Literally.
Out of the closed door of the cavern. Walked down the hill and got into his car and drove back into town. Ready to face whatever came next.
While Isabel was spending some time with Kyle. Mikyla had yet to return to the house. But Isabel knew her daughter was safe. She trusted her daughter, and she knew Kyla needed to become familiar with the town again, because of so much time away. It can skew your perception of things she thought because she knew from experience. Although I was gone a lot longer, and I came back a different person she would think.
But she had her friendship with Kyle and that had remained constant over the years. As she watched him go from woman to woman, marriage to marriage, and then divorce court. She did not know why the wives could not hold on because Kyle was a fantastic guy. A great friend she thought.
“Thank you for staying,” Isabel smiled.
“No problem,” Kyle said softly. Because he had always wanted to help Isabel. And despite his obvious feelings for her, he valued their friendship. Which is why I never did anything when I could have…
But it was Jesse, and then she was single, and I thought, just maybe, but then Neil came along, and she was happy, and I never wanted to rock the boat. Kyle thought. “I am glad I could help.”
“You are a big help,” Isabel said softly.
“I am always at your service,” Kyle said with a smile. And Isabel could not help but smile. Because Kyle always did make it easier for her, and especially in the last year, since Neil passed away, she thought.
“I appreciate it,” Isabel smiled. “But I don’t deserve it.”
“But you do,” Kyle said with equal meaning, and it caused Isabel to turn away as if she was looking to ignore something, as if Kyle did not live with the notion of ignoring something he thought. She was checking the clock and turned back to Kyle. “Mikyla should be home by now.”
“She is wanting to see some friends, let her be.” Kyle said softly. “She’s been away, and it has been a long year. And she is going to be careful, and you can trust her,” he said with assurance. “You won’t have to worry about her because I will make sure she stays on the right path while you are away.”
“Thank you,” Isabel sighed. “I know I should not worry. But it’s tough to be away from her. I know she has been away for the last semester,” she sighed. “Which means the cord has been cut in many ways, and she’s getting older, but I just got her back, and now I am going to be away myself. Therefore, it is going to be hard.”
“I know it is,” Kyle said. It is never easy for our kids get older he thought. “I may live in the same town as Tripp, but I don’t see him every day and therefore I worry about him too, even though he has proven that he has a good shoulder on his head, so far” he murmured. “But anything can happen,” he sighed, at the unknown. “But I figure that we can trust our kids.”
Isabel smiled, and once again was reminded of their shared connection. “Kyle,” she said softly.
“What?” Kyle asked.
“We probably should have a talk when I get back?” Isabel asked.
“About what?” Kyle asked. Because he truly was not sure what she was meaning. Because it could be anything he thought. Anything at all.
“You know,” Isabel said softly.
“I know, what?” Kyle asked.
“You know,” Isabel said. “You have been so good over the years. And I appreciated it. I know we made the deal. You honored it. And never tried to make it be anything more than it was. Which is how I wanted. But I know the reality was there that we really did not see that you would be seeing Mikyla grow up, and you eventually had to watch another man raise her, and for her to think of him as her father?” she asked, I am sorry she thought. Because she had never really seen the reality that Kyle was facing, being on the outside.
Even though he never made an issue of it, and I know his ensuing wives would not have wanted a stepdaughter she thought, but it was not easy.
“I was helping you out. It was as simple as that,” Kyle muttered. “Sure, I would have liked to know her more than I have, but I am lucky that I got to know her at all. We had a deal. Being apart of her life was not part of the original deal. Sure, she looks at me as Tripp’s father, or just a friend of the family. And as she’s gotten older, it has started to bother me a little, but I know Neil was good to her, and she had a father who loved her.”
Yeah, she sighed. “I got lucky with Neil,” Isabel commented. Because not all men might have been as good about the situation she thought. Because Neil had known everything. But it was one of those things we did not have to talk about.
Just like we did not talk about the other facts of our life together, and about me.
It was always easy.
But for Kyle, he stayed on his side of the line, and let us raise Kyla and it never was an issue she sighed, but then Neil died.
“I know you did, Kyle sighed. “Neil was a good man, and good father to your girls.”
“That is why I feel a burden to make sure everything is alright with them. I have been lucky, but the girls are getting older, and I know it’s a tricky age. Especially with Kyla. Because I was once her age, and I know what it means” she sighed because they both knew their daughter was very special. In a way the twins weren’t.
Because she was very much her mother’s daughter Kyle thought. Not so much like me he thought, except for her hair.
That is the only connections he has to me or my father he thought.
“I think you can trust Kyla to know how to handle her life,” Kyle said with a smile. “She’s had a smoother pathway than you did, so you don’t have to worry,” he allowed because they both knew that it was easier for the kids, fortunately they thought, because we would not want them to face what we did.
