Rewind, page 9
Max rubbed her eyes with one palm. She hadn’t slept very well either. It kept looping in her mind, how close she was to the monster. How that could’ve been her… Was that his plan? Was he going to rape her too?
“I guess I should thank you,”
“For what?”
“For saving me I guess, if you hadn’t have wanted to leave that party… that would probably have been me instead of Amy…”
“You can’t think like that, it’s not your fault…” the words felt uneasy on her tongue. If anybody is to blame it would be me… She heard her inner voice cry.
“I just feel like… Like it should have been me. If I’d have stayed at the party, then it would’ve been me. I feel-”
“-Stop it. You can’t blame yourself, you didn’t know!” I did know though, I did and if anyone is to blame it’s me! Bridget had to close her eyes, her inner voice was difficult to suppress.
Max wiped a solitary tear from her right eye. She sipped more hot chocolate.
Bridget felt the guilt slowly sink into her gut. She felt worse than ever.
“The police visited this morning, they wanted to know if I knew where he was…”
“I guess you’ve still not heard from him?”
“I don’t expect I ever will again, he’s on the run…”
“I’m sorry Max,”
“Sorry for what? What have you got to be sorry about?”
Bridget shrugged. She was sorry but there was no way she could tell her why. “I’m sorry that he was a dickhead,”
“Ha! Oh I know how to fucking pick them, don’t I…”
Bridget squeezed Max’s hand. It was all she could do. What could she say, there was no words that could ease Max’s pain…
“Hey,” a male voice appeared to their right. Bridget’s hazy attention drifted from Max to the man. Arthur nodded a little and flashed them both a nervous smile.
“Hey,” Bridget greeted. She sounded as awkward as she suddenly felt. What impeccable timing, she didn’t really have the capacity to deal with him now. Her mind was awash with guilt and worries for Max. She had nothing to spare.
“I saw you, saw you was erm…” Arthur stalled. He glanced to his feet and shuffled awkwardly on the spot. “So I thought I’d say hello,”
Bridget slowly nodded. She shrugged half-heartedly, she had no idea how to handle this situation. She just wanted him to disappear.
“Well, hello,” Bridget sounded a little abrupt and she grimaced a little. God she lost all of her composure in front of him.
“Can-can we talk?”
“Talk about what?” Bridget wanted to sound deflective but she only sounded confused.
“About us… I mean I haven’t seen you since…” he stalled mid sentence. He couldn’t finish it. He couldn’t refer to their break-up, couldn’t tread on that wound.
“What else is there to say, you said it all at the party,”
Arthur’s expression crinkled with confusion. Max even shifted her attention towards Bridget.
“What?”
“At the party, where you told me how you was ‘still dealing’ with things. Just like you told me that your dad’s in hospital and he’s not responding to the treatment,”
Arthur double took, visibly recoiling in incomprehension.
“…Bridge, I never saw you at the party. You were gone before I got there,”
Shit.
Bridget realised her mistake instantly, her face dropped. Oh fuck. It hadn’t happened in this timeline! They’d not had that conversation, he was right. She saw his expression was contorted with complete and utter confusion, how did she know what he was going to say?
He opened his mouth - what the fuck was she going to do? She’d worked herself into a corner.
“Arthur King?!” Wendy shouted in the nick of time. He waved at her, she was holding his three coffees to go. He hesitated; visibly wavering between dealing with Bridget and collecting his beverages.
She willed him to leave, she needed him to go. She had no story ready, she needed time to figure out how she was going to explain herself. Her eyes bore deep into him. Please go.
He recognised the intensity of her stare and it only confused him more. He opened his mouth but closed it again, he was speechless. He had no idea what to say.
“Arthur!” Wendy called impatiently. She waggled the hot coffees.
He broke away and she breathed a deep sigh in relief.
“What the fuck was that?” Max demanded. Her eyes were level and penetrating.
“What?” Bridget recoiled. She plucked the mug up, took a sip and tried to look inconspicuous.
“That… What just fucking happened?”
Bridget grimaced. Talk about making a royal mess of things suddenly. Slowly she looked Max in the eye.
“I know you Bridget White, I know when you’re lying. You just told him about a conversation at a party that we both left early, a conversation you remember having but didn’t actually happen,”
Bridget shrugged. “I was mistaken, I was confused,”
“Now you’re really lying to me, what the fuck is going on?”
