The fatigue from the twenty-eight hour journey from Oregon to New Mexico finally caught up with Max as he slept well past ten. Liz could hear the sounds of a Saturday beginning in Roswell as she lay in bed beside him; she could smell Heavenly Hash specials and Bacon Baskets wafting up to her room. Max slept sound and fast in her little bed and she allowed him the rest she knew he needed. But as ten o’clock began to turn into eleven she gave him a gentle shove. If this was her last day in Roswell she wasn’t going to spend half of it sleeping. She whispered his name and tapped him on the shoulder, but he stirred only slightly.
”Wake up,” Liz whispered louder this time and Max turned to where she had fallen asleep beside him, his arm instinctively reaching out for her. Only when he discovered her absence from the bed did his eyes flutter open. “Get up, it’s eleven!” she tossed a pillow at his groggy and confused form.
“I slept in here?” Max rubbed his eyes and looked worriedly to the door that led down the hallway to her parents’ bedroom.
“I think you’ll be okay,” Liz laughed, but Max looked uneasy as he sat up in her bed, trying to recall when exactly he’d fallen asleep. “Besides if for some reason you weren’t okay,” she tossed him his pants and she saw his eyes flash worriedly at the mere possibility she’d mentioned. “And my parents freaked out because they found out the things you did to me.” Her humor was lost on Max and his face went ashen. “Even if that happened, which it’s not,” she added. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Right,” Max was slow to pull on his pants. “Are you okay…I mean-” he was even slower to get out the words, “ - about the whole leaving thing.”
“I already told you I am,” Liz assured, “I’m okay with leaving.”
“I’m sorry.” He hardly got the two words out before Liz rolled her eyes.
”We already did this last night,” she threw him one of his shoes and Max relented as it hit him hard in the chest.
“Right. But you’re okay?” He rubbed his chest where the shoe had hit him.
“I’m okay,” Liz assured as she pulled a shirt on and ran a brush through her hair. “So hurry and zip up your pants so we can make the most of our day,” she ordered, watching Max stumble comically around her room looking for his clothes. His belt was undone and the metal buckle jangled loudly as he searched for his other shoe.
“Might want to change your shirt,” she suggested and Max looked at her anxiously.
”What’s wrong with my shirt?” he looked down to the plain white t-shirt. It had no stains, nothing offensive on it, no smell that he could detect. It was just a plain white t-shirt.
“You wore it yesterday,” Liz laughed, “we can’t do the whole wearing the same outfit two days in a row thing here,” she reminded, “it’s fine on the road, but - ”
“Right, good call,” Max nodded his head emphatically. “I just – I forget sometimes - ”
“It’s me, you don’t have to explain,” she laughed. “Just get another shirt,” she motioned towards the guest room.
Max opened the door a crack and peaked down the hallway. “Do you think you could…”
“I’m not going to get your shirt,” she laughed at his apprehension at being seen leaving her room. “Get over it.” Eyeing the hallway carefully, checking carefully for any sign of a parent, Max scampered across the hall quickly to the guest room, grabbed the first rumpled shirt in his bag then scampered back to Liz. “You are such a spaz,” she laughed at his childlike behavior. “My parents are not scary people,” she looked to him with a broad smile as he buttoned up the checkered shirt. “One of these days, you’re going to have to get over this.”
“Parents don’t like to know some things about their kids,” Max shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to know my daughter was -”
“Let’s go downstairs,” she cut him off, shutting off the lights and lacing her hand in his, a broad smile on her face. Sometimes she couldn’t get over Max. She couldn’t get over the fact that someone could be so guarded and so private. She looked over at him and smiled. So easily embarrassed. “You’re such a prude,” she teased, poking him in the shoulder. “If you hadn’t met me you probably would have died a virgin,” she kidded as they headed through the hallway and down the stairs.
“Probably,” Max murmured absentmindedly, his fingers tightening around her hand as they got closer to the bottom of the stairs. Closer to her parents.
“So you owe me big,” she leaned into him, resting her chin atop his shoulder. “I saved you from a long lonely life of masturbation.”
“Could we not talk about this right here,” Max stopped short of the door that led inside the diner and Liz just let out a loud belly laugh as she watched his face rapidly turn a shade of crimson. “I know you like to see my ears turn red,” Max sighed, “but -”
“It’s just so easy,” she tormented, lifting her hand up to the reddened tips of his ears.
“Let’s make fun of ‘Max the virgin’, haven’t heard that before,” he grumbled and the smile fell from Liz’s face. While it wasn’t quite anger hovering behind his eyes, she could see some form of resentment, she knew was likely fueled from years of harassment in the locker rooms in Midland and Corvallis.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “It’s not…funny.”
“You know, I’ve kissed girls before!” he announced emphatically. “Before you I – I kissed lots of girls.” The proud declaration seemed to be something Max wanted to get out, but the juvenile nature of it combined with the look on his face made it difficult for Liz to stifle a smile.
“Right. No. Yeah. I believe you,” she nodded her head as Max folded his arms across his chest.
“Like how many?” Her curiosity was piqued at his avowal. She had difficulty imagining shy, secretive Max, who couldn’t even hear the word ‘naked’ without growing uncomfortable, kissing lots of girls.
“Five.” The number came so matter-of-factly from his mouth that it caused another small smile to appear on Liz’s face despite her efforts to contain it. What was the rule again? Girls are supposed to divide the number of guys they’ve been with by 3 and guys were supposed to multiply? “What?” Max recrossed his arms.
“Nothing. Five’s a lot, you’re right,” Liz shrugged.
“You’re making fun of me,” Max could see the laughter threatening to bubble over yet again.
“No, I - ”
“It’s okay, Matt made fun of me all the time,” Max shrugged coolly, “I’m used to it.”
“I’m not making fun of you,” she toyed with the frayed cuff of his shirt as her voice drifted. The blue-checkered shirt that he had pulled on had extra long sleeves that fell well below his wrists and covered half his hand. The cuffs were consequently ragged and worn and Liz rolled the sleeves back tenderly. If this shirt could tell a story, she wondered the stories it would tell.
“Explains a lot what?” Max shifted his weight nervously. “Am I not…”
“No, you – you’re fine now,” Liz assured with a laugh, running her hand up and down his arm.
“You’re more than fine, it’s just that that first night you were a little…” her voice drifted and Max’s mind wandered back to that first night in the little roadside motel. He remembered all too well fumbling over buttons and hooks and clasps. He remembered how brief and clumsy their first encounter had been. How at ease she had seemed with the random hookup and how incredibly clumsy and self-conscious he had been. God, awkward didn’t even begin to sum it up.
“I was awkward,” he admitted, scratching his head. And his face didn’t turn red, he didn’t grow hot under the collar. Of all things, a tiny smile of crossed his face at the memory.
“But the thing that confused me was how someone so attractive and confident and…sexy.” He humbly cast his eyes down at the words. “Could have been so...”
“Awful?” Max helped her out, but Liz shook her head.
“You were not awful,” she assured. “Trust me, I wouldn’t have been up for seconds if you were awful,” she reminded him. “I was just confused by it. I thought you were this - well, I didn’t know what you were,” she admitted with a laugh. A smile crossed both their face and they hesitated before crossing the door into the Crashdown. “Good thing you’re not awkward anymore,” she moved an arm around his waist as they prepared to enter the bustling restaurant. “Well not too awkward,” she couldn’t help but get one more jab in and Max moved an arm around her at the words.
“Shutup,” he was able to laugh at the comment, hugging her body to him as they swung through the backdoor of the Crashdown.
“I love you,” she laughed and squeezed back as they walked to the counter and while he didn’t say anything in reply, she didn’t feel his body stiffen as much at the words as the last time. If she just got him comfortable with hearing the words in the simple context of day-to-day conversation, she thought, maybe that would help him to understand. She smiled and looked up at Max, but his attention was focused out on the crowd in the Crashdown. Much like last night, the entire restaurant suddenly focused their attention on the two of them, standing there at the back of their restaurant with their arms around each other.
“Good, you two are up!” Mr. Parker stepped up behind the two, clapping both of them on the shoulder. Liz bit her lip and looked over at Max whose grip around her suddenly tightened in the presence of her father. She waited for her dad to say something to make Max more nervous, maybe a comment about how late they’d slept and an inquiry as to why they had. “Where you headed?” he clapped Max on the back and returned to his position behind the counter.
“Excuse me?” Max coughed, glancing worriedly over at Liz. He knew just disappearing from Roswell wasn’t an option, but he still wasn’t sure how to go about telling Mr. and Mrs. Parker they would be leaving so soon after arriving.
“I think he means today,” Liz whispered to Max, who suddenly felt foolish as he sat down at a barstool. “I was going to take Ma-Lucas,” Liz corrected herself quickly, cursing her negligence and doubting she would ever get used to the fact that her parents could never know Max. That they would always have to know Lucas. A name Max had invented, who existed only on a piece of paper and as a character in both their minds. Lucas wasn’t Max. Wasn’t the shy, private, perfect Max she wanted her parents to know.
“You were going to take Lucas where?” Mr. Parker asked as he poured a cup of coffee for Max.
“Two sugars, right?” he recalled Max’s cup of coffee yesterday morning as he gathered two packets of sugar and a spoon.
“Uh, yeah, that’s right, thank you,” Max was impressed at his memory as he looked around the countertop for a bottle of Tabasco. ”I was gonna take him on a day tour of Roswell,” she shrugged, watching as Max emptied the bottle’s remaining contents into his coffee cup. The hot tamales and M&M’s she had observed him eating in the cab of the eighteen-wheeler that first day suddenly making a lot more sense. “Bottomless Lakes, maybe a couple museums, go downtown - ”
“No Area 51?” The surprise in Mr. Parker’s voice made Max more nervous than he should have been.
“No, I’m uh – I’m trying to show him that there’s a lot more to Roswell than aliens, dad,” Liz replied as her dad wrote the day’s alien-themed specials on the board. “Despite what this restaurant might say.”
“Brings in the money,” Jeff Parker spoke succinctly. “Whether you believe it or not.”
“Sure makes one heck of a hamburger.” Nervous words tumbled from Max’s lips suddenly, anxious to steer the conversation away from aliens.
“Thank you,” Mr. Parker smiled, placing two steaming plates of pancakes in front of Max and Liz.
“Let me know what you think of the pancakes,” he smiled as he walked back into the kitchen and Liz waited until he was out of earshot behind the grill to speak.
“He really likes you,” Liz stated with a snort as she looked at the plate in front of Max. “I think he’ll be more sad to see you leave than me.” Max looked down uncomfortably.
“Make sure before we leave, make sure to let him know that…his hospitality and…generosity are…” he stammered over words and lifted his eyes up to her. “I’ve never felt so welcome anywhere before and I – I just - ”
“I’ll let him know,” Liz murmured as she watched Max pick up his fork and begin to go to work on the pancakes. “I’ll make sure he knows.”
Skeptical didn’t even begin to sum up the feelings coursing through Maria as she watched Liz at the booth with her tall, dark, handsome and incredibly peculiar boyfriend. Mr. and Mrs. Parker might fall under his quiet and humble spell and Alex might be enamored with his Canadian upbringing, but as the best friend, Maria wasn’t sold on Lucas Duchaigne.
Too many stories and facts didn’t match up. First and foremost in Maria’s suspicion was Liz’s intense distrust of cabs and cabdrivers. An irrational fear and reluctance that had been present as long as Maria had known Liz. She could hardly imagine Liz compromising no matter how cold and rainy it was outside.
She just couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see the hitchhiking, renegade Liz Parker she had spent many a night lying awake and worrying about falling for this ‘aw, shucks’ young man. She knew Liz. Everything from Lucas’ checkered shirt to his endless ‘please and thank yous’ screamed everything Liz had run from. Maria glanced to the motorcycle in front of the Crashdown as she cleared out booths.
And then there was that bike. That bike that just didn’t match up with everything she could see about Lucas Duchaigne. It was dangerous and flashy, loud, alluring, glamorous and exciting. And intoxicating kisses or not, Maria could see none of those things in Liz’s boyfriend. He was safe and solid, steadfast and loyal. He was like Kyle Valenti. And that meant he wasn’t the type of guy that attracted Liz Parker anymore.
“Maria, we’re gonna go for a drive,” Liz called out in a happy-go-lucky manner Maria couldn’t remember hearing from Liz in years. “I have my cell on me so, um, we shouldn’t be gone too long, but give me a call if you want. We should be back this afternoon, right?” she looked at Max for assurance and he just nodded.
“Yeah, I still have to have a uh…” he looked down to the menu at the list of shakes he had heard so much about, “an Alien Encounter.”
“Right,” Maria feigned a laugh as she watched the two lovebirds make their way out the door. She stood and stared at Liz as she climbed on the bike behind him and wrapped her arms comfortably around his waist. Something didn’t match up. The couple on the other side of the window didn’t match up with the couple that had just been sitting at the booth. Everything about both had changed when they’d slid onto the bike.
“Maria?” A voice behind her suddenly snapped Maria out of the daze. “What’re you looking at?”
“Huh? What?” Maria spun around only to be face-to-face with Kyle Valenti.
“That’s Liz’s boyfriend, right?” Kyle inquired good-naturedly, looking over Maria’s shoulder at the pair on the motorcycle. “My dad told me about him, said he was real nice,” Kyle shrugged, digging his hands deep in his pockets as he watched the couple on the motorcycle speed away. “From Canada, right?” he tried to elicit a further response from Maria, trying to avoid the uncomfortable silences that sometimes filled the air between them. “A hockey player?” She remained silent and Kyle let out a loud sigh, jamming his hands deeper into his pockets. Things with Maria were like this. Either very good or very awkward. Usually alcohol worked as a social lubricant to help alleviate the latter, but it wasn’t even eleven thirty in the morning and Kyle had to rely on his seriously lagging conversational skills this morning. “Is he nice?”
“I guess,” Maria muttered, finally opening her mouth.
“You don’t sound so convinced,” Kyle laughed, reaching out to help lighten the load of dirty dishes in Maria’s bus tray.
“He just seems…I don’t know, the last time Liz was in Roswell she got horizontal with Octavio Lyons,” Maria scowled.
“So?” Kyle laughed, following Maria into the back. “I mean, what does that have to do with - ”
“The point is – besides the fact that Octavio is like a felon and this new guy is like All-American apple pie - ”
“All Canadian,” Kyle corrected playfully, but he could see Maria was hardly in a laughing mood.
“The point is that happened over Thanksgiving Break and Liz claims she and Lucas - ” There was more hostility behind the name than Kyle would have expected. “She says they were already going out by then – and it…it just doesn’t add up.”
“You seem to have given this a lot of thought,” he still could only laugh at her behavior.
“It’s not funny, something’s not right about it,” Maria dropped the bus tub onto the counter with a loud clang.
“Why don’t you relax,” Kyle’s laidback southwestern drawl suggested a little more than just kicking her feet up as he not so subtly propositioned a break from work. “When do you get off?”
“Not for a while,” she sighed, walking back out to the dining are. Kyle followed on her heels.
“What about tonight?” he inquired, but Maria’s mind was already spinning as she went about clearing more dishes. She ignored Kyle and collapsed down in a booth, dropping her head into her hands. She wouldn’t give up her best friend. Not after she’d just gotten her back. Not for some guy and relationship that didn’t quite add up in her head.
“Something’s just not right,” Maria sighed again. “I just know something’s not right.”
“I’ll…take that as a no for tonight,” Kyle murmured, sliding into the booth next to her.
“It’s just Liz’s last night in Roswell, so - ”
“I thought she just got here?”
“I know, that’s what’s not right,” Maria lowered her head. “It’s like Liz is happy here, happy like she hasn’t been in a long time. She doesn’t want to leave – it’s almost like - ”
“He’s making her leave?” Kyle’s brow furrowed.
“I don’t know,” she moaned, dropping her head onto the table. “And I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much, but it is,” she maintained, knowing Kyle probably thought she was crazy for stressing out over such a small thing. He slid towards her and moved an arm up around her head, massaging her neck.
“I can have my dad check it out if you want,” he offered, but Maria edged away.
“Kyle, you know I’m not - not ready to make this a…public thing,” she looked around the Crashdown uncomfortably before turning her eyes down. She knew that had been harsh when all Kyle was trying to do was help, but she wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge to the world or to herself for that matter that this thing with Kyle, this hooking up and having a good time, was anything more. Anything real.
“Well, I’ll ask my dad to - ”
“No, Kyle - I - ”
“Guys on motorcycles are not to be trusted,” he grinned, hardly phased by Maria’s attempt to pass him off. He was used to her protesting and brush-offs; she almost always came around. “Especially not Canucks,” he added playfully.
“Look, don’t get your dad involved…this is just me…” she ran a hand through her short hair, his toothy grin completely lost on her. “Being me.”
“You’re being a good friend,” he shrugged, “If you’re this worked up about it, I’ll drop my dad an anonymous tip.”
“I’m not – I’m fine,” Maria returned to work-mode suddenly, rubbing a hand across her face and gathering the last dishes off the table. She looked over at kind old, loyal Kyle in his striped shirt and Wranglers with the same haircut he’d had since he was seventeen. “Don’t get your dad involved.”
He drove slowly down the roads that Liz directed him, expecting each corner to hold something that would trigger a memory, either of where he had been found and who had found him. Something to give him answers, not about what Liz had asked him last night, but answers about Max Evans. By the time they reached the final destination of their driving tour at the Bottomless Lakes, Liz could see the disappointment in Max’s face.
“You can’t remember anything, huh?” she asked as they lay out by the largest of the Bottomless Lakes, Max’s head resting in her lap.
“How did these get their names?” Max looked at the great blue lake before them, ignoring Liz’s remark.
“Max,” she whispered, combing the hair back off his forehead tenderly, “is there anything - ”
“Are they just really deep or is there a story?”
“I wish you wouldn’t try to change the subject.”
“Because everything has to have a story,” his voice, shaking with emotion, silenced Liz. He hadn’t expected to get this upset. He hadn’t come to Roswell with any high expectations, but now he was here and he knew no more than he had last week. He might as well be in Moon, Montana. “Things don’t just…get names from nowhere. They don’t just appear.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Liz soothed, although as she looked down at her watch she realized they only had a few more hours of daylight to find such answers. “Can you at least try to remember?” she tried again, but Max just sighed wearily.
“I already told you all I remember is a station wagon and a pine freshener and…”
“And what? I mean how did you end up in Midland? That’s like…four hours away.”
“Four and a half,” Max murmured, closing his eyes as Liz continued to comb her fingers through his short dark hair.
“Right, four and a half, there has to be some explanation for - ”
“Maybe I just…can’t remember things,” he shrugged.
“Like your cerebellum wasn’t developed enough to sustain any memories?” Max looked at her strangely, surprised by the technicality of the response. “I took a lot of psych classes at NYU – it’s the part of your brain that processes and holds long-term memories.”
“Yeah, maybe and I just couldn’t hold anything or - ”
“Or don’t want to,” she added quietly the possibility Max hadn’t mentioned.
“You mean like a repressed memory?” he shifted in her lap, somehow uncomfortable at the suggestion, and she gave a tiny nod of the head.
“Yeah, maybe you…buried something you didn’t want to remember,” she phrased delicately.
“But I do,” Max insisted. “I do want to remember.”
“Maybe I could find them,” she offered and Max peered up at her curiously, wondering what she could possibly be inferring. How could she possibly remember something for him? “When you healed my scar yesterday and we made that – that I don’t know – that connection, I saw things from deep inside of you and maybe -”
“You think?”
“I don’t know, if you really want to know, maybe if we connected again I could draw it out,” she suggested and Max raised his head off her lap then.
“Do you think that would work?” he folded his legs beneath him so he was kneeling beside her. “I mean, do you think…if it’s a – a repressed memory like you said and it’s something I don’t want to…do you think I should…” He stumbled over words, realizing now the possibility that faced him dredging up something that he had long been buried.
“It’s up to you,” Liz shrugged, moving her hands over his, “it’s a matter of how bad you want to know.”
“I do want to know,” Max stated confidently, getting to his feet.
“So let’s try,” Liz nodded her head, knowing Max was rarely so emphatic about anything. She was anxious about doing something so important to him though. Helping him with a question she knew he had long wondered about. She looked ahead at Max, thinking about all that he’d said last night. He was so emphatic about not wanting to know about his other-worldly past, so confident it could only hurt him, but so fixated on discovering this human past. She wondered if he realized his human past could hurt him just as much. Damaging not in the way knowing his alien roots could physically endanger him, but in a way that could only break his already fragile sense of self. If the story that lay in Roswell was only one more chapter in Max’s already lengthy saga of abandonment and solitude, she didn’t want to be responsible for dredging it up. For hurting him more. Especially not now when he suddenly looked so hopeful.
“I don’t know how to just connect,” he clinched his jaw, “I mean what happened yesterday, that’s never happened before, but maybe…”
“Maybe we shouldn’t then,” she proposed, chewing on her lip, but Max’s mind was working.
“I don’t know how to just make the connection go one way, but...maybe…” he raised his hands up to her face, one on either side. “Maybe,” he cupped her face perfectly and she closed her eyes at the feeling that coursed through her just from Max touching her. A part of her just seemed to fall away. Worry, doubt, fear and regret all seemed to fade and all that mattered was Max and what was important to him.
He pushed the hair behind her ear, unsure of what to do. He didn’t know how to go about trying to will a memory out of the deep recesses of his mind, how to force a connection that yesterday had just taken him by surprise, had just happened.
“If you just try to let your mind clear like yesterday,” he tilted her face towards him so their foreheads were almost touching, “maybe…maybe…”
But by his third ‘maybe’ Liz was already someplace entirely, far from the Bottomless Lakes and Roswell, New Mexico. It was different from yesterday, not a timeline of Max’s life, but a rapid slide show and collage of, at first, only her. Image after image of herself. Her in the bed, her in the car, her on the side of the road. Her with Matt.
The impression of her and Matt Keller hand in hand walking up the stairs to his room, her and Matt bumping and grinding on the dance floor, laughing and talking, kept playing out and as much as Liz wanted to wrench away from him, to stop the images she so badly wanted Max to forget, she couldn’t. Because they changed suddenly and she was with the ice fisherman and his sister. But it wasn’t the ice fisherman she had met in Mom’s Fish and Pancake House. It was the ice fisherman fifteen years ago and they were sitting in a cozy living room with royal blue drapes and floral print wallpaper. And they were wrapped in the same old Navajo blanket Liz remembered from the backseat of the station wagon yesterday.
“Keep it,” she whispered, reaching out blindly for Max while he worked to maintain the connection. This was it. This was the night he was found. The part he had forgotten.
“What kind of a person just leaves their children in the desert?” Liz heard a matronly voice sound from behind the couch.
“Maybe we should call the sheriff,” a low rumbling voice sounded in reply. Liz knew that voice. It was a voice she remembered hearing in the Crashdown often, a voice she had heard for years ordering French toast and vanilla milkshakes for his wife and daughter. She’d been away from Roswell for so long she couldn’t place the voice with a name or a face.
“Couldn’t we keep them here at least for the night?” the woman’s emotional voice sounded again.
“I think we should notify the authorities,” the more sensible voice sounded. “I think -” Then before the sentence was finished, the memory seemed to short circuit.
“Go back.” Liz cried out. She didn’t know if calling to Max would actually do anything, if he could actually control any of the memories, but she knew she couldn’t let the living room and the familiar voices fall away. “Try, Max,” she whispered, but the blue drapes morphed into prospective parents and adopters in Midland all passing by in a line. With eyes closed, she reached blindly for him again as a rapid rush of images flooded her mind. Assorted football practices and playground games, memories she would have liked to have seen under other circumstances, but memories that now were just filling space. “Please Max, try,” her hand came down on his shoulder and the screaming orphans and games of dodge ball stopped. She was being tucked into a bed that felt warm and safe. That felt like home. In the darkness of the room, a face shrouded by the dark soothed that everything would be alright. That he wasn’t alone, that his brother and sister were next door and there were people now who would take care of him. It was the same voice from the living room.
“We’ll be right down the hall,” it soothed. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She was quickly back in Midland before the voice even faded away, in a cold and lonely bunk bed, in a room filled with adolescent boys where despite the constant chatter and crowded room an incredible loneliness overtook her. Her gaze fell out the window where a few stars could be seen through the grimy window and dark sky.
Max dropped his hands from her face then, temporarily breaking the connection.
“Is it working at all?” he asked, opening up his eyes to look at her and Liz felt a pit in her stomach as they met hers. His eyes, his whole face, was so hopeful. For what, she wondered? What was he expecting her to see?
Liz stammered over incoherent syllables, unable to form words and tell him what she had seen. Because she detected a pattern every time she unearthed a memory. It was the hopeful promise of a home and family juxtaposed with the solitary life Max had ended up living. She couldn’t tell him that it seemed, for however briefly, he had in fact had a home, a warm bed and loving parents. And she couldn’t say anything without knowing what had deprived him of that home.
“Sort of,” Liz finally spoke. “I think if we try again I might…I might…” but her voice drifted off and she was unable to complete the sentence. Would she be able to tell him? Even if she uncovered the mystery, would she be able to tell him what had stood in the way of a life of love, home, and family?
“Well, we can try again,” Max smiled and something about the optimistic look on his face made something inside Liz crumple. She could hear his words after their second night together in the Comfort Inn, after he’d interrogated her about her piercings and she’d in turn attacked him for being scared to be alone. I’ve been alone my entire life! The words echoed throughout her head and she slipped a hand behind his head and kissed him then softly, gently capturing his top lip with hers as the words and memories refused to leave her mind. It wasn’t just Max who needed to know now. She had to know. She had to know who the voices she couldn’t pinpoint belonged to, had to know what had had deterred the couple from adopting the three orphans. How they could have rejected Max. “Close your eyes,” his voice had the tone it had yesterday when he’d healed her, soft and strong, not a suggestion, but not quite an order either. She obeyed and closed her eyes, giving herself to him as the connection began again.
Images of herself dominated at the beginning again and postcards from her and Max’s cross-country trip played out in rapid succession. Mom’s Fish and Pancake House, a Friendly’s sundae and a Missoula Osprey baseball game. Lonely hotel rooms in Trois Rivieres and Columbus suddenly turned into the walls of the orphanage in Midland, a place she’d never stepped inside but was now beginning to know quite well just from Max’s memories.
She watched a handsome fair-haired couple lead two children away down the hall. It was Michael and Isabelle, older now, maybe eight years old. A wave of nausea began to course through her as she could only stand and watch them get led away. “Be happy for your friends, Max,” she heard a voice sound and a hand clap down on her shoulder. But the sickness overtook her and a rapid series of flashes marked by the same lonely bedroom in Midland and the same dreary window passed by. And then, almost like the tracking on an old tape was being adjusted, such images began to combine with the couch and the Navajo blanket. The cold grey walls at Midland combined with the floral wallpaper and blue drapes to create a jumble Liz could no longer sort through.
There were counselors and police officers, endless questions and the low rumbling voice Liz couldn’t quite pinpoint saying it was okay to smile. Football tryouts and Little League suddenly interrupted the sequence complete with team huddles and state championships. She couldn’t focus any of it. She could make out no landmarks, no faces, no clear chronology. Postcards from Canada with photos of picturesque mountains and Michael and Isabelle’s smiling faces followed, but then it was back to the station wagon and the warm bed. The soothing voice, Michael and Isabelle, then waiting rooms and strange beds, a warm fire and bowl of Spaghetti-O’s, then strange voices and a long van ride crossing the border to Texas.
“Max, I can’t - ” Liz twisted away from his embrace forcefully then and his voice, thick with worry immediately sounded just like it had yesterday when things had gotten too intense.
“What’s the matter?” he looked at the beads of sweat that had formed on her face. Was it sweat? He looked again at the shimmer on her cheek. “Liz?”
“It’s just too much, I can’t.” she stammered.
“Sorry, I don’t know how to control them…” he apologized and Liz was actually able to laugh softly at his ridiculousness. At the tendency she saw in him to always apologize for things he couldn’t control. Pressing a hand against his chest, Liz collapsed against him.
“It’s not your fault,” she murmured, collapsing against him. “It’s not your fault,” she repeated, her voice muffled against him.
“Are you alright?” he ran his hands up and down her arm, suddenly so concerned for her despite how much she knew he wanted to learn what she had seen, “does it hurt your head or are you-”
She picked her head up off his chest and looked up at him and his huge adoring eyes. She thought about the prospective adopters that had passed him by, the lonely hallways at Midland Lee, his two best friends leaving without him, and the overwhelming feeling of nobody coming for him. Of abandonment, she was beginning to realize. She thought about the voice ordering French toast for his wife. If she could just place it she could know, could help Max to understand this piece of his life he suddenly seemed so desperate to know. She placed a hand on his cheek, pressing her fingers into his flesh softly.
“You are so amazing,” she murmured and Max peered down at her curiously at the random words.
“I’m not that amazing,” he raised one corner of his mouth, but Liz just shook her head and continued to stare at him.
“Yes, you are,” she maintained, “you’re perfect,” she combed back his hair. “And you always have been.”
“Maybe we should get back,” he glanced down at his watch, not sure what to think of Liz’s sudden outpouring of emotion, knowing only that two hours ago she had mentioned being back by three so she could spend time with Alex, Maria and her family.
“Sure,” she gave a tiny nod in agreement, leaning into him as he bent down to pick up her jacket. He didn’t ask what he desperately wanted to know. He knew that there was something she was withholding from him, something she had seen that now she didn’t want him to know. They walked back to his bike, her arm snug around his waist and her body seemingly attached to his at the hip. He said nothing, she said nothing. Only after they got to the Suzuki and she sat down on the back did he swing his leg over and face-to-face address the curiosity that was trembling inside. He turned his eyes on her and with his voice no more than a whisper, he asked her for the truth.
“What did you see?”
Same Old Life (AU,CC,MATURE) *PART 23* - 5/25/09 (WIP)
Moderators: Anniepoo98, ISLANDGIRL5, truelovepooh, Forum Moderators
At first she couldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t tell him she had seen nothing, but she didn’t know what to make of the images she’d seen either. Licking her lips, Liz tried to figure out how to phrase what she’d seen without lying to him. He had had a home before Midland, for how long she couldn’t figure out, but it had been a home. The Navajo blanket and the pine freshener and the blue drapes all belonged to the same person. To the voice that had tucked Max into bed. The voice, Liz realized, that ordered French toast and vanilla milkshakes at the Crashdown. The voice that had found Max, Michael and Isabelle and had taken them home.
“Liz?” he inquired softly, unsure what to make of her silence. Her eyes were focused on the black seat of the bike as she turned over the images that were a part of her memory now too.
“I can’t figure it all out,” her voice sounded small and empty.
“But you saw something?” Max nodded his head and she could see a bright and curious look in his eyes. A hopeful look.
“I did, but it was all…it was all really fast and I couldn’t really – it was like one thing, then another-”
“Well, give me an example,” he shrugged innocently. “Maybe, I’ll remember it.
“You know, I don’t – I mean I can’t really…” She traced her finger around the seat, knowing perfectly well Max could see through her lie.
“Liz, what did you see?” She could hear the tiniest bit of frustration in his voice, but still she couldn’t say anything. “Please, tell me,” he pleaded and when she finally raised her chin off her chest, she could see the desperation evident in his face
“It’s like you blocked out the faces, Max,” she murmured. “It’s like a perfect memory, but the faces are all blocked out.”
“What are you talking about? What faces?” he edged towards her and she gave a hapless shrug of the shoulders.
“The people who found you.”
“That’s ‘cos I don’t remember who found us,” he shook his head positively. “I just remember being in the car.”
“You do remember!” she cried suddenly, surprised at the emotion in her voice. “You were six years old! You do remember, they brought you back to their home!”
“No, they didn’t,” his reply was almost automatic, “I don’t remember that.”
“You do,” she maintained, “And you remember sitting on a couch with Isabelle and Michael in a room with big blue curtains and really ugly wallpaper with flowers on it,” Liz blurted out and suddenly she found she couldn’t stop. “And you remember eating spaghetti-o’s and there being a fire and getting tucked into bed and then talking to police officers and – and driving down to Texas in the back of a van,” she continued and Max just kept shaking his head.