“It is always hard to be first to go down a path,” Isabel muttered.
“I know,” Kyle said with a nod. “But it makes it easier for those who follow us to make it down in one piece,” he said with a smile. “You won’t have to worry about her, while you are gone to get your daughters. Because she will be alright. I think she will be the sane one in the house with your father and Max.”
Isabel smiled.
“It will make things interesting alright,” Kyle said with a smile. “I almost wish I was there with her, because it definitely going to be a soap opera.”
Isabel laughed.
“I like that,” Kyle said with a smile.
“What?” Isabel asked.
“Your laugh,” Kyle said softly.
“You have heard it before,” Isabel muttered.
“But I don’t get it much,” Kyle said softly. The beginning was a little intense he thought. But there were those moments he thought. Because he knew that he truly did treasure their friendship, and that was why he was always so weary of making a move. Even if she wanted it, and he did not think she did he said as he sighed and tried to divert to a subject that was a little more angsty for them. “We can have that talk when you get back?” he said as he left the unsaid as a hanging question of the future.
Everything is unknown he knew.
Isabel nodded.
“You have been very special to me,” Kyle murmured. “I will always appreciate your friendship.”
“I like it too,” Isabel murmured. “You mean everything to me Kyle,” she said softly. “You have been there since the beginning. When we did not know what we were entering. I know it was never the easiest time for you,” she sighed because he knew that he had not willingly come into this fraternity he came in by a gunshot she thought, although he would never change.
Unlike Liz she muttered of her one-time sister-in-law.
“Was it for any of us?” Kyle asked with a smile.
“No, I guess not,” Isabel sighed. “But I appreciated how you and your father was there for us. We would never gotten through some of those hurdles without the two of you.”
“I am glad we could help,” Kyle sighed. “It was definitely not easy. But you were there for me too, and in the end, I appreciate that I could be there for you.”
“I would not have been able to get through these years without you” Isabel murmured. Knowing next to Michael. Kyle was her most treasured friend. And she appreciated it.
“I think you would have been able too,” Kyle said. “You had your brother and Michael?”
“But they are my brothers,” Isabel muttered. “You are special to me Kyle.”
“You are special to me too,” Kyle murmured.
“I would hate for anything to change what we are to each other,” Isabel sighed. As she knew she was walking on a blurry thin line that could go bad very easily, and Kyle could only look into her eyes, and she wanted to look away because this was not what they should be thinking of or doing. Because she was leaving the next day. She had too many responsibilities to be dealing with this now.
Not now Isabel sighed.
Kyle would think that too, but still it was Isabel. Someone I have been smitten with since high school he thought, and someone who has been there in the back of my mind through three bad marriages he sighed. “You are everything to me.”
“Kyle,” Isabel murmured as she knew they were walking on a dangerous ground.
“Isabel,” Kyle murmured.
“We should not,” Isabel murmured as she knew she should be shying away from this, but she could not do it. Not today. Not now she thought, even though she knew it definitely should not be today.
“You are leaving tomorrow for god knows how long,” Kyle muttered as if a warning to himself.
“I am,” Isabel muttered. “Kyla could be home anytime.”
It would be too easy just to stop because something might get in the way Kyle thought, and maybe we should be hoping that she comes home. “I know because I should be going. Tripp was doing an errand for me, and I have to see that he gets home in one piece?” he said with a laugh because he knew going to Cow Patties at anytime of the day was a lot to ask of his growing son. And he knew his son was going through something with whatever he felt for Claudia…
Isabel murmured something softly, too softly, as they both had every reason to walk away but the were not, and they stayed, and soon they were in a kiss.
One that started out tentative, and grew more passionate,
With neither knowing what they were starting, or could they finish it.
While meanwhile, outside, indeed someone was viewing them through the window. Interesting she thought, as their daughter Kyla only shook her head, “Good one Mom,” she muttered. “And Kyle.”
She did not know how she should respond, but she knew she was not going to bust them this time.
And she walked away, for another lap or two around the block.
While Isabel was heading into the unknown with Kyle on the cusp of leaving town to go and get her kids. Max still was not headed home. I am headed anywhere but home he knew. Instead, he was going to safe harbor, or safe enough safe harbour he thought as he turned onto a familiar enough street even though he had only known it for a few days now. Because it was in part of town, he was not familiar with, so he turned into a driveway, and parked, and opened the door, and went and knocked on the door.
The door opened, and it was Michael.
“Max?” Michael asked.
“Can I come in?” Max asked.
“What’s wrong?” Michael asked.
“Nothing,” Max sighed. “I was driving around, and I wanted…” he sighed, not sure how to explain it.
“Hiding from your father I take it?” Michael asked. Which was a definitely a reversal from their youth, when Max and Isabel had the ideal life and home, and he was the one who was hiding from his own home and staying over at the Evans home many a night.