Bridget shuffled underneath Max’s glare.
“I know you Bridget, you believe that conversation happened. You was telling the truth, yet you can’t be… What’s going on?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried,”
Bridget was beginning to consider rewinding time. If she rewound to before Arthur appeared then she could get herself out of this horribly sticky situation.
“You losing the plot?” Max persisted.
Bridget made a small noise to herself, a small puff of air that reflected the irony behind that question. Perhaps she really had lost the plot…?
“You can tell me, whatever it is. I got your back, you know that. Tell me, what is going on?”
Bridget still didn’t answer. She felt the truth stick in her throat.
“Come on Bridge, first you somehow manage to save Amy from jumping off the bridge, like you knew it was going to happen. Then you have a conversation with your ex-boyfriend that didn’t ever happen… Something is going on,”
It was time to come clean or just rewind and undo everything. Bridget had to make a decision. She decided that she would try coming clean, if it failed then she would just unwind time and undo it. She was suddenly impressed with the practicality of that plan. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? It was a win/win situation.
“Ok. I can rewind time,” Bridget confessed flatly.
It had the exact silent response she’d anticipated. Max’s face didn’t move, she just continued to fix her deep glare. Slowly, ever so slowly, her brows knitted together.
“Rewind time?”
“I saw Amy jump, saw her die. So I rewound time and stopped her from jumping,” Bridget added. Her voice was clear and even, she was particularly careful of her wording.
“Ok… I know you Bridget, but that is pretty fucking crazy…” Max murmured aloud. She sounded unsure. That was perfectly reasonable. Yet she couldn’t doubt Bridget’s sincerity. She knew her best friend and she knew she’d never say something this absurd if it wasn’t true… no matter how crazy it sounded.
“Let’s put it to the test, I’m gonna think of a colour-”
“-Max, I know you well enough to know that you’re gonna pick blue.”
“Have you already rewound time? Did you know I was going to pick blue? Have I already picked it?” Max abruptly stopped talking. Suddenly her mind was spinning with possibilities, Bridget wanted to say “welcome to my world”.
“No, no I haven’t… Whenever I rewind time I suffer a nose bleed.”
It wasn’t that Max didn’t believe her statement, her eyes still drifted to check just in case.
“How about I tell you what the next three things that happen are?”
“You mean here?” Max looked around them both.
Bridget nodded. She was a little surprised by how believing Max was. If the roles had been reversed Bridget wasn’t so sure she’d have been quite so faithfully believing.
Max shut up, she scanned the café with hungry eyes.
Bridget joined her.
Behind her the jukebox clunked and a new record fell into place. She identified the song as Elvis Presley. Was this one of the student’s picks? She’d never have anticipated one of the teens would pick Jailhouse Rock.
One.
“Excuse me! Can someone help me please?” a woman called out from the entrance. She was struggling to enter, the café door was resisting. She was trying to tug her pram in while opening the door with her butt. She was dressed in a grey anorak and yellow leggings. She fashioned the garish look with black wellies.
Two.
At the counter, a couple had finished their meals. They were pulling their coats on, they stopped to peck one another on the cheek. They then collected their separate briefcases and left together.
Three.
Bridget closed her eyes. She hoped she could do it again. She was going to look pretty stupid if she failed this. Max would no doubt start raising alarms on Bridget’s mental health. Who could blame her, who wouldn’t when their best friend started confessing to time travelling.
She concentrated, dug deep. Found that sensation. That sharp white pain slowly scratched itself through her brain. The world began to drain of colour, the layers of reality started to separate. She could feel herself drifting backwards, weightlessness swept through her. She felt the stills slide apart. She concentrated, focused as far back as she could. She was aiming for the start of the test. She’d never tried to be this precise.
The pain arced across her forehead and she whited out.
*****************************
13:33 pm 30th October 2015
“Ok… I know you Bridget, but that is pretty fucking crazy…” Max murmured aloud. Bridget felt her ears pop and the familiar nosebleed greet the top of her lip. The pain left her skull but she felt a little woozy. She wiped her nose with her hand. The sight of blood on the back of her hand still unnerved her.
“Let’s put it to the test, I’m gonna think of a colour-” She stopped. Her eyes flicked from the smear of blood on Bridget’s top lip and the blood on her hand. “Bridge? You okay?”