“I don’t remember any of that.”
“You do, you just have to try,” she shrugged. “It’s there, I saw it.”
“But I don’t. I don’t remember any of that,” he frowned. “I wish I did.”
“Something happened…something’s not right,” Liz sighed and a cold gust of wind blew across the mesa then, swirling dust around both of them. The sun was nearing the horizon and the park sign behind her cast a tall shadow over the bike causing a chill to pass through her. She remained silent as the wind continued to blow around them. Realizing she wasn’t going to say anything more, Max just shook off his jacket and threw it over her shoulders.
“We should get back.” Liz could hear how defeated he sounded as he spoke the words. Did he really not remember? she struggled with the thought. Did he think Liz was just making those details up? He paused for a moment, almost like he was about to say something, before bringing the bike to life. Liz just tightened her grip around his waist.
It was ten minutes to five when they slipped in through the back of the Crashdown. Max had driven quickly, quicker than usual, and Liz had her arms locked around his body the entire time. The possibility that Max might have grown up in this town haunted her. She would figure it out if she had to stay up all night and enter every living room in Roswell until she found the blue drapes and the floral wallpaper. She would solve this mystery for Max.
“Do you really want to go back up to Canada?” he asked softly as they entered through the back of the Café. His hand rested tentatively on her waist as they walked towards the doors to the dining room and the tender action wasn’t lost on Liz.
“Yeah,” Liz nodded her head. “I want to meet your family.” The words sounded odd considering all that had just passed through her mind this afternoon, but she knew in fact that Michael and Isabelle were the only real family Max had ever known.
“Okay,” Max nodded his head and if he was uncomfortable at the words he didn’t show it. His hand remained at her side, resting just below her ribcage as they stood beside the door. She wanted to say something more about what she’d seen. She wanted to apologize to him for not being able to unlock more about his past. She wanted to tell him that she would get to the bottom of it before they left Roswell. The sounds from the kitchen and the dining room grew louder as pots and pans banging and a screaming baby suddenly took over.
“Ready to face the masses?” she asked with a small grin, reminding Max of what they faced every time they stepped out into the restaurant during dinner time.
“As long as you are,” he smiled back, but Liz couldn’t help but notice that he withdrew his hand as they passed through the doors. She was about to call him on it, but before she could Maria blew past accompanied by a tray loaded with hamburgers.
“Go in or go out!” she grumbled as she waited for them to pass by.
“Sorry,” Liz apologized, stepping out into the crowded dining area, about to ask Maria if she was closing tonight, but she was already gone.
“Your dad does pretty good business, huh?” Max took note of the crowds and chaos the second straight night.
“People like their aliens,” she wrapped an arm around his waist with a secret smile and he just laughed. “I guess we can just wait out back until it clears out, watch some T.V maybe?” she suggested and Max nodded his head, eager to escape the noise and many sets of eyes on him. Maria’s eyes in particular were fixed fiercely on him as she set down three ice cream sundaes. Max offered a nervous smile in her direction, but the steely gaze did not leave her face and she offered little in the way of a greeting back to him.
“Yeah, T.V sounds good,” Max backed towards the door uncomfortably. He was going to ask if Liz thought Maria could use some help in the kitchen, but he suddenly didn’t feel like helping her at all. “Maybe Alex can join us,” he suggested instead, suddenly favoring Liz’s male companion more.
“Great idea, I’ll give him a call,” Liz smiled and gave him a quick kiss she was so pleased with the idea. If Max had grown up in Roswell is this how it would have been? Would she have ended up with him? Would she even have known his secret? She couldn’t stop thinking about it, thinking about Max’s home and the voices of the people in his memory. What had stopped them from bringing the three children into their homes? Everything had seemed good and right.
As Liz left to call Alex, Max stepped closer to the door and peered out the circular window to the dining room. To Maria. What, he wondered, was the cause of the look she had given him? It was the look only a disapproving best friend could give and Max couldn’t help but grow nervous at the thought. Everything had seemed fine with Maria last night. What had he done?
“Alex, says he’ll be over in like fifteen minutes,” Liz announced, walking over to the door where Max stood. “He’s just finishing a conversation with his Canadian sweetheart,” she grinned, touching Max lightly on the arm. He turned his head away from the window and looked back to Liz.
“Should we maybe try to help Maria?” Max couldn’t help but offer as he watched her run from table to table.
“We’d probably just get in her way,” Liz shrugged, collapsing on the couch. “It’s alright. Relax,” she motioned for him to join her. “I want to ask you something,” she turned the television on but turned the volume way down. Max was slow to sit down beside her. “Something about the orphanage. About Michael and Isabelle.” Max shifted uncomfortably and Liz slid a hand up his shoulder tenderly. She knew it wasn’t exactly a topic of conversation Max loved. In their weeks together he’d mentioned it maybe three times. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, I just – I’m just trying to figure some stuff out.”
“Figure stuff out?” Max asked warily.
“The things I saw this afternoon,” she took in a deep breath. “I don’t think I can make sense of them until I know more.”
“But I already told you, I don’t know anything,” Max sighed.
“But you want to, don’t you?” she asked finally what had been bothering her since they left the Bottomless Lakes.
“Yeah, I guess,” Max just shrugged noncommittally. His uncertainty only tore Liz up inside. What was keeping him from unearthing these memories? Why did he seem so desperate to know one minute and so hesitant the next?
“Don’t you think it’s weird?” she kept her hand on his shoulder, but there was a bit of an edge to her voice, a determination that said she would unlock the mystery even if he didn’t want to. “I mean, don’t you think it’s strange that I saw these memories inside your head that you have no knowledge of?”
“Maybe you’re just seeing them wrong,” he offered and his hesitation just made her more upset.
“Maybe it’s the orphanage you’re seeing.”
“No, I saw the orphanage,” she stated firmly, “I know the orphanage….I know how you felt when you were at the orphanage.” Max’s eyes dropped to the floor at her words, like he was embarrassed at such a revelation. Liz just pressed on. “How old were you all when Michael and Isabelle left?”
“Eight, almost nine,” Max replied matter-of-factly, his eyes still focused on the worn wood floor. “I mean, they just invented birthdays for us so I don’t know really, but…yeah, it was like a month before Isabelle’s ninth birthday.”
“So they just made up birthdays for you?” She looked put off by the comment, but Max just nodded his head.
“Yeah, they made up birthdays, made our names and - ” Liz shook her head vigorously before he could finish.
“They didn’t make up your names,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You were Max before you got to the orphanage,” she insisted desperately.
“No,” Max frowned, “They made up our birthdays and our names.”
“How do you know?” she probed and Max was silent as he now focused his eyes on the silent picture playing out before them on the television.
“Because who else would have?”
“The people who found you,” Liz shrugged her shoulders and Max turned his head away from the TV at her words.
“You did see who found me,” his eyes flashed wide suddenly..
“No, I didn’t. But in your memory someone called you Max,” she explained with a shrug, “and I know you weren’t at the orphanage.”
“Someone named me,” he spoke the words slowly, like someone just learning how to speak. Someone had named him. Not named like at an orphanage, not stamped with an identity and a number, but a real name. She gave a tiny nod of the head.
“I think. I mean, I don’t know,” she was struck suddenly with a pang of worry that she had misinterpreted his memories and was leading him on. They weren’t exactly clear, voices and pictures overlapped in the jumbled mess of images. She picked up the remote and raised the volume suddenly, but Max put his hand over hers and halted the action.
“You can’t just say that and turn up the T.V, Liz,” he spoke and Liz began to feel her stomach twist into knots. This is what she was worried about.
“Well, I don’t know. I can’t make sense of your memories – I don’t have a lot to go on!” she realized as soon as she said the words that she was suddenly getting defensive.
“If you’re not sure you shouldn’t say anything.” He was getting defensive too, she realized, angry she could sense like she hadn’t seen since their early days back in Canada. Angry, she knew, because she had filled him with a hope he hadn’t had since he was a child.
“You’re probably right, I’m sorry,” Liz apologized hurriedly. She didn’t remind him that this afternoon at the Lakes he had pleaded to know what she had seen. She just nodded her head and sunk back into the couch, waiting for Alex to arrive.
Max sat stiffly on the couch, rigid and upright, as they watched Saturday Night Live reruns in silence. She tried to snuggle against him, but he wasn’t like he was earlier in the evening when he’d put his arm around her waist. The air between them was heavy as they watched the TV in silence. Alex’s arrival helped lighten the mood, but when he and Max got to talking about Canadian music groups, Liz excused herself to return to the dining room.
Maybe she had led him on. Maybe it was wrong of her to suggest something to Max that she had no proof of. At least nothing she could show to him. The memory was inside of him and it killed her to think that he’d repressed it. She’d taken psych courses, she knew how repressed memories worked. It took severe psychological trauma, usually some kind of abuse or a jarring emotional event.
Max was a wreck, she realized. If the memories today had shown her anything they’d shown her that. She thought about the patchwork of memories she’d seen. He’d endured a childhood of loneliness and solitude, he’d lost the only family he’d ever known at the young age of nine. She thought about the image of her and Matt Keller that played over and over in his mind. She’d even left him. The last thing he needed to hear was that he’d had more people in his life leave him.
“Where’s your Canuck?” Maria’s voice suddenly sounded behind Liz.
“Huh?” Liz spun around sharply.
“Your boyfriend? Where is he?”
“He’s back watching T.V with Alex,” Liz motioned to the back room she and Maria had often escaped to for breaks back in high school. “It finally calming down?” she tried to steer the subject away from Max. Maria just shrugged.
“In here it is,” she looked around the dining room where there were more than a few empty tables. “But the kitchen’s still got a bunch of takeout orders so they’re all backed up,” she sighed in frustration. “Stupid takeout,” Maria rolled her eyes as a man walked up to the cash register. “Mr. Evans!” she put on a phony smile and walked over to join the curly gray-haired man. “Can I get you a table?”
“Not tonight, Maria, just a takeout order for Diane and Becca,” he replied in his distinctive low rumble. Liz’s eyes locked on Phillip Evans as she took a staggering step backwards, tripping over the bar stool in the process. Evans. Of course Evans. She’d been gone from Roswell so long she hadn’t even stopped to remember that there was an Evans family.
“Hello, Liz,” Mr. Evans greeted warmly, “been a while since I’ve seen you.” He smiled at her, but Liz couldn’t force her lips to move. It was the voice from Max’s memory. Phillip Evans. A frequent customer at the Crashdown, who was almost always joined by his wife and daughter on Sunday mornings. It seemed so obvious now. “I heard you were back in town with a young man.”
Still unable to force a reply, Liz lurched backwards another step at the mention of Max. She was tempted to excuse herself and run and get him. But what would he say? Hi, I’m the kid you found on the side of the road fifteen years ago? Max Evans was dead. His ‘death’ had probably made the papers in Midland, which means it might have reached Roswell.
“Yeah,” Liz creaked. “Yeah, I came with…with my boyfriend,” she forced a smile onto her lips. My boyfriend who you abandoned, Liz couldn’t help but think as she stared ahead at Mr. Evans’ smiling face. You found him and you left him! rescued him and turned him over to the state. “If you’ll excuse me, I actually – I uh…it was good to see you,” she backpedaled towards the door as she spoke the words.
“Good to see you too, Liz,” Mr. Evans nodded towards her before turning his attention back to Maria and his takeout order. Max and Alex were still conversing about the independent music scene in the Maritimes and as Liz passed through the doors and walked towards the couch where they were seated she noticed that her hands were shaking.
“Hey, Liz!” Alex greeted brightly upon her return. Max just offered a weak smile. Liz gave a shaky smile to the both of them as she sat down on the couch beside Max. How should she tell him? Should she even tell him? Doubt crept back into her mind as she recalled their conversation no more than an hour ago. If she wasn’t 100% confident then she shouldn’t tell him. But how could she be sure?
“I’ll be right back,” Liz suddenly bolted from the couch and ran up the stairs to her room. The constant drone of the TV and the chattering of Max and Alex were too much for her. Thousands of thoughts were spinning through her head and she couldn’t make sense of any of them. Slamming the door to her room, she sat down on the edge of the bed and held her head in her hands.
Max had had a home in Roswell. Max could have been the one ordering French toast and vanilla milkshakes every Sunday morning for the past fifteen years. She thought about all the images at the orphanage, the lonely nights after Michael and Isabelle had been taken away. She thought about his past year and half on the run, about everything that wouldn’t have happened if Phillip and Diane Evans had just kept the children. Why hadn’t they kept them? The Evans were one of the nicest families in Roswell. Their fifteen-year-old daughter Becca, a perfect and polite girl, who Liz suddenly felt a revulsion towards. Was she the reason the Evans hadn’t kept Max? The thoughts continued to swirl around her head, but they all kept coming back to the same one.
Max should have grown up here in Roswell with her.
“Liz?” he inquired softly, unsure what to make of her silence. Her eyes were focused on the black seat of the bike as she turned over the images that were a part of her memory now too.
“I can’t figure it all out,” her voice sounded small and empty.
“But you saw something?” Max nodded his head and she could see a bright and curious look in his eyes. A hopeful look.
“I did, but it was all…it was all really fast and I couldn’t really – it was like one thing, then another-”
“Well, give me an example,” he shrugged innocently. “Maybe, I’ll remember it.
“You know, I don’t – I mean I can’t really…” She traced her finger around the seat, knowing perfectly well Max could see through her lie.
“Liz, what did you see?” She could hear the tiniest bit of frustration in his voice, but still she couldn’t say anything. “Please, tell me,” he pleaded and when she finally raised her chin off her chest, she could see the desperation evident in his face
“It’s like you blocked out the faces, Max,” she murmured. “It’s like a perfect memory, but the faces are all blocked out.”
“What are you talking about? What faces?” he edged towards her and she gave a hapless shrug of the shoulders.
“The people who found you.”
“That’s ‘cos I don’t remember who found us,” he shook his head positively. “I just remember being in the car.”
“You do remember!” she cried suddenly, surprised at the emotion in her voice. “You were six years old! You do remember, they brought you back to their home!”
“No, they didn’t,” his reply was almost automatic, “I don’t remember that.”
“You do,” she maintained, “And you remember sitting on a couch with Isabelle and Michael in a room with big blue curtains and really ugly wallpaper with flowers on it,” Liz blurted out and suddenly she found she couldn’t stop. “And you remember eating spaghetti-o’s and there being a fire and getting tucked into bed and then talking to police officers and – and driving down to Texas in the back of a van,” she continued and Max just kept shaking his head.
“I don’t remember any of that.”
“You do, you just have to try,” she shrugged. “It’s there, I saw it.”
“But I don’t. I don’t remember any of that,” he frowned. “I wish I did.”
“Something happened…something’s not right,” Liz sighed and a cold gust of wind blew across the mesa then, swirling dust around both of them. The sun was nearing the horizon and the park sign behind her cast a tall shadow over the bike causing a chill to pass through her. She remained silent as the wind continued to blow around them. Realizing she wasn’t going to say anything more, Max just shook off his jacket and threw it over her shoulders.
“We should get back.” Liz could hear how defeated he sounded as he spoke the words. Did he really not remember? she struggled with the thought. Did he think Liz was just making those details up? He paused for a moment, almost like he was about to say something, before bringing the bike to life. Liz just tightened her grip around his waist.
It was ten minutes to five when they slipped in through the back of the Crashdown. Max had driven quickly, quicker than usual, and Liz had her arms locked around his body the entire time. The possibility that Max might have grown up in this town haunted her. She would figure it out if she had to stay up all night and enter every living room in Roswell until she found the blue drapes and the floral wallpaper. She would solve this mystery for Max.
“Do you really want to go back up to Canada?” he asked softly as they entered through the back of the Café. His hand rested tentatively on her waist as they walked towards the doors to the dining room and the tender action wasn’t lost on Liz.
“Yeah,” Liz nodded her head. “I want to meet your family.” The words sounded odd considering all that had just passed through her mind this afternoon, but she knew in fact that Michael and Isabelle were the only real family Max had ever known.
“Okay,” Max nodded his head and if he was uncomfortable at the words he didn’t show it. His hand remained at her side, resting just below her ribcage as they stood beside the door. She wanted to say something more about what she’d seen. She wanted to apologize to him for not being able to unlock more about his past. She wanted to tell him that she would get to the bottom of it before they left Roswell. The sounds from the kitchen and the dining room grew louder as pots and pans banging and a screaming baby suddenly took over.
“Ready to face the masses?” she asked with a small grin, reminding Max of what they faced every time they stepped out into the restaurant during dinner time.
“As long as you are,” he smiled back, but Liz couldn’t help but notice that he withdrew his hand as they passed through the doors. She was about to call him on it, but before she could Maria blew past accompanied by a tray loaded with hamburgers.
“Go in or go out!” she grumbled as she waited for them to pass by.
“Sorry,” Liz apologized, stepping out into the crowded dining area, about to ask Maria if she was closing tonight, but she was already gone.
“Your dad does pretty good business, huh?” Max took note of the crowds and chaos the second straight night.
“People like their aliens,” she wrapped an arm around his waist with a secret smile and he just laughed. “I guess we can just wait out back until it clears out, watch some T.V maybe?” she suggested and Max nodded his head, eager to escape the noise and many sets of eyes on him. Maria’s eyes in particular were fixed fiercely on him as she set down three ice cream sundaes. Max offered a nervous smile in her direction, but the steely gaze did not leave her face and she offered little in the way of a greeting back to him.
“Yeah, T.V sounds good,” Max backed towards the door uncomfortably. He was going to ask if Liz thought Maria could use some help in the kitchen, but he suddenly didn’t feel like helping her at all. “Maybe Alex can join us,” he suggested instead, suddenly favoring Liz’s male companion more.
“Great idea, I’ll give him a call,” Liz smiled and gave him a quick kiss she was so pleased with the idea. If Max had grown up in Roswell is this how it would have been? Would she have ended up with him? Would she even have known his secret? She couldn’t stop thinking about it, thinking about Max’s home and the voices of the people in his memory. What had stopped them from bringing the three children into their homes? Everything had seemed good and right.
As Liz left to call Alex, Max stepped closer to the door and peered out the circular window to the dining room. To Maria. What, he wondered, was the cause of the look she had given him? It was the look only a disapproving best friend could give and Max couldn’t help but grow nervous at the thought. Everything had seemed fine with Maria last night. What had he done?
“Alex, says he’ll be over in like fifteen minutes,” Liz announced, walking over to the door where Max stood. “He’s just finishing a conversation with his Canadian sweetheart,” she grinned, touching Max lightly on the arm. He turned his head away from the window and looked back to Liz.
“Should we maybe try to help Maria?” Max couldn’t help but offer as he watched her run from table to table.
“We’d probably just get in her way,” Liz shrugged, collapsing on the couch. “It’s alright. Relax,” she motioned for him to join her. “I want to ask you something,” she turned the television on but turned the volume way down. Max was slow to sit down beside her. “Something about the orphanage. About Michael and Isabelle.” Max shifted uncomfortably and Liz slid a hand up his shoulder tenderly. She knew it wasn’t exactly a topic of conversation Max loved. In their weeks together he’d mentioned it maybe three times. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, I just – I’m just trying to figure some stuff out.”
“Figure stuff out?” Max asked warily.
“The things I saw this afternoon,” she took in a deep breath. “I don’t think I can make sense of them until I know more.”
“But I already told you, I don’t know anything,” Max sighed.
“But you want to, don’t you?” she asked finally what had been bothering her since they left the Bottomless Lakes.
“Yeah, I guess,” Max just shrugged noncommittally. His uncertainty only tore Liz up inside. What was keeping him from unearthing these memories? Why did he seem so desperate to know one minute and so hesitant the next?
“Don’t you think it’s weird?” she kept her hand on his shoulder, but there was a bit of an edge to her voice, a determination that said she would unlock the mystery even if he didn’t want to. “I mean, don’t you think it’s strange that I saw these memories inside your head that you have no knowledge of?”
“Maybe you’re just seeing them wrong,” he offered and his hesitation just made her more upset.
“Maybe it’s the orphanage you’re seeing.”
“No, I saw the orphanage,” she stated firmly, “I know the orphanage….I know how you felt when you were at the orphanage.” Max’s eyes dropped to the floor at her words, like he was embarrassed at such a revelation. Liz just pressed on. “How old were you all when Michael and Isabelle left?”
“Eight, almost nine,” Max replied matter-of-factly, his eyes still focused on the worn wood floor. “I mean, they just invented birthdays for us so I don’t know really, but…yeah, it was like a month before Isabelle’s ninth birthday.”
“So they just made up birthdays for you?” She looked put off by the comment, but Max just nodded his head.
“Yeah, they made up birthdays, made our names and - ” Liz shook her head vigorously before he could finish.
“They didn’t make up your names,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You were Max before you got to the orphanage,” she insisted desperately.
“No,” Max frowned, “They made up our birthdays and our names.”
“How do you know?” she probed and Max was silent as he now focused his eyes on the silent picture playing out before them on the television.
“Because who else would have?”
“The people who found you,” Liz shrugged her shoulders and Max turned his head away from the TV at her words.
“You did see who found me,” his eyes flashed wide suddenly..
“No, I didn’t. But in your memory someone called you Max,” she explained with a shrug, “and I know you weren’t at the orphanage.”
“Someone named me,” he spoke the words slowly, like someone just learning how to speak. Someone had named him. Not named like at an orphanage, not stamped with an identity and a number, but a real name. She gave a tiny nod of the head.
“I think. I mean, I don’t know,” she was struck suddenly with a pang of worry that she had misinterpreted his memories and was leading him on. They weren’t exactly clear, voices and pictures overlapped in the jumbled mess of images. She picked up the remote and raised the volume suddenly, but Max put his hand over hers and halted the action.
“You can’t just say that and turn up the T.V, Liz,” he spoke and Liz began to feel her stomach twist into knots. This is what she was worried about.
“Well, I don’t know. I can’t make sense of your memories – I don’t have a lot to go on!” she realized as soon as she said the words that she was suddenly getting defensive.
“If you’re not sure you shouldn’t say anything.” He was getting defensive too, she realized, angry she could sense like she hadn’t seen since their early days back in Canada. Angry, she knew, because she had filled him with a hope he hadn’t had since he was a child.
“You’re probably right, I’m sorry,” Liz apologized hurriedly. She didn’t remind him that this afternoon at the Lakes he had pleaded to know what she had seen. She just nodded her head and sunk back into the couch, waiting for Alex to arrive.
Max sat stiffly on the couch, rigid and upright, as they watched Saturday Night Live reruns in silence. She tried to snuggle against him, but he wasn’t like he was earlier in the evening when he’d put his arm around her waist. The air between them was heavy as they watched the TV in silence. Alex’s arrival helped lighten the mood, but when he and Max got to talking about Canadian music groups, Liz excused herself to return to the dining room.
Maybe she had led him on. Maybe it was wrong of her to suggest something to Max that she had no proof of. At least nothing she could show to him. The memory was inside of him and it killed her to think that he’d repressed it. She’d taken psych courses, she knew how repressed memories worked. It took severe psychological trauma, usually some kind of abuse or a jarring emotional event.
Max was a wreck, she realized. If the memories today had shown her anything they’d shown her that. She thought about the patchwork of memories she’d seen. He’d endured a childhood of loneliness and solitude, he’d lost the only family he’d ever known at the young age of nine. She thought about the image of her and Matt Keller that played over and over in his mind. She’d even left him. The last thing he needed to hear was that he’d had more people in his life leave him.
“Where’s your Canuck?” Maria’s voice suddenly sounded behind Liz.
“Huh?” Liz spun around sharply.
“Your boyfriend? Where is he?”
“He’s back watching T.V with Alex,” Liz motioned to the back room she and Maria had often escaped to for breaks back in high school. “It finally calming down?” she tried to steer the subject away from Max. Maria just shrugged.
“In here it is,” she looked around the dining room where there were more than a few empty tables. “But the kitchen’s still got a bunch of takeout orders so they’re all backed up,” she sighed in frustration. “Stupid takeout,” Maria rolled her eyes as a man walked up to the cash register. “Mr. Evans!” she put on a phony smile and walked over to join the curly gray-haired man. “Can I get you a table?”
“Not tonight, Maria, just a takeout order for Diane and Becca,” he replied in his distinctive low rumble. Liz’s eyes locked on Phillip Evans as she took a staggering step backwards, tripping over the bar stool in the process. Evans. Of course Evans. She’d been gone from Roswell so long she hadn’t even stopped to remember that there was an Evans family.
“Hello, Liz,” Mr. Evans greeted warmly, “been a while since I’ve seen you.” He smiled at her, but Liz couldn’t force her lips to move. It was the voice from Max’s memory. Phillip Evans. A frequent customer at the Crashdown, who was almost always joined by his wife and daughter on Sunday mornings. It seemed so obvious now. “I heard you were back in town with a young man.”
Still unable to force a reply, Liz lurched backwards another step at the mention of Max. She was tempted to excuse herself and run and get him. But what would he say? Hi, I’m the kid you found on the side of the road fifteen years ago? Max Evans was dead. His ‘death’ had probably made the papers in Midland, which means it might have reached Roswell.
“Yeah,” Liz creaked. “Yeah, I came with…with my boyfriend,” she forced a smile onto her lips. My boyfriend who you abandoned, Liz couldn’t help but think as she stared ahead at Mr. Evans’ smiling face. You found him and you left him! rescued him and turned him over to the state. “If you’ll excuse me, I actually – I uh…it was good to see you,” she backpedaled towards the door as she spoke the words.
“Good to see you too, Liz,” Mr. Evans nodded towards her before turning his attention back to Maria and his takeout order. Max and Alex were still conversing about the independent music scene in the Maritimes and as Liz passed through the doors and walked towards the couch where they were seated she noticed that her hands were shaking.
“Hey, Liz!” Alex greeted brightly upon her return. Max just offered a weak smile. Liz gave a shaky smile to the both of them as she sat down on the couch beside Max. How should she tell him? Should she even tell him? Doubt crept back into her mind as she recalled their conversation no more than an hour ago. If she wasn’t 100% confident then she shouldn’t tell him. But how could she be sure?
“I’ll be right back,” Liz suddenly bolted from the couch and ran up the stairs to her room. The constant drone of the TV and the chattering of Max and Alex were too much for her. Thousands of thoughts were spinning through her head and she couldn’t make sense of any of them. Slamming the door to her room, she sat down on the edge of the bed and held her head in her hands.
Max had had a home in Roswell. Max could have been the one ordering French toast and vanilla milkshakes every Sunday morning for the past fifteen years. She thought about all the images at the orphanage, the lonely nights after Michael and Isabelle had been taken away. She thought about his past year and half on the run, about everything that wouldn’t have happened if Phillip and Diane Evans had just kept the children. Why hadn’t they kept them? The Evans were one of the nicest families in Roswell. Their fifteen-year-old daughter Becca, a perfect and polite girl, who Liz suddenly felt a revulsion towards. Was she the reason the Evans hadn’t kept Max? The thoughts continued to swirl around her head, but they all kept coming back to the same one.
Max should have grown up here in Roswell with her.
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."
The reaction had been automatic. Every time her brain tried to process the fact that Max had been found and abandoned by the Evans family she felt like vomiting. So she didn’t try to fight it. But here she stood over the toilet, holding her hair away from her face, unable to throw up anything. A soft knock sounded outside her bedroom door and Liz could hardly manage speaking to whoever it was. “In a minute!” she called back shakily as she stood dry heaving over the toilet. Her body shook uncontrollably with the dry and empty coughs. The knock sounded again and Liz wiped the saliva from her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “I’m coming,” she slowly made her way to the door, taking a few calming breaths before opening it. Max stood on the other side of the door, his fist clinched and hovering like he was about to knock a third time.
“Hey,” his voice sounded softly as his hands fell limply at his sides. “Where’d you go?”
“Bathroom,” Liz motioned to the open bathroom door. Max just nodded his head and licked his lips thoughtfully.
“Can I come in?” he asked politely and Liz just laughed at the ridiculousness of the question.
“Of course you can.” Max smiled awkwardly back at her as he stepped through the door.
“I just…” he sat down on the edge of the bed, fidgeting nervously with his hands. Liz sat down beside him, pushing back all the thoughts and words that threatened to pour out of her. “I wanted to apologize for yelling at you before,” he finally said with a shrug of the shoulders. “I know you’re just trying to help me, so,” he offered her a small smile. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever apologize,” Liz shook her head emphatically and sat down on the bed. “What I was saying – it’s a lot to take in.”
“But I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did,” he insisted firmly, his eyes locked on hers. “I’ve just never thought about it, you know?”
“Thought about what?” Liz spoke slowly.
“The people who found me,” Max shrugged, finally joining her on the couch, “who they were, what they were doing out in the desert - ”
“You were found in the desert?” Liz raised her head up suddenly. It was the only time Max had mentioned details about when he was found.
“Yeah,” Max replied immediately, but no sooner had he said it then a look of confusion passed over his face. “I mean, I think – I don’t really…” he stumbled over words as his eyebrows sloped into a frown. “It’s like it’s there, but I just…yeah, I think it was in the desert.”
“Do you remember the car that found you?” Liz asked softly, her voice no more than a whisper. Max just shook his head. “Was it a station wagon?” Liz inquired again, her voice low and gentle.
“Yeah,” Max replied automatically again, looking as surprised as Liz. “It was a station wagon.”
The psychology major in Liz was intrigued. Though not scientifically proven, the repression of early traumatic memories had been documented before. She had read the case studies and right now Max showed all the symptoms.
“You have to know,” Liz spoke softly, “the thing with repression is - ”
“Liz, what are you talking about?” Max’s face twisted into a crooked smile.
“The thing is it’s not your fault. It’s not something you do consciously. It’s an automatic psychological defense,” she blurted out.
“You really think I have repressed memories?” The crooked smile slowly vanished from his face.
“Something shocking happens and the mind pushes it into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious,” Liz continued like the psych major she had once been.
“People with repressed memories,” Max rubbed his hand over his eyes uncomfortably, “they’re like…messed up, aren’t they?” He looked utterly disturbed by what she was suggesting.
“No,” Liz shook her head. “It doesn’t mean you’re messed up,” she moved her hands up to hold his face in her hands. “It just means something happened.”
“Something happened that I have no memory of?” Max laughed, “it sounds kind of crazy, Liz.”
“I know it sounds bizarre, but just – I took a whole class on memory, you just have to trust me.”
“Trust you to do what?” he looked to Liz warily.
“To help you remember.” She didn’t know how he would take her offer and for almost a minute her words just hung in the air. She sat in silence on the bed beside him and waited for an answer.
“I think we should go back downstairs,” he spoke slowly.
“Max,” Liz opened up her mouth in protest.
“It’s your last night in Roswell,” he got to his feet and held out his hand for her. “Alex is waiting for us.”
“But tonight, after…will you let me?” Liz stumbled over her words. She still couldn’t get Phillip Evans’ face out of her head. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Evans family Sunday breakfasts. She couldn’t stop thinking about how she would ever break the news to Max. If he allowed her to try to work with him, to help him regain his lost memories maybe he could figure out the mystery to his childhood by himself. Then maybe she wouldn’t have to tell him at all.
It weighed on her mind all night. Watching TV with Alex and Max all she could think about was what could possibly have happened to Max. What emotional trauma had caused him to repress all his earliest memories. Being given up by the Evans was likely a demoralizing and upsetting memory, but it wasn’t the type of event that would trigger such a reaction. Something more had happened. Something that she needed Max to figure out.
He could sense something on her mind all night. Even as they sat out in the booth like last night, talking and laughing over milkshakes and chili fries, he saw her mind someplace else. Her eyes were fixed on a booth on the other side of the room. A booth, he had no way of knowing, was the booth that was occupied by Phillip, Diane and Becca Evans almost every Sunday for the past fifteen years. Liz wanted to enjoy her last night in Roswell more than anything. She wanted to laugh with Alex about whatever he was laughing about, to catch up with Maria and discuss her three years at Arizona State. But she was haunted by the Evans’ booth.