For good reason.
But Phillip Evans never would be like Hank Guerin No matter what he does he thought. He would never know why Phillip did what he did, probably he will think it was to help his son Michael would think. That is highly debatable he thought. But it was plausible on the other hand.
“I am trying, but I can’t make myself go home” Max murmured.
“You know you have to deal with your father one of these days you know?” Michael asked. “You cannot keep staying away?”
“I know,” Max sighed. I figure there will be enough time for that he thought, or was it? “Where is Maria?” he asked because he heard the music coming from upstairs, which meant Lucy was home, and enjoying her music again. And he knew from the car, that it was home.
“Having a bath,” Michael muttered. “She needed to take some time.”
“Why?” Max asked.
“We learned some information today, and it has thrown her for a loop,” Michael murmured. Because of the bad memories attached to that time he thought. Because we were not part of it, he thought. As he looked at Max, and it was clear Max was running from his problems, but he did not know the latest.
“What happened?” Max asked.
“You don’t want to know,” came a voice from upstairs. As Maria now in a robe, had heard the doorbell and had gotten out of her bathtub, and come and heard Max down talking to her husband. “Hello Max.”
“Hello,” Max asked. “What is going on?”
“You don’t want to know,” Maria murmured. Because she still wanted to forget it, and she was trying to do, which is why she had come down for a stiff drink because memories of losing Alex was always intense for her, and she supposed it was the same for Liz too, but Alex had always been there for the two of them, and then he was gone she sighed. “What were you looking for?” she asked as she tried to concentrate on the problem that Max was giving them.
“You said that before,” Max sighed. Ignoring the question, she had asked of him.
“Well, I mean it,” Maria murmured.
She did.
“So, what did you want?” Maria asked. Because she had been looking forward to just relaxing and not having to deal with all this she thought. Maybe we should have stayed in Nashville she muttered to herself. We did not have to deal with all this when we were in another state she thought, even though she knew Michael had missed Max and Isabel. And she knew for that reason, the move had been good.
But she did not want to have to take long baths. So that she could remove the stench of the memories that time brought to her, simply because of who we lost she sighed. Because she still missed Alex. And she hated Tess for taking him from them, if only she thought. If only we had known she sighed, as she looked at Max, and knew only Max could rival with her and Liz in terms of how Tess had played for them a fool because in the end, she played Max for a fool.
Even if Max should have known it was coming given how it all started, she thought. When Tess came to town and played with his head and got in the way of him and Liz she thought. We were so young and naïve back then she thought.
Time would toughen them up and had to go through some excruciating losses. She hated that time. Even if it brought Michael to her, but we would not get our happy ending until after that time and after we left this town she thought, because everything was uncertain, she thought. “It was just a hell of a day,” she muttered. She wanted to blame her music representatives and she wished she could say it was them, but it was not she thought.
Not even close she muttered.
Max nodded as if he could understand.
And he really could not, both Maria and Michael would mutter because there was something big that Max did not know.
Maria could use a diversion. “What is going on Max?”
“I needed… I don’t know, what I needed” Max sighed.
“Max does not want to go home” Michael murmured.
And Maria smiled. “I can see why you don’t want to go home,” she sighed because she still did not understand Phillip Evans actions even if it involved going along with what her best friend wanted. Best friends can agree to disagree on our actions she murmured. Especially when you go back to being kids together, she sighed.
She treasured Liz, but it does not mean she approved of everything she did.
And she knew was the same would be said if the shoe was on the other foot.
“I am also thinking that maybe I should be going with my sister instead of you Michael” Max said. “I think I need to get out of town for a little while.”
And that shocked Michael and Maria as they looked at each other confused.
What about Liz was what Maria wanted to say but wisely did not saw it. So, she chose the other reason why he needed to stay around. “What about Claudia?”
Yeah, what about Claudia. Max knew he probably should stick around. But I am probably pushing my luck a little these days he knew. And said as much. “I want to be here for her. But she is overwhelmed, and she does not need me around here. She could use a break from me” he said softly.
“She has had eighteen years,” Maria muttered as she looked at her husband. “You just got her back in town, and now you want to go?”
“I won’t be gone forever,” Max sighed.
“But you would be leaving her,” Maria sighed. As she knew the nerve was struck in that her father left her and did not come back for her or to see her, not that I am missing the man she thought. If he could walk away so freely, why should I miss him.
“I will be back, Max said. “She has never had me in her life. She does not remember me, and I am on the edge of pushing her too much” she sighed. “I don’t want to be push her totally out of my life,” she sighed. “It might be best if I head out of town for a little while…”
“Is it Claudia or are you trying to stay away from your former wife?” Michael asked. “Which is something you should be doing anyways?”
And only got a glare from his wife, and a hard one from his friend. “I am just being honest here you know.”