“My nose bleeds when I rewind time,”
Max’s jaw dropped. “What? You’ve just rewound time? Why?”
Bridget laughed a little. “Because we’re putting my powers to the test,”
“We? As in me? What I just-…” she stopped. She’d rendered herself silent. Her mind had just exploded with theories and possibilities.
“Welcome to my world,” Bridget smirked.
“So what test did I set you?” It was boggling Max’s mind that her future self had set Bridget a test.
“We agreed that I would tell you what the next three things to happen in the café are,”
“…Go on then,”
“The jukebox is gonna play Jailhouse Rock, there’s going to be a woman trying to enter and she’s going to call out for help. She’s going to be struggling getting the pram inside and that couple -” she flicked with her eyes, “they’ll have a little kiss and they’ll leave,”
It suddenly struck Bridget how mundane those three things were. Suddenly she doubted if they was going to be good enough proof.
Max slowly nodded, she turned on her seat and looked to the entrance.
“Whoah,” She whispered as she saw a woman in a grey anorak and yellow leggings approach. Just as Bridget predicted she came to struggle with the door, she was trying to reverse in with her pram but couldn’t manoeuvre the door.
“Excuse me! Can someone help me please?” she called out desperately.
Max’s attention slowly drifted to the couple. They laid their forks down, stood up and began pulling their coats on. They stopped to give each other a quick peck on the cheek, before they plucked up their briefcases.
The song playing was Jailhouse Rock.
“Fuck.”
That was her only word when she pivoted back to Bridget looking incredibly pale. It was a word that Bridget could’ve bet on.
“Jesus Christ Bridge, you’re like some fucking superhero or something…” she shook her head. She swigged the last of her now cold chocolate.
Bridget shrugged modestly. She wasn’t a superhero, she was just a freak of nature. An oddity capable of travelling the stream of time. Superhero would’ve been admirable, it would have been fun even. Instead she didn’t know what she was. She had decided early on that this power was never going to be understood. She would never have that answer.
The world began to vibrate, as quick as it happened it stopped. It was a short and weak tremor as the timeline reconfigured.
Bridget was finally beginning to understand the basics of her time travelling.
CHAPTER NINE:
18:19 pm 30th October 2015
They were sat in Bridget’s room, both of them sat on her bed. Frank was snoring between them, laid flat on his back.
The topic of conversation was time travel, as it had been since the end of the college day. They’d barely spoken during the final class of the day. Max had been stewing away to herself, analysing her best friend’s powers and predicament over and over again as she meditated on inkblots.
Bridget herself had shut off with her iPod and permanent markers. The minute they stepped off college grounds Max opened up into a tornado of questions and theories. In the hours that followed they’d perused Wikipedia, they’d delved into all sorts of time travel theories and tried to grasp the quantum physics of it. It was difficult to comprehend, neither of them were scientifically minded. They just knew an impossibility was indeed a possibility.
They’d chatted extensively on the possibility of moving forward in the timeline, Max even encouraging Bridget to try. It hadn’t happened, or so Bridget said. Max kept one eye for a sudden nosebleed that might be indicative of having moved forward in time. Neither of them could answer what would happen to Bridget when she jumped forward in time. Would she disappear?
The only theory they both disregarded was the one of multiple timelines. Neither of them could quite believe there was multiple dimensions and every time Bridget rewound she created a new alternate timeline. Bridget was convinced it was untrue, she swore that she remained part of the same “universe”. Max just couldn’t comprehend the millions of dimensions that would be caused from this theory; it would mean there would be two universes from Bridget saving Amy’s life. One where she actually jumped and the other where she didn’t. If the theory was true it also meant that Max was an alternate version of herself and that just made her head swirl. Would it also mean that Bridget was an alternate Bridget? Did she swap places with the Bridget from her dimension when she rewound time? Was this Bridget her Bridget? This was the kind of questions that were swirling around in her mind.
So she had decided the theory was moot, impossible. It also made Bridget more of a dimensional-jumper than a time-traveller.
Bridget had explained her theory about it working like a VCR, it made sense to Max. She could grasp that.
“It makes sense, why you suddenly threw me Frank and ran off!” Max laughed.
“Well I needed to get there fast, I’d been distracted by Frank or else I’d have got there sooner,”
“Why what was up with Frank?”
“I don’t know…” Bridget subconsciously reached down and rubbed the old fart’s chest. “He was just freaking out,”
“Did he do it in the original timeline?”