She would glance periodically throughout the night from the booth back to Max. How would Max have turned out if he had had two loving parents? If he had never had to know the abandonment that had marked his life thus far? She looked around the Crashdown and thought about her own life. Would she have been shot? Max had said yesterday that he could fix things. Would she have known him? Would they even have been together sophomore year? Would he have ‘fixed’ her like he said he could? Try as she might Liz was unable to focus on the present, on the friends she would soon leave behind.
“So what time you guys leaving tomorrow?” Maria inquired suddenly and her piercing gaze was lost on neither Max nor Liz. Alex remained oblivious.
“Yeah, you gonna be here for breakfast or you leaving early?” he looked saddened by either prospect.
“Noon,” Liz spoke slowly as she looked to Max to make sure that the time was okay.
“Yeah, probably around noon,” Max agreed and he managed to smile.
“So you’re gonna drive all the way to Canada on that bike?” Maria raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
“It’s actually pretty comfortable,” Liz shrugged. “Why don’t you give her a ride tomorrow”? she propositioned suddenly, turning towards Max.
“Sure,” Max nodded his head, “it’s kind of dark out now, but I’ll give you a ride tomorrow morning if you want.”
“It’s awesome, Maria, you should,” Liz insisted, smiling broadly.
“Not really a motorcycle person, thanks,” she replied deadpan.
“Oh, come on, all you talked about sophomore year was how much you wanted a Harley,” Liz kicked her beneath the table playfully, but Maria didn’t smile back.
“That’s not a Harley,” she noted stoically, “that’s a racing bike.”
“Which means it’s faster and more fun,” Alex added and then before Maria could say anything further he volunteered himself. “I’d love to go for a ride tomorrow if you don’t mind?”
“I’d love to,” Max smiled at the lanky young man he had taken quite a liking to. He was warm and friendly and, most of all, genuine. Maria, on the other hand, he couldn’t get a read on. Sometimes it looked like she wanted to like him despite herself; other times it felt like there were daggers coming from her eyes.
“How far you guys riding tomorrow?” Maria questioned again and Max felt the daggers this time.
“However far we get,” Max replied honestly with a shrug.
“You just go?” Maria gave a dubious look.
“Until we’re both too tired to go anymore,” Liz answered.
“That’s awesome,” Alex nodded his head emphatically and gave a wide smile.
“It is,” Liz grinned back, “it’s kind of…freeing not having a set destination.”
“My family is nuts whenever we take a vacation,” Alex shook his head. “Bathroom breaks and gas stops are included in the itinerary. It’s insane.” Max and Liz smiled widely at the revelation and even Maria did despite herself.
Alex was in fact the only thing that kept them all smiling. His remarks were the only thing keeping the booth from falling silent. Any conversations that started up would soon stagnate, put to a quick end by a biting comment or an ugly glare from Maria. After failed conversation attempt after failed conversation attempt, Alex just chose to launch into another discussion about the Canadian music scene with Max.
“I can’t believe you know who The Dears are!” he proclaimed in amazement, staring at Max with wide eyes. “ ‘End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story’ is only like my favorite album of 2004.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” Max nodded his head and smiled, amazed that this kid from New Mexico knew bands from Halifax and Quebec City.
“What about Sloan? The Arcade Fire? Godspeed You! Black Emperor?” Alex rattled off names that meant nothing to either of the girls sitting at the table.
“Alex, what language are you speaking?” Maria snorted. “You and Canada,” Maria shook her head, “you should just move there and marry your cyber girlfriend.”
“I like Sloan a lot,” Max answered Alex’s initial question, choosing to pass over the biting comments Maria was even shooting at her best friend. “In fact, one of my friends from home knows the bassist,” he chose to divulge a bit of information to Alex as he sucked down the last of his Alien Blast milkshake.
“No kidding!” Alex’s spoonful of ice cream fell to the table with a clatter. “That’s Izzy’s favorite band!” he practically shouted out the words. “She said she met the bassist in a Tim Horton’s last May.”
“So we finally get a name?” Maria peered over at Alex with a wide grin at the name he had unintentionally blurted out. It was clearly information she’d been trying to pry out of Alex for a long time. The name of his Canadian sweetheart.
“Izzy, huh?” Liz too peered over at Alex with a broad smile. She was so excited at learning the identity, or at least the first name, of the girl Alex had been talking about the past two days, she didn’t notice the pale shade Max’s face had suddenly turned. He swallowed loudly and excused himself, offering to take their dirty plates back to the sink while the girls interrogated Alex.
There were lots of Tim Horton’s, he told himself. And Sloan toured all over Canada. There could be more than one fan named Izzy who had met the bassist at a Tim Horton’s. This couldn’t be. This would be beyond coincidence.
“Can you bring over some napkins?” Liz called suddenly to him. “Alex just spilled his water everywhere. Little too excited, are we?” she teased. Max searched slowly behind the counter for the napkins, hoping that by the time he returned to the booth they would be talking about something else.
“Tim Horton’s is like your version of Dunkin Donuts, right?” Alex inquired curiously as Max slid down beside Liz.
“Yeah,” he was slow to reply as he handed the napkins across the table where Maria could mop up the spilled water.
“They sell Timbits, or something like that, right?”
“Yeah.” The one syllable word was again all Max could utter. “They’re like Munchkins.”
“That’s what I thought,” Alex smiled and there was a look Liz could only decipher as pride on his face. Like he was proud to prove to Max, or Lucas rather, that he knew something about his home. She suppressed the grin threatening to cross her face and just looked over at Max. He, on the other hand, wore an unreadable expression on his face and was looking ahead at Alex almost the same way Maria had been looking at him all night.
“Timbits are good,” Max finally spoke. Timbits were Isabelle’s favorite.
“I’ll have to try some then,” Liz nudged him in the ribs playfully. The action startled him, but as his eyes focused back on Liz the look he had been giving Alex suddenly passed.
“Yeah, we can get some when we get to Canada,” he finally offered the faintest makings of a smile.
“I can’t wait,” Liz smiled, leaning into Max’s shoulder comfortably.
“Well, as much as I want to hear about Canada and stare at the Lovers’ Corner over here,” Maria eyed Max and Liz, “I have to be at work early.”
“But the night is young!” Alex exclaimed. “And Liz leaves tomorrow!”
“Oh and I’ll be here,” Maria slid out of the booth and grabbed her jacket, offering Max and Liz the briefest of smiles. “Bright and early.”
Max, Alex and Liz remained in the booth until almost 1 AM prattling on about Alex’s plans after college and what exactly one did with a computer science degree. They talked about independent Canadian rock groups, Tim Horton’s and the Expos move to Washington. She knew whoever the girl Alex was talking to was she had done quite a number on her friend. She’d never known him to show such interest in anything as he did in Canada. She could tell Max found it peculiar too. Every now and again a look would come across his face when Alex was talking, a look Liz couldn’t decipher at all. Then it would pass quickly and a small smile would take it’s place.
“He is so great,” Liz sighed as she walked up the stairs at the end of the night hand in hand with Max. “I hope whoever this girl is they get to meet.” She smiled hopefully for her friend as they walked through the door into her room. Max turned to her once the door was closed behind them.
“It’s Isabelle,” he spoke softly.
“What?” Liz laughed, unsure what Max had just said.
“Isabelle,” Max repeated stiffly, “like Michael and Isabelle.”
“You’re kidding?” she turned to look at Max’s serious face. “You’re not kidding.”
“I didn’t believe it either, but – all the bands he listed, they’re Isabelle’s favorites and that thing about the Timbits – she loves Timbits.”
“But Max, that – that can’t be…” Liz stammered.
“All he said was she lived in Quebec close to Newfoundland,” Max shrugged.
“Michael and Isabelle live on a fishing island,” Liz shook her head. “That’s…they probably don’t even have internet.” She wasn’t sure why she was protesting, but she couldn’t help it. It was impossible.
“They have a satellite, you can get internet through a satellite,” Max shrugged and of all things a curious smile came across his face. “Weirder things have happened,” he scratched his forehead with his thumb and chuckled softly. “It’s a small world.”
“Yeah, but…my Alex with – with your…sister.” Calling Isabelle his sister sounded strange, but she knew that was how Max thought of her. “It’s too weird.”
“I thought so too for a while, but,” Max collapsed onto the bed and laughed again, louder this time. “I honestly believe they just met on a message board. I mean it’s pretty lonely up on that island with just Michael.”
“That’s crazy!” Liz shook her head in disbelief. “That is beyond crazy,” she joined Max on the bed. Going to Roswell was supposed to make their life easier. It was supposed to be a few free meals, a free place to sleep and a chance for her to catch up with her family. In their short few days in Roswell too much had happened for Liz to even process. Too much for her to even spell out in her head - Max being found by the Evans, her best friend and his sister meeting in cyberland. And everything just came back to Roswell.
Liz turned on her side to face Max, who was sprawled out on his back with his arms behind his head. “So about what I said earlier tonight,” she nudged closer to him. “About trying to help you remember.”
“Right,” Max nodded his head, tearing his mind away from the randomness of tonight’s revelation. “Yeah, okay.” While he didn’t exactly sound confident about it, Liz knew he was trying.
“I think I have some of my psych books from sophomore year,” she bit her lip and looked up at Max. “If you don’t want to do it, Max, it’s okay. Really.” His eyes shifted nervously back and forth. “Whatever happens, I’ll be here,” she assured him, moving a hand to his arm. Max cleared his throat and sat up suddenly.
“Why don’t I help you look for the books,” he offered, but Liz just pressed a hand to his chest.
“Why don’t you just relax?” she suggested softly, but Max ignored her and swung his legs over the bed.
“Liz, you don’t have to treat me like some special case or something,” he looked uncomfortable.
“I meant to take in the weirdness that is Alex and Isabelle,” she smiled at him and kissed him once softly on the mouth.
“That is unbelievably weird,” Max murmured as he lowered himself back down onto the bed like Liz suggested.
“Quite possibly the most random thing ever,” Liz added with a laugh as she crouched down to look under her bed, pulling out old binders and textbooks, chemistry books from 1997 and notebooks with Kyle Valenti’s name doodled in the corner.
“You don’t think he’ll ever…like actually try to meet her, do you?” Max inquired, and Liz could sense the slightest bit of worry in his voice.
“I don’t know. Alex is kind of a cheapskate, so I don’t see him flying up to Canada for weekend visits or anything,” Liz remarked absentmindedly as she finally got to the textbooks from her sophomore year of college.
“Yeah,” Max agreed from the bed. “Isabelle’s way too cautious to just go and meet someone she met online,” he assured himself. “She’s too smart to do something like that.”
“Like picking someone up off the side of the road?” Liz lifted her head up to look at Max, her eyebrows raised in reminder of what he himself had done a little more than two weeks ago.
“But she wouldn’t,” Max maintained though Liz could hear he didn’t sound so self-assured.
“I’m just saying…” One by one Liz lifted the textbooks onto the bed. “…when there’s a connection, there’s just a connection.” She kicked everything else back under the bed and sat down next to Max. “You don’t really listen to your head.”
Max was silent. He knew she was describing the connection they shared. The connection that had kept her in the truck those first few days despite everything, the same connection that had caused Max to stop his rig, invite her inside and tell her his real name after little more than a day.
“The Psychology of Memory, the Power of Healing?” Max chose to instead focus on the books she had selected. “What exactly are we looking for in here?”
“You are not looking for anything,” Liz took the books from his hands and set them back on the bed. “Seriously, just relax for a while.”
“You don’t want me to read them, do you?” he looked to her anxiously. “You don’t want me to see what they say?”
“Max, I’ve studied this, okay? You haven’t. Just trust me,” she assured him. “There’s nothing bad in here,” she motioned to the book. “But there’s something…there’s something bad in your head,” she moved a hand up to his temple. “Something bad that is keeping you from remembering these things,” she moved her other hand up to his face.
“And I’m supposed to relax?” Max remarked and Liz dropped her lips to his then.
“Yes,” she kissed him again. “Just relax.”
Max’s method of relaxing was to recount to Liz every detail of every college football game he had ever played. She knew it was just mindless banter that came easy to him and she reached out to toy with the raven hair on his head every now and then as he prattled on about personal statistics and game details. Football was what he had grown up with, she knew. It had filled the space in his life when he had had no one or nothing else.
“And then when we played UCLA,” he looked over at Liz, her nose buried in the Power Of Healing, a book whose pages and cover showed very little sign of her having ever opened it up at college. “They matched me against this receiver from Mater Dei, big kid, like three inches taller than me,” he rambled on and Liz just smiled and toyed with his hair again. He knew she wasn’t really listening to him and he was impressed at her ability to even read anything while he chattered on.
As she came across useful phrases or descriptions she would read them aloud to Max. He was never quite sure how to respond to what she said. He would usually just continue talking about the Beavers defensive unit. But sometimes what she said stopped him. It did make sense, how he had vague memories of some things, but absolutely no memories of other things.
“ ‘Freud used the term repression to describe the way emotionally painful events could be blocked out of conscious awareness so that their painful effects would not have to be experienced,’ ” she declared suddenly, scanning the pages for more useful information. “It says here ‘repression does not involve conscious intent.’ ”
“This is weird,” Max announced uncomfortably. “Don’t you think this is weird?”
“Look at this,” she ignored him and continued on. “ ‘You may think you don’t have memories, but often as you begin to talk about what you do remember, there emerges a constellation of feelings, reactions and recollections that add up to substantial information…often the knowledge starts with a tiny feeling, an intuition…assume your feelings are valid as they almost always are.’ ” She put down the Power of Healing book and looked over at Max. “Maybe we should start with that.”
“Start with what?”
“Talking about what you do remember,” Liz suggested, knowing what he did remember he could discuss in under thirty seconds. Max managed to smile as he looked over at Liz, who seemed so determined to do this. “You remember the station wagon.”
“Yeah, but I only remember being in it. Sitting in the back seat with Michael and Isabelle. That’s all.”
“Is it a good memory, a bad memory?” Liz tried to press Max further.
“It’s just a memory,” he shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know, we were cold and kind of scared.”
“Did you feel safe?” Liz offered
“This is weird,” Max insisted again. “You acting like my therapist. I – I don’t need a therapist, Liz,” he protested.
“You said you’d try,” she reminded him.
“You try to remember stuff from when you were six!” As soon as he said the words he realized he was yelling. He was yelling about this again.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Liz hardly seemed phased by his outburst. “How you can’t remember anything? How angry it makes you?”
“We’re in the car,” Max gave a halfhearted shrug. “I’m telling you that’s all I can remember.”
“I believe you,” Liz assured him. “But you have to believe me too, Max.”
“I do,” he nodded his head emphatically. “It’s just…frustrating.”
“I know,” she acknowledged. “Okay, I’ll try something that other book said. I’m going to tell a story based on the memories I saw today…maybe that’ll trigger something, I don’t know,” she collapsed back on the bed and took in a deep breath.
“So you’re riding in the back of this station wagon. You’re kind of scared ‘cos you’re in this random car and you’ve never been in a car before,” she began. “There’s an air freshener hanging from the dashboard. It’s shaped like a pine tree,” she noticed as she spoke the words, softly and slowly, that Max closed his eyes. “You’re wrapped in an old Navajo blanket and it’s made of wool and is really itchy. You’re sitting between Michael and Isabelle and - ”
“Isabelle’s in the middle,” Max interrupted her suddenly without even thinking.
“What?”
“I’m not in the middle, I’m behind the driver. Isabelle is in the middle,” he corrected and the information surprised him as much as it did Liz. She wanted to ask him more, but remembering what she read she just continued with her story.
“You’re sitting behind the driver,” she corrected. “It’s a man with curly hair. There’s a woman in the car too sitting in the passenger seat. They’re taking you back to their house.” Max didn’t close his eyes like he had before as she continued with this part of her story. He instead focused them on her mouth as she formed the words.
Liz tried to remember where the Evans family lived. They lived in the south of town in a neighborhood where all the houses had a distinctive Spanish influence in their architecture. “Their house is white with a red roof. When they bring you inside they have you sit in a room with big blue drapes over the windows and wallpaper with flowers all over it. You’re sitting on a big couch. This time you’re in the middle.” Max’s eyes were still trained on Liz’s lips as they formed each and every syllable. “They’re talking about what to do with the three of you. They want to keep you, but they think maybe they should tell the police.”
“They gave us Chef Boyardee,” Max commented suddenly and when Liz turned her head to him he just continued. “It wasn’t Spaghetti-O’s like you said before. It was Chef Boyardee ravioli.”
“Right, they gave you Chef Boyardee ravioli,” Liz continued in amazement. She didn’t think this technique would actually work, constructing the story for Max only to have him fill in the details. She could tell he thought it was strange too.
“It was cold, the ravioli, and it didn’t taste like anything,” Max added, sliding closer to Liz. “This is really weird,” he whispered.
“Just go with it,” Liz whispered back to him. “The guy with the curly hair starts a fire in the fire place,” she continued and Max closed his eyes again. “The woman wraps that itchy blanket around you guys. They try to ask you questions, but you don’t say anything. You haven’t said anything since they found you. They wonder if you can even talk.”
“But we can, we did talk,” Max declared suddenly, “before they found us we were talking with each other. It was weird…like we could just do it even though we never had.”
“But they haven’t heard you talk yet. They can see you’re tired so they take you to a room where you can sleep. Michael and Isabelle are in one room and you’re by yourself in another. The woman gives you lots of blankets and an extra quilt and she tells you she’ll be right down the hall.”
“And she calls me Max,” he murmured suddenly, licking his lips. “And I think she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Max continued and Liz couldn’t help herself.
“What does she look like?”
“She’s got…blonde, yeah, she’s got blonde hair…” he stammered and a memory flashed into his mind then. The same memory Liz had seen except this time the face tucking him in wasn’t obscured by the darkness. He could see the woman leaning over him and her blonde hair falling around her face. Then her face vanished abruptly and a rapid series of images followed quickly after. He could make no sense of any of them they flashed by so quickly and his temple pounded with the chaotic and loud memories. His eyes flashed open and his breathing, he realized, was heavy and labored, not like it had been when he had first closed his eyes. Liz was still beside him, but she didn’t look calm and relaxed like before. She looked disturbed by whatever had happened.
“It’s okay, Max,” she clutched his hand tightly in hers. “It’s okay, whatever you saw – it was just a memory. It’s over.”
“I don’t know what I saw,” he admitted breathlessly, staring intently at Liz, letting her know that whatever he did see hadn’t been good.
“It’s okay. That’s all we’ll do tonight,” she assured, putting her hand to his cheek. His skin was cold and clammy. “That’s all we’ll do,” she repeated.
“You were right,” he hardly looked comforted by the words as his eyes focused intently on her. “Something did happen.”
He made no effort to return to the guest bedroom her parents had designated for him. In fact, he didn’t mention anything about her parents as he slid his jeans off and dipped beneath the covers of her bed. Liz followed suit, taking a moment to wriggle out of the bra she was wearing before burrowing under the covers as well.
“Whatever happened, it’s not your fault, okay?” she whispered softly and nestled up against him. His back was to her, but she made no effort to turn him around. She never got to be the big spoon and she found it felt good to be the one holding him for a change.
“Everything was red,” he finally spoke. “Everything was red and it was loud,” he repeated and he gave an exasperated sigh after he spoke the words as he rolled over onto his back. “It was here wasn’t it?”
“What was here?”
“The house they took us to. It’s here, isn’t it? Here in Roswell?” He was gazing up at the ceiling as he spoke, like he could see right through it to the night sky. He didn’t wait for Liz’s answer and continued. “I should have been a Comet,” his eyes now focused on a West Roswell t-shirt draped over Liz’s chair, taking in the logo and the blue and gold coloring. “I should have played strong safety for the West Roswell Comets,” his voice had a bitter and angry tone to it Liz had never heard before.
“Who knows if you’d even have played football,” Liz offered lamely and she knew it was a poor response, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. ‘Yeah, you should have, but life screwed you over’?
“Maybe you wouldn’t have even played sports.”
“Michael wouldn’t have had his hockey,” Max remarked. “He loves hockey,” he added quietly.
“I think you should go to sleep,” Liz suggested. “We’ve got a lot of driving to do the next couple of days.”
“You know them, don’t you? The people who found me?” he turned his body to her. Liz swallowed the lump rising in her throat and stared right back at him, trying to convey nothing in her face. “You said he had curly hair, but I didn’t…I didn’t remember that until you said it.”
“There’s a lot of people with curly hair in Roswell,” she replied and she felt sick at her stomach for the second time that day. Sick because she was lying to Max. She knew it was the right thing to do, not to tell him until she knew everything, but she felt sick nonetheless.
“Yeah,” he rolled back onto his back and sighed. “And there’s probably a lot of women with blonde hair.”
“We’ll figure it all out,” she assured, staring at his suddenly stoic face.
“We leave tomorrow.” Max closed his eyes wearily. “How much can we find out in six hours?”
“You should get to sleep.” She reached up to turn off the light and she dropped a kiss on top of his head as she did. “I love you,” she whispered, pressing her lips against his dark and tousled hair. “Whatever we find out, just…know that.”
“Hey,” his voice sounded softly as his hands fell limply at his sides. “Where’d you go?”
“Bathroom,” Liz motioned to the open bathroom door. Max just nodded his head and licked his lips thoughtfully.
“Can I come in?” he asked politely and Liz just laughed at the ridiculousness of the question.
“Of course you can.” Max smiled awkwardly back at her as he stepped through the door.
“I just…” he sat down on the edge of the bed, fidgeting nervously with his hands. Liz sat down beside him, pushing back all the thoughts and words that threatened to pour out of her. “I wanted to apologize for yelling at you before,” he finally said with a shrug of the shoulders. “I know you’re just trying to help me, so,” he offered her a small smile. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever apologize,” Liz shook her head emphatically and sat down on the bed. “What I was saying – it’s a lot to take in.”
“But I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did,” he insisted firmly, his eyes locked on hers. “I’ve just never thought about it, you know?”
“Thought about what?” Liz spoke slowly.
“The people who found me,” Max shrugged, finally joining her on the couch, “who they were, what they were doing out in the desert - ”
“You were found in the desert?” Liz raised her head up suddenly. It was the only time Max had mentioned details about when he was found.
“Yeah,” Max replied immediately, but no sooner had he said it then a look of confusion passed over his face. “I mean, I think – I don’t really…” he stumbled over words as his eyebrows sloped into a frown. “It’s like it’s there, but I just…yeah, I think it was in the desert.”
“Do you remember the car that found you?” Liz asked softly, her voice no more than a whisper. Max just shook his head. “Was it a station wagon?” Liz inquired again, her voice low and gentle.
“Yeah,” Max replied automatically again, looking as surprised as Liz. “It was a station wagon.”
The psychology major in Liz was intrigued. Though not scientifically proven, the repression of early traumatic memories had been documented before. She had read the case studies and right now Max showed all the symptoms.
“You have to know,” Liz spoke softly, “the thing with repression is - ”
“Liz, what are you talking about?” Max’s face twisted into a crooked smile.
“The thing is it’s not your fault. It’s not something you do consciously. It’s an automatic psychological defense,” she blurted out.
“You really think I have repressed memories?” The crooked smile slowly vanished from his face.
“Something shocking happens and the mind pushes it into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious,” Liz continued like the psych major she had once been.
“People with repressed memories,” Max rubbed his hand over his eyes uncomfortably, “they’re like…messed up, aren’t they?” He looked utterly disturbed by what she was suggesting.
“No,” Liz shook her head. “It doesn’t mean you’re messed up,” she moved her hands up to hold his face in her hands. “It just means something happened.”
“Something happened that I have no memory of?” Max laughed, “it sounds kind of crazy, Liz.”
“I know it sounds bizarre, but just – I took a whole class on memory, you just have to trust me.”
“Trust you to do what?” he looked to Liz warily.
“To help you remember.” She didn’t know how he would take her offer and for almost a minute her words just hung in the air. She sat in silence on the bed beside him and waited for an answer.
“I think we should go back downstairs,” he spoke slowly.
“Max,” Liz opened up her mouth in protest.
“It’s your last night in Roswell,” he got to his feet and held out his hand for her. “Alex is waiting for us.”
“But tonight, after…will you let me?” Liz stumbled over her words. She still couldn’t get Phillip Evans’ face out of her head. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Evans family Sunday breakfasts. She couldn’t stop thinking about how she would ever break the news to Max. If he allowed her to try to work with him, to help him regain his lost memories maybe he could figure out the mystery to his childhood by himself. Then maybe she wouldn’t have to tell him at all.
It weighed on her mind all night. Watching TV with Alex and Max all she could think about was what could possibly have happened to Max. What emotional trauma had caused him to repress all his earliest memories. Being given up by the Evans was likely a demoralizing and upsetting memory, but it wasn’t the type of event that would trigger such a reaction. Something more had happened. Something that she needed Max to figure out.
He could sense something on her mind all night. Even as they sat out in the booth like last night, talking and laughing over milkshakes and chili fries, he saw her mind someplace else. Her eyes were fixed on a booth on the other side of the room. A booth, he had no way of knowing, was the booth that was occupied by Phillip, Diane and Becca Evans almost every Sunday for the past fifteen years. Liz wanted to enjoy her last night in Roswell more than anything. She wanted to laugh with Alex about whatever he was laughing about, to catch up with Maria and discuss her three years at Arizona State. But she was haunted by the Evans’ booth.
She would glance periodically throughout the night from the booth back to Max. How would Max have turned out if he had had two loving parents? If he had never had to know the abandonment that had marked his life thus far? She looked around the Crashdown and thought about her own life. Would she have been shot? Max had said yesterday that he could fix things. Would she have known him? Would they even have been together sophomore year? Would he have ‘fixed’ her like he said he could? Try as she might Liz was unable to focus on the present, on the friends she would soon leave behind.
“So what time you guys leaving tomorrow?” Maria inquired suddenly and her piercing gaze was lost on neither Max nor Liz. Alex remained oblivious.
“Yeah, you gonna be here for breakfast or you leaving early?” he looked saddened by either prospect.
“Noon,” Liz spoke slowly as she looked to Max to make sure that the time was okay.
“Yeah, probably around noon,” Max agreed and he managed to smile.
“So you’re gonna drive all the way to Canada on that bike?” Maria raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
“It’s actually pretty comfortable,” Liz shrugged. “Why don’t you give her a ride tomorrow”? she propositioned suddenly, turning towards Max.
“Sure,” Max nodded his head, “it’s kind of dark out now, but I’ll give you a ride tomorrow morning if you want.”
“It’s awesome, Maria, you should,” Liz insisted, smiling broadly.
“Not really a motorcycle person, thanks,” she replied deadpan.
“Oh, come on, all you talked about sophomore year was how much you wanted a Harley,” Liz kicked her beneath the table playfully, but Maria didn’t smile back.
“That’s not a Harley,” she noted stoically, “that’s a racing bike.”
“Which means it’s faster and more fun,” Alex added and then before Maria could say anything further he volunteered himself. “I’d love to go for a ride tomorrow if you don’t mind?”
“I’d love to,” Max smiled at the lanky young man he had taken quite a liking to. He was warm and friendly and, most of all, genuine. Maria, on the other hand, he couldn’t get a read on. Sometimes it looked like she wanted to like him despite herself; other times it felt like there were daggers coming from her eyes.
“How far you guys riding tomorrow?” Maria questioned again and Max felt the daggers this time.
“However far we get,” Max replied honestly with a shrug.
“You just go?” Maria gave a dubious look.
“Until we’re both too tired to go anymore,” Liz answered.
“That’s awesome,” Alex nodded his head emphatically and gave a wide smile.
“It is,” Liz grinned back, “it’s kind of…freeing not having a set destination.”
“My family is nuts whenever we take a vacation,” Alex shook his head. “Bathroom breaks and gas stops are included in the itinerary. It’s insane.” Max and Liz smiled widely at the revelation and even Maria did despite herself.
Alex was in fact the only thing that kept them all smiling. His remarks were the only thing keeping the booth from falling silent. Any conversations that started up would soon stagnate, put to a quick end by a biting comment or an ugly glare from Maria. After failed conversation attempt after failed conversation attempt, Alex just chose to launch into another discussion about the Canadian music scene with Max.
“I can’t believe you know who The Dears are!” he proclaimed in amazement, staring at Max with wide eyes. “ ‘End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story’ is only like my favorite album of 2004.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” Max nodded his head and smiled, amazed that this kid from New Mexico knew bands from Halifax and Quebec City.
“What about Sloan? The Arcade Fire? Godspeed You! Black Emperor?” Alex rattled off names that meant nothing to either of the girls sitting at the table.
“Alex, what language are you speaking?” Maria snorted. “You and Canada,” Maria shook her head, “you should just move there and marry your cyber girlfriend.”
“I like Sloan a lot,” Max answered Alex’s initial question, choosing to pass over the biting comments Maria was even shooting at her best friend. “In fact, one of my friends from home knows the bassist,” he chose to divulge a bit of information to Alex as he sucked down the last of his Alien Blast milkshake.
“No kidding!” Alex’s spoonful of ice cream fell to the table with a clatter. “That’s Izzy’s favorite band!” he practically shouted out the words. “She said she met the bassist in a Tim Horton’s last May.”
“So we finally get a name?” Maria peered over at Alex with a wide grin at the name he had unintentionally blurted out. It was clearly information she’d been trying to pry out of Alex for a long time. The name of his Canadian sweetheart.
“Izzy, huh?” Liz too peered over at Alex with a broad smile. She was so excited at learning the identity, or at least the first name, of the girl Alex had been talking about the past two days, she didn’t notice the pale shade Max’s face had suddenly turned. He swallowed loudly and excused himself, offering to take their dirty plates back to the sink while the girls interrogated Alex.
There were lots of Tim Horton’s, he told himself. And Sloan toured all over Canada. There could be more than one fan named Izzy who had met the bassist at a Tim Horton’s. This couldn’t be. This would be beyond coincidence.
“Can you bring over some napkins?” Liz called suddenly to him. “Alex just spilled his water everywhere. Little too excited, are we?” she teased. Max searched slowly behind the counter for the napkins, hoping that by the time he returned to the booth they would be talking about something else.
“Tim Horton’s is like your version of Dunkin Donuts, right?” Alex inquired curiously as Max slid down beside Liz.
“Yeah,” he was slow to reply as he handed the napkins across the table where Maria could mop up the spilled water.
“They sell Timbits, or something like that, right?”
“Yeah.” The one syllable word was again all Max could utter. “They’re like Munchkins.”
“That’s what I thought,” Alex smiled and there was a look Liz could only decipher as pride on his face. Like he was proud to prove to Max, or Lucas rather, that he knew something about his home. She suppressed the grin threatening to cross her face and just looked over at Max. He, on the other hand, wore an unreadable expression on his face and was looking ahead at Alex almost the same way Maria had been looking at him all night.
“Timbits are good,” Max finally spoke. Timbits were Isabelle’s favorite.
“I’ll have to try some then,” Liz nudged him in the ribs playfully. The action startled him, but as his eyes focused back on Liz the look he had been giving Alex suddenly passed.
“Yeah, we can get some when we get to Canada,” he finally offered the faintest makings of a smile.
“I can’t wait,” Liz smiled, leaning into Max’s shoulder comfortably.
“Well, as much as I want to hear about Canada and stare at the Lovers’ Corner over here,” Maria eyed Max and Liz, “I have to be at work early.”
“But the night is young!” Alex exclaimed. “And Liz leaves tomorrow!”
“Oh and I’ll be here,” Maria slid out of the booth and grabbed her jacket, offering Max and Liz the briefest of smiles. “Bright and early.”
Max, Alex and Liz remained in the booth until almost 1 AM prattling on about Alex’s plans after college and what exactly one did with a computer science degree. They talked about independent Canadian rock groups, Tim Horton’s and the Expos move to Washington. She knew whoever the girl Alex was talking to was she had done quite a number on her friend. She’d never known him to show such interest in anything as he did in Canada. She could tell Max found it peculiar too. Every now and again a look would come across his face when Alex was talking, a look Liz couldn’t decipher at all. Then it would pass quickly and a small smile would take it’s place.
“He is so great,” Liz sighed as she walked up the stairs at the end of the night hand in hand with Max. “I hope whoever this girl is they get to meet.” She smiled hopefully for her friend as they walked through the door into her room. Max turned to her once the door was closed behind them.
