Friday morning Jean Grey knocks on my bedroom door. Blanc is already out, so I invite her in.

"I'm sorry," she says with a dazzling smile.

"It's ok, I get i- Well, I guess I can't say that I get it, but I understand that I should be, like, careful, and, you know..."

She stares at me until I stop babbling.

"I'll try not to pester you in the future," I say finally, with a smile. I step into the lapse quickly to put a bouquet of flowers in a drawer. I give these to her.

She thanks me, but her mood is now quite serious.

"So, there's been quite a buzz behind the scenes about your test results," she says. For few seconds, I think she's talking about the geography test I took on Wednesday, but then I realize that she means the mental-type tests I got from Xavier.

"Why is that?" I invite her to sit on my bed with me. This she does. She seems unsure where to begin. The look on her face is similar to the one my parents had when they told me my grandmother had cancer. It makes my stomach cramp in anxiety.

"Every once in a while, there's a mutant who..." She seems to recollect. She starts over. "Your powers are..." She stops again. Then she looks at me.

"Be blunt," I say, "If it makes it easier."

"All right," she says, "When you pause, you don't just freeze time. Or even slip over to another universe. You know about the theory of multiple universes, right?"

I nod.

"Ok, good. That's what we expected it was, the other teachers and I. But, what the tests are suggesting is- Well, it's heavy."

"Heavy."

"Yes." She goes to sit on Blanc's bed so that she's facing me more directly. "When you Lapse, you're changing this plane of existence. We all freeze, and time itself actually stops."

I nod. It's what I expected. I wasn't thinking too deeply into it, so I didn't consider the other universes thing.

"You're mutation is one of the destructive ones," she says, "One that, if left uncontrolled, could cause major... issues."

"How's that?" I ask her.

"Well, there's your creations, for one." She fiddles with something in her pocket. "Everything that you create takes it's resources from something else. Your diamond ring might have taken it's diamond from a diamond mine in Africa, or from a poor man's engagement ring, or from a combination of the two. The cat you took the other day, with the strange striped pattern? Well, I expect two cats were killed to be put together into your one."

I think about this and cover my gaping mouth with one hand. The hand with the ring. I take it off and give it to her.

"I don't want it anymore," I say. I feel a little sick.

She takes it. When she does, I see what she's been holding in her hand. It's a small black chain. She closes her fist around it and puts it and the ring in her pocket.

"But, I can go into the lapse without taking things, right?" I say, "And everything will be all right?"

She shakes her head.

"Think of time as a hundred-lane highway, and all cause and effect, action and reaction, as cars."

I picture this as best I can.

"When you pause, even for a moment, something still changes inside the Lapse. Your heartbeat and breath, your position slightly moves. Anything that you do when time is paused, let's say that paints a line on the road in a random direction. If the cars follow this line, as well as the ones that were all ready there, the road gets more and more dangerous. Now, as I said, this has one hundred lanes. It goes on for miles. But still, those lines make a difference, and if two unfortunate lines cross, then the cars could crash."

"Now, this is where my analogy stops making sense."

I laugh. "Ok, keep going."

"Well, these crashed cars draw new lines when they crash, then they disappear. The paradox eliminates itself, and the items involved as well. Then it tries to right itself by making sure no more cars make the same mistake. It creates an exit for the cars that might otherwise cave crashed."

"The exit, of course, just adds another line. Then there's the issue of the lines that are on the edge of the highway, just leading cars off. And lines on top of each other in parallel, causing a continuous paradox of sorts. All these things could be only small, but they could also be a big problem, like all involvements with time are."

I nod. Then, she looks at me with a hard look I should have responded to. I was too late, however, when she mentally held me in place. Out of her pocket she takes the black chain and fastens it around my neck.

"We're sorry," she says, standing abruptly and leaving.

When I can move, I go to the mirror and look at the chain. It's small and glistening black like a thin trail of liquid ink. Still, it feels like a shackle. I close my eyes and try not to think of what it meant. I didn't want to test my fears. Quietly, anxiously, I lift my hand and snap my fingers.

I open my eyes and Blanc walks in.