Bridget still couldn’t quite believe how well Max had taken all this on. It was nice to have someone to talk to about it. No it was better than nice, it was amazing.
“No, he was just plodding behind us like usual…”
“Did you rewind with him in your arms?” Max recalled the particular detail of the story.
“Yeah…” Bridget answered.
“You think maybe you took him back with you?”
Bridget didn’t respond. She was struck by the sudden obviousness of that question. God, that’s why he had freaked out. He had rewound with her!
“Poor Frank… At least we can say you were the first time-travelling pug! Going bravely where no pug has gone before!” Max took hold of a paw and raised it in a salute. He snorted and snored in response.
“That means I can take someone back… back in time,” the idea was still unfolding in Bridget’s mind.
“Which is kind of scary, just imagine how that would change things…” Max mulled aloud.
Bridget didn’t respond.
“So what we going to do about Arthur?” Max finally circled in on the subject that started this entire thing.
“I don’t know… I can’t exactly come clean and tell him the truth,”
“You could try? If it goes to shit then just rewind,”
“I don’t wanna keep rewinding, I’m worried that I’m gonna fuck things up if I keep going back and changing things…”
“So, what, you’re never going to rewind ever again?”
“No, I mean… I don’t know,” Bridget sighed as her own thoughts collapsed, “I’m gonna try and use it for the important things,”
“Isn’t Arthur important?”
That question struck a nerve, it struck deep and caught Bridget off guard.
“Yeah, he is, he was… I don’t know Max, I don’t know what to do…”
“We need a plan B, we need some kind of story ready if he don’t accept the whole…” she struggled for the words, “time-travelling-shit,”
“Like what? Hey, I just had a crazy dream. A weird vision that‘s all. Yes, your ex-girlfriend has gone completely off her rocker since you broke her heart,” Bridget sounded a little scathing.
Max had no reply, instead she gave Bridget a small look.
Bridget’s phone began to vibrate on the bed, it spared them both from answering that outburst.
“Hello Mum,”
“Darling, put the news on. There’s a fire at White Willows!”
“What?” Bridget sat bolt upright. “Max, put the TV on,” she jabbed pointedly at the TV. Max obliged, she climbed off.
“I’m just putting the TV on now Mum,”
“I guess I should thank you,”
“For what?”
“For saving me I guess, if you hadn’t have wanted to leave that party… that would probably have been me instead of Amy…”
“You can’t think like that, it’s not your fault…” the words felt uneasy on her tongue. If anybody is to blame it would be me… She heard her inner voice cry.
“I just feel like… Like it should have been me. If I’d have stayed at the party, then it would’ve been me. I feel-”
“-Stop it. You can’t blame yourself, you didn’t know!” I did know though, I did and if anyone is to blame it’s me! Bridget had to close her eyes, her inner voice was difficult to suppress.
Max wiped a solitary tear from her right eye. She sipped more hot chocolate.
Bridget felt the guilt slowly sink into her gut. She felt worse than ever.
“The police visited this morning, they wanted to know if I knew where he was…”
“I guess you’ve still not heard from him?”
“I don’t expect I ever will again, he’s on the run…”
“I’m sorry Max,”
“Sorry for what? What have you got to be sorry about?”
Bridget shrugged. She was sorry but there was no way she could tell her why. “I’m sorry that he was a dickhead,”
“Ha! Oh I know how to fucking pick them, don’t I…”
Bridget squeezed Max’s hand. It was all she could do. What could she say, there was no words that could ease Max’s pain…
“Hey,” a male voice appeared to their right. Bridget’s hazy attention drifted from Max to the man. Arthur nodded a little and flashed them both a nervous smile.
“Hey,” Bridget greeted. She sounded as awkward as she suddenly felt. What impeccable timing, she didn’t really have the capacity to deal with him now. Her mind was awash with guilt and worries for Max. She had nothing to spare.
“I saw you, saw you was erm…” Arthur stalled. He glanced to his feet and shuffled awkwardly on the spot. “So I thought I’d say hello,”
Bridget slowly nodded. She shrugged half-heartedly, she had no idea how to handle this situation. She just wanted him to disappear.
“Well, hello,” Bridget sounded a little abrupt and she grimaced a little. God she lost all of her composure in front of him.
“Can-can we talk?”