“It’s Isabelle,” he spoke softly.
“What?” Liz laughed, unsure what Max had just said.
“Isabelle,” Max repeated stiffly, “like Michael and Isabelle.”
“You’re kidding?” she turned to look at Max’s serious face. “You’re not kidding.”
“I didn’t believe it either, but – all the bands he listed, they’re Isabelle’s favorites and that thing about the Timbits – she loves Timbits.”
“But Max, that – that can’t be…” Liz stammered.
“All he said was she lived in Quebec close to Newfoundland,” Max shrugged.
“Michael and Isabelle live on a fishing island,” Liz shook her head. “That’s…they probably don’t even have internet.” She wasn’t sure why she was protesting, but she couldn’t help it. It was impossible.
“They have a satellite, you can get internet through a satellite,” Max shrugged and of all things a curious smile came across his face. “Weirder things have happened,” he scratched his forehead with his thumb and chuckled softly. “It’s a small world.”
“Yeah, but…my Alex with – with your…sister.” Calling Isabelle his sister sounded strange, but she knew that was how Max thought of her. “It’s too weird.”
“I thought so too for a while, but,” Max collapsed onto the bed and laughed again, louder this time. “I honestly believe they just met on a message board. I mean it’s pretty lonely up on that island with just Michael.”
“That’s crazy!” Liz shook her head in disbelief. “That is beyond crazy,” she joined Max on the bed. Going to Roswell was supposed to make their life easier. It was supposed to be a few free meals, a free place to sleep and a chance for her to catch up with her family. In their short few days in Roswell too much had happened for Liz to even process. Too much for her to even spell out in her head - Max being found by the Evans, her best friend and his sister meeting in cyberland. And everything just came back to Roswell.
Liz turned on her side to face Max, who was sprawled out on his back with his arms behind his head. “So about what I said earlier tonight,” she nudged closer to him. “About trying to help you remember.”
“Right,” Max nodded his head, tearing his mind away from the randomness of tonight’s revelation. “Yeah, okay.” While he didn’t exactly sound confident about it, Liz knew he was trying.
“I think I have some of my psych books from sophomore year,” she bit her lip and looked up at Max. “If you don’t want to do it, Max, it’s okay. Really.” His eyes shifted nervously back and forth. “Whatever happens, I’ll be here,” she assured him, moving a hand to his arm. Max cleared his throat and sat up suddenly.
“Why don’t I help you look for the books,” he offered, but Liz just pressed a hand to his chest.
“Why don’t you just relax?” she suggested softly, but Max ignored her and swung his legs over the bed.
“Liz, you don’t have to treat me like some special case or something,” he looked uncomfortable.
“I meant to take in the weirdness that is Alex and Isabelle,” she smiled at him and kissed him once softly on the mouth.
“That is unbelievably weird,” Max murmured as he lowered himself back down onto the bed like Liz suggested.
“Quite possibly the most random thing ever,” Liz added with a laugh as she crouched down to look under her bed, pulling out old binders and textbooks, chemistry books from 1997 and notebooks with Kyle Valenti’s name doodled in the corner.
“You don’t think he’ll ever…like actually try to meet her, do you?” Max inquired, and Liz could sense the slightest bit of worry in his voice.
“I don’t know. Alex is kind of a cheapskate, so I don’t see him flying up to Canada for weekend visits or anything,” Liz remarked absentmindedly as she finally got to the textbooks from her sophomore year of college.
“Yeah,” Max agreed from the bed. “Isabelle’s way too cautious to just go and meet someone she met online,” he assured himself. “She’s too smart to do something like that.”
“Like picking someone up off the side of the road?” Liz lifted her head up to look at Max, her eyebrows raised in reminder of what he himself had done a little more than two weeks ago.
“But she wouldn’t,” Max maintained though Liz could hear he didn’t sound so self-assured.
“I’m just saying…” One by one Liz lifted the textbooks onto the bed. “…when there’s a connection, there’s just a connection.” She kicked everything else back under the bed and sat down next to Max. “You don’t really listen to your head.”
Max was silent. He knew she was describing the connection they shared. The connection that had kept her in the truck those first few days despite everything, the same connection that had caused Max to stop his rig, invite her inside and tell her his real name after little more than a day.
“The Psychology of Memory, the Power of Healing?” Max chose to instead focus on the books she had selected. “What exactly are we looking for in here?”
“You are not looking for anything,” Liz took the books from his hands and set them back on the bed. “Seriously, just relax for a while.”
“You don’t want me to read them, do you?” he looked to her anxiously. “You don’t want me to see what they say?”
“Max, I’ve studied this, okay? You haven’t. Just trust me,” she assured him. “There’s nothing bad in here,” she motioned to the book. “But there’s something…there’s something bad in your head,” she moved a hand up to his temple. “Something bad that is keeping you from remembering these things,” she moved her other hand up to his face.
“And I’m supposed to relax?” Max remarked and Liz dropped her lips to his then.
“Yes,” she kissed him again. “Just relax.”
Max’s method of relaxing was to recount to Liz every detail of every college football game he had ever played. She knew it was just mindless banter that came easy to him and she reached out to toy with the raven hair on his head every now and then as he prattled on about personal statistics and game details. Football was what he had grown up with, she knew. It had filled the space in his life when he had had no one or nothing else.
“And then when we played UCLA,” he looked over at Liz, her nose buried in the Power Of Healing, a book whose pages and cover showed very little sign of her having ever opened it up at college. “They matched me against this receiver from Mater Dei, big kid, like three inches taller than me,” he rambled on and Liz just smiled and toyed with his hair again. He knew she wasn’t really listening to him and he was impressed at her ability to even read anything while he chattered on.
As she came across useful phrases or descriptions she would read them aloud to Max. He was never quite sure how to respond to what she said. He would usually just continue talking about the Beavers defensive unit. But sometimes what she said stopped him. It did make sense, how he had vague memories of some things, but absolutely no memories of other things.
“ ‘Freud used the term repression to describe the way emotionally painful events could be blocked out of conscious awareness so that their painful effects would not have to be experienced,’ ” she declared suddenly, scanning the pages for more useful information. “It says here ‘repression does not involve conscious intent.’ ”
“This is weird,” Max announced uncomfortably. “Don’t you think this is weird?”
“Look at this,” she ignored him and continued on. “ ‘You may think you don’t have memories, but often as you begin to talk about what you do remember, there emerges a constellation of feelings, reactions and recollections that add up to substantial information…often the knowledge starts with a tiny feeling, an intuition…assume your feelings are valid as they almost always are.’ ” She put down the Power of Healing book and looked over at Max. “Maybe we should start with that.”
“Start with what?”
“Talking about what you do remember,” Liz suggested, knowing what he did remember he could discuss in under thirty seconds. Max managed to smile as he looked over at Liz, who seemed so determined to do this. “You remember the station wagon.”
“Yeah, but I only remember being in it. Sitting in the back seat with Michael and Isabelle. That’s all.”
“Is it a good memory, a bad memory?” Liz tried to press Max further.
“It’s just a memory,” he shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know, we were cold and kind of scared.”
“Did you feel safe?” Liz offered
“This is weird,” Max insisted again. “You acting like my therapist. I – I don’t need a therapist, Liz,” he protested.
“You said you’d try,” she reminded him.
“You try to remember stuff from when you were six!” As soon as he said the words he realized he was yelling. He was yelling about this again.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Liz hardly seemed phased by his outburst. “How you can’t remember anything? How angry it makes you?”
“We’re in the car,” Max gave a halfhearted shrug. “I’m telling you that’s all I can remember.”
“I believe you,” Liz assured him. “But you have to believe me too, Max.”
“I do,” he nodded his head emphatically. “It’s just…frustrating.”
“I know,” she acknowledged. “Okay, I’ll try something that other book said. I’m going to tell a story based on the memories I saw today…maybe that’ll trigger something, I don’t know,” she collapsed back on the bed and took in a deep breath.
“So you’re riding in the back of this station wagon. You’re kind of scared ‘cos you’re in this random car and you’ve never been in a car before,” she began. “There’s an air freshener hanging from the dashboard. It’s shaped like a pine tree,” she noticed as she spoke the words, softly and slowly, that Max closed his eyes. “You’re wrapped in an old Navajo blanket and it’s made of wool and is really itchy. You’re sitting between Michael and Isabelle and - ”
“Isabelle’s in the middle,” Max interrupted her suddenly without even thinking.
“What?”
“I’m not in the middle, I’m behind the driver. Isabelle is in the middle,” he corrected and the information surprised him as much as it did Liz. She wanted to ask him more, but remembering what she read she just continued with her story.
“You’re sitting behind the driver,” she corrected. “It’s a man with curly hair. There’s a woman in the car too sitting in the passenger seat. They’re taking you back to their house.” Max didn’t close his eyes like he had before as she continued with this part of her story. He instead focused them on her mouth as she formed the words.
Liz tried to remember where the Evans family lived. They lived in the south of town in a neighborhood where all the houses had a distinctive Spanish influence in their architecture. “Their house is white with a red roof. When they bring you inside they have you sit in a room with big blue drapes over the windows and wallpaper with flowers all over it. You’re sitting on a big couch. This time you’re in the middle.” Max’s eyes were still trained on Liz’s lips as they formed each and every syllable. “They’re talking about what to do with the three of you. They want to keep you, but they think maybe they should tell the police.”
“They gave us Chef Boyardee,” Max commented suddenly and when Liz turned her head to him he just continued. “It wasn’t Spaghetti-O’s like you said before. It was Chef Boyardee ravioli.”
“Right, they gave you Chef Boyardee ravioli,” Liz continued in amazement. She didn’t think this technique would actually work, constructing the story for Max only to have him fill in the details. She could tell he thought it was strange too.
“It was cold, the ravioli, and it didn’t taste like anything,” Max added, sliding closer to Liz. “This is really weird,” he whispered.
“Just go with it,” Liz whispered back to him. “The guy with the curly hair starts a fire in the fire place,” she continued and Max closed his eyes again. “The woman wraps that itchy blanket around you guys. They try to ask you questions, but you don’t say anything. You haven’t said anything since they found you. They wonder if you can even talk.”
“But we can, we did talk,” Max declared suddenly, “before they found us we were talking with each other. It was weird…like we could just do it even though we never had.”
“But they haven’t heard you talk yet. They can see you’re tired so they take you to a room where you can sleep. Michael and Isabelle are in one room and you’re by yourself in another. The woman gives you lots of blankets and an extra quilt and she tells you she’ll be right down the hall.”
“And she calls me Max,” he murmured suddenly, licking his lips. “And I think she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Max continued and Liz couldn’t help herself.
“What does she look like?”
“She’s got…blonde, yeah, she’s got blonde hair…” he stammered and a memory flashed into his mind then. The same memory Liz had seen except this time the face tucking him in wasn’t obscured by the darkness. He could see the woman leaning over him and her blonde hair falling around her face. Then her face vanished abruptly and a rapid series of images followed quickly after. He could make no sense of any of them they flashed by so quickly and his temple pounded with the chaotic and loud memories. His eyes flashed open and his breathing, he realized, was heavy and labored, not like it had been when he had first closed his eyes. Liz was still beside him, but she didn’t look calm and relaxed like before. She looked disturbed by whatever had happened.
“It’s okay, Max,” she clutched his hand tightly in hers. “It’s okay, whatever you saw – it was just a memory. It’s over.”
“I don’t know what I saw,” he admitted breathlessly, staring intently at Liz, letting her know that whatever he did see hadn’t been good.
“It’s okay. That’s all we’ll do tonight,” she assured, putting her hand to his cheek. His skin was cold and clammy. “That’s all we’ll do,” she repeated.
“You were right,” he hardly looked comforted by the words as his eyes focused intently on her. “Something did happen.”
He made no effort to return to the guest bedroom her parents had designated for him. In fact, he didn’t mention anything about her parents as he slid his jeans off and dipped beneath the covers of her bed. Liz followed suit, taking a moment to wriggle out of the bra she was wearing before burrowing under the covers as well.
“Whatever happened, it’s not your fault, okay?” she whispered softly and nestled up against him. His back was to her, but she made no effort to turn him around. She never got to be the big spoon and she found it felt good to be the one holding him for a change.
“Everything was red,” he finally spoke. “Everything was red and it was loud,” he repeated and he gave an exasperated sigh after he spoke the words as he rolled over onto his back. “It was here wasn’t it?”
“What was here?”
“The house they took us to. It’s here, isn’t it? Here in Roswell?” He was gazing up at the ceiling as he spoke, like he could see right through it to the night sky. He didn’t wait for Liz’s answer and continued. “I should have been a Comet,” his eyes now focused on a West Roswell t-shirt draped over Liz’s chair, taking in the logo and the blue and gold coloring. “I should have played strong safety for the West Roswell Comets,” his voice had a bitter and angry tone to it Liz had never heard before.
“Who knows if you’d even have played football,” Liz offered lamely and she knew it was a poor response, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. ‘Yeah, you should have, but life screwed you over’?
“Maybe you wouldn’t have even played sports.”
“Michael wouldn’t have had his hockey,” Max remarked. “He loves hockey,” he added quietly.
“I think you should go to sleep,” Liz suggested. “We’ve got a lot of driving to do the next couple of days.”
“You know them, don’t you? The people who found me?” he turned his body to her. Liz swallowed the lump rising in her throat and stared right back at him, trying to convey nothing in her face. “You said he had curly hair, but I didn’t…I didn’t remember that until you said it.”
“There’s a lot of people with curly hair in Roswell,” she replied and she felt sick at her stomach for the second time that day. Sick because she was lying to Max. She knew it was the right thing to do, not to tell him until she knew everything, but she felt sick nonetheless.
“Yeah,” he rolled back onto his back and sighed. “And there’s probably a lot of women with blonde hair.”
“We’ll figure it all out,” she assured, staring at his suddenly stoic face.
“We leave tomorrow.” Max closed his eyes wearily. “How much can we find out in six hours?”
“You should get to sleep.” She reached up to turn off the light and she dropped a kiss on top of his head as she did. “I love you,” she whispered, pressing her lips against his dark and tousled hair. “Whatever we find out, just…know that.”
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."
Five hours was all she had left in Roswell. As Liz’s eyes fluttered open and rested on the alarm clock that was all she could think about. Five hours was all she had left with her mom and dad, with Alex and Maria. She looked across the bed to Max. Five hours left to unlock the truth for Max. She gave him a gentle shove to wake him.
“It’s seven o’clock,” she whispered. “I’m gonna go downstairs and help my dad,” she informed, but Max hardly opened his eyes in reply. She knew he had had less than a perfect night’s sleep; she’d felt him tossing and turning beside her all night. “Come down whenever you get up, I’ll probably be in the kitchen,” she informed him as she rolled out of bed and began searching through her closet for the outfit she would be wearing when she left Roswell.
She thought back to what Max had said back in Mom’s Fish and Pancake House, about seeing Michael and Isabelle only twice a year. Whatever she chose to wear would be the last outfit her parents would see her in for quite some time. She rifled through the shirts and sweaters hanging in her closet, most of which she hadn’t worn for years. She paused at a small button-down shirt hanging in the back. It was a horrible brown color with an almost un-distinguishable pattern on it few people recognized as cupcakes. The shirt had once been a dress her mother had made for her back in kindergarten. Liz had then, in turn, made it into a shirt back in the tenth grade. She looked at the ugly shirt, remembering how mortified she had been when she had worn the dress back in kindergarten. But she had worn it nonetheless for her mother, just as she would do today.
“Well, that’s a blast from the past,” her father laughed as she stepped into the kitchen in the shirt. “Wait ‘til your mother sees.”
“Where is mom?” Liz inquired, looking around the kitchen.
“Asleep,” Mr. Parker smiled. “Where’s Lucas?”
“Asleep,” Liz smiled back at her dad, knowing perfectly well that he’d seen the neatly made bed in the guest room that Max hadn’t slept in last night. Max would die.
“Well, want me to make you some breakfast or you want to wait for him?” he asked cheerfully and it dawned on Liz that she hadn’t told her parents she would be leaving today. Alex and Maria knew, but her parents probably thought she was home for an extended period of time.
“Dad, I…” she watched her father as he bustled around the kitchen. How would she go about telling him? She couldn’t give him the same garbage excuses she’d given Maria. They’d been the truth, but they wouldn’t work on her father. “I’m leaving today,” she finally blurted out.
“You’re going to visit Lucas’ family,” Mr. Parker smiled as he cracked two eggs over a skillet. He looked at Liz’s shocked face. “Maria told me,” he explained with a smile, “I think that’s great,” he stuck two pieces of toast into the giant toaster for her, the smile never leaving his face. “It’s pretty serious between you two, isn’t it?” he looked to Liz as she leaned up against the counter and smiled bashfully back at him. She didn’t talk about this stuff with her parents; she never had.
“I love him,” she shrugged and she was amazed at how good it felt to say to her dad.
“Lizzie, that’s…your mother and I are so happy for you,” her father turned his attention back to the eggs. Her father had the uncanny ability to get her eggs exactly the way she liked them. Not too runny, but not too cooked either. “He’s a terrific guy.”
“Yeah,” Liz just smiled and looked down the linoleum floor. “Yeah, he is. He’s pretty special.”
“So how long you think you’ll be up there?” her dad flipped the eggs over and asked the question she had been dreading.
“I’m not sure,” she replied honestly. “I think we’re gonna…travel around a little,” she tried as hard as she could not to lie. “Probably for most of the summer.” Liz was unable to look at her dad as she spoke the words.
“That sounds like fun,” her dad sounded surprisingly upbeat at the revelation and Liz wondered for a moment if this was all just a dream. “You given any thought to what you’re going to do your senior year?”
The words sounded strange to Liz, like a part of her life that wasn’t her life anymore. Senior Year, College. They sounded so frivolous. She and Max didn’t have time for school. There were people after him, probably close on his trail this very minute. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.
“Not really,” Liz shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. “I think I might just try to finish my degree up online.”
“What about Lucas?”
“He’s done with school,” Liz blurted out quickly, “I mean after this year – he graduates in May and then he’s done.”
“I didn’t know that,” Mr. Parker placed Liz’s eggs on a plate and handed them to her with a smile. “Is he a year above you or is he just graduating early?”
“Graduating early,” she replied shortly, taking the plate from her father and heading for the door. She wasn’t sure how many more of her dad’s questions she could handle. And she dreaded the question she knew would inevitably come. When are you coming back? “I’m gonna eat out front,” she edged closer to the door.
“I’ll be out there soon enough,” he motioned to the counter and sighed loudly. “Sunday mornings are the worst.” Liz’s head shot up at the words. Sunday morning meant the Evans would be here.
If she and Max left at noon like they had said that meant Max would see the Evans. Would he recognize them? She wondered. What would happen? God, her stomach churned whenever she thought about it. She couldn’t tell him until she knew what had happened, but five hours was all they had. Liz sat at the counter and ate her eggs in silence. Sheriff Valenti was there, drinking his coffee as usual and a handful of the booths were already occupied. Maria was thus already busy, filling coffees and taking orders.
“Morning,” Liz offered as her friend made her way behind the counter.
“Morning,” Maria replied tersely. “You all packed?”
“Look, Maria, I’ll be back,” Liz sighed. “I don’t know when, but I will.”
“Right, okay, stop in every ten months or so, that’ll be great.”
“I’m not just going to disappear,” Liz snapped back, “It won’t be like before, I promise.”
“Why can’t you stay another day? What is so important about seeing his family right now?”
“Because they’re expecting us,” Liz blurted out the first lame excuse she could think of. Michael and Isabelle didn’t even know who she was, nevertheless that she was coming to visit. “And that would be rude.”
“Whatever,” Maria rolled her eyes and picked up the pot of decaf she had been waiting for.
“Why are you being like this?” Liz finally asked, fed up with Maria’s hot/cold behavior in the three days she’d been home. Sometimes they fell back into things and it seemed almost normal between them. But then she would get like this.
“Because it’s weird, Liz! He’s weird!” Maria slammed the pot of hot coffee back onto the counter. “Why does no one else see that?” she shook her head in frustration. “You just show up out of the blue on the back of a motorcycle with some random guy you say you met in New York who’s supposed to be from Canada and doesn’t have an accent, you say you shared a cab which is just bullshit, you’re wearing shirts you haven’t worn since tenth grade and now you’re leaving after like two days when I can tell you want to stay!” She strung the words together so fast Liz couldn’t even understand half of what she said. She caught the gist of it though and cursed herself for thinking she could easily fool her best friend. Sure they hadn’t been close for the past three years, but Maria knew her better than anyone. God, how she wanted to tell her the truth.
“Sorry, I have to leave,” Liz shrugged, trying to stay as calm and collected as she could. “And I’m sorry you think he’s weird. I think if you stopped being like this you’d actually find out he’s a pretty good guy. You might even like him.”
“I have to get back to work,” she picked the pot of coffee back up and walked to the front of the restaurant where the door jangled open. Liz jerked her head up quickly and turned to the entering family. She couldn’t quite figure out what emotions were running through her when she saw that it was just Mr. Delgado coming in for a turn at the counter. Was it relief or was it disappointment?
“Buenos dias, Elizabeth,” he greeted with a smile. “How long you home for?”
“Not long,” she sighed, running her hand through her hair. “Not long at all.”
He wasn’t a person to lie in bed. Usually, Max was an early riser, but he couldn’t quite make himself get out of the bed this morning. He had slept poorly last night. All he could think about was who they were. What had they been doing out in the desert? Why had they not just turned them right over to an orphanage? Why had they chosen the name Max for him? Did they name Michael and Isabelle too? Why didn’t Michael and Isabelle ever talk about it? Did they not remember either? And then there was the coincidence of Alex and Isabelle, which was almost too much for him to process. Too many thoughts were running through his head for him to have gotten any more than an hour of sleep. He had slept close to Liz and nuzzled close to her throughout the night no matter how many times he had changed positions. Sometimes in the night he thought about what his life had been like before Liz, before that day on I-95.
It had been simpler. He was found and had been brought to Midland. That was it. Now it was difficult. Now he had questions, lots of them. Liz made him think about things. Slowly, Max raised himself from the bed and readied himself to go downstairs. He had never given his life on the run a second thought. That was the way it was because that was how it had to be. He had never really had a place to go home to, no reason or desire to stay anywhere. Last night, he had been struck with the urge to spend a whole other week in Roswell, here with Liz’s family, spending nights talking music and watching T.V with Alex. He would work with Liz to try and remember every night and then they’d find them, they’d find the people who had found him. And they’d stay here in Roswell. Isabelle could come down and meet Alex. They could go on double dates and become a family of their own.
But such was a life he would never lead, a life he could only dream about. Max shook his head as he pulled on his jeans and walked down the hall to his room. That was what Liz made him do. She made him think about the future. Something he had never really done before. Not just days ahead, but months, heck even years down the road. Because he could no longer think about his life without Liz in it.
“It’s seven o’clock,” she whispered. “I’m gonna go downstairs and help my dad,” she informed, but Max hardly opened his eyes in reply. She knew he had had less than a perfect night’s sleep; she’d felt him tossing and turning beside her all night. “Come down whenever you get up, I’ll probably be in the kitchen,” she informed him as she rolled out of bed and began searching through her closet for the outfit she would be wearing when she left Roswell.
She thought back to what Max had said back in Mom’s Fish and Pancake House, about seeing Michael and Isabelle only twice a year. Whatever she chose to wear would be the last outfit her parents would see her in for quite some time. She rifled through the shirts and sweaters hanging in her closet, most of which she hadn’t worn for years. She paused at a small button-down shirt hanging in the back. It was a horrible brown color with an almost un-distinguishable pattern on it few people recognized as cupcakes. The shirt had once been a dress her mother had made for her back in kindergarten. Liz had then, in turn, made it into a shirt back in the tenth grade. She looked at the ugly shirt, remembering how mortified she had been when she had worn the dress back in kindergarten. But she had worn it nonetheless for her mother, just as she would do today.
“Well, that’s a blast from the past,” her father laughed as she stepped into the kitchen in the shirt. “Wait ‘til your mother sees.”
“Where is mom?” Liz inquired, looking around the kitchen.
“Asleep,” Mr. Parker smiled. “Where’s Lucas?”
“Asleep,” Liz smiled back at her dad, knowing perfectly well that he’d seen the neatly made bed in the guest room that Max hadn’t slept in last night. Max would die.
“Well, want me to make you some breakfast or you want to wait for him?” he asked cheerfully and it dawned on Liz that she hadn’t told her parents she would be leaving today. Alex and Maria knew, but her parents probably thought she was home for an extended period of time.
“Dad, I…” she watched her father as he bustled around the kitchen. How would she go about telling him? She couldn’t give him the same garbage excuses she’d given Maria. They’d been the truth, but they wouldn’t work on her father. “I’m leaving today,” she finally blurted out.
“You’re going to visit Lucas’ family,” Mr. Parker smiled as he cracked two eggs over a skillet. He looked at Liz’s shocked face. “Maria told me,” he explained with a smile, “I think that’s great,” he stuck two pieces of toast into the giant toaster for her, the smile never leaving his face. “It’s pretty serious between you two, isn’t it?” he looked to Liz as she leaned up against the counter and smiled bashfully back at him. She didn’t talk about this stuff with her parents; she never had.
“I love him,” she shrugged and she was amazed at how good it felt to say to her dad.
“Lizzie, that’s…your mother and I are so happy for you,” her father turned his attention back to the eggs. Her father had the uncanny ability to get her eggs exactly the way she liked them. Not too runny, but not too cooked either. “He’s a terrific guy.”
“Yeah,” Liz just smiled and looked down the linoleum floor. “Yeah, he is. He’s pretty special.”
“So how long you think you’ll be up there?” her dad flipped the eggs over and asked the question she had been dreading.
“I’m not sure,” she replied honestly. “I think we’re gonna…travel around a little,” she tried as hard as she could not to lie. “Probably for most of the summer.” Liz was unable to look at her dad as she spoke the words.
“That sounds like fun,” her dad sounded surprisingly upbeat at the revelation and Liz wondered for a moment if this was all just a dream. “You given any thought to what you’re going to do your senior year?”
The words sounded strange to Liz, like a part of her life that wasn’t her life anymore. Senior Year, College. They sounded so frivolous. She and Max didn’t have time for school. There were people after him, probably close on his trail this very minute. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.
“Not really,” Liz shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. “I think I might just try to finish my degree up online.”
“What about Lucas?”
“He’s done with school,” Liz blurted out quickly, “I mean after this year – he graduates in May and then he’s done.”
“I didn’t know that,” Mr. Parker placed Liz’s eggs on a plate and handed them to her with a smile. “Is he a year above you or is he just graduating early?”
“Graduating early,” she replied shortly, taking the plate from her father and heading for the door. She wasn’t sure how many more of her dad’s questions she could handle. And she dreaded the question she knew would inevitably come. When are you coming back? “I’m gonna eat out front,” she edged closer to the door.
“I’ll be out there soon enough,” he motioned to the counter and sighed loudly. “Sunday mornings are the worst.” Liz’s head shot up at the words. Sunday morning meant the Evans would be here.
If she and Max left at noon like they had said that meant Max would see the Evans. Would he recognize them? She wondered. What would happen? God, her stomach churned whenever she thought about it. She couldn’t tell him until she knew what had happened, but five hours was all they had. Liz sat at the counter and ate her eggs in silence. Sheriff Valenti was there, drinking his coffee as usual and a handful of the booths were already occupied. Maria was thus already busy, filling coffees and taking orders.
“Morning,” Liz offered as her friend made her way behind the counter.
“Morning,” Maria replied tersely. “You all packed?”
“Look, Maria, I’ll be back,” Liz sighed. “I don’t know when, but I will.”
“Right, okay, stop in every ten months or so, that’ll be great.”
“I’m not just going to disappear,” Liz snapped back, “It won’t be like before, I promise.”
“Why can’t you stay another day? What is so important about seeing his family right now?”
“Because they’re expecting us,” Liz blurted out the first lame excuse she could think of. Michael and Isabelle didn’t even know who she was, nevertheless that she was coming to visit. “And that would be rude.”
“Whatever,” Maria rolled her eyes and picked up the pot of decaf she had been waiting for.
“Why are you being like this?” Liz finally asked, fed up with Maria’s hot/cold behavior in the three days she’d been home. Sometimes they fell back into things and it seemed almost normal between them. But then she would get like this.
“Because it’s weird, Liz! He’s weird!” Maria slammed the pot of hot coffee back onto the counter. “Why does no one else see that?” she shook her head in frustration. “You just show up out of the blue on the back of a motorcycle with some random guy you say you met in New York who’s supposed to be from Canada and doesn’t have an accent, you say you shared a cab which is just bullshit, you’re wearing shirts you haven’t worn since tenth grade and now you’re leaving after like two days when I can tell you want to stay!” She strung the words together so fast Liz couldn’t even understand half of what she said. She caught the gist of it though and cursed herself for thinking she could easily fool her best friend. Sure they hadn’t been close for the past three years, but Maria knew her better than anyone. God, how she wanted to tell her the truth.
“Sorry, I have to leave,” Liz shrugged, trying to stay as calm and collected as she could. “And I’m sorry you think he’s weird. I think if you stopped being like this you’d actually find out he’s a pretty good guy. You might even like him.”
“I have to get back to work,” she picked the pot of coffee back up and walked to the front of the restaurant where the door jangled open. Liz jerked her head up quickly and turned to the entering family. She couldn’t quite figure out what emotions were running through her when she saw that it was just Mr. Delgado coming in for a turn at the counter. Was it relief or was it disappointment?
“Buenos dias, Elizabeth,” he greeted with a smile. “How long you home for?”
“Not long,” she sighed, running her hand through her hair. “Not long at all.”
He wasn’t a person to lie in bed. Usually, Max was an early riser, but he couldn’t quite make himself get out of the bed this morning. He had slept poorly last night. All he could think about was who they were. What had they been doing out in the desert? Why had they not just turned them right over to an orphanage? Why had they chosen the name Max for him? Did they name Michael and Isabelle too? Why didn’t Michael and Isabelle ever talk about it? Did they not remember either? And then there was the coincidence of Alex and Isabelle, which was almost too much for him to process. Too many thoughts were running through his head for him to have gotten any more than an hour of sleep. He had slept close to Liz and nuzzled close to her throughout the night no matter how many times he had changed positions. Sometimes in the night he thought about what his life had been like before Liz, before that day on I-95.
It had been simpler. He was found and had been brought to Midland. That was it. Now it was difficult. Now he had questions, lots of them. Liz made him think about things. Slowly, Max raised himself from the bed and readied himself to go downstairs. He had never given his life on the run a second thought. That was the way it was because that was how it had to be. He had never really had a place to go home to, no reason or desire to stay anywhere. Last night, he had been struck with the urge to spend a whole other week in Roswell, here with Liz’s family, spending nights talking music and watching T.V with Alex. He would work with Liz to try and remember every night and then they’d find them, they’d find the people who had found him. And they’d stay here in Roswell. Isabelle could come down and meet Alex. They could go on double dates and become a family of their own.
But such was a life he would never lead, a life he could only dream about. Max shook his head as he pulled on his jeans and walked down the hall to his room. That was what Liz made him do. She made him think about the future. Something he had never really done before. Not just days ahead, but months, heck even years down the road. Because he could no longer think about his life without Liz in it.
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."
They walked through the doors earlier than Liz expected. The families usually didn’t come in for breakfast and brunch until at least ten o’clock; and yet there was Phillip, Diane and Becca sauntering into their usual booth before the clock hands even reached nine o’clock. Becca walked through first, her curly strawberry-blonde hair bouncing as she walked. Liz’s jaw tightened as she looked at the teenager. Had she always been this pretty, Liz wondered? The last time she saw Becca Evans she’d been a flat-chested gangly girl, complete with a mouthful of metal.
“When did Becca Evans get her braces off?” Liz asked her dad and she was even surprised at the level of hostility in her voice. Her father was too busy getting change for Mr. Delaney to notice that Liz spoke her name like she used to talk about Pam Troy.
