” Pamela said as she arrived home. Max, upon hearing her voice, immediately sensed something was wrong.
Pamela avoided Max’s eyes. She took his hand and sat down beside Max on the sofa. “Uh, Max, this is difficult for me to say.”
Terror woke in him. “What is it?”
“I know you’ve been working hard. And you’re helping a lot of sick people.”
“Do you want me to stop?” Max raced ahead. “Because…”
“No, I realize you can’t. This is…” Max looked down and saw that her hands were trembling. “This is just hard to say.”
The words shook Max so badly that he almost fainted. Pamela looked at him. “Max, are you having hallucinations?”
Max stammered. “No—no.” He thought it over. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, you’re having bad dreams. Constantly.” Pamela shifted her position on the sofa. “And I’m just wondering, you know, if you’re seeing things you know you shouldn’t be seeing.”
Max was dumbfounded. “Honest, I’m not delusional. You know that. You know me.”
“Do I?” Pamela gave him a steely glance. “I hear you moaning in your sleep. Saying the names of people I’ve never heard of. And you’re sometimes so tired, you fall asleep right after dinner. It seems like there’s something tormenting you. Or someone.”
Max froze. His head was aching fiercely now. How did she know?
Pamela’s voice strengthened, and became blunt. “So you’ll see a psychiatrist?”
“Psychiatrist?” Max sat back, shocked. “I don’t need one!”
Pamela fell silent. She finally spoke. “I didn’t want to upset you. I just love you so much and I want to see you have a successful career as a doctor, but if you’re pushing yourself so hard that you’re not sleeping right and you’re not able to concentrate… Max, I’m just concerned about your… sense of reality.”
There was a long pause. Max sat uncomfortably, and then sighed. “Maybe you’re right. I’ve been distracted lately.” He could see the worry in Pamela’s eyes. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll look into seeing somebody.”
Pamela gazed at him. “Please try, Max.”
Max put a hand on Pamela’s shoulder to comfort her. Pamela left the sofa and walked down the hall to cook dinner. Max wandered off to his bedroom. Then he crawled into bed and went to sleep.
Chapter Forty-Three
November 23, 1995 at 3:11 p.m.
“Please, have a seat.” Dr. Smith gestured toward a chair in her office. After Max sat down, she said, “What can I do for you today?”
Boy, this was hard, Max thought. He cleared his throat. He drummed on his leg.
After a long period of silence, Dr. Smith raised an eyebrow and smiled at him. “Tell me, Max, how can I be of help?”
“It’s, uh, difficult to explain.”
“Start with whatever you feel is best.”
“Okay,” Max said, breathing out. “I’m not sure but I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Okay.” Dr. Smith sat back and started taking notes. “Go on.”
“Days feel like weeks. Weeks feel like years. It’s all déjà vu to me.”
“Are you having flashbacks?”
“Hundreds of them. A past life that I’ve lived.”
Dr. Smith scribbled notes on her pad. Max swallowed, his throat feeling tight.
“Time slows to a crawl.” Max looked at the clock on the wall. “I can’t stand it. I mentally hear the tick-tock, tick-tock of a clock when my mind’s not distracted.”
“I see…”
Max leaned forward. He could feel his head skidding along at a breakneck pace. “It’s like… It’s hard to live one day at a time when you’ve already lived that day before. Sometimes I listen to the news, and I know what’s happening even before it happens.”
“Sorry.” Dr. Smith motioned him to stop. She sat in stunned revelation. “You said you have lived every day before?”
Max nodded. He watched her face for a reaction.
“So... you say you’re living every day twice.”
“That’s right.”
Dr. Smith frowned. “Are you experiencing two versions of the same day in your head?”
Max frowned. “No, you don’t understand.” He was mad at himself for coming here. Dr. Smith would never know what was really bothering him. He wondered if he should walk away. He was seething on the inside. Dude, calm down. Get a freakin’ grip.
The clock ticked on the wall. Tick-tock. Tick-tock…
“Yes, Max?” Dr. Smith nodded, waiting.
Max attempted to refocus himself. “I’m not re-living the day in my head.” He was suddenly scared, terrified. “I’ve lived every day twice, in two different lives.”
Dr. Smith stared up from her notes. Max saw the perplexed and puzzled look in her eyes. Oh Jesus, he thought mournfully. As he watched she laid down her notes and carefully said, “So if I hear you right, you’re saying you’ve lived your life twice.”