“Talk about what?” Bridget wanted to sound deflective but she only sounded confused.
“About us… I mean I haven’t seen you since…” he stalled mid sentence. He couldn’t finish it. He couldn’t refer to their break-up, couldn’t tread on that wound.
“What else is there to say, you said it all at the party,”
Arthur’s expression crinkled with confusion. Max even shifted her attention towards Bridget.
“What?”
“At the party, where you told me how you was ‘still dealing’ with things. Just like you told me that your dad’s in hospital and he’s not responding to the treatment,”
Arthur double took, visibly recoiling in incomprehension.
“…Bridge, I never saw you at the party. You were gone before I got there,”
Shit.
Bridget realised her mistake instantly, her face dropped. Oh fuck. It hadn’t happened in this timeline! They’d not had that conversation, he was right. She saw his expression was contorted with complete and utter confusion, how did she know what he was going to say?
He opened his mouth - what the fuck was she going to do? She’d worked herself into a corner.
“Arthur King?!” Wendy shouted in the nick of time. He waved at her, she was holding his three coffees to go. He hesitated; visibly wavering between dealing with Bridget and collecting his beverages.
She willed him to leave, she needed him to go. She had no story ready, she needed time to figure out how she was going to explain herself. Her eyes bore deep into him. Please go.
He recognised the intensity of her stare and it only confused him more. He opened his mouth but closed it again, he was speechless. He had no idea what to say.
“Arthur!” Wendy called impatiently. She waggled the hot coffees.
He broke away and she breathed a deep sigh in relief.
“What the fuck was that?” Max demanded. Her eyes were level and penetrating.
“What?” Bridget recoiled. She plucked the mug up, took a sip and tried to look inconspicuous.
“That… What just fucking happened?”
Bridget grimaced. Talk about making a royal mess of things suddenly. Slowly she looked Max in the eye.
“I know you Bridget White, I know when you’re lying. You just told him about a conversation at a party that we both left early, a conversation you remember having but didn’t actually happen,”
Bridget shrugged. “I was mistaken, I was confused,”
“Now you’re really lying to me, what the fuck is going on?”
Bridget shuffled underneath Max’s glare.
“I know you Bridget, you believe that conversation happened. You was telling the truth, yet you can’t be… What’s going on?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried,”
Bridget was beginning to consider rewinding time. If she rewound to before Arthur appeared then she could get herself out of this horribly sticky situation.
“You losing the plot?” Max persisted.
Bridget made a small noise to herself, a small puff of air that reflected the irony behind that question. Perhaps she really had lost the plot…?
“You can tell me, whatever it is. I got your back, you know that. Tell me, what is going on?”
Bridget still didn’t answer. She felt the truth stick in her throat.
“Come on Bridge, first you somehow manage to save Amy from jumping off the bridge, like you knew it was going to happen. Then you have a conversation with your ex-boyfriend that didn’t ever happen… Something is going on,”
It was time to come clean or just rewind and undo everything. Bridget had to make a decision. She decided that she would try coming clean, if it failed then she would just unwind time and undo it. She was suddenly impressed with the practicality of that plan. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? It was a win/win situation.
“Ok. I can rewind time,” Bridget confessed flatly.
It had the exact silent response she’d anticipated. Max’s face didn’t move, she just continued to fix her deep glare. Slowly, ever so slowly, her brows knitted together.
“Rewind time?”
“I saw Amy jump, saw her die. So I rewound time and stopped her from jumping,” Bridget added. Her voice was clear and even, she was particularly careful of her wording.
“Ok… I know you Bridget, but that is pretty fucking crazy…” Max murmured aloud. She sounded unsure. That was perfectly reasonable. Yet she couldn’t doubt Bridget’s sincerity. She knew her best friend and she knew she’d never say something this absurd if it wasn’t true… no matter how crazy it sounded.
“Let’s put it to the test, I’m gonna think of a colour-”
“-Max, I know you well enough to know that you’re gonna pick blue.”
“Have you already rewound time? Did you know I was going to pick blue? Have I already picked it?” Max abruptly stopped talking. Suddenly her mind was spinning with possibilities, Bridget wanted to say “welcome to my world”.
“No, no I haven’t… Whenever I rewind time I suffer a nose bleed.”
It wasn’t that Max didn’t believe her statement, her eyes still drifted to check just in case.
“How about I tell you what the next three things that happen are?”