“The Evans girl? I dunno, about a year ago I guess.” he waved goodbye to Mr. Delaney and turned to his daughter. “Why?”
“No reason,” Liz shrugged as she watched Phillip slide into one side of the booth. They all had wide smiles on their faces as they talked to each other and the sight made Liz sick. They were too perfect, she decided, all smiles and laughs. What fifteen year old honestly liked spending time with her parents? They probably paid her for the time she spent at breakfast with them. Yes, that was it. She was smiling because the Evans paid her to. Liz stared long and hard at the family, knowing she resented their happiness only because of Max. Only because it was happiness she wished Max could have known. And the words just tumbled from her lips.
“Did the Evans ever have any other kids?” At first she thought her father hadn’t heard her, but just when she was about to ask again he spoke up.
“Why do you ask?” Mr. Parker looked curiously to his daughter as he took a sip of his coffee.
“Just curious,” Liz tried to dismiss, “I don’t know, I thought I remembered...” her voice drifted off as she lied right through her teeth. Lying wasn’t something she wanted to do anymore than she had to, but she had to know. And if anyone knew the gossip in this town it was her dad.
“No way, you couldn’t have been more than five, six years old when - ”
“When what?” Liz didn’t even realize she was physically seated on the edge of her stool.
“It’s a strange story – a pretty sad story really,” Jeff set down his coffee mug. “I probably shouldn’t talk about it here,” he looked around at the counter that was quickly filling up with customers.
“What?” Liz tried to disguise the urgency in her voice.
“A long time ago, kindergarten long ago for you, I don’t know how you could possibly remember,” he laughed and looked to Liz. “Jeff and Diane were coming back from, I think they told me it was a weekend at the Hot Springs, and they found these…these kids.” Of all things her father let out a quiet laugh at the words. Liz knew it was the kind of laugh her dad made when he didn’t know what to say. “Three of ‘em, buck naked and out there all alone in the middle of the desert.”
“You’re kidding.” Stupefied, Liz just stared ahead at her father.
“I know, bizarre, huh?” he shook his head and seemed to grow more thoughtful. “That someone would just leave three kids…” he let out a deep sigh and looked to her. “They were just about your age at the time, about six years old.”
“So what happened?” Liz tried to seem detached and impartial, but she knew she was failing. Thankfully, her father didn’t seem to notice.
“The Evans had been trying for a kid forever,” he spoke softly now, nearly a whisper as he leaned over the counter to Liz. “And these three kids just show up – Diane thought it was some kind of a Godsend. A miracle.”
“So they kept them?”
“Yep,” Jeff nodded his head slowly.
“Did you ever see them?” Liz couldn’t help but inquire.
“Oh yeah, they brought ‘em here for a hamburger just about every day,” he recalled with a smile. “Real quiet kids. I think all I ever heard out of them was a please or thank you.”
“Did I ever meet them?” Liz inquired softly and it suddenly felt like her throat was closing up. If her father answered “yes” she wasn’t sure what she’d do. It would be too much to process that she and Max had met before.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Parker shrugged. “You might have, they were…” he paused and a small smile stretched briefly across his face, “they were good looking kids. Really handsome.”
“Well, what happened to them? I mean why didn’t the Evans keep them?”
“They were going to. They were actually on their way to the courthouse to make it official,” Mr. Parker’s eyes lingered for a moment on the Evans booth. “I think it was a coyote in the road, I don’t remember exactly, all I do know is that car rolled over three times before it stopped.” Jeff shook his head. “With all three kids in the backseat.”
Liz’s eyes glazed over as her father’s words sunk in. He continued to talk, but Liz heard almost none of it because, as if on cue, Max walked through the back door and entered the dining room.
“Good morning, Lucas!” Mr. Parked called cheerily, seeming to completely forget the sad story he’d just been telling his daughter. Liz doubted she’d ever be able to forget it.
“Good morning,” Max offered a smile to him as he wound his way around the counter.
“Morning,” Liz watched him as he made his way towards her. She wondered if his eyes would rest on the Evans booth. If he’d recognize the blonde hair.
“Morning,” Max offered the same subdued smile to Liz that he had to her father. She looked up at him from her position on the stool, thinking she’d never seen his face look more worn and tired. “I waited to have breakfast with you,” she reached out for him and was glad to see he didn’t withdraw when she took his hand in his. “My dad said he’d make whatever we wanted.” she tried to be cheery, but she wondered if Max could see right through her. I know, she just wanted to blurt out right there at the counter. I know who found you and I know what happened and I know it wasn’t your fault.
“Yep, you guys just scoot into whatever booth you want.” Liz looked to Max with a smile she hoped would hide the thousands of thoughts running through her right now. Taking Max by the hand, she led him to a booth located conveniently on the other side of the room from the Evans booth.
“It’s quieter on this side,” she felt the need to explain even though Max didn’t seem to have a problem with her selection. “Less kids.”
“Okay,” Max just shrugged again, but this time he offered a faint smile. “I wanted to talk anyway.”
“About?”
“Going to see Michael and Isabelle,” he licked his lips. “I just called and told them I was coming.’
“Well, that’s good,” Liz asked, grateful that this was what he wanted to talk about. She was still trying to sort out in her head how to tell him everything. She didn’t know why she’d led him away from the Evans booth. She knew she had to tell him, but wasn’t sure what she should say first. Should she let him know about the accident before she told him about the Evans? God, she couldn’t even make her mind process anything yet. That the only thing that had kept Max from growing up in Roswell was a stupid coyote in the road and the faulty brakes of an old station wagon. But what had happened after the accident? Liz’s mind was awhirl. Her dad hadn’t explained everything; she still had so many questions. “Did you tell them I was coming?” Liz brought her mind back to the matter at hand.
“I actually didn’t really mention you,” Max admitted sheepishly. “I didn’t know how to do it over the phone,” he mumbled more to himself than to Liz, staring down at the table. “It was just…I couldn’t – ”
“I wouldn’t know how either,” Liz admitted with a shrug before he could finish. “How to tell my friends about you, I wouldn’t know.”
“You mean if you didn’t have to lie to them?” Max raised his eyes guiltily up to her at the confession, but Liz was staring off in the other direction. “Speaking of friends,” Max’s voice changed completely as Maria slowly approached their table.
“Your dad wants to know what you want him to make for you?” she spoke mechanically, making it all too clear that Mr. Parker was the only reason she was approaching their table.
“I haven’t even thought about it,” Max grabbed a menu from where it was wedged behind the napkin holder. “What’s good?” he looked at Liz first for advice then hesitantly up to Maria.
“Everything’s good,” Maria replied shortly, all the while staring intently at Max. He tried hard not to avert his eyes, but her look was piercing and he quickly turned his attention back to Liz.
“The Roswell Omelete’s really good if you’re hungry,” Liz answered quickly before Maria could say anything further. She wondered if this was how they were going to part ways, with Maria hating her and resenting Max. “It’s got everything in it. Ham, bacon, sausage – everything.”
“Sounds good,” Max nodded his head, knowing they’d need a full breakfast for their days on the road. “I’ll have that,” he avoided looking up at Maria at all this time.
“Me too,” Liz did just the opposite and looked directly up at her friend, meeting her steely gaze with one of her own.
“When did you become such a carnivore?” Maria rolled her eyes.
“About the same time you became such a bitch,” Liz challenged and the comment caught Max off guard as much as it did Maria. He could see Liz’s barb cut Maria deep, but instead of matching Liz with one of her own she just remained silent. She collected the menus and walked away without so much as a word, just a long hard look at Max. “Sorry about that,” Liz exhaled loudly and collapsed her head into her hands. “I don’t know what her deal is.”
“She doesn’t want to lose you,” Max shrugged, but Liz seemed dissatisfied.
“No, do you see the way she looks at you?” she sighed, running her hands through her hair. “She doesn’t trust you,” Liz peered up at Max and she couldn’t help but think about the brief moment of time when she wasn’t sure she could trust him. Her mind drifted back to the hours they’d spent in the truck together on I-95 before she’d even known his name. What had made her stay in the cab of that truck for so long? What had made her stay with Lucas Duchaigne at the Fish and Pancake House? Liz reached out for his hand as the answer dawned on her. She’d sensed there was more to him. Max might have all the facts and figures of his make-believe life worked out, he might know everything there was to know about Willowdale, Ontario, but in the end he couldn’t be someone else. She could see it just as Maria could probably see it now. “This sucks,” Liz moaned, rubbing her face with her hand and Max actually managed to chuckle at the comment.
“Understatement of the century.”
“How do you do it?” Liz stared ahead at him in amazement. “How did you do any of it?” she was talking now about his past, more of his past than he even knew.
“Just get used to it, I guess,” Max shrugged and again to Liz the comment meant so much more. Max was talking about getting used to lying, but all she could think about was all the people that had come and gone in Max’s life. Get used to people leaving you, that’s what he had had to do. She glanced across the dining room to the Evans booth and felt a lump rising in her throat. God, it was so unfair.
“It was a car accident,” Liz creaked, her eyes still riveted on the booth. Max furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and followed Liz’s gaze across the room. He glanced quickly, not taking note of the occupants features, not the curly grey hair or the short blonde mane.
“What are you talking about? What car accident?” he looked back to Liz, but she just nodded her head in the direction of the booth.
“It’s them,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes off the smiling family. “They were the ones.”
“What are you talking about?” Max whipped his head back around and this time it clicked. “How do you…” He stared long and hard at the man and woman. “No,” he shook his head emphatically.
“Their names are Phillip and Diane Evans,” Liz reported meekly as Max continued to shake his head.
“You said you didn’t – you told me you didn’t know who they were!” he lurched back in disgust, glancing back and forth from Liz to the Evans’. It was much the reaction Liz expected and she reached to him from across the table.
“I didn’t know at first, I swear to you, Max. I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to - ”
“You lied to me,” Max recoiled from her touch, “again!”
“I wasn’t sure,” Liz tried to keep composed, all too aware that Max’s last thundering word had drawn attention to their little booth. “I didn’t want to tell you who it was if I wasn’t completely sure.”
“And what makes you so sure now?” Max gave the family a cursory glance. “I don’t recognize them,” he shrugged.
“They found you,” she stated firmly, “and Michael and Isabelle and they brought you home and they were going to adopt you.”
“Then how come I don’t remember them?” Max shook his head and looked again to the family.
“How come she’s there?” Max’s eyes locked hard on Becca. “And how come I ended up like this?” he finally broke.
“For the same reason I got shot when I was sixteen,” Liz shrugged and this time when she reached for him he allowed her to. “That’s just how life turned out for us.”
“But how come? What happened? Why is she there?” The questions tumbled from Max’s mouth as he glared at Becca.
“It was a car accident,” Liz murmured. “You, Michael and Isabelle were in the backseat and it – it flipped or something.” Max fixed his eyes on the Evans’.
“How do you know that?” his eyes narrowed.
“Because I asked my dad,” Liz admitted.
“Are you insane?” Max’s face went white as he finally took his gaze away from the smiling family.
“He didn’t suspect anything, don’t worry,” Liz shook her head and for a moment she and Max just sat there in silence.
“I want to meet them,” he mumbled, unable to take his eyes off the booth, off of the people that had found him.
“Do you recognize them at all?” Liz asked quietly and Max just shrugged his shoulders halfheartedly.
“You know, my dad said you guys,” she paused to clear her throat, “he said you came here to eat.”
“I don’t remember,” Max shook his head, his mouth drawn into a thin line. “Christ, Liz, I don’t remember anything unless you tell it to me first.” The frustration in his voice was evident as he just continued to shake his head. “I don’t remember any car accident.”
“I know, I think that’s because of the accident,” Liz licked her lips thoughtfully. “I mean that’s a pretty…intense thing to go through at any age.”
“Tell me how it happened,” Max looked to Liz urgently, “you did it before – you made me remember,” he implored. “Make me remember,” his voice was shaking now and Liz looked around the restaurant nervously. This conversation was taking some dangerous turns; all it would take was one curious eavesdropper to raise some questions.
“Maybe we should talk about it after breakfast. When we’re upstairs,” she suggested delicately, looking around the room warily, but Max was well past the state of caution he usually kept up.
“You can do it. Make me remember. Just like yesterday,” he was speaking in hurried fragments and there was a frantic look to him that Liz couldn’t ever remember seeing before.
“I don’t know if - ”
“It’s a piece of my life that’s just gone, Liz. You don’t know what that’s like!”
“You’re right, I don’t,” Liz agreed, trying her best to show Max that she was indeed his ally in all this. “And I want to help you, I just…don’t think we should talk about this here.” She moved her hand over his again. “Just take a couple deep breaths,” she tried her best to calm him down. “We’ll figure it all out.”
“Promise?” Max lifted his eyes to her and though Liz knew she shouldn’t promise him anything, she gave him the assurance he so desperately sought.
“I promise.”
“When did Becca Evans get her braces off?” Liz asked her dad and she was even surprised at the level of hostility in her voice. Her father was too busy getting change for Mr. Delaney to notice that Liz spoke her name like she used to talk about Pam Troy.
“The Evans girl? I dunno, about a year ago I guess.” he waved goodbye to Mr. Delaney and turned to his daughter. “Why?”
“No reason,” Liz shrugged as she watched Phillip slide into one side of the booth. They all had wide smiles on their faces as they talked to each other and the sight made Liz sick. They were too perfect, she decided, all smiles and laughs. What fifteen year old honestly liked spending time with her parents? They probably paid her for the time she spent at breakfast with them. Yes, that was it. She was smiling because the Evans paid her to. Liz stared long and hard at the family, knowing she resented their happiness only because of Max. Only because it was happiness she wished Max could have known. And the words just tumbled from her lips.
“Did the Evans ever have any other kids?” At first she thought her father hadn’t heard her, but just when she was about to ask again he spoke up.
“Why do you ask?” Mr. Parker looked curiously to his daughter as he took a sip of his coffee.
“Just curious,” Liz tried to dismiss, “I don’t know, I thought I remembered...” her voice drifted off as she lied right through her teeth. Lying wasn’t something she wanted to do anymore than she had to, but she had to know. And if anyone knew the gossip in this town it was her dad.
“No way, you couldn’t have been more than five, six years old when - ”
“When what?” Liz didn’t even realize she was physically seated on the edge of her stool.
“It’s a strange story – a pretty sad story really,” Jeff set down his coffee mug. “I probably shouldn’t talk about it here,” he looked around at the counter that was quickly filling up with customers.
“What?” Liz tried to disguise the urgency in her voice.
“A long time ago, kindergarten long ago for you, I don’t know how you could possibly remember,” he laughed and looked to Liz. “Jeff and Diane were coming back from, I think they told me it was a weekend at the Hot Springs, and they found these…these kids.” Of all things her father let out a quiet laugh at the words. Liz knew it was the kind of laugh her dad made when he didn’t know what to say. “Three of ‘em, buck naked and out there all alone in the middle of the desert.”
“You’re kidding.” Stupefied, Liz just stared ahead at her father.
“I know, bizarre, huh?” he shook his head and seemed to grow more thoughtful. “That someone would just leave three kids…” he let out a deep sigh and looked to her. “They were just about your age at the time, about six years old.”
“So what happened?” Liz tried to seem detached and impartial, but she knew she was failing. Thankfully, her father didn’t seem to notice.
“The Evans had been trying for a kid forever,” he spoke softly now, nearly a whisper as he leaned over the counter to Liz. “And these three kids just show up – Diane thought it was some kind of a Godsend. A miracle.”
“So they kept them?”
“Yep,” Jeff nodded his head slowly.
“Did you ever see them?” Liz couldn’t help but inquire.
“Oh yeah, they brought ‘em here for a hamburger just about every day,” he recalled with a smile. “Real quiet kids. I think all I ever heard out of them was a please or thank you.”
“Did I ever meet them?” Liz inquired softly and it suddenly felt like her throat was closing up. If her father answered “yes” she wasn’t sure what she’d do. It would be too much to process that she and Max had met before.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Parker shrugged. “You might have, they were…” he paused and a small smile stretched briefly across his face, “they were good looking kids. Really handsome.”
“Well, what happened to them? I mean why didn’t the Evans keep them?”
“They were going to. They were actually on their way to the courthouse to make it official,” Mr. Parker’s eyes lingered for a moment on the Evans booth. “I think it was a coyote in the road, I don’t remember exactly, all I do know is that car rolled over three times before it stopped.” Jeff shook his head. “With all three kids in the backseat.”
Liz’s eyes glazed over as her father’s words sunk in. He continued to talk, but Liz heard almost none of it because, as if on cue, Max walked through the back door and entered the dining room.
“Good morning, Lucas!” Mr. Parked called cheerily, seeming to completely forget the sad story he’d just been telling his daughter. Liz doubted she’d ever be able to forget it.
“Good morning,” Max offered a smile to him as he wound his way around the counter.
“Morning,” Liz watched him as he made his way towards her. She wondered if his eyes would rest on the Evans booth. If he’d recognize the blonde hair.
“Morning,” Max offered the same subdued smile to Liz that he had to her father. She looked up at him from her position on the stool, thinking she’d never seen his face look more worn and tired. “I waited to have breakfast with you,” she reached out for him and was glad to see he didn’t withdraw when she took his hand in his. “My dad said he’d make whatever we wanted.” she tried to be cheery, but she wondered if Max could see right through her. I know, she just wanted to blurt out right there at the counter. I know who found you and I know what happened and I know it wasn’t your fault.
“Yep, you guys just scoot into whatever booth you want.” Liz looked to Max with a smile she hoped would hide the thousands of thoughts running through her right now. Taking Max by the hand, she led him to a booth located conveniently on the other side of the room from the Evans booth.
“It’s quieter on this side,” she felt the need to explain even though Max didn’t seem to have a problem with her selection. “Less kids.”
“Okay,” Max just shrugged again, but this time he offered a faint smile. “I wanted to talk anyway.”
“About?”
“Going to see Michael and Isabelle,” he licked his lips. “I just called and told them I was coming.’
“Well, that’s good,” Liz asked, grateful that this was what he wanted to talk about. She was still trying to sort out in her head how to tell him everything. She didn’t know why she’d led him away from the Evans booth. She knew she had to tell him, but wasn’t sure what she should say first. Should she let him know about the accident before she told him about the Evans? God, she couldn’t even make her mind process anything yet. That the only thing that had kept Max from growing up in Roswell was a stupid coyote in the road and the faulty brakes of an old station wagon. But what had happened after the accident? Liz’s mind was awhirl. Her dad hadn’t explained everything; she still had so many questions. “Did you tell them I was coming?” Liz brought her mind back to the matter at hand.
“I actually didn’t really mention you,” Max admitted sheepishly. “I didn’t know how to do it over the phone,” he mumbled more to himself than to Liz, staring down at the table. “It was just…I couldn’t – ”
“I wouldn’t know how either,” Liz admitted with a shrug before he could finish. “How to tell my friends about you, I wouldn’t know.”
“You mean if you didn’t have to lie to them?” Max raised his eyes guiltily up to her at the confession, but Liz was staring off in the other direction. “Speaking of friends,” Max’s voice changed completely as Maria slowly approached their table.
“Your dad wants to know what you want him to make for you?” she spoke mechanically, making it all too clear that Mr. Parker was the only reason she was approaching their table.
“I haven’t even thought about it,” Max grabbed a menu from where it was wedged behind the napkin holder. “What’s good?” he looked at Liz first for advice then hesitantly up to Maria.
“Everything’s good,” Maria replied shortly, all the while staring intently at Max. He tried hard not to avert his eyes, but her look was piercing and he quickly turned his attention back to Liz.
“The Roswell Omelete’s really good if you’re hungry,” Liz answered quickly before Maria could say anything further. She wondered if this was how they were going to part ways, with Maria hating her and resenting Max. “It’s got everything in it. Ham, bacon, sausage – everything.”
“Sounds good,” Max nodded his head, knowing they’d need a full breakfast for their days on the road. “I’ll have that,” he avoided looking up at Maria at all this time.
“Me too,” Liz did just the opposite and looked directly up at her friend, meeting her steely gaze with one of her own.
“When did you become such a carnivore?” Maria rolled her eyes.
“About the same time you became such a bitch,” Liz challenged and the comment caught Max off guard as much as it did Maria. He could see Liz’s barb cut Maria deep, but instead of matching Liz with one of her own she just remained silent. She collected the menus and walked away without so much as a word, just a long hard look at Max. “Sorry about that,” Liz exhaled loudly and collapsed her head into her hands. “I don’t know what her deal is.”
“She doesn’t want to lose you,” Max shrugged, but Liz seemed dissatisfied.
“No, do you see the way she looks at you?” she sighed, running her hands through her hair. “She doesn’t trust you,” Liz peered up at Max and she couldn’t help but think about the brief moment of time when she wasn’t sure she could trust him. Her mind drifted back to the hours they’d spent in the truck together on I-95 before she’d even known his name. What had made her stay in the cab of that truck for so long? What had made her stay with Lucas Duchaigne at the Fish and Pancake House? Liz reached out for his hand as the answer dawned on her. She’d sensed there was more to him. Max might have all the facts and figures of his make-believe life worked out, he might know everything there was to know about Willowdale, Ontario, but in the end he couldn’t be someone else. She could see it just as Maria could probably see it now. “This sucks,” Liz moaned, rubbing her face with her hand and Max actually managed to chuckle at the comment.
“Understatement of the century.”
“How do you do it?” Liz stared ahead at him in amazement. “How did you do any of it?” she was talking now about his past, more of his past than he even knew.
“Just get used to it, I guess,” Max shrugged and again to Liz the comment meant so much more. Max was talking about getting used to lying, but all she could think about was all the people that had come and gone in Max’s life. Get used to people leaving you, that’s what he had had to do. She glanced across the dining room to the Evans booth and felt a lump rising in her throat. God, it was so unfair.
“It was a car accident,” Liz creaked, her eyes still riveted on the booth. Max furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and followed Liz’s gaze across the room. He glanced quickly, not taking note of the occupants features, not the curly grey hair or the short blonde mane.
“What are you talking about? What car accident?” he looked back to Liz, but she just nodded her head in the direction of the booth.
“It’s them,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes off the smiling family. “They were the ones.”
“What are you talking about?” Max whipped his head back around and this time it clicked. “How do you…” He stared long and hard at the man and woman. “No,” he shook his head emphatically.
“Their names are Phillip and Diane Evans,” Liz reported meekly as Max continued to shake his head.
“You said you didn’t – you told me you didn’t know who they were!” he lurched back in disgust, glancing back and forth from Liz to the Evans’. It was much the reaction Liz expected and she reached to him from across the table.
“I didn’t know at first, I swear to you, Max. I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to - ”
“You lied to me,” Max recoiled from her touch, “again!”
“I wasn’t sure,” Liz tried to keep composed, all too aware that Max’s last thundering word had drawn attention to their little booth. “I didn’t want to tell you who it was if I wasn’t completely sure.”
“And what makes you so sure now?” Max gave the family a cursory glance. “I don’t recognize them,” he shrugged.
“They found you,” she stated firmly, “and Michael and Isabelle and they brought you home and they were going to adopt you.”
“Then how come I don’t remember them?” Max shook his head and looked again to the family.
“How come she’s there?” Max’s eyes locked hard on Becca. “And how come I ended up like this?” he finally broke.
“For the same reason I got shot when I was sixteen,” Liz shrugged and this time when she reached for him he allowed her to. “That’s just how life turned out for us.”
“But how come? What happened? Why is she there?” The questions tumbled from Max’s mouth as he glared at Becca.
“It was a car accident,” Liz murmured. “You, Michael and Isabelle were in the backseat and it – it flipped or something.” Max fixed his eyes on the Evans’.
“How do you know that?” his eyes narrowed.
“Because I asked my dad,” Liz admitted.
“Are you insane?” Max’s face went white as he finally took his gaze away from the smiling family.
“He didn’t suspect anything, don’t worry,” Liz shook her head and for a moment she and Max just sat there in silence.
“I want to meet them,” he mumbled, unable to take his eyes off the booth, off of the people that had found him.
“Do you recognize them at all?” Liz asked quietly and Max just shrugged his shoulders halfheartedly.
“You know, my dad said you guys,” she paused to clear her throat, “he said you came here to eat.”
“I don’t remember,” Max shook his head, his mouth drawn into a thin line. “Christ, Liz, I don’t remember anything unless you tell it to me first.” The frustration in his voice was evident as he just continued to shake his head. “I don’t remember any car accident.”
“I know, I think that’s because of the accident,” Liz licked her lips thoughtfully. “I mean that’s a pretty…intense thing to go through at any age.”
“Tell me how it happened,” Max looked to Liz urgently, “you did it before – you made me remember,” he implored. “Make me remember,” his voice was shaking now and Liz looked around the restaurant nervously. This conversation was taking some dangerous turns; all it would take was one curious eavesdropper to raise some questions.
“Maybe we should talk about it after breakfast. When we’re upstairs,” she suggested delicately, looking around the room warily, but Max was well past the state of caution he usually kept up.
“You can do it. Make me remember. Just like yesterday,” he was speaking in hurried fragments and there was a frantic look to him that Liz couldn’t ever remember seeing before.
“I don’t know if - ”
“It’s a piece of my life that’s just gone, Liz. You don’t know what that’s like!”
“You’re right, I don’t,” Liz agreed, trying her best to show Max that she was indeed his ally in all this. “And I want to help you, I just…don’t think we should talk about this here.” She moved her hand over his again. “Just take a couple deep breaths,” she tried her best to calm him down. “We’ll figure it all out.”
“Promise?” Max lifted his eyes to her and though Liz knew she shouldn’t promise him anything, she gave him the assurance he so desperately sought.
“I promise.”
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."
They ate much of their breakfast in silence, eyes flicking every now and then to the booth across the room. The words hovered over both of them, the things they so desperately wanted to talk about but couldn’t in the crowded diner.
“How do you like the omelet?” Liz asked as she wiped her mouth with the paper napkin. It was all their breakfast had been, useless small talk and meaningless chatter. She had been the one to force almost every piece of conversation. How far did they plan on riding today? Where did he think they would spend the night? How long would it take to get up to Quebec? Max answered most with little more than a shrug or a few quiet words. His eyes were riveted on the Evans’ booth.
“They just got their check,” he noted, putting down his fork and carefully observing the body language of Mr. Evans as he reached for his wallet. “I think they’re gonna pay at the counter,” he continued the play-by-play.
“Yeah, they usually do,” Liz murmured, recalling just how many times she had made change for the Evans’ at the counter on a Sunday morning.
“Let’s go to the counter then,” Max proposed and though Liz wondered what exactly he intended to do once they reached the counter she said nothing, just continued to nod her head in agreement.
“Let’s go,” she sighed, standing up from the booth and extending her hand to him. He stared at her hand long and hard then peered back up at her. She knew there were a multitude of reasons why he was so hesitant. She didn’t say anything though, just wiggled her fingers expectantly, hoping he would take it.
To everyone else in the crowded restaurant, they appeared the perfect couple as they approached the busy counter hand-in-hand. His palm was cold and clammy and Liz tried to imagine what thoughts were racing through his mind. With each step she felt his hand tighten a little more around hers. As small a thing as it seemed, holding hands wasn’t exactly something she and Max had done before. Now it felt like she’d need the jaws of life to untangle his fingers from their lock around hers.
“Lucas,” she murmured, more as a reminder to herself than to him, but for the first time Liz could remember, Max didn’t respond to the name. He just stared blankly ahead. “Lucas,” she said a little louder, giving his hand a squeeze this time as they approached an empty spot at the counter and began a useless conversation.
“Are you all packed?” It was more of the same meaningless conversation from their breakfast, especially since all of Max’s belongings fit into a small duffel and a back pack, but surrounded by Roswell residents on all sides, Liz knew it was a charade of normalcy that they had to maintain.
As unprepared as she was to leave Roswell, Liz found part of her couldn’t wait to return to the life on the road that had become so familiar. The life on the road that was just about her and Max, where she didn’t have to remind herself to call him Lucas and they didn’t have to carefully plan out each and everything they said. She wanted to stay with her family and try to make things right with Maria, but a very real part of her just wanted to escape with Max. Because what they were doing in Roswell, the huge lie they were spinning for her family and friends, was a life she could never get used to.
She looked up at Max, who was leaning against the counter, attempting to look as casual as he could, but she could practically see his heart thumping just beneath his shirt. His back was to the dining room so he couldn’t see Phillip, Diane and Becca slide out of their booth and walk towards him.
“How’d you like the omelet, Lucas?” Mr. Parker called cheerily from behind the counter suddenly.
“It was great,” Max’s voice sounded surprisingly clear and crisp for someone about to come face-to-face with the people that should have been his parents.
“Yeah, thanks, dad,” Liz joined in, reaching for any part of Max she could as she watched the Evans’ draw closer. Max wasn’t sure what to think when he felt Liz’s hand on his thigh until he heard Mr. Parker’s greeting.
“Ah, the Evans clan,” he grinned, “how goes it?”
“As good as ever,” Phillip Evans’ voice sounded right beside them and Liz watched the color quickly drain from Max’s face. And she knew he realized now that wanting to meet them was one thing, knowing what to say was quite another. Liz knew the Evans’ could see the two of them perched on the counter, but like Max she found herself paralyzed to say much of anything.
“Hello, Liz,” Mrs. Evans initiated the introduction, peeking her head around her husband’s broad shoulders. “Phillip said he saw you last night. It’s good to see you,” she smiled warmly and though she couldn’t see him, Liz knew Max’s eyes were taking in every detail of Diane Evans’ face as she smiled and linking them with his fuzzy memory.
“I’m actually leaving today,” Liz tried to appear casual. “Just home for a couple of days.”
“And is this the young man we’ve been hearing about?” Diane Evans looked Max up and down curiously, an inquisitive grin on her face. Liz braced her body against Max and took in a deep steadying breath at the inevitable mention of the young man she had arrived in town with.
“Mom!” Becca groaned in embarrassment, her head appearing on the other side of her father. “God, you are such a gossip!”
The color had not returned to Max’s face and Liz was more than a little troubled by the thought that this meeting would come and go without him even saying a word.
“Liz, you remember our daughter Becca,” Mr. Evans stepped aside and motioned to his daughter.
“I do, it’s good to see you,” Liz forced a smile onto her face as she looked to Becca. She knew this was the moment. If Max was going to meet Phillip and Diane Evans this was the perfect time. But he didn’t speak; he just stood perfectly still beside Liz, as silent and stoic as when she had first met him. “Mr. and Mrs. Evans,” she cleared her throat and moved her hand onto Max’s chest possessively, “this is my boyfriend.”
Mrs. Evans beamed as she looked at the two of them and Liz wondered if there had been some bulletin posted in Roswell that she didn’t know about. LIZ PARKER RETURNS WITH BOYFRIEND
“Good to meet you, son.” Liz winced at Mr. Evans’ choice of words as he extended his hand to Max. She tried to force herself to keep smiling, afraid that any other expression might betray the emotions rattling around inside of her. He was your son once! The words threatened to pour out. She slid an arm around Max’s waist, drawing him closer to her, but he just stood there like a soldier, with perfect posture and a blank expression on his face. Liz prayed he would at least take Mr. Evans’ hand, even if he didn’t say anything as he did.
“Yes, wonderful to meet you,” Mrs. Evans chimed in cheerily and her voice seemed to awaken something inside Max. He blinked rapidly several times and forced his right arm to raise from his side, finally meeting Phillip Evans’ handshake with a strong one of his own. The lawyer looked impressed with the firm handshake and Liz hoped Max could see the approval in his eyes.
“Thank you,” Max finally found his voice and leaned forward to shake Diane’s hand as well. “It’s nice to meet you too.” The words sounded so small that it almost killed Liz to hear Max speak them. She couldn’t begin to imagine the thoughts racing through his head right now, the things he wanted to ask them, but all he could utter was ‘thank you, it’s nice to meet you’.
