— 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐀 𝐋𝐄𝐆 —

════════ • 🕸️ • ════════

THE WORLD WAS A KALEIDOSCOPE OF COLOR. And then the second of deja vu passed as the hues faded and grew dull. Max groaned, pulling herself out of the bed she didn't even remember lying down on. On the plus side, it was her bed. She'd evidently made it home without a hitch. And then she looked at the time and saw it was about noon.

"Shit," she swore under her breath. She jumped up from the bed, rushing around her room to find something decent to wear. Of course it always felt like there was nothing in her closet when she was running late, and her indecisiveness would decide that was the best moment to kick in.

There was a knock on the door. It was ignored for a solid minute before the rapping overpowered her own capability to think. Max pulled at her hair, released a short shout of frustration, then acknowledged the person on the other side of the door. "It's unlocked!"

"Good morning to you too," her roommate muttered, eyeing the cluttered mess. "Or should I say 'good afternoon'?"

"You didn't wake me," Max complained, struggling to tug her boot up over her pant leg. "You promised you wouldn't let me oversleep."

"Yeah, I set half a dozen alarms," she gestured to the clocks piling up on the dresser. "And you slept through all of them. Also, if you're going to snore that loud we may want to consider sound-proofing our walls. We received a noise complaint last night half-an-hour after you stumbled inside like a drunkard... What were you on last night? Think you could hook a girl up?"

"What? No!" Max quickly shook her head, grunting with a final effort to put her boot on. "I wasn't drunk and I wasn't high! I was..."

"You were..."

"I don't know." Max shrugged. "Lost."

"Don't tell me you were experiencing another existential crisis." Her roommate placed her hands on her hips. "You went back to Stan's, didn't you? Was the date really that bad?"

"His name was Irving... and that was the most interesting thing about him," Max countered. Her eyes narrowed accusingly. "That reminds me. Set me up on another blind date and you will face my wrath, Hardy."

The two girls stared at one another, unwavering in eye contact before breaking down into laughter. The threat was empty, but it certainly didn't go unnoticed.

"If it makes you that unhappy, then I'll back off," her roommate agreed.

"Honestly, I think I was just exhausted, Fliss," Max sighed, rubbing the remaining grogginess from her eyes.

"Obviously you're spreading yourself too thin," Felicia stated. "You spend your morning at the theater, spend your afternoon at the diner, spend your evenings at auditions, and then the night is left for fun."

"Irving and fun do not belong in the same statement, even implicitly." Max stuck out her tongue as if repulsed by the idea. "But I'm fine now. It's life and I'm dealing with it—"

Felicia cocked her head with confusion as to why Max stopped speaking. "M? You alright?"

"Light-headed," she lied through her teeth.

She blinked a few times, but her vision didn't change. The way she saw the world changed again. It was almost as if she'd been staring at a lightbulb or the sun and permanent flecks of light were seared into her irises. Colors were iridescent, shimmering across every possible surface. Then the chaos of miscellaneous hues converged into thin lines. Then those lines discovered their points of origin, glowing from the heart of her roommate. It was an odd sight for one so sober to see in the middle of the day, but she blamed sleep-deprivation... even though she'd gotten over ten hours.

"Maybe you should lie down?" Felicia suggested, moving her roommate toward the couch.

"Good idea..." Max murmured, nodding her head. Then she stopped and jumped back up from the couch, ignoring the way her head pounded. "Bad idea! I'm already so late!"

"What's a few more minutes?"

"The difference between being employed and unemployed."

"Couldn't you just call off?" Felicia asked.

Max shook her head, but immediately regretted the decision as the room spun. It was like the world was echoing, but with sight not sound. For every moment her roommate took, a dozen other mimics followed. She tried to focus on her words, hoping the world would slow down. "I'm the lead. And I know it's not Broadway, but it's a start. This could be the start to my career."

"And the past five years of your life?"

"Stepping stones," Max replied. "And now I'm ready to take that giant leap."