“You mean here?” Max looked around them both.
Bridget nodded. She was a little surprised by how believing Max was. If the roles had been reversed Bridget wasn’t so sure she’d have been quite so faithfully believing.
Max shut up, she scanned the café with hungry eyes.
Bridget joined her.
Behind her the jukebox clunked and a new record fell into place. She identified the song as Elvis Presley. Was this one of the student’s picks? She’d never have anticipated one of the teens would pick Jailhouse Rock.
One.
“Excuse me! Can someone help me please?” a woman called out from the entrance. She was struggling to enter, the café door was resisting. She was trying to tug her pram in while opening the door with her butt. She was dressed in a grey anorak and yellow leggings. She fashioned the garish look with black wellies.
Two.
At the counter, a couple had finished their meals. They were pulling their coats on, they stopped to peck one another on the cheek. They then collected their separate briefcases and left together.
Three.
Bridget closed her eyes. She hoped she could do it again. She was going to look pretty stupid if she failed this. Max would no doubt start raising alarms on Bridget’s mental health. Who could blame her, who wouldn’t when their best friend started confessing to time travelling.
She concentrated, dug deep. Found that sensation. That sharp white pain slowly scratched itself through her brain. The world began to drain of colour, the layers of reality started to separate. She could feel herself drifting backwards, weightlessness swept through her. She felt the stills slide apart. She concentrated, focused as far back as she could. She was aiming for the start of the test. She’d never tried to be this precise.
The pain arced across her forehead and she whited out.
*****************************
13:33 pm 30th October 2015
“Ok… I know you Bridget, but that is pretty fucking crazy…” Max murmured aloud. Bridget felt her ears pop and the familiar nosebleed greet the top of her lip. The pain left her skull but she felt a little woozy. She wiped her nose with her hand. The sight of blood on the back of her hand still unnerved her.
“Let’s put it to the test, I’m gonna think of a colour-” She stopped. Her eyes flicked from the smear of blood on Bridget’s top lip and the blood on her hand. “Bridge? You okay?”
“My nose bleeds when I rewind time,”
Max’s jaw dropped. “What? You’ve just rewound time? Why?”
Bridget laughed a little. “Because we’re putting my powers to the test,”
“We? As in me? What I just-…” she stopped. She’d rendered herself silent. Her mind had just exploded with theories and possibilities.
“Welcome to my world,” Bridget smirked.
“So what test did I set you?” It was boggling Max’s mind that her future self had set Bridget a test.
“We agreed that I would tell you what the next three things to happen in the café are,”
“…Go on then,”
“The jukebox is gonna play Jailhouse Rock, there’s going to be a woman trying to enter and she’s going to call out for help. She’s going to be struggling getting the pram inside and that couple -” she flicked with her eyes, “they’ll have a little kiss and they’ll leave,”
It suddenly struck Bridget how mundane those three things were. Suddenly she doubted if they was going to be good enough proof.
Max slowly nodded, she turned on her seat and looked to the entrance.
“Whoah,” She whispered as she saw a woman in a grey anorak and yellow leggings approach. Just as Bridget predicted she came to struggle with the door, she was trying to reverse in with her pram but couldn’t manoeuvre the door.
“Excuse me! Can someone help me please?” she called out desperately.
Max’s attention slowly drifted to the couple. They laid their forks down, stood up and began pulling their coats on. They stopped to give each other a quick peck on the cheek, before they plucked up their briefcases.
The song playing was Jailhouse Rock.
“Fuck.”
That was her only word when she pivoted back to Bridget looking incredibly pale. It was a word that Bridget could’ve bet on.
“Jesus Christ Bridge, you’re like some fucking superhero or something…” she shook her head. She swigged the last of her now cold chocolate.
Bridget shrugged modestly. She wasn’t a superhero, she was just a freak of nature. An oddity capable of travelling the stream of time. Superhero would’ve been admirable, it would have been fun even. Instead she didn’t know what she was. She had decided early on that this power was never going to be understood. She would never have that answer.
The world began to vibrate, as quick as it happened it stopped. It was a short and weak tremor as the timeline reconfigured.
Bridget was finally beginning to understand the basics of her time travelling.
CHAPTER NINE:
18:19 pm 30th October 2015
They were sat in Bridget’s room, both of them sat on her bed. Frank was snoring between them, laid flat on his back.