“We’ve known Liz since she was a baby, you know,” Mr. Evans boasted, casting a sideward glance to Jeffrey Parker. “She’s a very special young woman,” Mr. Evans’ eyes rested on Liz, whose face flushed with embarrassment. It was what she had been telling Max two nights ago: about growing up under the scrutinizing eyes of an entire town, a town that had held their breaths alongside her parents when the boxes and the expulsion notice from NYU arrived at their home with no sign of Liz, a town that was likewise letting out a loud sigh of relief now that she had returned. The Evans were giving Max the thumbs up, Liz knew, just like everybody else she’d bumped into had done. Except now it meant so much more.
“Yes, she is,” Max voiced his firm agreement and Liz was surprised at how strong and committed it sounded. She’d run out on him, lied to him, cheated on him and yet here he stood singing her praises.
“Well, we’re glad she found you,” Mr. Evans smiled, but then a thoughtful look crossed his face as he thought about the past few turbulent years the Parkers had endured with their unpredictable daughter. “Or maybe,” he pondered, “that you found her.”
“We found each other,” Max murmured and he found himself reaching for Liz’s hand as he did. No thanks to you, Liz wanted to add under her breath as she looked at the Evans’. She knew she shouldn’t resent the happiness of the family, but she’d played the scenario over in her head dozens of time since her father had told her this morning. She knew the fact of the matter was probably that after the car wreck Diane had gotten pregnant and they’d forgotten all about the three orphans.
Running her thumb along the back of Max’s hand, Liz cast a resentful glare towards Becca, who was gazing shyly at Max from behind her mother. It wasn’t the first girl Liz had noted doing so, in their two weeks on the road she’d spotted more than a few females checking him out, but none hit her quite like this. Liz glanced up at his handsome face, at the raven hair falling across his forehead, and the slightly protruding ears that gave him such a boyish look. It was only human for a girl to admire Max. Human. The word sounded in Liz’s ears as she found herself staring at Becca. She had been thinking about Becca like some kind of a thing, an obstacle, the roadblock that had stood in the way of Max’s happy childhood. But as she looked at the high school sophomore, who continued to sneak furtive glances at Max, she saw her for the first time for what she was, a fifteen year old girl who was no more responsible for all this than the coyote in the road.
It was no one’s fault; it had all just happened.
“Well, this one’s maxed out her family time for the week,” Mr. Evans threw an arm around Becca’s neck playfully. “ ‘Til next time,” he nodded in the direction of Liz and Max as the family began to shuffle towards the door.
“Have a great day,” Mrs. Evans smiled sweetly. “Nice to meet you.” And then they were gone.
Max stood for a moment and stared at the exit, watching the family of three make their way to the car through the glass. Liz said nothing. She held his hand and she waited.
“Nice folks, aren’t they?” Mr. Parker commented from behind the counter and Liz waited in grave anticipation for Max’s response. It was the last thing she would have expected from him and yet, there it was. The ever-elusive smile.
“Yeah, they were very nice,” he looked down at Liz and it was only then that she saw the smile for what it was, a giant cover-up for the emotions coursing through him. “That was that.” He seemed strangely at peace with it all as he spoke the words with a certain finality. Raising his eyes from her, Max gazed out on the dining room and all its occupants like he was taking in an ocean view.
“This place is nice,” he sighed contently. “I’d probably sit there,” he decided to himself as his eyes settled on a booth currently occupied by a young couple and a squirmy toddler in a booster seat.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Liz suggested nervously, knowing that Max’s behavior this morning had been anything but stable. He’d raised his voice to a dangerous volume more than once, putting himself at risk in a way she’d never seen before.
“If I’d…if they’d…” He continued to stare at the booth as he stuttered over words. “If I had grown up here, then that would have been my booth,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“We can go upstairs and talk about it,” Liz urged again, hoping he would agree and they could leave the crowd behind.
“Because I’d always be able to see you from there,” he explained, ignoring Liz even as she took his hand. “No matter if you were working here, or out there,” he waved back and forth from the counter to the dining area, seeming to have thought this over quite a bit. “I’d be able to look at you.”
“Come upstairs with me,” she pleaded, wondering why he was continuing to torture himself standing down here, probably turning over all the possibilities of a life lived in Roswell.
“They were really nice,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Nicer than I thought.”
“Let’s go upstairs,” Liz gave him a tug away from the counter and led him towards the exit. He followed clumsily, as if it took great effort to put one foot in front of the other and walk away. His eyes were fixed on the doorway he had last seen the Evans’ pass through, like he expected them to come running back through for him.
Their departure hour loomed over on the clock mounted above the back door and Liz tried her best to ignore it as they passed beneath it. Alex should be arriving any minute for the ride Max had promised him on his Suzuki and Liz was still hoping to put some kind of a band-aid on the gaping wound that was her and Maria’s friendship before she left.
“Their daughter kept looking at me funny,” Max finally spoke and he paused at the bottom of the stairs, “it was weird.”
“That’s ‘cos she thought you were hot, doofus,” Liz informed, jabbing a finger playfully to his chest.
“Hardly,” he managed a laugh and bowed his head.
“You are so oblivious,” she shook her head in amazement, “I bet you could have had any girl you wanted in college you were just so oblivious to them all you - ”
“I was waiting,” Max cut her off before she could continue her evaluation. His voice was strong and firm. “I wasn’t oblivious, I was just…waiting.”
“Saving yourself?” Liz teased with a wide grin.
“Waiting,” Max repeated a third time and his tone was so solemn it made Liz stop whatever silly banter she was about to throw his way. She looked up the empty staircase, wondering how long Max had been waiting for the moment that had just transpired in the dining room. “I thought,” he leaned back against the wall. “I thought when I saw them or touched them that I would know. That it would all make sense.”
“And it didn’t?” Liz positioned herself against the rail and raised her eyes in question.
“Not really,” he gave a tiny shake of the head. “The faces – they were familiar, but…I still don’t know why.”
“We’ll find out,” she assured softly, taking care to keep her voice down.
“I don’t think we will,” he murmured and a strange look of serenity passed over his face as he spoke the words. “But it doesn’t really matter,” he shrugged and when Liz opened up her mouth to protest he just continued, “ ‘Cos where you start – that doesn’t really matter.” He licked his lips thoughtfully and then turned his eyes to Liz. “It’s where you end up, right?”
“I guess so, yeah,” Liz tried to smile at the mature point-of-view Max was taking.
“I ended up with you,” he shrugged. “So it’s all okay.”
“You really believe that?” she inquired softly, unsure whether or not to believe Max. She couldn’t tell if he was saying things because he believed them or just because he wanted to.
“I have to,” Max replied with a hapless shrug as he reached for her hand. “Come on, let’s get you packed up.”
“I’ll be right up,” Liz assured him, giving his hand a squeeze. Two hours might be all the time she had left in Roswell, but she knew it would take less than two minutes to get the information both she and Max needed to know out of her dad.
“How do you like the omelet?” Liz asked as she wiped her mouth with the paper napkin. It was all their breakfast had been, useless small talk and meaningless chatter. She had been the one to force almost every piece of conversation. How far did they plan on riding today? Where did he think they would spend the night? How long would it take to get up to Quebec? Max answered most with little more than a shrug or a few quiet words. His eyes were riveted on the Evans’ booth.
“They just got their check,” he noted, putting down his fork and carefully observing the body language of Mr. Evans as he reached for his wallet. “I think they’re gonna pay at the counter,” he continued the play-by-play.
“Yeah, they usually do,” Liz murmured, recalling just how many times she had made change for the Evans’ at the counter on a Sunday morning.
“Let’s go to the counter then,” Max proposed and though Liz wondered what exactly he intended to do once they reached the counter she said nothing, just continued to nod her head in agreement.
“Let’s go,” she sighed, standing up from the booth and extending her hand to him. He stared at her hand long and hard then peered back up at her. She knew there were a multitude of reasons why he was so hesitant. She didn’t say anything though, just wiggled her fingers expectantly, hoping he would take it.
To everyone else in the crowded restaurant, they appeared the perfect couple as they approached the busy counter hand-in-hand. His palm was cold and clammy and Liz tried to imagine what thoughts were racing through his mind. With each step she felt his hand tighten a little more around hers. As small a thing as it seemed, holding hands wasn’t exactly something she and Max had done before. Now it felt like she’d need the jaws of life to untangle his fingers from their lock around hers.
“Lucas,” she murmured, more as a reminder to herself than to him, but for the first time Liz could remember, Max didn’t respond to the name. He just stared blankly ahead. “Lucas,” she said a little louder, giving his hand a squeeze this time as they approached an empty spot at the counter and began a useless conversation.
“Are you all packed?” It was more of the same meaningless conversation from their breakfast, especially since all of Max’s belongings fit into a small duffel and a back pack, but surrounded by Roswell residents on all sides, Liz knew it was a charade of normalcy that they had to maintain.
As unprepared as she was to leave Roswell, Liz found part of her couldn’t wait to return to the life on the road that had become so familiar. The life on the road that was just about her and Max, where she didn’t have to remind herself to call him Lucas and they didn’t have to carefully plan out each and everything they said. She wanted to stay with her family and try to make things right with Maria, but a very real part of her just wanted to escape with Max. Because what they were doing in Roswell, the huge lie they were spinning for her family and friends, was a life she could never get used to.
She looked up at Max, who was leaning against the counter, attempting to look as casual as he could, but she could practically see his heart thumping just beneath his shirt. His back was to the dining room so he couldn’t see Phillip, Diane and Becca slide out of their booth and walk towards him.
“How’d you like the omelet, Lucas?” Mr. Parker called cheerily from behind the counter suddenly.
“It was great,” Max’s voice sounded surprisingly clear and crisp for someone about to come face-to-face with the people that should have been his parents.
“Yeah, thanks, dad,” Liz joined in, reaching for any part of Max she could as she watched the Evans’ draw closer. Max wasn’t sure what to think when he felt Liz’s hand on his thigh until he heard Mr. Parker’s greeting.
“Ah, the Evans clan,” he grinned, “how goes it?”
“As good as ever,” Phillip Evans’ voice sounded right beside them and Liz watched the color quickly drain from Max’s face. And she knew he realized now that wanting to meet them was one thing, knowing what to say was quite another. Liz knew the Evans’ could see the two of them perched on the counter, but like Max she found herself paralyzed to say much of anything.
“Hello, Liz,” Mrs. Evans initiated the introduction, peeking her head around her husband’s broad shoulders. “Phillip said he saw you last night. It’s good to see you,” she smiled warmly and though she couldn’t see him, Liz knew Max’s eyes were taking in every detail of Diane Evans’ face as she smiled and linking them with his fuzzy memory.
“I’m actually leaving today,” Liz tried to appear casual. “Just home for a couple of days.”
“And is this the young man we’ve been hearing about?” Diane Evans looked Max up and down curiously, an inquisitive grin on her face. Liz braced her body against Max and took in a deep steadying breath at the inevitable mention of the young man she had arrived in town with.
“Mom!” Becca groaned in embarrassment, her head appearing on the other side of her father. “God, you are such a gossip!”
The color had not returned to Max’s face and Liz was more than a little troubled by the thought that this meeting would come and go without him even saying a word.
“Liz, you remember our daughter Becca,” Mr. Evans stepped aside and motioned to his daughter.
“I do, it’s good to see you,” Liz forced a smile onto her face as she looked to Becca. She knew this was the moment. If Max was going to meet Phillip and Diane Evans this was the perfect time. But he didn’t speak; he just stood perfectly still beside Liz, as silent and stoic as when she had first met him. “Mr. and Mrs. Evans,” she cleared her throat and moved her hand onto Max’s chest possessively, “this is my boyfriend.”
Mrs. Evans beamed as she looked at the two of them and Liz wondered if there had been some bulletin posted in Roswell that she didn’t know about. LIZ PARKER RETURNS WITH BOYFRIEND
“Good to meet you, son.” Liz winced at Mr. Evans’ choice of words as he extended his hand to Max. She tried to force herself to keep smiling, afraid that any other expression might betray the emotions rattling around inside of her. He was your son once! The words threatened to pour out. She slid an arm around Max’s waist, drawing him closer to her, but he just stood there like a soldier, with perfect posture and a blank expression on his face. Liz prayed he would at least take Mr. Evans’ hand, even if he didn’t say anything as he did.
“Yes, wonderful to meet you,” Mrs. Evans chimed in cheerily and her voice seemed to awaken something inside Max. He blinked rapidly several times and forced his right arm to raise from his side, finally meeting Phillip Evans’ handshake with a strong one of his own. The lawyer looked impressed with the firm handshake and Liz hoped Max could see the approval in his eyes.
“Thank you,” Max finally found his voice and leaned forward to shake Diane’s hand as well. “It’s nice to meet you too.” The words sounded so small that it almost killed Liz to hear Max speak them. She couldn’t begin to imagine the thoughts racing through his head right now, the things he wanted to ask them, but all he could utter was ‘thank you, it’s nice to meet you’.
“We’ve known Liz since she was a baby, you know,” Mr. Evans boasted, casting a sideward glance to Jeffrey Parker. “She’s a very special young woman,” Mr. Evans’ eyes rested on Liz, whose face flushed with embarrassment. It was what she had been telling Max two nights ago: about growing up under the scrutinizing eyes of an entire town, a town that had held their breaths alongside her parents when the boxes and the expulsion notice from NYU arrived at their home with no sign of Liz, a town that was likewise letting out a loud sigh of relief now that she had returned. The Evans were giving Max the thumbs up, Liz knew, just like everybody else she’d bumped into had done. Except now it meant so much more.
“Yes, she is,” Max voiced his firm agreement and Liz was surprised at how strong and committed it sounded. She’d run out on him, lied to him, cheated on him and yet here he stood singing her praises.
“Well, we’re glad she found you,” Mr. Evans smiled, but then a thoughtful look crossed his face as he thought about the past few turbulent years the Parkers had endured with their unpredictable daughter. “Or maybe,” he pondered, “that you found her.”
“We found each other,” Max murmured and he found himself reaching for Liz’s hand as he did. No thanks to you, Liz wanted to add under her breath as she looked at the Evans’. She knew she shouldn’t resent the happiness of the family, but she’d played the scenario over in her head dozens of time since her father had told her this morning. She knew the fact of the matter was probably that after the car wreck Diane had gotten pregnant and they’d forgotten all about the three orphans.
Running her thumb along the back of Max’s hand, Liz cast a resentful glare towards Becca, who was gazing shyly at Max from behind her mother. It wasn’t the first girl Liz had noted doing so, in their two weeks on the road she’d spotted more than a few females checking him out, but none hit her quite like this. Liz glanced up at his handsome face, at the raven hair falling across his forehead, and the slightly protruding ears that gave him such a boyish look. It was only human for a girl to admire Max. Human. The word sounded in Liz’s ears as she found herself staring at Becca. She had been thinking about Becca like some kind of a thing, an obstacle, the roadblock that had stood in the way of Max’s happy childhood. But as she looked at the high school sophomore, who continued to sneak furtive glances at Max, she saw her for the first time for what she was, a fifteen year old girl who was no more responsible for all this than the coyote in the road.
It was no one’s fault; it had all just happened.
“Well, this one’s maxed out her family time for the week,” Mr. Evans threw an arm around Becca’s neck playfully. “ ‘Til next time,” he nodded in the direction of Liz and Max as the family began to shuffle towards the door.
“Have a great day,” Mrs. Evans smiled sweetly. “Nice to meet you.” And then they were gone.
Max stood for a moment and stared at the exit, watching the family of three make their way to the car through the glass. Liz said nothing. She held his hand and she waited.
“Nice folks, aren’t they?” Mr. Parker commented from behind the counter and Liz waited in grave anticipation for Max’s response. It was the last thing she would have expected from him and yet, there it was. The ever-elusive smile.
“Yeah, they were very nice,” he looked down at Liz and it was only then that she saw the smile for what it was, a giant cover-up for the emotions coursing through him. “That was that.” He seemed strangely at peace with it all as he spoke the words with a certain finality. Raising his eyes from her, Max gazed out on the dining room and all its occupants like he was taking in an ocean view.
“This place is nice,” he sighed contently. “I’d probably sit there,” he decided to himself as his eyes settled on a booth currently occupied by a young couple and a squirmy toddler in a booster seat.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Liz suggested nervously, knowing that Max’s behavior this morning had been anything but stable. He’d raised his voice to a dangerous volume more than once, putting himself at risk in a way she’d never seen before.
“If I’d…if they’d…” He continued to stare at the booth as he stuttered over words. “If I had grown up here, then that would have been my booth,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“We can go upstairs and talk about it,” Liz urged again, hoping he would agree and they could leave the crowd behind.
“Because I’d always be able to see you from there,” he explained, ignoring Liz even as she took his hand. “No matter if you were working here, or out there,” he waved back and forth from the counter to the dining area, seeming to have thought this over quite a bit. “I’d be able to look at you.”
“Come upstairs with me,” she pleaded, wondering why he was continuing to torture himself standing down here, probably turning over all the possibilities of a life lived in Roswell.
“They were really nice,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Nicer than I thought.”
“Let’s go upstairs,” Liz gave him a tug away from the counter and led him towards the exit. He followed clumsily, as if it took great effort to put one foot in front of the other and walk away. His eyes were fixed on the doorway he had last seen the Evans’ pass through, like he expected them to come running back through for him.
Their departure hour loomed over on the clock mounted above the back door and Liz tried her best to ignore it as they passed beneath it. Alex should be arriving any minute for the ride Max had promised him on his Suzuki and Liz was still hoping to put some kind of a band-aid on the gaping wound that was her and Maria’s friendship before she left.
“Their daughter kept looking at me funny,” Max finally spoke and he paused at the bottom of the stairs, “it was weird.”
“That’s ‘cos she thought you were hot, doofus,” Liz informed, jabbing a finger playfully to his chest.
“Hardly,” he managed a laugh and bowed his head.
“You are so oblivious,” she shook her head in amazement, “I bet you could have had any girl you wanted in college you were just so oblivious to them all you - ”
“I was waiting,” Max cut her off before she could continue her evaluation. His voice was strong and firm. “I wasn’t oblivious, I was just…waiting.”
“Saving yourself?” Liz teased with a wide grin.
“Waiting,” Max repeated a third time and his tone was so solemn it made Liz stop whatever silly banter she was about to throw his way. She looked up the empty staircase, wondering how long Max had been waiting for the moment that had just transpired in the dining room. “I thought,” he leaned back against the wall. “I thought when I saw them or touched them that I would know. That it would all make sense.”
“And it didn’t?” Liz positioned herself against the rail and raised her eyes in question.
“Not really,” he gave a tiny shake of the head. “The faces – they were familiar, but…I still don’t know why.”
“We’ll find out,” she assured softly, taking care to keep her voice down.
“I don’t think we will,” he murmured and a strange look of serenity passed over his face as he spoke the words. “But it doesn’t really matter,” he shrugged and when Liz opened up her mouth to protest he just continued, “ ‘Cos where you start – that doesn’t really matter.” He licked his lips thoughtfully and then turned his eyes to Liz. “It’s where you end up, right?”
“I guess so, yeah,” Liz tried to smile at the mature point-of-view Max was taking.
“I ended up with you,” he shrugged. “So it’s all okay.”
“You really believe that?” she inquired softly, unsure whether or not to believe Max. She couldn’t tell if he was saying things because he believed them or just because he wanted to.
“I have to,” Max replied with a hapless shrug as he reached for her hand. “Come on, let’s get you packed up.”
“I’ll be right up,” Liz assured him, giving his hand a squeeze. Two hours might be all the time she had left in Roswell, but she knew it would take less than two minutes to get the information both she and Max needed to know out of her dad.
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."
Motivated forgetting was what Freud had called it and for some reason Liz couldn’t get the term out of her head as she walked towards the kitchen. There were lots of definitions and terms surrounding the controversy of repressed memories. Lots of books refused to even acknowledge their existence, but there were some psychologists, Liz knew, who believed it to be a reality, a neurological phenomenon and defense mechanism where a memory just isn’t communicated to the right side of the brain. As a student of psychology, she was perplexed by Max’s case for a variety of reasons.
All the evidence pointed to the fact that these were memories that he had consciously blocked out as a boy. It was purposeful forgetting. Whatever trauma he had suffered in the wreck had caused him to push the memory into his subconscious where he would never have to recall it. But the memories were inside of him and last night proved that he could recall them. He had been rescued and he had been able to cite details of that rescue. The forgotten trauma that haunted him wasn’t forgotten anymore. There was a car crash, that much her father had told her, but there had to be more. And she couldn’t leave Roswell, couldn’t live with herself or with Max, without finding out what that was.
Her father, as expected, was busy behind the counter, making small talk with customers while he poured coffee or made change at the register. She waited patiently for him to enter the kitchen, knowing very well she couldn’t ask what she wanted to outside.
“Dad?” Liz pounced as soon as he stepped through the swinging doors, knowing that he would likely only be back here for a few moments.
“Hey, Lizzie, what’re you doing back here?” Mr. Parker chuckled as he refilled a few containers of creamer.
“Just grabbing some snacks for the road, you said that was okay, right?” Liz surprised herself at how quickly she was able to come up with a cover, even after three days of almost nothing but lying.
“Just as long as you write down what you take,” he managed to smile and look her way as he prepared another large vat of coffee.
“Hey, dad,” Liz tried to seem carefree, “whatever happened to those kids?”
“What kids?”
“The kids we were talking about this morning that the Evans’ rescued.” Mr. Parker’s eyebrows sloped into a frown as the words tumbled from Liz’s mouth. She knew if she pushed much further than this that her dad would grow more than a little suspicious, but she couldn’t help herself from at least asking once.
“Might I ask what’s causing this sudden interest?” he turned from the giant coffee maker. Liz opened up her mouth to say something, then quickly closed it. Then opened it again and her jaw hung there for a moment as her mind worked franticly for something to say.
“Lucas is an orphan,” she blurted out and it felt good to say something to her father about Max that, for once, wasn’t a lie. “Was an orphan,” she corrected. “And he doesn’t talk about it a lot – I’m just – it makes me curious about the whole…adoption process.” She knew it was a weak explanation, but it wasn’t quite a lie and she was pleased with herself for that reason alone.
“Lizzie, I didn’t know,” her father’s face changed almost immediately, he looked apologetic almost. “You didn’t mention anything about him being…I’m so sorry.”
“Dad, it’s not like a tragedy or anything,” she forced a smile at the ironic words. “I’m just curious.”
“Well, the Evans obviously didn’t end up adopting those kids,” Mr. Parker sighed. “But I’m sure they ended up in good homes.” A chill ran down Liz’s spine almost immediately at the comment.
“Right,” she replied dryly. “But do you know why they didn’t adopt them?”
“If this hits so close to home for you, Lizzie, maybe you should - ”
“Why didn’t they adopt them?” Liz pressed impatiently. “I just want to know why.”
“Well, I don’t know exactly why. I’m not Phillip Evans,” Mr. Parker pressed his hand to his chest as if to remind his daughter who she was speaking to. “I do know that that was a rough time for the Evans. They were in the hospital for a long time afterwards,” he shook his head sadly. “They could hardly take care of themselves for a long time nevertheless three kids. I’d imagine that’s probably why they didn’t keep them.”
“Is that why Mr. Evans used to walk with a cane?” Liz felt a wave of guilt rush over her suddenly at the recollection of seeing big strong Mr. Evans tottering around with a cane back when she was in elementary school.
“That’s why,” her father just nodded his head. “He had to have a ton of surgeries. His wife too.”
“But the kids were all okay? That doesn’t make any sense,” Liz frowned at the new information.
“Some kind of miracle,” Jeff shrugged and smiled. “If there’s a silver lining to that story that’s certainly it.”
“So they just went into the system after the accident,” Liz licked her lips thoughtfully. That was the bus ride across the border from Max’s memory. She wasn’t sure why he had gone to Midland, but she assumed it was probably the last in a long line of stops - from police stations to overcrowded orphanages. She didn’t know a lot about orphanages, but she guessed that it was probably a lot like the Roswell animal shelter she’d worked at back in middle school. When there was no room left for incoming strays they got taken to the next shelter and when there was no room left there they went to another and another and then probably over the border to Texas. She cringed at the realization that she was comparing Max and his brother and sister to stray dogs and cats. Except his brother and sister had finally found a home. Max had stayed; he’d become that dog at the shelter whose nametag reveals he needs EXTRA TLC ‘cos he’s been in that cage for seven years.
“Well that…answers that,” Liz began to backpedal out of the kitchen.
“You alright?” her father watched her with a curious eye. “You seem a little shaky?”
“Shaky, I’m not shaky,” Liz dismissed her father’s accurate suspicions with a phoney laugh, “I just need to ask Lucas whether he wants barbecue chips or – or regular,” she stammered as she continued to back out of the kitchen.
“Look, Liz, I know being orphaned is not a pleasant thought,” Mr. Parker offered kindly, “It’s hard to think about someone you love going through something like that.” Liz clinched her lips together tightly and swallowed the lump rising in her throat. “But you shouldn’t automatically relate any story you hear about an orphan to Lucas,” he walked towards his daughter and clapped a hand onto her shoulder. “I think it’s wonderful that you care so much and you want to try and understand, but don’t let it consume all your thoughts.”
“Right, I know,” Liz gave the slightest nod of the head.
“You should know the Evans did everything they could to get those kids into a good place. I think Mr. Evans even pulled some strings at the State Department for them. So everything probably ended up alright for those kids. With a happy ending.”
“A happy ending,” Liz bowed her head and somehow forced a smile to her face when she looked back up at her dad. “Right.”
“You and Lucas still planning on heading out at noon?” he asked and Liz was grateful for the change of subject.
“Yep,” she sighed, “our journey to Canada starts in two hours.”
“You two are going to have so much fun,” Mr. Parker smiled, “although I can’t say I’m exactly thrilled that you’ll be doing all your traveling on the back of a motorcycle.”
“I know, but he’s a safe driver,” Liz assured though his words did remind her how much she was dreading three fourteen hour days on the back of Max’s bike. It wasn’t at all like the long hours they’d put in in the cab of his truck. Then they’d been able to talk, to listen to music, to relax a bit. On his bike everything was different.
“You can be the safest driver in the world on those things, Lizzie, and still end up in the hospital.” Mr. Parker warned protectively.
“He won’t let anything happen to me, dad,” Liz looked her father square in the eye. “You don’t have to worry,” she promised. At least not about the things normal fathers worry about. “If Alex comes send him upstairs, okay?” Liz turned from her father and began to walk towards the stairs, trying to make sense of what her father had revealed to her.
The car crash had been more than a mere fender-bender; it was a wreck that had put both Diane and Phillips into the hospital. It wasn’t a matter of not wanting Max, it was a matter of being physically unable to care for him. It was actually good news, the best she probably could have hoped for. She highly doubted her father had made up that part about Mr. Evans pulling strings with his contacts at the state department either. There were positives here in this whole mess. She’d been assuming that the Evans had just discarded the kids, but the whole thing was just an unfortunate series of circumstances. As much for the Evans as for Max. She just hoped, as she climbed the stairs to Max, that he would see it that way too.
“You should definitely bring a raincoat.” Max was rifling through her closet when Liz walked through the door to her room. “A raincoat and a sweatshirt, two definite must haves.”
“Canada sounds like fun,” Liz laughed at the cold and wet picture Max was painting, but the look on his face reminded her that he’d never been to the island where Michael and Isabelle lived.
“There’s probably still snow on the ground there too,” Max looked down at the many pairs of shoes that littered her closet floor. “You might want to wear sneakers or boots or something.”
“I have something to tell you,” Liz sat down on the edge of the bed beside the neatly folded pile of clothes. Max continued his search for suitable shoes while Liz waited nervously on the bed for him to turn around. This would be the last piece. After this, the events of Max’s rescue would be known. She looked over at Max, who was now on his hands and knees searching for the mate to a worn running shoe. With this information she could paint a picture like last night, one whose empty spaces Max could hopefully fill. “I asked my dad about the accident.” The sound of Max’s rummaging came to a sudden halt. “And I thought you should know what he said.” There was an incredibly long pause as Max remained hunched over her closet.
“Okay.” His voice sounded mechanical and slow, almost like he had to force the words out.
“It’s not that they didn’t want you.” Liz chose to remain on the bed as she informed Max of what she hoped he would hear as good news. “They just couldn’t care for you. My dad said after the accident they were in the hospital for a long time so they couldn’t…” she struggled with how to spin this to Max as good news. He didn’t seem to care tremendously and returned to his search for proper shoes. “It wasn’t you,” she tried to smile for him. “It was a coyote in the road – that’s all. That’s the only reason you - ”
“Okay,” Max repeated flatly, picking up the sought-after sneakers and adding them to the pile of clothes for her. “Some warm weather stuff probably wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he eyed a pair of sandals. “In case we go south after.”
“Right,” Liz relented, “maybe like to Florida or something.” She sensed that this was all too much too fast for Max. She doubted he’d even really processed what had gone on downstairs at the counter. He was choosing not to keep focusing on the past, but to look towards the future and she couldn’t exactly blame him. She’d never really dealt with her own troubled past until two days ago when he had forced her to. Forcing Max would get her nowhere though, so she looked down at the large stack of clothes he had pulled out for her and joined him in looking ahead. “This is a lot of clothes,” she remarked, “it’s not all gonna fit on the bike.”
“Well, I’m gonna get rid of the bike,” Max finally turned around to face her. “As soon as we’re out of Roswell, I’m gonna see if we can trade it in.”
“Trade it in for what?” Liz wondered if Max had somehow read her mind and she didn’t try to hide the smile that crossed her face. She loved the motorcycle, but the novelty for her had worn off.
“Well, for a car,” he shrugged as if the answer were obvious, but Liz detected a nervousness in his eyes. It was a look she noticed more and more in him. It wasn’t the worry or panic that used to flash across his eyes, but looked more like the nervousness of a middle schooler about to ask a girl out on a date for the first time. “The bike worked fine for me, but it’s not just me anymore.” The words came out all in a hurried jumble. “So,” he fidgeted uncomfortably with a shoelace. She wondered how it was he could say some things so naturally, but little things like this caused him so much trouble.
“So we’re gonna buy a car?” A smile stretched across Liz’s face both at Max’s confession and the prospect facing them. They didn’t do things like a normal couple, but this – buying a car together - they could do. It filled Liz with a strange sense of satisfaction that they could do something normal together in this crazy life. It filled her with a fluttery girlish feeling to know that Max was planning his future around her. It was foolish, she knew, because it wasn’t as if he’d done anything to figure otherwise, but since she made the bold declaration twelve days ago that she wanted to stay with him, their future had been little more than an unspoken day-to-day existence. So her heart jumped like a little schoolgirl’s to hear him making plans for her.
“Or a truck,” Max shrugged and gave an awkward smile, “whatever we can get.” Liz got up from the bed then and joined Max on the floor in front of her closet. She looked one more time at the large pile of clothes he had set aside for her, knowing she’d have to go through it and pick out her own clothes, but loving him all the same for doing it.
“Well, if I am going to have all these clothes,” she reached out and grabbed at the old grey t-shirt he was wearing, like most of his clothes, it was a nondescript and well-worn shirt with a hole here and there. “Then we are going to have to take you shopping,” she grinned playfully.
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” he looked down at his shirt.
“Nothing, I like all four of your shirts,” she teased and leaned into him and was relieved to feel his chest shake with laughter. “All two pairs of pants too,” she continued with a chuckle and just as she felt Max relax she heard a voice sound from the doorway.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” Alex smiled as he looked down to the couple. “Your dad said I could come right up.” He grinned and rocked back on his heels, looking down to the couple on the floor.
“How about that motorcycle ride?”
All the evidence pointed to the fact that these were memories that he had consciously blocked out as a boy. It was purposeful forgetting. Whatever trauma he had suffered in the wreck had caused him to push the memory into his subconscious where he would never have to recall it. But the memories were inside of him and last night proved that he could recall them. He had been rescued and he had been able to cite details of that rescue. The forgotten trauma that haunted him wasn’t forgotten anymore. There was a car crash, that much her father had told her, but there had to be more. And she couldn’t leave Roswell, couldn’t live with herself or with Max, without finding out what that was.
Her father, as expected, was busy behind the counter, making small talk with customers while he poured coffee or made change at the register. She waited patiently for him to enter the kitchen, knowing very well she couldn’t ask what she wanted to outside.