Max strummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Well,” he said, trying to dial down the panic he felt, “not all of it. But since high school, yes.”
Dr. Smith wore a puzzled look on her face. She forced it away. “And how does that make you feel?”
“It makes me think I’m slowly going insane. It really started getting worse when I started medical school.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought it would be easier. I thought my life would be better. That I could help people and prevent things—bad things—from happening—things I already knew had happened.”
“Like what?”
“I could have helped my sister. I tried to save her from the life she was going to have, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Garfield’s the same way.”
“Who’s Garfield?”
Max attempted a weak grin and then looked away, ignoring her question. “This was supposed to be my second chance at life and it’s just not working.”
“What’s not working, Max?”
Max let his eyes wander around the room as he thought of how to explain this. “I’m going crazy. I should know what I’m doing, but I don’t…” Max floundered. He smiled with a pained look on his face. “There I go, I even used the words insane and crazy, and I know better as a doctor not to call somebody...” His voice became uneven. “Why am I doing this?”
Dr. Smith focused her gaze on him. Max thought he saw a gleam of tears in her eyes. She nodded at him sympathetically, and picked up her pen.
“Tell me about your marriage, Max.”
“My marriage?” A bolt of pain went through Max’s head and he winced. “Which one?”
He bolted from his chair, feeling so dizzy that he felt he might stumble. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but I don’t feel well.”
Dr. Smith rose, bearing an expression of sudden concern on her face. “Are you all right?”
He lied. “Yes, I’ll just be on my way.”
But the therapist’s dedication came through. “As you wish, but in my opinion, you can’t put this off if this is bothering you so much. Can we re-schedule?”
I don’t think so. “Maybe,” he said, his eyes aimed at the door.
Max held out his hand. The cold, moist hand of the psychiatrist gripped his. He was relieved. He was free to go.
Before he left, he took a quick look at Dr. Smith’s face. He saw an expression he had seen multiple times over—among his colleagues at the hospital treating patients in distress.
Chapter Forty-Four
December 7, 1995 at 3:03 a.m.
Max was in the woods again. Sunlight streaming through the trees. Rays pelting his eyes, slicing down from the skies in a blinding arc. As he crept through the woods, eyes turned from the burning sky, he looked down and saw growing on the ground rows of lovely blue flowers. Over the petals Max’s eyes danced.
Time froze as Max crept forward.
He walked on, up a hillside and then down, and with each step the weight on him grew heavier. Determined, he plodded ahead, his shoulders hunched forward. He would not be deterred from his destination.
All around him the forest was decaying. Listen to the wind, a voice whispered harshly in his ear. The wind knows where to find us.
Looking down, Max saw his own hands. They were wrinkled, speckled with liver spots, and older. He was the older version he’d once been in Life I.
Tired suddenly, he stopped to catch his breath, and wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes. Twigs snapped behind him. Swiftly Max whirled, and saw standing at his back a male teenager, looking up eagerly at him. Max tried to recognize who it was—the face seemed familiar—someone from his high school days, perhaps.
“Hey, Max,” said the teenager. Max saw the boy’s eyes glancing over him, deeper and bluer than any eyes he’d ever seen, a blue that burned like ice. “Wow, you’re an adult now! How’s it feel?”
He squinted at the boy. For some reason he seemed recognizable, and Max thought, I have to get out of here, out of this forest. He scrambled away, leaving the teenager further behind, and didn’t break his stride.
The teenager persisted. “You remember me from Confederation High, from chemistry class?” he asked, goading Max as they both climbed through the woods.
Suddenly it hit Max. Nathan. But not the Life II version of Nathan. This is the Nathan I’d recall in Life I, years after high school in the original timeline.
“I do remember you, Nathan,” Max said in a huff, panting as they scrambled up the hill again. “You were my classmate in high school. You’re the guy who always wanted to be a doctor.”
Nathan’s eyes brightened. “That’s right! But hey. Slow down a moment. I wanted to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“But Max, I always wanted a best friend to last forever. Don’t you want to be my best friend?”
Max strode ahead, sweating and panting faster. “You’re a very lonely guy, Nathan. Go away.”
An expression of dejection and defeat registered on Nathan’s face. Max slipped on rocks, and lost his footing, but didn’t look back. He imagined Nathan stopping suddenly, his head bowed, his body limp—then the teenage Nathan fading into darkness.
Max turned his head; there was no Nathan.
Max had no regret.