The topic of conversation was time travel, as it had been since the end of the college day. They’d barely spoken during the final class of the day. Max had been stewing away to herself, analysing her best friend’s powers and predicament over and over again as she meditated on inkblots.
Bridget herself had shut off with her iPod and permanent markers. The minute they stepped off college grounds Max opened up into a tornado of questions and theories. In the hours that followed they’d perused Wikipedia, they’d delved into all sorts of time travel theories and tried to grasp the quantum physics of it. It was difficult to comprehend, neither of them were scientifically minded. They just knew an impossibility was indeed a possibility.
They’d chatted extensively on the possibility of moving forward in the timeline, Max even encouraging Bridget to try. It hadn’t happened, or so Bridget said. Max kept one eye for a sudden nosebleed that might be indicative of having moved forward in time. Neither of them could answer what would happen to Bridget when she jumped forward in time. Would she disappear?
The only theory they both disregarded was the one of multiple timelines. Neither of them could quite believe there was multiple dimensions and every time Bridget rewound she created a new alternate timeline. Bridget was convinced it was untrue, she swore that she remained part of the same “universe”. Max just couldn’t comprehend the millions of dimensions that would be caused from this theory; it would mean there would be two universes from Bridget saving Amy’s life. One where she actually jumped and the other where she didn’t. If the theory was true it also meant that Max was an alternate version of herself and that just made her head swirl. Would it also mean that Bridget was an alternate Bridget? Did she swap places with the Bridget from her dimension when she rewound time? Was this Bridget her Bridget? This was the kind of questions that were swirling around in her mind.
So she had decided the theory was moot, impossible. It also made Bridget more of a dimensional-jumper than a time-traveller.
Bridget had explained her theory about it working like a VCR, it made sense to Max. She could grasp that.
“It makes sense, why you suddenly threw me Frank and ran off!” Max laughed.
“Well I needed to get there fast, I’d been distracted by Frank or else I’d have got there sooner,”
“Why what was up with Frank?”
“I don’t know…” Bridget subconsciously reached down and rubbed the old fart’s chest. “He was just freaking out,”
“Did he do it in the original timeline?”
Bridget still couldn’t quite believe how well Max had taken all this on. It was nice to have someone to talk to about it. No it was better than nice, it was amazing.
“No, he was just plodding behind us like usual…”
“Did you rewind with him in your arms?” Max recalled the particular detail of the story.
“Yeah…” Bridget answered.
“You think maybe you took him back with you?”
Bridget didn’t respond. She was struck by the sudden obviousness of that question. God, that’s why he had freaked out. He had rewound with her!
“Poor Frank… At least we can say you were the first time-travelling pug! Going bravely where no pug has gone before!” Max took hold of a paw and raised it in a salute. He snorted and snored in response.
“That means I can take someone back… back in time,” the idea was still unfolding in Bridget’s mind.
“Which is kind of scary, just imagine how that would change things…” Max mulled aloud.
Bridget didn’t respond.
“So what we going to do about Arthur?” Max finally circled in on the subject that started this entire thing.
“I don’t know… I can’t exactly come clean and tell him the truth,”
“You could try? If it goes to shit then just rewind,”
“I don’t wanna keep rewinding, I’m worried that I’m gonna fuck things up if I keep going back and changing things…”
“So, what, you’re never going to rewind ever again?”
“No, I mean… I don’t know,” Bridget sighed as her own thoughts collapsed, “I’m gonna try and use it for the important things,”
“Isn’t Arthur important?”
That question struck a nerve, it struck deep and caught Bridget off guard.
“Yeah, he is, he was… I don’t know Max, I don’t know what to do…”
“We need a plan B, we need some kind of story ready if he don’t accept the whole…” she struggled for the words, “time-travelling-shit,”
“Like what? Hey, I just had a crazy dream. A weird vision that‘s all. Yes, your ex-girlfriend has gone completely off her rocker since you broke her heart,” Bridget sounded a little scathing.
Max had no reply, instead she gave Bridget a small look.
Bridget’s phone began to vibrate on the bed, it spared them both from answering that outburst.
“Hello Mum,”
“Darling, put the news on. There’s a fire at White Willows!”
“What?” Bridget sat bolt upright. “Max, put the TV on,” she jabbed pointedly at the TV. Max obliged, she climbed off.
“I’m just putting the TV on now Mum,”