“Dad?” Liz pounced as soon as he stepped through the swinging doors, knowing that he would likely only be back here for a few moments.
“Hey, Lizzie, what’re you doing back here?” Mr. Parker chuckled as he refilled a few containers of creamer.
“Just grabbing some snacks for the road, you said that was okay, right?” Liz surprised herself at how quickly she was able to come up with a cover, even after three days of almost nothing but lying.
“Just as long as you write down what you take,” he managed to smile and look her way as he prepared another large vat of coffee.
“Hey, dad,” Liz tried to seem carefree, “whatever happened to those kids?”
“What kids?”
“The kids we were talking about this morning that the Evans’ rescued.” Mr. Parker’s eyebrows sloped into a frown as the words tumbled from Liz’s mouth. She knew if she pushed much further than this that her dad would grow more than a little suspicious, but she couldn’t help herself from at least asking once.
“Might I ask what’s causing this sudden interest?” he turned from the giant coffee maker. Liz opened up her mouth to say something, then quickly closed it. Then opened it again and her jaw hung there for a moment as her mind worked franticly for something to say.
“Lucas is an orphan,” she blurted out and it felt good to say something to her father about Max that, for once, wasn’t a lie. “Was an orphan,” she corrected. “And he doesn’t talk about it a lot – I’m just – it makes me curious about the whole…adoption process.” She knew it was a weak explanation, but it wasn’t quite a lie and she was pleased with herself for that reason alone.
“Lizzie, I didn’t know,” her father’s face changed almost immediately, he looked apologetic almost. “You didn’t mention anything about him being…I’m so sorry.”
“Dad, it’s not like a tragedy or anything,” she forced a smile at the ironic words. “I’m just curious.”
“Well, the Evans obviously didn’t end up adopting those kids,” Mr. Parker sighed. “But I’m sure they ended up in good homes.” A chill ran down Liz’s spine almost immediately at the comment.
“Right,” she replied dryly. “But do you know why they didn’t adopt them?”
“If this hits so close to home for you, Lizzie, maybe you should - ”
“Why didn’t they adopt them?” Liz pressed impatiently. “I just want to know why.”
“Well, I don’t know exactly why. I’m not Phillip Evans,” Mr. Parker pressed his hand to his chest as if to remind his daughter who she was speaking to. “I do know that that was a rough time for the Evans. They were in the hospital for a long time afterwards,” he shook his head sadly. “They could hardly take care of themselves for a long time nevertheless three kids. I’d imagine that’s probably why they didn’t keep them.”
“Is that why Mr. Evans used to walk with a cane?” Liz felt a wave of guilt rush over her suddenly at the recollection of seeing big strong Mr. Evans tottering around with a cane back when she was in elementary school.
“That’s why,” her father just nodded his head. “He had to have a ton of surgeries. His wife too.”
“But the kids were all okay? That doesn’t make any sense,” Liz frowned at the new information.
“Some kind of miracle,” Jeff shrugged and smiled. “If there’s a silver lining to that story that’s certainly it.”
“So they just went into the system after the accident,” Liz licked her lips thoughtfully. That was the bus ride across the border from Max’s memory. She wasn’t sure why he had gone to Midland, but she assumed it was probably the last in a long line of stops - from police stations to overcrowded orphanages. She didn’t know a lot about orphanages, but she guessed that it was probably a lot like the Roswell animal shelter she’d worked at back in middle school. When there was no room left for incoming strays they got taken to the next shelter and when there was no room left there they went to another and another and then probably over the border to Texas. She cringed at the realization that she was comparing Max and his brother and sister to stray dogs and cats. Except his brother and sister had finally found a home. Max had stayed; he’d become that dog at the shelter whose nametag reveals he needs EXTRA TLC ‘cos he’s been in that cage for seven years.
“Well that…answers that,” Liz began to backpedal out of the kitchen.
“You alright?” her father watched her with a curious eye. “You seem a little shaky?”
“Shaky, I’m not shaky,” Liz dismissed her father’s accurate suspicions with a phoney laugh, “I just need to ask Lucas whether he wants barbecue chips or – or regular,” she stammered as she continued to back out of the kitchen.
“Look, Liz, I know being orphaned is not a pleasant thought,” Mr. Parker offered kindly, “It’s hard to think about someone you love going through something like that.” Liz clinched her lips together tightly and swallowed the lump rising in her throat. “But you shouldn’t automatically relate any story you hear about an orphan to Lucas,” he walked towards his daughter and clapped a hand onto her shoulder. “I think it’s wonderful that you care so much and you want to try and understand, but don’t let it consume all your thoughts.”
“Right, I know,” Liz gave the slightest nod of the head.
“You should know the Evans did everything they could to get those kids into a good place. I think Mr. Evans even pulled some strings at the State Department for them. So everything probably ended up alright for those kids. With a happy ending.”
“A happy ending,” Liz bowed her head and somehow forced a smile to her face when she looked back up at her dad. “Right.”
“You and Lucas still planning on heading out at noon?” he asked and Liz was grateful for the change of subject.
“Yep,” she sighed, “our journey to Canada starts in two hours.”
“You two are going to have so much fun,” Mr. Parker smiled, “although I can’t say I’m exactly thrilled that you’ll be doing all your traveling on the back of a motorcycle.”
“I know, but he’s a safe driver,” Liz assured though his words did remind her how much she was dreading three fourteen hour days on the back of Max’s bike. It wasn’t at all like the long hours they’d put in in the cab of his truck. Then they’d been able to talk, to listen to music, to relax a bit. On his bike everything was different.
“You can be the safest driver in the world on those things, Lizzie, and still end up in the hospital.” Mr. Parker warned protectively.
“He won’t let anything happen to me, dad,” Liz looked her father square in the eye. “You don’t have to worry,” she promised. At least not about the things normal fathers worry about. “If Alex comes send him upstairs, okay?” Liz turned from her father and began to walk towards the stairs, trying to make sense of what her father had revealed to her.
The car crash had been more than a mere fender-bender; it was a wreck that had put both Diane and Phillips into the hospital. It wasn’t a matter of not wanting Max, it was a matter of being physically unable to care for him. It was actually good news, the best she probably could have hoped for. She highly doubted her father had made up that part about Mr. Evans pulling strings with his contacts at the state department either. There were positives here in this whole mess. She’d been assuming that the Evans had just discarded the kids, but the whole thing was just an unfortunate series of circumstances. As much for the Evans as for Max. She just hoped, as she climbed the stairs to Max, that he would see it that way too.
“You should definitely bring a raincoat.” Max was rifling through her closet when Liz walked through the door to her room. “A raincoat and a sweatshirt, two definite must haves.”
“Canada sounds like fun,” Liz laughed at the cold and wet picture Max was painting, but the look on his face reminded her that he’d never been to the island where Michael and Isabelle lived.
“There’s probably still snow on the ground there too,” Max looked down at the many pairs of shoes that littered her closet floor. “You might want to wear sneakers or boots or something.”
“I have something to tell you,” Liz sat down on the edge of the bed beside the neatly folded pile of clothes. Max continued his search for suitable shoes while Liz waited nervously on the bed for him to turn around. This would be the last piece. After this, the events of Max’s rescue would be known. She looked over at Max, who was now on his hands and knees searching for the mate to a worn running shoe. With this information she could paint a picture like last night, one whose empty spaces Max could hopefully fill. “I asked my dad about the accident.” The sound of Max’s rummaging came to a sudden halt. “And I thought you should know what he said.” There was an incredibly long pause as Max remained hunched over her closet.
“Okay.” His voice sounded mechanical and slow, almost like he had to force the words out.
“It’s not that they didn’t want you.” Liz chose to remain on the bed as she informed Max of what she hoped he would hear as good news. “They just couldn’t care for you. My dad said after the accident they were in the hospital for a long time so they couldn’t…” she struggled with how to spin this to Max as good news. He didn’t seem to care tremendously and returned to his search for proper shoes. “It wasn’t you,” she tried to smile for him. “It was a coyote in the road – that’s all. That’s the only reason you - ”
“Okay,” Max repeated flatly, picking up the sought-after sneakers and adding them to the pile of clothes for her. “Some warm weather stuff probably wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he eyed a pair of sandals. “In case we go south after.”
“Right,” Liz relented, “maybe like to Florida or something.” She sensed that this was all too much too fast for Max. She doubted he’d even really processed what had gone on downstairs at the counter. He was choosing not to keep focusing on the past, but to look towards the future and she couldn’t exactly blame him. She’d never really dealt with her own troubled past until two days ago when he had forced her to. Forcing Max would get her nowhere though, so she looked down at the large stack of clothes he had pulled out for her and joined him in looking ahead. “This is a lot of clothes,” she remarked, “it’s not all gonna fit on the bike.”
“Well, I’m gonna get rid of the bike,” Max finally turned around to face her. “As soon as we’re out of Roswell, I’m gonna see if we can trade it in.”
“Trade it in for what?” Liz wondered if Max had somehow read her mind and she didn’t try to hide the smile that crossed her face. She loved the motorcycle, but the novelty for her had worn off.
“Well, for a car,” he shrugged as if the answer were obvious, but Liz detected a nervousness in his eyes. It was a look she noticed more and more in him. It wasn’t the worry or panic that used to flash across his eyes, but looked more like the nervousness of a middle schooler about to ask a girl out on a date for the first time. “The bike worked fine for me, but it’s not just me anymore.” The words came out all in a hurried jumble. “So,” he fidgeted uncomfortably with a shoelace. She wondered how it was he could say some things so naturally, but little things like this caused him so much trouble.
“So we’re gonna buy a car?” A smile stretched across Liz’s face both at Max’s confession and the prospect facing them. They didn’t do things like a normal couple, but this – buying a car together - they could do. It filled Liz with a strange sense of satisfaction that they could do something normal together in this crazy life. It filled her with a fluttery girlish feeling to know that Max was planning his future around her. It was foolish, she knew, because it wasn’t as if he’d done anything to figure otherwise, but since she made the bold declaration twelve days ago that she wanted to stay with him, their future had been little more than an unspoken day-to-day existence. So her heart jumped like a little schoolgirl’s to hear him making plans for her.
“Or a truck,” Max shrugged and gave an awkward smile, “whatever we can get.” Liz got up from the bed then and joined Max on the floor in front of her closet. She looked one more time at the large pile of clothes he had set aside for her, knowing she’d have to go through it and pick out her own clothes, but loving him all the same for doing it.
“Well, if I am going to have all these clothes,” she reached out and grabbed at the old grey t-shirt he was wearing, like most of his clothes, it was a nondescript and well-worn shirt with a hole here and there. “Then we are going to have to take you shopping,” she grinned playfully.
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” he looked down at his shirt.
“Nothing, I like all four of your shirts,” she teased and leaned into him and was relieved to feel his chest shake with laughter. “All two pairs of pants too,” she continued with a chuckle and just as she felt Max relax she heard a voice sound from the doorway.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” Alex smiled as he looked down to the couple. “Your dad said I could come right up.” He grinned and rocked back on his heels, looking down to the couple on the floor.
“How about that motorcycle ride?”
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:30 pm, edited 5 times in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."
After three trips around the block, a lesson from Max and much encouragement from Liz, Alex was driving the Suzuki through the streets of Roswell himself. He was beaming from ear to ear when he finally pulled up alongside the Crashdown and took off the helmet.
“That is awesome,” he declared for everyone on the sidewalk to hear, including Maria who seemed entirely unamused by it all. “Maria, you should really try it!” he shouted to his friend who stood by the glass doors with her arms folded across her chest.
“I wouldn’t mind taking you for a ride,” Max offered with a friendly shrug of the shoulders.
“Think I’ll pass,” she gave the smiling trio on the sidewalk a phoney smile before turning to enter the restaurant.
“Excuse me,” Liz dismissed herself from Max and Alex, who were discussing just how fast the Suzuki could get on open road, and marched after her best friend. She stormed through the doors, right through the dining room and into the back room where she saw Maria at her locker. “What is your problem? Why can’t you even try to like him?” Liz threw up her hands. “Please,” she pleaded, “for me!” And at those last words something inside Maria snapped.
“I Googled him,” she blurted out. “Which, I know, okay, is not the most reliable source, but there were no results for him. Like zero! Liz, even my grandma gets results on a Google search.”
“That’s why you don’t like him?” Liz laughed. “Because he doesn’t show up on an internet search?” The comment just seemed to tick Maria off more. She clinched her jaw and continued.
“So then I went to the Boston College website and I looked and there is no Lucas Duchaigne listed in the directory as a registered student. I even called up the registrar! He’s not a student there!” Hearing Maria’s further detective work Liz felt her stomach begin to churn. “So then – “
“Maria, look,” Liz tried to look calm and hide the panic growing inside of her.
”No, Liz, listen to me, I heard him talking on the phone this morning and it just…look, I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Liz was surprised to see her friend actually looked truly disturbed at whatever news she was about to relay to Liz. “I really wish there was a nicer way to say this,” she ran her hand through her short blonde hair. “He’s lying to you!” she blurted out. “He’s lying to you and I think you’re in trouble.”
“I’m not in trouble,” Liz assured, trying to dismiss her friends accurate accusations with a laugh and a smile.
“His name isn’t Lucas, okay? This person he was talking to outside on the payphone, when he was talking he – he said his name was Max. Not Lucas. Max. And I looked in his bag and - ”
“You looked in his bag?” Liz tried to sound offended, but couldn’t help but be impressed at her friend’s steadfast loyalty.
“Yes, I looked in his bag and all he had was a couple bottles of hot sauce and a bag full of money. Cash, Liz – like hundred dollar bills, okay? That’s sketchy – he’s sketchy – everything about him and his perfect little Canadian life is and I am so sorry to have to tell you this, but - ”
“It’s alright, Maria -”
“It’s not alright!” she thundered.
“I promise you, it is,” Liz attempted to keep her voice sure and steady.
“So you knew his name was Max?”
“Yes. Max is his middle name,” Liz blurted out the same quick explanation Max had given her back in Mom’s Fish And Pancake House.
“It is not. His middle name supposedly starts with an R,” Maria fired back.
“You looked at his wallet?” Liz tried to steer the conversation away from Max while she wracked her brain to come up with some sort of explanation.
“You’re lying for him, aren’t you?” Maria didn’t even bother with a reply to Liz’s accusation. “Liz, what is going on? And do not lie to me!”
“Maria, I can’t,” Liz shrugged helplessly.
“What is going on? Are you in trouble?” Maria’s inquiry continued and once again Liz couldn’t help but notice how Maria’s voice was thick with worry. This felt less like an interrogation and more like some kind of intervention.
“I’m not in trouble,” Liz assured and though it was a lie she felt right saying it. Danger, maybe, but trouble, no. Trouble meant some kind of distress and with Max, even knowing the people probably close on his trail, she couldn’t help but feel safe.
“Then what is going on? Because this – none of this – makes any sense. You and him and the different name and the money and the leaving. It’s like you’re running from something.”
“Please, just accept that I can’t tell you, Maria,” Liz fought to retain her composure, but it grew more difficult with each question her friend asked. All were dead on accurate and every one grew closer and closer to the truth.
“Yeah, right, I’m just going to accept it?!” Maria snorted. “I want answers, Liz. ‘Cos all of this. It’s weird and it’s sketchy and if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll go to Kyle and his dad right now!” she threatened and Liz could see as she said the words that it was already something she had considered doing.
“And tell him what?” Liz pulled Maria back towards the stairs and the look of sheer panic on her face was not lost on her best friend.
“That the man you showed up in town with on the back of a racing bike doesn’t actually exist and is carrying around a bag full of cash and apparently has some kind of alias, maybe even two and that whatever he’s involved in you apparently are too!”
Liz looked nervously around the back room and swallowed loudly. The last thing Max needed was the local sheriff looking into him.
“Please don’t go to the sheriff,” Liz’s calm façade broke. Her lip trembled at the prospect of Maria alerting the authorities about Max. “I promise you we’re not in trouble and we never broke the law.”
“We? It’s we all of a sudden,” Maria’s eyes widened at Liz’s sudden confession. “I thought you were just covering for him or something.” Liz remained silent and so Maria just continued. “Liz, you need to tell me what’s going on and you need to tell me now.”
“I can’t, Maria. Okay, trust me, I would love – LOVE – to tell you the truth, but it’s not a matter of what I want to do.”
“He’s like controlling you, isn’t he, this Max/Lucas person? He’s not as perfect and normal as he seems!”
“He is perfect,” Liz couldn’t help the words from flying from her lips at the accusation.
“Nobody’s perfect, Liz,” Maria scoffed.
“He is,” Liz’s eyes glazed over. “He is absolutely perfect.”
“You’re talking like a crazy person.”
“I love him so much, Maria, and if you screw this up by sticking your big fat nose in our business then - ”
“What business? You haven’t answered a single one of my questions.”
“And there’s a reason for that.”
“Just tell me!” Maria pleaded. “What is the big deal?”
“I can’t! Please believe me!” Liz was now shouting the only words she could say to Maria. *I can’t, I can’t, I can’t* - over and over, it was all she could say. She couldn’t tell Max’s secret. This wasn’t like secrets you kept back in middle school or promises you made about the events of a weekend party, this was Max’s life. Maria’s life. Her parent’s life. She couldn’t tell her. “I can’t,” Liz’s shoulders sagged in defeat.
“No, no,” Maria shook her head decisively as she looked at her strung out friend. “This is all way too shady, I’m going to Kyle,” she turned to head out the door, but before she could even move a step, Liz’s hand grabbed hers. She was out of options. It was the sheriff or the truth.
“Just come upstairs with me.”
“That is awesome,” he declared for everyone on the sidewalk to hear, including Maria who seemed entirely unamused by it all. “Maria, you should really try it!” he shouted to his friend who stood by the glass doors with her arms folded across her chest.
“I wouldn’t mind taking you for a ride,” Max offered with a friendly shrug of the shoulders.
“Think I’ll pass,” she gave the smiling trio on the sidewalk a phoney smile before turning to enter the restaurant.
“Excuse me,” Liz dismissed herself from Max and Alex, who were discussing just how fast the Suzuki could get on open road, and marched after her best friend. She stormed through the doors, right through the dining room and into the back room where she saw Maria at her locker. “What is your problem? Why can’t you even try to like him?” Liz threw up her hands. “Please,” she pleaded, “for me!” And at those last words something inside Maria snapped.
“I Googled him,” she blurted out. “Which, I know, okay, is not the most reliable source, but there were no results for him. Like zero! Liz, even my grandma gets results on a Google search.”
“That’s why you don’t like him?” Liz laughed. “Because he doesn’t show up on an internet search?” The comment just seemed to tick Maria off more. She clinched her jaw and continued.
“So then I went to the Boston College website and I looked and there is no Lucas Duchaigne listed in the directory as a registered student. I even called up the registrar! He’s not a student there!” Hearing Maria’s further detective work Liz felt her stomach begin to churn. “So then – “
“Maria, look,” Liz tried to look calm and hide the panic growing inside of her.
”No, Liz, listen to me, I heard him talking on the phone this morning and it just…look, I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Liz was surprised to see her friend actually looked truly disturbed at whatever news she was about to relay to Liz. “I really wish there was a nicer way to say this,” she ran her hand through her short blonde hair. “He’s lying to you!” she blurted out. “He’s lying to you and I think you’re in trouble.”
“I’m not in trouble,” Liz assured, trying to dismiss her friends accurate accusations with a laugh and a smile.
“His name isn’t Lucas, okay? This person he was talking to outside on the payphone, when he was talking he – he said his name was Max. Not Lucas. Max. And I looked in his bag and - ”
“You looked in his bag?” Liz tried to sound offended, but couldn’t help but be impressed at her friend’s steadfast loyalty.
“Yes, I looked in his bag and all he had was a couple bottles of hot sauce and a bag full of money. Cash, Liz – like hundred dollar bills, okay? That’s sketchy – he’s sketchy – everything about him and his perfect little Canadian life is and I am so sorry to have to tell you this, but - ”
“It’s alright, Maria -”
“It’s not alright!” she thundered.
“I promise you, it is,” Liz attempted to keep her voice sure and steady.
“So you knew his name was Max?”
“Yes. Max is his middle name,” Liz blurted out the same quick explanation Max had given her back in Mom’s Fish And Pancake House.
“It is not. His middle name supposedly starts with an R,” Maria fired back.
“You looked at his wallet?” Liz tried to steer the conversation away from Max while she wracked her brain to come up with some sort of explanation.
“You’re lying for him, aren’t you?” Maria didn’t even bother with a reply to Liz’s accusation. “Liz, what is going on? And do not lie to me!”
“Maria, I can’t,” Liz shrugged helplessly.
“What is going on? Are you in trouble?” Maria’s inquiry continued and once again Liz couldn’t help but notice how Maria’s voice was thick with worry. This felt less like an interrogation and more like some kind of intervention.
“I’m not in trouble,” Liz assured and though it was a lie she felt right saying it. Danger, maybe, but trouble, no. Trouble meant some kind of distress and with Max, even knowing the people probably close on his trail, she couldn’t help but feel safe.
“Then what is going on? Because this – none of this – makes any sense. You and him and the different name and the money and the leaving. It’s like you’re running from something.”
“Please, just accept that I can’t tell you, Maria,” Liz fought to retain her composure, but it grew more difficult with each question her friend asked. All were dead on accurate and every one grew closer and closer to the truth.
“Yeah, right, I’m just going to accept it?!” Maria snorted. “I want answers, Liz. ‘Cos all of this. It’s weird and it’s sketchy and if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll go to Kyle and his dad right now!” she threatened and Liz could see as she said the words that it was already something she had considered doing.
“And tell him what?” Liz pulled Maria back towards the stairs and the look of sheer panic on her face was not lost on her best friend.
“That the man you showed up in town with on the back of a racing bike doesn’t actually exist and is carrying around a bag full of cash and apparently has some kind of alias, maybe even two and that whatever he’s involved in you apparently are too!”
Liz looked nervously around the back room and swallowed loudly. The last thing Max needed was the local sheriff looking into him.
“Please don’t go to the sheriff,” Liz’s calm façade broke. Her lip trembled at the prospect of Maria alerting the authorities about Max. “I promise you we’re not in trouble and we never broke the law.”
“We? It’s we all of a sudden,” Maria’s eyes widened at Liz’s sudden confession. “I thought you were just covering for him or something.” Liz remained silent and so Maria just continued. “Liz, you need to tell me what’s going on and you need to tell me now.”
“I can’t, Maria. Okay, trust me, I would love – LOVE – to tell you the truth, but it’s not a matter of what I want to do.”
“He’s like controlling you, isn’t he, this Max/Lucas person? He’s not as perfect and normal as he seems!”
“He is perfect,” Liz couldn’t help the words from flying from her lips at the accusation.
“Nobody’s perfect, Liz,” Maria scoffed.
“He is,” Liz’s eyes glazed over. “He is absolutely perfect.”
“You’re talking like a crazy person.”
“I love him so much, Maria, and if you screw this up by sticking your big fat nose in our business then - ”
“What business? You haven’t answered a single one of my questions.”
“And there’s a reason for that.”
“Just tell me!” Maria pleaded. “What is the big deal?”
“I can’t! Please believe me!” Liz was now shouting the only words she could say to Maria. *I can’t, I can’t, I can’t* - over and over, it was all she could say. She couldn’t tell Max’s secret. This wasn’t like secrets you kept back in middle school or promises you made about the events of a weekend party, this was Max’s life. Maria’s life. Her parent’s life. She couldn’t tell her. “I can’t,” Liz’s shoulders sagged in defeat.
“No, no,” Maria shook her head decisively as she looked at her strung out friend. “This is all way too shady, I’m going to Kyle,” she turned to head out the door, but before she could even move a step, Liz’s hand grabbed hers. She was out of options. It was the sheriff or the truth.
“Just come upstairs with me.”
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."
Author's Note: Another short part, sorry! I figure I owe it to you guys to do lots of short parts instead of making you wait forever while I write longer ones. I cannot thank you all enough for the awesome feedback. Thank you for being such loyal readers, especially when this fic dissappears for months at a time. I really enjoy writing it (I write a lot of fiction just for me that I never share with anyone) so to know that there are people out there that like reading it that much means so much. And with that said...
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She was shaking by the time she reached the top of the stairs, not just a slight quivering but actual tremors that shook her limbs as she dragged Maria up to her room. Liz had to hold her arms to her chest to stop the trembling as she shoved Maria through the door and triple checked the hallway. She locked the door and immediately began pacing. This wasn’t her secret to tell, but she could see no other options.
Liz knew there was only so much she could tell Maria. She had to be careful and exact with her words and she began pacing the length of the carpet as she tried to figure out how to tell a secret that wasn’t even hers to tell. Her hands began to shake again and she wrung them anxiously as she paced about the room.
“The thing is you can’t go to the sheriff,” she finally blurted out. “You can’t go to anybody.”
“How much trouble are you in, Liz?” Maria sat down on the bed, her forehead creased with worried wrinkles.
“I’m not – it’s not,” she stammered over words as the enormity of what she was about to reveal caught up with her. “Max didn’t do anything,” she sighed.
“Max,” Maria said the name slowly, “so his name isn’t Lucas. It’s Max.”
“You can’t know any of this,” Liz shook her head and turned to the wall. Maria couldn’t know this. She couldn’t know any of this.
“I can’t know that his name is Max?”
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Liz repeated, hardly even listening to her friend. “It’s not anything he did. It’s just…” she turned for the first time to look at her friend, who was being surprisingly patient and quiet while Liz paced around the room and mumbled to herself. “It’s just who he is.”
“Who is he?” Maria asked plainly.
“He’s special,” Liz phrased delicately.
“Yes, I know, you think the sun rises and sets with this guy and he- ”
“Don’t you get it, Maria? It does! For me, it does!” she pressed her hands to her chest. “And I’m sorry you don’t like him and you don’t trust him because you should! He is a good person and he has done nothing wrong! he is completely innocent in all this, God, if you knew, if you just knew,” she shook her head as tears stung her eyes for the umpteenth time this weekend.
“If I knew what?”
“The only mistake he ever made was just to care too much,” Liz shook her head. “That’s all he ever did.”
“Care too much about what?” Maria was utterly confused at Liz’s fragmented ranting.
How had Max told her? Liz tried to remember. He’d shown her newspaper clippings and talked to people who actually lived through Max Evans’ bizarre death and ensuing investigation. But how had he actually told her? How had he gone and revealed such a tremendous secret? After little more than a day together he’d revealed his real name to her, relying on little more than a gut instinct about who she was.
Liz looked to her friend of fourteen years, who stood silently awaiting an explanation for her bizarre behavior. She had a lot more than a gut instinct to judge her friend’s reaction. She knew Maria and despite how angry she made her, Liz knew there was really only one reason for her friend’s behavior the past few days. Love for Liz. All Maria knew was that something was off and her friend was being lied to. And truthfully, it somehow pleased Liz to know that Maria saw Lucas was a sham. She was right. Lucas Duchaigne was fiction, no more real than a character in a book. Lucas wasn’t Max. He was polite, handsome and well-mannered, but he wasn’t Max. Liz Parker would have never fallen for Lucas Duchaigne and it relieved her to know that her best friend saw that.
“Max has gifts,” Liz’s voice came out no louder than a whisper. “He has these abilities.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that he’s quite the animal in bed - ”
“Would you shutup!” Liz snapped and her voice began to take on a hysterical tone. “Do you think this is easy for me to say? Max’s life, my life, your life - if you really want to know - are at stake here. I’m trying to tell you the truth! He is not like you and me.”
“Liz, what are you talking about?” Maria actually managed a laugh at the ridiculousness of Liz’s words.
“He’s just different from you and me, I can’t tell you anymore than that,” Liz cried. “I want to, but I can’t. The less you know the better, believe me. I shouldn’t even have told you his name,” Liz ran her hands through her hair frantically.
“I don’t understand, how different can he be?” None of what Liz was saying made any sense.
“So different that there are people out there who would kill to find him. It’s why you can’t know, Maria, if you know then you’re involved and believe me, you do not want to get involved.”
“You’re really starting to sound like a crazy person, you know that?
“Please believe me and just accept that this is all I can tell you!” Liz pleaded. “And as soon as we leave, just forget that I told you anything. You can’t know. Forget the name Max Evans, forget anything about where we’re going, forget about us- ”
“But you’re my best friend, Liz! Don’t you understand? I can’t just forget about you and let it go,” Maria finally said what had been eating away at her this whole time. “I’m trying to make sense of what you’re saying, but I don’t get it? Why don’t we just go to the sheriff, he can help, Liz!”
“He can’t,” Liz shook her head, “And I appreciate the fact that you want to help, but a town sheriff isn’t going to help.”
“So your solution is what? Just to run away and leave no trace? That sounds like a fun life,” Maria shook her head. “You don’t run from stuff, Liz, you try to fix it. Or at least you used to,” she alluded to the days in high school before Liz began to cover herself in piercings and ran away to New York.
“Well, I can’t fix this,” Liz just shrugged her shoulders weakly, “I can’t change who Max is. All I want to do is be with him and if that means that I have to do it under an alias, on the run from the FBI on the back of a motorcycle, then I’ll do it,” Liz avowed. “Because I love him in a way I don’t think you can even understand, Maria.” She let the words hang in the air for a moment, knowing she was being dramatic, but hardly caring. “So if you want me to be happy and you care about me at all, then please, just forget about this conversation and forget about Max.” For the first time all morning, Maria didn’t have a reply for Liz. She said nothing, just nodded a greeting to the confused young man standing in the doorway.
“Hi, Max.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
She was shaking by the time she reached the top of the stairs, not just a slight quivering but actual tremors that shook her limbs as she dragged Maria up to her room. Liz had to hold her arms to her chest to stop the trembling as she shoved Maria through the door and triple checked the hallway. She locked the door and immediately began pacing. This wasn’t her secret to tell, but she could see no other options.
Liz knew there was only so much she could tell Maria. She had to be careful and exact with her words and she began pacing the length of the carpet as she tried to figure out how to tell a secret that wasn’t even hers to tell. Her hands began to shake again and she wrung them anxiously as she paced about the room.
“The thing is you can’t go to the sheriff,” she finally blurted out. “You can’t go to anybody.”
“How much trouble are you in, Liz?” Maria sat down on the bed, her forehead creased with worried wrinkles.
“I’m not – it’s not,” she stammered over words as the enormity of what she was about to reveal caught up with her. “Max didn’t do anything,” she sighed.
“Max,” Maria said the name slowly, “so his name isn’t Lucas. It’s Max.”
“You can’t know any of this,” Liz shook her head and turned to the wall. Maria couldn’t know this. She couldn’t know any of this.
“I can’t know that his name is Max?”
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Liz repeated, hardly even listening to her friend. “It’s not anything he did. It’s just…” she turned for the first time to look at her friend, who was being surprisingly patient and quiet while Liz paced around the room and mumbled to herself. “It’s just who he is.”
“Who is he?” Maria asked plainly.
“He’s special,” Liz phrased delicately.
“Yes, I know, you think the sun rises and sets with this guy and he- ”
“Don’t you get it, Maria? It does! For me, it does!” she pressed her hands to her chest. “And I’m sorry you don’t like him and you don’t trust him because you should! He is a good person and he has done nothing wrong! he is completely innocent in all this, God, if you knew, if you just knew,” she shook her head as tears stung her eyes for the umpteenth time this weekend.
“If I knew what?”
“The only mistake he ever made was just to care too much,” Liz shook her head. “That’s all he ever did.”
“Care too much about what?” Maria was utterly confused at Liz’s fragmented ranting.
How had Max told her? Liz tried to remember. He’d shown her newspaper clippings and talked to people who actually lived through Max Evans’ bizarre death and ensuing investigation. But how had he actually told her? How had he gone and revealed such a tremendous secret? After little more than a day together he’d revealed his real name to her, relying on little more than a gut instinct about who she was.
