Lorastar aka Laura
I own nothing Roswell.
Summary: Max and Liz were together once upon a time. Five years later, they meet again.
</center>Max and I weren’t perfect. But what we were, was perfect for each other.
How many times have you heard that line before? In movies? In novels? And how many times did that couple break up, break each other’s hearts into a million pieces before never being seen again?
That’s exactly what happened to me and Max.
My name is Liz Parker and I am a recovering Maxaholic. Five years sober.
We met in high school, young and naïve. We fell for each other after graduation, deep friendship blossoming into something beautiful. Something beautiful that quickly grew corrupted, dark, decaying. Like a strawberry you leave in the refrigerator for a week too long. Mold starts growing on once perfect flesh. Once succulent fruit decays, crumbles, becoming soggy and nauseating.
Tainted.
I still remember the first day we met. The first day of our senior year of high school. He was already rock and roll. 80’s hardcore metal dude, with the shoulder length hair, cute smile, and warm brown eyes that pierced through you with only one glance. He didn’t hide himself from anyone. He was loud and outgoing.
And played the guitar like no one’s business.
This boy could play. Probably why he’s become one of the best guitarists to grace the world of music in the past decade. But that’s getting ahead of the story.
We sat next to each other in class. I wasn’t interested, and he was in love with another girl.
We we’re friends.
Friends that discovered secrets and friends that corrupted. He told me my stomach was flabby, and I walked around the rest of the school year covering my stomach with my binder. Years later, he told me he was attracted to it, and didn’t want to look at it. Betrayal to the perfect girlfriend, I guess.
But back to Max.
All the girls loved him, but he was faithful.
And then I got him a job at the same record store I worked at. It was great, goofing off with him in the staff room, making fun of the other people and leaving little messages on the refrigerator.
I still remember how freaked out he got when a female customer, who used to be a male customer, checked him out. Conveniently on a day he was wearing scandalously ripped jeans, and going commando. Woohoo.
I still remember the night I found out he went commando. I tried giving him a wedgie as we walked down a fairly busy street in our humdrum town. And then…well…you can guess how that went.
Eventually he and the perfect girlfriend broke up. And months later he told me he liked me. I freaked and tried to avoid him. But a funny thing happens when you’re obsessed with someone…you can’t avoid them. You need them to stay afloat in the madness of the world, to keep oxygen in your lungs for just one day.
Obsession means not being able to live without someone else.
It’s a bitch.
I made him cut his hair.
The beginning of the cute era.
We were cute together. So in love.
Young and stupid.
We moved out for him to pursue his career in music with his four closest friends: Michael Guerin, Alex Whitman, Sean Miller, and Toby Smith. The band name switched often. Last I saw, on the cover of some music magazine, they were going by the name Iron. I remember when they were Sans Merci.
Max always was.
We moved in together after graduation. Working our meaningless jobs, struggling to scrounge together enough cash to make it to the next payday. Struggling to keep our young and stupid asses clothed, fed, and in a warm home.
No, not a home. An apartment.
With bugs.
We were doing decent. I was attending school, 17 units a semester, working full time and trying to play the role of a supportive girlfriend. Trying being the operative word here. As more and more time went by, it became harder and harder to focus on Max.
As it was becoming harder and harder for Max to focus on me.
Sex complicated things.
But that’s not important.
His music was a lifestyle. School, work, parties, and music. Music was what he lived for.
As a couple, we were becoming less and less important.
No surprise.
I didn’t like to party. I had dreams I wanted to accomplish. Things to do while he was rubbing noses with other musicians just like him. The underappreciated who couldn’t get a break.
I understood.
Until he got arrested.
And lost his job.
And couldn’t get another one.
I understood until I was supporting him. Me and his daddy. I understood until he couldn’t help pay the bills. Until music was all he did. Until he dropped out of community college and recorded the bands demo. Their name was Say Anything at that point.
I understood until the band was signed to some small label I’d never heard of.
The parties were more frequent then.
He’d come home smelling like cigarettes and alcohol. But he never did those himself.
My father died of lung cancer when I was a teenager.
Max promised he’d never smoke.
His friends were idiots.
I understood until I came home one day to find a half empty apartment and a note pinned to my pillow, the only pillow left on the bed. I understood the words he wrote Babe, the band’s goin’ on tour. Catch you later. Love you. -Max
I understood then.
And then I realized he owed me for this.
And he owed me big.
I’m talking money here.
Who the fuck cares about the broken heart I endured? Or the fact that two weeks later I found out I was pregnant with his child. A child he left me with.
I told you sex complicated things.
So here I was…19, pregnant, alone, in debt, working full time, going to school fulltime.
A widow. A cast aside girlfriend. Coming in last to a musician’s lifestyle.
I was not a priority.
So I moved back in with my mom.
She were thrilled.
And I never heard from Max again.
Not when I miscarried the kid.
Not when I cried for loosing the last piece of Max I had, even though I didn‘t really want it.
Not when I graduated college on my own.
Not when I started working as an assistant producer in LA.
Not until today.
“Delivery for Liz Parker!” The go-fer hollered. “Liz Parker?”
Highlighter in hand, script open to the next scene, I wave my hand in the air and the youngin’ makes his way over to me. He smiles, vase filled with white roses in his arms.
I look at him, suspicious, and the grin fades.
“Who are they from?”
“Delivery guy didn’t say. Just said they were for you.”
I cap my highlighter and put it down. “Umm…thanks.”
He walks away and I look at the roses.
Who the hell would be sending me white roses?
Who the hell knows I like white roses?
A white envelope in tucked inside the outer layers of the arrangement. It’s larger than a normal flower delivery envelope, less ornate. It’s a business envelope, complete with the security lining. Secretive.
My name is written in block letters on the outside. Liz Parker.
I rip it open quickly and pull out the two pieces of paper.
A note.
And a check.
Written to Liz Parker.
In the amount of ten thousand dollars.
With a short note in the unmistakable script of Max Evans.
Liz-
I owed you.
Love ya-
Max
“What the hell?” I yell.
This can’t be happening.
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