"Or plunge."

"Must you be so pessimistic?" Max asked.

Felicia shrugged. "That's the way of the world."

"Well, maybe it's about time the world changed," Max replied with a huff, pulling herself back up onto her feet. She only briefly needed to hold her head to stop the ensemble of pounding as the hyperbolic hues screaming at her eyes gradually dulled a tolerable amount. "I'm off."

"You said that ten minutes ago," Felicia reminded her.

Max swore an unintelligible string of words under her breath, snatched her tote from beside the couch, then sprinted out the door down five flights of stairs. How she managed to catch a bus, she didn't know. However, she wasn't about to bite the hand that fed her by questioning why she'd experienced a brief stroke of luck in her otherwise poor streak of luck.

She was still an hour late. It would have been fifty-five minutes, but she'd spent five pushing on a door that clearly said pull in bold white letters. It was clearly going to be that sort of day.

The director's lips pursed with displeasure as he acknowledged Max's arrival. She attempted to wave, only tripping over her own two feet in the process. She released a nervous laugh before her expression slacked into one of embarrassment as she gestured vaguely to the dressing rooms. She quickly hid her face behind her tote back as she walked down the hall. Once inside her dressing room, she closed the door and slid her back against it until she'd sunk to the floor with a groan.

"Stupid, stupid, clutz," she muttered, bapping the tote against her forehead. No damage was done as the material simply folded around her face. She took a deep breath, pulling her flyaways from out of her face before covering it all up with a fake smile. She rose to her feet and strutted across the room to her vanity. She flashed a wider smile as she looked at her own reflection. "You are Maxine Jacobs. You're a star. You're moving up in the world. You're... totally and completely fake."

She stuck her tongue out and the reflection mimicked. She sighed, rubbing her eyes before she took a seat and began to powder her face.

"Just one last show," she told herself. "Webb said there'd be plenty of talent scouts at tonight's performance. All you have to do is bring your A-game and that wow-factor they'd be a fool to turn down."

Her reflection frowned and shook its head. "As if that's all it will take. Girl, what you need is a miracle."

"Right," Max continued the conversation with herself, acting as if the reflection could actually hear and respond, not that it was just herself going back and forth with a sloppy game of logic. "Well, let me know when the next one of those falls from the sky."

"The show must go on." Her reflection said following a delayed sigh before glancing down at the watch around her wrist. "Break a leg."

Max took another deep breath, then stood. She was backstage before she could really remember even walking in that direction. Muscle memory had taken over really, leading her through the actions before any performance jitters could interfere. She took another deep breath, closing her eyes to center herself.

"You are Pythia," she said, slowly finding the notch she'd spent so much time chiseling away at herself to easily fall into character. "The Delphi oracle of Apollo. Your dreams revealed the unknown and answered all of man's questions about the mysteries of love..."

Her prepared speech dwindled as she couldn't find the words to continue. It was like her voice had been taken by the wind, and instead replaced by a warm sensation in her chest. Slowly, she opened her eyes, finding herself in the center of the stage, just as the curtains opened.

She was frozen in place as her eyes moved over the crowd, landing on the source of the blossoming feeling. She glanced back down at her chest, finding the array of color that had once provided great discomfort now channeled toward one individual who brought peace. As she lifted her head, it was almost like the spotlight had intentionally malfunctioned to land on the boy who needed no introduction.

"Peter."

The name echoed in her head once more. It was him, she was sure of it. He was the mystery that may serve as the key to unraveling the loose ends of her sudden perspective shift finally given a face. Her intuition was only confirmed by the glittering gold string that connected one heart to another.

But then the theater shook and the house came crashing down.

════════ • 🕸️ • ════════

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬| This is a little bit of a shorter chapter, but I didn't feel like it needed to be inherently long. Now you may be wondering what happened with Peter and Harry in the last chapter, don't worry, all will be explained soon enough. As always don't be afraid to vote and leave a comment!