Liz looked to her friend of fourteen years, who stood silently awaiting an explanation for her bizarre behavior. She had a lot more than a gut instinct to judge her friend’s reaction. She knew Maria and despite how angry she made her, Liz knew there was really only one reason for her friend’s behavior the past few days. Love for Liz. All Maria knew was that something was off and her friend was being lied to. And truthfully, it somehow pleased Liz to know that Maria saw Lucas was a sham. She was right. Lucas Duchaigne was fiction, no more real than a character in a book. Lucas wasn’t Max. He was polite, handsome and well-mannered, but he wasn’t Max. Liz Parker would have never fallen for Lucas Duchaigne and it relieved her to know that her best friend saw that.
“Max has gifts,” Liz’s voice came out no louder than a whisper. “He has these abilities.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that he’s quite the animal in bed - ”
“Would you shutup!” Liz snapped and her voice began to take on a hysterical tone. “Do you think this is easy for me to say? Max’s life, my life, your life - if you really want to know - are at stake here. I’m trying to tell you the truth! He is not like you and me.”
“Liz, what are you talking about?” Maria actually managed a laugh at the ridiculousness of Liz’s words.
“He’s just different from you and me, I can’t tell you anymore than that,” Liz cried. “I want to, but I can’t. The less you know the better, believe me. I shouldn’t even have told you his name,” Liz ran her hands through her hair frantically.
“I don’t understand, how different can he be?” None of what Liz was saying made any sense.
“So different that there are people out there who would kill to find him. It’s why you can’t know, Maria, if you know then you’re involved and believe me, you do not want to get involved.”
“You’re really starting to sound like a crazy person, you know that?
“Please believe me and just accept that this is all I can tell you!” Liz pleaded. “And as soon as we leave, just forget that I told you anything. You can’t know. Forget the name Max Evans, forget anything about where we’re going, forget about us- ”
“But you’re my best friend, Liz! Don’t you understand? I can’t just forget about you and let it go,” Maria finally said what had been eating away at her this whole time. “I’m trying to make sense of what you’re saying, but I don’t get it? Why don’t we just go to the sheriff, he can help, Liz!”
“He can’t,” Liz shook her head, “And I appreciate the fact that you want to help, but a town sheriff isn’t going to help.”
“So your solution is what? Just to run away and leave no trace? That sounds like a fun life,” Maria shook her head. “You don’t run from stuff, Liz, you try to fix it. Or at least you used to,” she alluded to the days in high school before Liz began to cover herself in piercings and ran away to New York.
“Well, I can’t fix this,” Liz just shrugged her shoulders weakly, “I can’t change who Max is. All I want to do is be with him and if that means that I have to do it under an alias, on the run from the FBI on the back of a motorcycle, then I’ll do it,” Liz avowed. “Because I love him in a way I don’t think you can even understand, Maria.” She let the words hang in the air for a moment, knowing she was being dramatic, but hardly caring. “So if you want me to be happy and you care about me at all, then please, just forget about this conversation and forget about Max.” For the first time all morning, Maria didn’t have a reply for Liz. She said nothing, just nodded a greeting to the confused young man standing in the doorway.
“Hi, Max.”
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."
He stood in the doorway in his dark Levis and raggedy shirt, his hands shoved into his pockets as he looked to Liz for an explanation. His mouth was closed, his lips pressed together in a thin line, neither smiling nor frowning. He didn’t look angry, just confused, like someone who’d just walked into a conversation they didn’t quite understand.
“That’s your real name, right?” Maria asked shortly, but Max didn’t reply, he just kept his eyes rooted on Liz, his hands still crammed into his pockets. What was he supposed to say? How much had she told Maria? He shifted his weight uncomfortably as the three stood there in silence.
“She was going to go to the sheriff,” Liz blurted out lamely. “I didn’t know what else to do.” The two girls were standing on either sides of the room and from the flushed color in Liz’s cheeks Max could tell that they had been having quite the heated discussion. She wouldn’t just tell Maria for no good reason. Liz had sworn to him that she’d keep his identity secret from her family and she’d done just that, had done nothing but lie to everyone she cared about since she’d gotten here.
Had she cracked with little over an hour left in her hometown? Had she been unable to live the lie all the way through? Or had Maria somehow found out his identity and really threatened to tell the sheriff? Fear gripped Max at the thought, fear not for him, but for this town and these people who had made the mistake of welcoming him into their home. He looked up at Liz as the thoughts cascaded through his mind. Had Maria forced her to tell him or had Liz just caved? Had she realized what a gross mistake she had made by welcoming Max into her life and decided to confess it to her best friend? Had that been it?
“I had to, she was going to tell the sheriff,” Liz repeated. looking to Max apologetically and wishing she could know what was going through his mind.
He continued to stare at her long and hard, at her panicked face and red-rimmed eyes. He tried to recall a time in the last few weeks when he’d seen Liz so upset, but he couldn’t recall any. And he felt suddenly sick for doubting her and her motives for telling Maria. This was Liz.
“Hi.” He finally stepped through the doorway and walked slowly towards Maria. “I’m Max Evans,” he removed his right hand from his pocket and extended it to her. Maria looked warily back and forth between Liz and him, clearly unsure what to think of the peculiar young man, who appeared to be being honest with her for the first time all weekend. She cautiously took it and was surprised at the firm grip Max took as he shook her hand. “But you should probably try to forget my name,” he confessed with, of all things, a tiny grin.
“Will people kill me to find out your name?” Maria asked, crossing her arms across her chest uncomfortably.
“To find out if you’ve seen me, yeah, they might,” Max nodded his head solemnly and Maria swallowed the large lump that seemed to have just formed in her throat. It was one thing to hear it from her hysterical friend, but quite another to hear it from this dead serious young man. And for the first time it started to feel real to Maria. Whatever ‘Max’ had done, whatever her best friend had gotten dragged into, was real.
“What did you do?” she dared to ask and at the question Max just let out a deep sigh and dropped onto the bed.
“I was born,” he laughed again and rolled his eyes, but Maria looked at him blankly, not understanding. Liz walked past Maria and sat beside Max on the bed.
“I didn’t say – you don’t have to tell her everything,” she told Max.
“At this point, I might as well,” he shrugged then looked back to Maria. “You might want to be sitting down.”
“Max, you don’t have to - ”
“I want to,” he nodded his head. “She’s your best friend, right?” Max didn’t wait for an answer, just gave a tiny shrug. “I told Matt.”
“But you - ”
“I want to,” he repeated. “I want to tell her.” He motioned to the desk chair behind Maria and as she slowly took the seat he began. And unlike how he had done with Liz he chose to start from the beginning. “The first thing I ever did was heal a bird,” he cleared his throat. “I was about seven and I didn’t know what I was doing, I just…picked it up and knew I wanted to help it.” The story was one Liz hadn’t heard and she listened closely. “Michael and Iz were the only ones who saw. They’d never done anything like that either, but after that we started to realize we could do things. Little things,” he spoke quietly. “Melt cheese on a sandwhich, erase a stray pen mark, nothing really. It was just like this awesome convenience. After the bird the only other time I healed myself was for football.”
“I thought you played hockey?” Maria interrupted.
“No, I played football,” he smiled that such an insignificant detail could prompt a response from Maria. “I played football, Michael played hockey,” he added for no particular reason.
“Who is Michael?” Maria asked.
“Michael’s my brother. He actually does live up in Canada,” Max wasn’t sure why he was telling Maria so much. It felt good. Now that he’d started he didn’t think he could stop. “So I was different and I knew it,” he confessed, “but I didn’t really know how or why. We were born – if you could call it that – here in Roswell and I started to think on it.”
“What? You think you’re the descendants of an alien or something?” Maria laughed, much like Liz had back in Moon, Montana. It was too ridiculous to even ask with a straight face, but the smile quickly fell away from Maria’s face as Max continued.
“We came out of these, well they were like incubators out in the desert,” he confessed more than even Liz had heard. “I don’t remember all that much except that I came out first and I was just like a six year old. I could talk and walk and I knew things. I knew we were naked and we needed clothes.” Liz filed the information away in her psych folder on Max. He remembered such a detail like that, but the large chunk of time he’d spent with the Evans was a blank. “We were picked up by a family here,” Max glossed over the details and Liz kept quiet, “and eventually taken to an orphanage in Texas. That’s where I grew up and, like I said, I started to wonder.”
“Started to wonder about you being an alien?” Maria didn’t laugh this time, but Max could tell she was still skeptical. “I remember in tenth grade looking at my own cheek cells in bio lab and realizing that they didn’t look like they were supposed to in the textbook,” he actually managed a laugh. “Neither did my blood - ”
“Is it green?” Maria asked, her eyes wide.
“No,” Max laughed, remembering Liz had asked the same thing. He looked to the microscope in Liz’s closet that had lay dormant for so many years. “I could show you if you want, the structure…it’s just different. It looks the same on the outside, but it’s different. It’s just different,” he repeated, then raised his eyes back up to Maria. She was taking it surprisingly well so far. “So by the time I got to college I knew enough that there were certain things I couldn’t do. Urine tests before the game, check ups at the doctor, and I found ways to get around it.”
“Didn’t you have checkups when you were a kid?” Maria inquired like the good detective she was.
“At the orphanage you only went to the doctor if you got sick. I didn’t get sick,” Max stated matter-of-factly. “I went in once for some x-rays, but my bone structure is completely normal,” he shrugged, then went on. “So I was real careful at school, not doing anything that might draw attention. But then this one day,” Max’s voice got softer, “this one day,” he repeated and Liz moved her hand over his knowing what day he was referring to. The day she knew he had probably turned over in his head every day since. “This kid went down at practice. One minute he was up running drills with me and then he was down. Heat stroke or something like that, I don’t know, his heart just stopped. By the time I got to him he was pretty much dead,” Max remembered running over to Nicky and staring down at his pale and lifeless body. “I didn’t know I could do anything like that, all I knew was that I wanted to help him,” Max shrugged. “And I did. I brought him back.”
“You brought someone back from the dead?” Maria asked incredulously and Max just shrugged.
“It’s not like he was a corpse, he had just collapsed and his heart stopped.”
“And you brought him back to life?”
“After that the cops came to ask me some questions,” Max continued, “I told them I did CPR, guys on the team said something else, next thing I know,” he blew out a long breath and Liz just held his hand a little tighter. “Next thing I know there’s these guys in suits coming for me.’
“Alien hunters?” Maria’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“And they haven’t stopped coming since,” he sighed. “I faked my own death and they didn’t buy it. I drive to the Yukon and they find me.”
“And now they’ll come here,” Maria spoke the words slowly and Max just nodded his head.
“It’s why we have to go,” he spoke simply, “as much as we’d like to stay. We have to go.”
“But they’ll ask. They’ll ask people if they’ve seen you and they’ll ask the Parkers,” Maria sputtered. “What are we supposed to say? Liz’s parents will flip if they find out there’s FBI after their daughter’s boyfriend!”
“Max, she’s right.” It pained Liz to think about such people coming after her parents. “If they show your picture around here, my parents will lose it.”
“I know,” Max sighed, “but we kept our visit short enough, so there’s a chance they might not even pass through Roswell.”
“A chance? You’re banking on a chance?” Maria looked at Max incredulously.
“Well, what else do I do?” he asked helplessly.
“You ever tried to fight them?” she proposed and Max just laughed at the suggestion. “Well, could I do anything?” she offered suddenly and Liz could hardly believe her friend was taking this so well. She had been almost nothing but rude to Max the entire time they’d been home and now here she was offering to help. Liz couldn’t help but think they should have told her the truth right from the start.
“What could you do?” Max had never had an accomplice before. Aside from the elaborate planning of his fake death, he had never tried to outwit them. He just ran.
“Make sure they don’t talk to the Parkers,” Maria shrugged, “there’s a start. They talk to me and I tell them you guys said you were heading to Florida or something, I mean it couldn’t hurt, right?”
“I don’t think you wanna be talking to these guys,” Max shook his head warily.
“Well, what other choice do you have? These guys flash your picture to the Parkers and we’ll have a nationwide hunt for Liz. You’ll never be welcome here again. You really want that on top of everything?” Maria scoffed. “Let me do something, please” she pleaded.
“Why do you want to help so badly?” Max asked and Maria got suddenly quiet.
“Well, this is all beyond weird. Part of me thinks you both have been doing some serious drugs,” she laughed and rolled her eyes. “But part of me kinda believes you,” she looked up at Max’s soft brown eyes. Honest eyes. She guessed telling her the truth hadn’t been exactly easy for him. As bizarre a story as it was, as much as she thought she was in some episode of the X-Files gone very wrong, she believed him. “Who else knows about this?”
“Nobody,” Max replied. “Just Liz and, well, a friend of mine back at school knows I’m alive, but nothing else.”
“So just Liz?” Maria looked to her friend, who was clinging to Max’s side, her hand entwined in his.
“And now you,” Max spoke softly.
“Can I ask you a question?” Maria asked, a curious look on her face as she stared at the two. “How did you really meet?”
“What’s the one thing you hate me to do?” Liz asked with a small grin and that was all Maria needed to hear.
“You picked her up off the side of the road?” she scowled.
“I-95,” Max actually managed a smile at the memory. “About two weeks ago.”
“No way,” Maria shook her head in disbelief, then turned her attention to her friend. “Two weeks is all you’ve known him?”
“Every minute of every day for two weeks,” Liz detailed as she ran a hand up Max’s arm.
“Two weeks and you’re this in love?” Maria shook her head, a twinge of jealousy running through her. She couldn’t even decide whether she liked Kyle Valentin or not and that had been a thing for months. Here these two had known each other for only fourteen days and they were inseparable. She noticed at the words that Max’s eyes flicked around the room uncomfortably however and she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have said anything on the matter. Perhaps they weren’t as perfect a couple as they seemed.
“I told Alex I’d only be gone a minute,” Max cleared his throat, “and we should probably head out in the next hour.” He got to his feet and excused himself from the room. Maria waited until she heard his footsteps making their way down the steps before commenting on his abrupt exit.
“That was weird,” she frowned, looking to Liz for an explanation.
“Oh, he’s got a thing with saying ‘I love you’,” Liz sighed, running a hand through her hair.
“As in he hasn’t said it?”
“As in he’s never heard it before in his life,” Liz spoke plainly, but even just saying the words hurt. Kind, wonderful Max had never been told it, it killed her to think about. “Well, until me.” The small smile on Maria’s face fell away.
“That’s tragic,” she climbed onto Liz’s bed and grabbed a fluffy pillow in her hands. “So is he kind of a head case when it comes to that stuff?” She suddenly wished she had a carton of Triple Chunk Chocolate Fudge ice cream to share with her friend as they gossiped about her new boyfriend.
“No, not really. He says really sweet things,” Liz turned to face Maria, who now sat cross-legged on the bed and for the first time all weekend Liz felt like she had her best friend back. “Two days ago, he fixed my scar,” she lifted up her shirt so Maria could see. Her friends eyes widened. It was a better job than any plastic surgeon probably could have done. “And you should have heard the stuff he was saying…” Liz’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she remembered the things Max had said and how she’d given him a hard time about laying it on so thick. “About how beautiful I am and how he’d never let anything happen to me. He says these amazing things and it’s like he doesn’t even realize he’s said them. He’s just weird about love.”
“You think he’ll ever say it?” Maria inquired.
“I hope so. Someday,” Liz shrugged. “Honestly, I’m getting used to it, it doesn’t bother me that much anymore. I mean, I understand”
“It would bother me,” Maria decided.
“It doesn’t,” Liz shrugged. “I just feel sad for him, y’know? He never heard it growing up, his brother and sister moved away and he never heard it from them…it’s just sad ‘cos he’s such a wonderful person.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about him,” Maria dropped her head shamefully, “and I’m really sorry I was such a bitch all weekend about him.”
“Yeah, you were kind of bitchy,” Liz agreed with a laugh and Maria just whacked her with the pillow.
“Oh and that’s coming from Miss I-Ran-Away-And-Didn’t-Call-Or-Write-For-Three-Years,” she teased, but there was no hostility in her voice, just a laughter that said how happy she was to have her friend back.
“I’m actually glad you pushed me so much about it,” Liz decided matter-of-factly. “‘Cos if you hadn’t then I wouldn’t have told you and you would never have known the truth and we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about it.”
“Are you going to tell Alex?” Maria pushed and at the mention of poor Alex, Liz just shook her head and laughed.
“Oh, Alex,” she smiled, thinking about what a strange world it was that Alex would wind up connecting with Max’s sister on the internet. She was suddenly eager to meet Isabelle and curious to find out if she was as crazy for Alex as he seemed for her. “Alex is another story.”
“You’re not gonna tell him?” Maria frowned, put off by the thought that Liz would continue lying to one of her best friends.
“Not yet,” Liz shook her head firmly. “Who knows, maybe Max will want to end up telling him eventually.” She thought about his words regarding Alex and Isabelle. Things could spiral out of control fast, she knew that better than anybody, but if that should happen she knew it wasn’t she and Max who should be saying anything. “But for now, we’ll leave him in the dark.”
“That seems kind of cruel, don’t you think?” Maria stood staunchly in Alex’s defense.
“It’s the safest thing for him, right now, Maria,” Liz spoke solemnly. “You knowing all this puts you in a world of danger, you know that right?”
“I do and I’m glad you told me,” Maria said, throwing an arm around her best friend. “You guys need an ally.” Liz could only smile at the remark as she leaned into her best friend. It wasn’t perfect this life she faced on the road with Max, but she was glad to know that she had Maria’s support. She was glad to know all the rude remarks and hateful glances from her friend this weekend had meant something. She wanted to collapse on the bed and confess every moment and every detail of her and Max’s two week journey, from those first few awkward moments in the truck, to breakfast up in Canada, to the last few days trying to unearth his past in Roswell. But Max was right and they had to keep on moving. Less than an hour was all they had left in Roswell, and as Liz glanced down to the clock beside her bed, she wondered when she should begin saying her goodbyes.
“That’s your real name, right?” Maria asked shortly, but Max didn’t reply, he just kept his eyes rooted on Liz, his hands still crammed into his pockets. What was he supposed to say? How much had she told Maria? He shifted his weight uncomfortably as the three stood there in silence.
“She was going to go to the sheriff,” Liz blurted out lamely. “I didn’t know what else to do.” The two girls were standing on either sides of the room and from the flushed color in Liz’s cheeks Max could tell that they had been having quite the heated discussion. She wouldn’t just tell Maria for no good reason. Liz had sworn to him that she’d keep his identity secret from her family and she’d done just that, had done nothing but lie to everyone she cared about since she’d gotten here.
Had she cracked with little over an hour left in her hometown? Had she been unable to live the lie all the way through? Or had Maria somehow found out his identity and really threatened to tell the sheriff? Fear gripped Max at the thought, fear not for him, but for this town and these people who had made the mistake of welcoming him into their home. He looked up at Liz as the thoughts cascaded through his mind. Had Maria forced her to tell him or had Liz just caved? Had she realized what a gross mistake she had made by welcoming Max into her life and decided to confess it to her best friend? Had that been it?
“I had to, she was going to tell the sheriff,” Liz repeated. looking to Max apologetically and wishing she could know what was going through his mind.
He continued to stare at her long and hard, at her panicked face and red-rimmed eyes. He tried to recall a time in the last few weeks when he’d seen Liz so upset, but he couldn’t recall any. And he felt suddenly sick for doubting her and her motives for telling Maria. This was Liz.
“Hi.” He finally stepped through the doorway and walked slowly towards Maria. “I’m Max Evans,” he removed his right hand from his pocket and extended it to her. Maria looked warily back and forth between Liz and him, clearly unsure what to think of the peculiar young man, who appeared to be being honest with her for the first time all weekend. She cautiously took it and was surprised at the firm grip Max took as he shook her hand. “But you should probably try to forget my name,” he confessed with, of all things, a tiny grin.
“Will people kill me to find out your name?” Maria asked, crossing her arms across her chest uncomfortably.
“To find out if you’ve seen me, yeah, they might,” Max nodded his head solemnly and Maria swallowed the large lump that seemed to have just formed in her throat. It was one thing to hear it from her hysterical friend, but quite another to hear it from this dead serious young man. And for the first time it started to feel real to Maria. Whatever ‘Max’ had done, whatever her best friend had gotten dragged into, was real.
“What did you do?” she dared to ask and at the question Max just let out a deep sigh and dropped onto the bed.
“I was born,” he laughed again and rolled his eyes, but Maria looked at him blankly, not understanding. Liz walked past Maria and sat beside Max on the bed.
“I didn’t say – you don’t have to tell her everything,” she told Max.
“At this point, I might as well,” he shrugged then looked back to Maria. “You might want to be sitting down.”
“Max, you don’t have to - ”
“I want to,” he nodded his head. “She’s your best friend, right?” Max didn’t wait for an answer, just gave a tiny shrug. “I told Matt.”
“But you - ”
“I want to,” he repeated. “I want to tell her.” He motioned to the desk chair behind Maria and as she slowly took the seat he began. And unlike how he had done with Liz he chose to start from the beginning. “The first thing I ever did was heal a bird,” he cleared his throat. “I was about seven and I didn’t know what I was doing, I just…picked it up and knew I wanted to help it.” The story was one Liz hadn’t heard and she listened closely. “Michael and Iz were the only ones who saw. They’d never done anything like that either, but after that we started to realize we could do things. Little things,” he spoke quietly. “Melt cheese on a sandwhich, erase a stray pen mark, nothing really. It was just like this awesome convenience. After the bird the only other time I healed myself was for football.”
“I thought you played hockey?” Maria interrupted.
“No, I played football,” he smiled that such an insignificant detail could prompt a response from Maria. “I played football, Michael played hockey,” he added for no particular reason.
“Who is Michael?” Maria asked.
“Michael’s my brother. He actually does live up in Canada,” Max wasn’t sure why he was telling Maria so much. It felt good. Now that he’d started he didn’t think he could stop. “So I was different and I knew it,” he confessed, “but I didn’t really know how or why. We were born – if you could call it that – here in Roswell and I started to think on it.”
“What? You think you’re the descendants of an alien or something?” Maria laughed, much like Liz had back in Moon, Montana. It was too ridiculous to even ask with a straight face, but the smile quickly fell away from Maria’s face as Max continued.
“We came out of these, well they were like incubators out in the desert,” he confessed more than even Liz had heard. “I don’t remember all that much except that I came out first and I was just like a six year old. I could talk and walk and I knew things. I knew we were naked and we needed clothes.” Liz filed the information away in her psych folder on Max. He remembered such a detail like that, but the large chunk of time he’d spent with the Evans was a blank. “We were picked up by a family here,” Max glossed over the details and Liz kept quiet, “and eventually taken to an orphanage in Texas. That’s where I grew up and, like I said, I started to wonder.”
“Started to wonder about you being an alien?” Maria didn’t laugh this time, but Max could tell she was still skeptical. “I remember in tenth grade looking at my own cheek cells in bio lab and realizing that they didn’t look like they were supposed to in the textbook,” he actually managed a laugh. “Neither did my blood - ”
“Is it green?” Maria asked, her eyes wide.
“No,” Max laughed, remembering Liz had asked the same thing. He looked to the microscope in Liz’s closet that had lay dormant for so many years. “I could show you if you want, the structure…it’s just different. It looks the same on the outside, but it’s different. It’s just different,” he repeated, then raised his eyes back up to Maria. She was taking it surprisingly well so far. “So by the time I got to college I knew enough that there were certain things I couldn’t do. Urine tests before the game, check ups at the doctor, and I found ways to get around it.”
“Didn’t you have checkups when you were a kid?” Maria inquired like the good detective she was.
“At the orphanage you only went to the doctor if you got sick. I didn’t get sick,” Max stated matter-of-factly. “I went in once for some x-rays, but my bone structure is completely normal,” he shrugged, then went on. “So I was real careful at school, not doing anything that might draw attention. But then this one day,” Max’s voice got softer, “this one day,” he repeated and Liz moved her hand over his knowing what day he was referring to. The day she knew he had probably turned over in his head every day since. “This kid went down at practice. One minute he was up running drills with me and then he was down. Heat stroke or something like that, I don’t know, his heart just stopped. By the time I got to him he was pretty much dead,” Max remembered running over to Nicky and staring down at his pale and lifeless body. “I didn’t know I could do anything like that, all I knew was that I wanted to help him,” Max shrugged. “And I did. I brought him back.”
“You brought someone back from the dead?” Maria asked incredulously and Max just shrugged.
“It’s not like he was a corpse, he had just collapsed and his heart stopped.”
“And you brought him back to life?”
“After that the cops came to ask me some questions,” Max continued, “I told them I did CPR, guys on the team said something else, next thing I know,” he blew out a long breath and Liz just held his hand a little tighter. “Next thing I know there’s these guys in suits coming for me.’
“Alien hunters?” Maria’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“And they haven’t stopped coming since,” he sighed. “I faked my own death and they didn’t buy it. I drive to the Yukon and they find me.”
“And now they’ll come here,” Maria spoke the words slowly and Max just nodded his head.
“It’s why we have to go,” he spoke simply, “as much as we’d like to stay. We have to go.”
“But they’ll ask. They’ll ask people if they’ve seen you and they’ll ask the Parkers,” Maria sputtered. “What are we supposed to say? Liz’s parents will flip if they find out there’s FBI after their daughter’s boyfriend!”
“Max, she’s right.” It pained Liz to think about such people coming after her parents. “If they show your picture around here, my parents will lose it.”
“I know,” Max sighed, “but we kept our visit short enough, so there’s a chance they might not even pass through Roswell.”
“A chance? You’re banking on a chance?” Maria looked at Max incredulously.
“Well, what else do I do?” he asked helplessly.
“You ever tried to fight them?” she proposed and Max just laughed at the suggestion. “Well, could I do anything?” she offered suddenly and Liz could hardly believe her friend was taking this so well. She had been almost nothing but rude to Max the entire time they’d been home and now here she was offering to help. Liz couldn’t help but think they should have told her the truth right from the start.
“What could you do?” Max had never had an accomplice before. Aside from the elaborate planning of his fake death, he had never tried to outwit them. He just ran.
“Make sure they don’t talk to the Parkers,” Maria shrugged, “there’s a start. They talk to me and I tell them you guys said you were heading to Florida or something, I mean it couldn’t hurt, right?”
“I don’t think you wanna be talking to these guys,” Max shook his head warily.
“Well, what other choice do you have? These guys flash your picture to the Parkers and we’ll have a nationwide hunt for Liz. You’ll never be welcome here again. You really want that on top of everything?” Maria scoffed. “Let me do something, please” she pleaded.
“Why do you want to help so badly?” Max asked and Maria got suddenly quiet.
“Well, this is all beyond weird. Part of me thinks you both have been doing some serious drugs,” she laughed and rolled her eyes. “But part of me kinda believes you,” she looked up at Max’s soft brown eyes. Honest eyes. She guessed telling her the truth hadn’t been exactly easy for him. As bizarre a story as it was, as much as she thought she was in some episode of the X-Files gone very wrong, she believed him. “Who else knows about this?”
“Nobody,” Max replied. “Just Liz and, well, a friend of mine back at school knows I’m alive, but nothing else.”
“So just Liz?” Maria looked to her friend, who was clinging to Max’s side, her hand entwined in his.
“And now you,” Max spoke softly.
“Can I ask you a question?” Maria asked, a curious look on her face as she stared at the two. “How did you really meet?”
“What’s the one thing you hate me to do?” Liz asked with a small grin and that was all Maria needed to hear.
“You picked her up off the side of the road?” she scowled.
“I-95,” Max actually managed a smile at the memory. “About two weeks ago.”
“No way,” Maria shook her head in disbelief, then turned her attention to her friend. “Two weeks is all you’ve known him?”
“Every minute of every day for two weeks,” Liz detailed as she ran a hand up Max’s arm.
“Two weeks and you’re this in love?” Maria shook her head, a twinge of jealousy running through her. She couldn’t even decide whether she liked Kyle Valentin or not and that had been a thing for months. Here these two had known each other for only fourteen days and they were inseparable. She noticed at the words that Max’s eyes flicked around the room uncomfortably however and she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have said anything on the matter. Perhaps they weren’t as perfect a couple as they seemed.
“I told Alex I’d only be gone a minute,” Max cleared his throat, “and we should probably head out in the next hour.” He got to his feet and excused himself from the room. Maria waited until she heard his footsteps making their way down the steps before commenting on his abrupt exit.
“That was weird,” she frowned, looking to Liz for an explanation.
“Oh, he’s got a thing with saying ‘I love you’,” Liz sighed, running a hand through her hair.
“As in he hasn’t said it?”
“As in he’s never heard it before in his life,” Liz spoke plainly, but even just saying the words hurt. Kind, wonderful Max had never been told it, it killed her to think about. “Well, until me.” The small smile on Maria’s face fell away.
“That’s tragic,” she climbed onto Liz’s bed and grabbed a fluffy pillow in her hands. “So is he kind of a head case when it comes to that stuff?” She suddenly wished she had a carton of Triple Chunk Chocolate Fudge ice cream to share with her friend as they gossiped about her new boyfriend.
“No, not really. He says really sweet things,” Liz turned to face Maria, who now sat cross-legged on the bed and for the first time all weekend Liz felt like she had her best friend back. “Two days ago, he fixed my scar,” she lifted up her shirt so Maria could see. Her friends eyes widened. It was a better job than any plastic surgeon probably could have done. “And you should have heard the stuff he was saying…” Liz’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she remembered the things Max had said and how she’d given him a hard time about laying it on so thick. “About how beautiful I am and how he’d never let anything happen to me. He says these amazing things and it’s like he doesn’t even realize he’s said them. He’s just weird about love.”
“You think he’ll ever say it?” Maria inquired.
“I hope so. Someday,” Liz shrugged. “Honestly, I’m getting used to it, it doesn’t bother me that much anymore. I mean, I understand”
“It would bother me,” Maria decided.
“It doesn’t,” Liz shrugged. “I just feel sad for him, y’know? He never heard it growing up, his brother and sister moved away and he never heard it from them…it’s just sad ‘cos he’s such a wonderful person.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about him,” Maria dropped her head shamefully, “and I’m really sorry I was such a bitch all weekend about him.”
“Yeah, you were kind of bitchy,” Liz agreed with a laugh and Maria just whacked her with the pillow.
“Oh and that’s coming from Miss I-Ran-Away-And-Didn’t-Call-Or-Write-For-Three-Years,” she teased, but there was no hostility in her voice, just a laughter that said how happy she was to have her friend back.
“I’m actually glad you pushed me so much about it,” Liz decided matter-of-factly. “‘Cos if you hadn’t then I wouldn’t have told you and you would never have known the truth and we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about it.”
“Are you going to tell Alex?” Maria pushed and at the mention of poor Alex, Liz just shook her head and laughed.
“Oh, Alex,” she smiled, thinking about what a strange world it was that Alex would wind up connecting with Max’s sister on the internet. She was suddenly eager to meet Isabelle and curious to find out if she was as crazy for Alex as he seemed for her. “Alex is another story.”
“You’re not gonna tell him?” Maria frowned, put off by the thought that Liz would continue lying to one of her best friends.
“Not yet,” Liz shook her head firmly. “Who knows, maybe Max will want to end up telling him eventually.” She thought about his words regarding Alex and Isabelle. Things could spiral out of control fast, she knew that better than anybody, but if that should happen she knew it wasn’t she and Max who should be saying anything. “But for now, we’ll leave him in the dark.”
“That seems kind of cruel, don’t you think?” Maria stood staunchly in Alex’s defense.
“It’s the safest thing for him, right now, Maria,” Liz spoke solemnly. “You knowing all this puts you in a world of danger, you know that right?”
“I do and I’m glad you told me,” Maria said, throwing an arm around her best friend. “You guys need an ally.” Liz could only smile at the remark as she leaned into her best friend. It wasn’t perfect this life she faced on the road with Max, but she was glad to know that she had Maria’s support. She was glad to know all the rude remarks and hateful glances from her friend this weekend had meant something. She wanted to collapse on the bed and confess every moment and every detail of her and Max’s two week journey, from those first few awkward moments in the truck, to breakfast up in Canada, to the last few days trying to unearth his past in Roswell. But Max was right and they had to keep on moving. Less than an hour was all they had left in Roswell, and as Liz glanced down to the clock beside her bed, she wondered when she should begin saying her goodbyes.
Last edited by kippy on Mon May 25, 2009 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"And we that have lived in the story shall be borne again and again..."