Trembling, he climbed higher. Ahead, at the peak of the hill, Max was startled to see a young female materialize right in front of him. She saw Max, and ran up to him, grabbing his arm.
“Max! Max! I don’t belong here, do I?”
Max gazed at her without slowing his steps; she was a pretty woman, with dark hair combed back into a ponytail, and wore a dark green shirt and pair of blue denim pants. He didn’t recognize her.
She brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, Max,” she said slowly. “You look so much older. What happened?”
Max didn’t answer. He continued to trudge up the hill, continuing his climb.
“Max! Don’t you remember me?”
Max stopped and stared coolly at her. “I don’t know you, I’ve never met you, and you weren’t part of my life.”
The young woman let out a blood-curdling wail. “How can you do this to me? It’s me—Pamela! Why are you mad at me?”
Max stared again. Still he didn’t recognize her, this woman who called herself Pamela. What’s going on? he muttered to himself. He climbed higher. Never did he once break his pace.
“Max! Max! I love you! Please say you love me!”
Max turned; the girl named Pamela had stopped, clasping her hands in front of her, with a bewildered and aghast expression of her face. To anyone else, this outburst would’ve generated instant concern and pity; however, to Max, she appeared as an unknown bystander.
Max turned away, wordless. He resumed his gaze forward, kept walking…
He didn’t have to look back, either. He knew that this woman who called herself Pamela would disappear too, into nothing but a black void.
Suddenly he felt the wind moving. It cut right through him. He put his hands down to the ground to steady himself and kept climbing. The icy rush of the wind blasted him in the face. Shivering, Max climbed, his face pressed into the screaming wind as—
Max woke up, sweating and panting.
He vividly remembered the whole dream, in graphic detail. Unwillingly, he re-imagined the parts that tortured him the most, over and over again. He thought of Nathan and Pamela. How could I have treated them so cruelly? How could I do this?
He didn’t understand it.
He glanced around in the darkness. There was his bedroom, as usual. A faint light from the nearby streetlamp illuminated the room, but everything appeared as a mixture of black and gray. He barely made out Pamela sleeping next to him, her head turned away. His heart went out to her. He wanted to hug her, tell her that it was all a dream, and that he didn’t mean any of it.
Instead, he slid slowly out of bed, determined not to wake her. He would get a glass of milk, and when he calmed down, he would go back to sleep.
It wasn’t until later that night, when Pamela found him, shuddering all over on the kitchen floor, shaking his head back and forth and his face crazy with fear, that she decided it was time for Max to see the doctor again.
Chapter Forty
-Five
December 12, 1995 at 1:05 p.m.
Max rubbed his temples, groping for words as he sat in the too-comfortable armchair of Dr. Smith’s office.
“Thanks for seeing me on short notice,” he said.
“No problem,” Dr. Smith said pleasantly. “I’m glad you made the effort to come back.”
“I’ve been having bad dreams,” Max said, sighing. He clasped his hands and filled in Dr. Smith on what he had been experiencing since their first session.
The psychologist listened attentively, taking notes. After he had finished, her eyes darted upwards, reflecting upon Max’s dilemma. Finally, she pointed her pen in Max’s direction.
“Max, what’s really eating you?”
“What’s eating me?” Max cocked an eyebrow at her. “That’s what I came here to find out.”
“You claim you’re living two lives. Parallel to each other. You’ve lost emotional control, and created the belief that you’re living a second life, free from the first one. But we both know that’s not possible.”
Max’s face fell by degrees. “Oh.” He ran a hand through his hair, and looked warily at the doctor. “Yeah, I see your point. I guess you’re right, doc.”
“I wonder what it would be like, just living the one life. The one you have now.” Dr. Smith put down her pen. “Not looking backward. Looking to forgive yourself instead, for the mistakes in your first life.”
Max stared at the doctor. His face was snow-white. The headaches started to come. Max willed them away, as Dr. Smith leaned back and continued.
“Once you do that, I have a feeling the bad dreams from the other life will go away,” she said.
Max inhaled deeply, and sighed. He wanted to run. He wanted to hide. His eyes felt hazy. He put his hand to his forehead and rubbed it unsteadily.
“And if I do that, doc? What will I find?” he asked.
“Long deserved peace,” she said.
Chapter Forty-Six
January 29, 1996 at 11:23 p.m.
Max remembered this dream again, even before it started. No, no, his mind argued, make it stop, make it stopppppp, his subconscious state alerted him.
[2013] Life II Page 20