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“If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting. Time after time.”
Things with Max had never felt more right to Zoey than in that moment, the melody flowing from his lips with ease as he spun her in a circle on the observation deck. She wanted to stay there forever, wrapped in his arms and the assurance of his voice. Ever since she had gotten the power, he had sung a whole bunch of love songs to her—so many that she was a tiny bit surprised he hadn't run out yet—but this one felt different. Never before had the words he sung to her been such a perfect reflection of how she felt about him, knowing that no matter what the universe had in store, he was the one person she could always count on.
“After my picture fades and darkness has turned to gray.” Heart song or not, it was so natural: the way their eyes locked, how he slipped his hands into hers. As she smiled up at him, thinking about how nice it all felt, the music sort of tapered off. A flash of some emotion passed across Max's face, and for a second, it looked like he had fallen out of the heart song.
The pause, whatever it was, went away almost as soon as it had set in, and Max fell back into step with the music. “Watching through windows, you’re wondering if I’m okay.”
Zoey held her hand up to his cheek, so happy to be overwhelmed by all of the feelings that had terrified her for so long. Feeling too much could feel so nice. And then it happened again. The music fell away.
Max lifted his hand to encircle her wrist, his forehead thick with tension.
“I can’t hear you.”
His voice broke a bit with the words. Confusion cut through Zoey, her lips slowly falling out of their smile. His eyes were searching her face in earnest, searching for something. What was going on? Was she singing to him, too? It had happened before—just last week, they had read each other's minds at the same time, though their hearts were singing very different things. Was that what was happening?
Max gently pulled her hand away from his face. The music came back in full force, but when he sang that time, his easy affection from before had been supplanted by something more like yearning, bordering on desperation. “The drum beats out of time. If you’re lost, you can look, and you will find me. Time after time. If you fall, I will catch you—”
He stopped singing again, looking at her expectantly—like he was waiting for her to pick up the song where he had left off. Like she had been singing to him all along.
Zoey peered up at him in silence, waiting.
“I think they’re… gone.” His eyebrows were drawn together, lips parted, voice steady. He was sure.
The realization hit her all at once—Max’s powers were gone.
She was on her own again, left to walk the world with the weight of the powers on her shoulders and hers alone. Three weeks ago, the thought would have weighed her down, but not any longer. Because she wasn’t really alone—no, he could still understand.
Zoey nodded. “It’s okay." She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted onto her tiptoes, pulling him into a hug. “Everything’s gonna be okay,” she whispered into the crook of his neck, tightening their embrace.
His hands skimmed idly along her back. They lingered in the silence and security of the embrace for some stretch of time, with nothing but the sound of waves crashing nearby, the blast of passing boat horns, and the chirp of seagulls until Max’s apprehensive murmur hit her ears. “What now?”
“What do you mean?” Zoey tucked her chin deeper into his shoulder, noticing that his hands had come to rest somewhere on the small of her back.
Max let out a long exhale. “I mean, right when I really started to feel what you feel, understanding this burden that you have to carry every day, just like that, it’s gone?”
Zoey slowly pulled back, letting her hands come to rest on his shoulders. She shook her head, trying to grab hold of the right words, to find the reassurance that it sounded like he needed. “If your powers really are gone, then you don’t have to worry about shouldering that burden anymore.”
“But I want to. I just want to understand what you go through so I can be there for you, Zo.” He gave his head a slight shake, forehead still creased.
“Max, after the conversation we just had, I know you understand me. You know what it's like living with this power. You know how much it can be." Zoey drew a deep breath, drifting her gaze to the side as she thought back to the song he had sung to her—a song that sounded exactly the way she felt. “What song was I singing to you just now?”
Max dipped his chin to the ground, a smile creeping onto his lips. “‘Time After Time’ by Cyndi Lauper,” he murmured, lifting his eyes to hers with a sort of captivated disbelief on his face.
Hearing her suspicions confirmed, Zoey beamed, her cheeks flushing with pleasure. “Yeah, well…” She slipped her hand into his and gave it a squeeze. “You were singing me the same song. That tells me all I need to know.”
“Which is?” Max asked, his voice dotted with residual hesitation.
Zoey rolled her shoulders back, sliding her hands behind his neck, taking a long breath to prepare the words to leave her mouth. They were words that had been spending a lot of time on the tip of her tongue, waiting there for a moment that felt just right.
“I love you,” she said, following up the statement with a decisive nod. “We’ll be okay.”
She watched as the tension in Max's face subsided, the simple promise of her words washing away every line of doubt that had been etched into him only moments before. His mouth shifted into a grin. “I love you too, Zo.”
Zoey felt a swell in her chest at how effortlessly the words floated from his lips, an unrestrained smile spreading across her face. She leaned up and kissed him, laughing a little bit out of pure joy, and Max wrapped his arms around her back, bending to bring her closer. The cool morning breeze whipped around them, stinging her cheeks, but there was only warmth coursing through her in the comfort of his embrace.
When enough time had passed to leave Zoey sufficiently dazed in the absolute best way, she pulled back, brushing her thumb along his cheek. “Better?”
“Definitely.” Max chuckled, brushing a windblown strand of hair behind her ear. “I guess… I got kinda scared for a second, you know?”
Zoey let out a small laugh. “Yeah. I get it. But…” She shrugged, tilting her head to the side. “It’s going to take a whole lot more than the universe for you to get rid of me, Max Richman.”
In response to his fond smile, she wrapped him in a hug, relaxing in his arms with an exhale as he held her tight, another hushed I love you spoken into her ear. It was a strange, though not at all unwelcome feeling to her—the feeling of being in love with Max. A heart-pounding stirring in her chest, cheeks that hurt from stretching too wide, emotions laid bare, and not wanting to run away from any of it. Because she knew he would always be there. Time after time.
Zoey was a little dizzied on the buzz of the moment and almost skipping, lacing her fingers in Max’s as they descended the steps and started heading back towards the city.
“Oh, hey.” Max grinned down at her. “Merry Christmas, by the way.”
She twisted her lips in a grateful pout. “Thank you. I know it doesn’t really mean anything to you, but merry Christmas to you, too.”
"I think I can come around on it." Max smiled, giving her hand a meaningful squeeze. “So, what’s on the itinerary for the rest of the day? Are we gonna go caroling? Decorate cookies? Build a gingerbread house?”
Zoey narrowed her eyes up at him, scoffing out a laugh.
Max defensively held his hand up. “Okay, I’ll leave the Christmas stuff to you.”
Christmas Day. For so many years, it had been one of her favorite days of the year—the tradition and ceremony of it all, everything meticulously coordinated by her father. None of that would ever be quite the same. Zoey gave a pensive hum, thinking back to what her father had said in her dream. I think you might wanna think about making some new memories. Creating some new traditions. Those things really didn't sound so scary when she thought about it. She flicked her eyes up to Max.
“What time did you say Mo’s Christmas Carol-oke was again?”