“We know,” Maria murmured. Because even though being in Nashville all this time had allowed Michael to keep the depth of his feelings for his best friend’s wife to himself, mostly they all knew. Still, Max was not oblivious, on this he thought. I know how Michael feels he thought. And sometimes I want to feel the same way he thought because she hurt me.
But she is Liz Max murmured. “This not about Liz,” was all he could say.
“Are you sure?” Michael asked.
“I am sure,” Max muttered even though he knew it was a little about his former wife he thought. It is always about Liz he muttered to himself, but he was not about to let Michael be awarded by his anger at his former wife. Michael always had something against Liz he thought. Even when there was peace towards each other he thought given that Michael and Liz would work together for a time.
But Max always had known how his best friend felt over his choice.
But I wanted Liz.
Nothing else mattered he would think. Even when I screwed it up, he thought. But then we had a moment there when we got it to work, and Michael had to bite his tongue as I and Liz married, he would think.
“I know what you think,” Max muttered.
“So, do I?” Maria said with a glare at her husband. She might not completely support all her best friend’s decisions, but Liz was only doing what she felt she needed to do, and I am not going to say she was wrong if we were safe in the end.
And Lucy and I got Michael with us, Maria sighed. And Michael and I had a chance to have Lucy at all she sighed at their only child.
“I wish you would not be so hard on her?” Max muttered to his best friend. “She believes that she did the right thing,” he sighed even though he did not know why he was defending his former wife when he was so upset with her himself, but we cannot keep away from each other he thought, I wish we could be exes who had issues with each other.
But Liz is Liz, and I can never truly be angry with her he would think as Maria smiled, and Michael groaned. “I have a right to think what I want,” he murmured. “She kept you away from your daughter.”
Max could only sigh. “I know you do, and you said the paramount word in all this, my daughter,” he could only murmured. “Claudia is my daughter not yours. I appreciate that you are angry for me, and I like the cover,” he sighed, because I have shown I cannot stay angry at my former wife he thought. “But at the end of the day, this is between me and Liz. And of course, our daughter, not you or Maria” Max muttered. “You got your happy home because of what Liz did.”
And you got the shaft Maria thought but did not say because it was not loss on either he or Michael that they were the reversal of high school, and something went right with us, and we got lucky she sighed.
While Max and Liz got the heaviness of what life had to offer them.
“I know we did,” Michael muttered. “It is hard you know, because she knew full well what that kind of deal would mean to us.”
Yes, she did Max knew. “And we got a happy existence these last eighteen years,” Maria sighed. “While she was forced away from Max and had to deal with life in a very different environment.,” she muttered as both her husband and Max looked at her. “I am not defending her actions. Because I do think she could have done things differently, but we cannot deny she was not changed by it. She did not have a wonderful life you know. Walking away from Max, it was hell for her.”
“How do you know?” Max asked. “Because it seems that she always found it easy to walk away.”
She did Maria knew. “But she wanted to be with you,” Maria murmured as she was taken back to those days. “I saw how happy she was on your wedding day. And when we were all on the run. That should have been a stressful time, and it was but she was so happy to be your wife Max,” she sighed at the dubious look from Max, warranted sure, she sighed. “She was content. She loved her life. She wanted to be with you and Claudia. So, it had to have been a lot to take her to walk away from that life. Because she wanted to marry you.”
And to be married to you.
“I thought she did too,” Max muttered as flashes of his special day with Liz came to his mind, and it was hard to ignore them.
“I don’t think she regrets that,” Maria sighed.
“I hope so,” Max muttered.
“How can you defend her?” Michael asked of his friend. “She took your kid?” he murmured, not so silently. “If Maria had done that to me, I would hate her forever.”
“I would not have done that to you,” Maria muttered. “And it was not something I was faced with because I doubt, they would have come to me with such an offer because they did not want to deal with us,” she sighed, as she glanced at both Max and at her husband. Thankfully she thought of the offer that never came her way. “You know I would never have taken Lucy from you,” she murmured because this was the truth of it, she knew. I was not given the chance, and still I would not have taken it.
But I also know Liz would not have taken it without a damn good reason.
“But we would have thought that of Liz, and look at what she did?” Michael asked.
Yes, look at what Liz did to me Max muttered as he mourned all he lost. And now that he knew so much more, I don’t know what to feel.
“She felt like she had the only choice,” Max muttered.
“Really?” Michael asked. “You are really defending her after she took your child from you?”
Yes, I am. “Claudia was safe, and there was no guarantee she would have been safe with me” Max muttered, and it was hell of a realization to know this I hate the mere thought of it he would think. “Liz was going regardless, because she feels like it was the only way to save us, you, me and Isabel.”
“So, she says” Michael said dismissively.
Yes, she says, and I believe it Max thought, because he now knew what was in her inner mind at that time, and it still made him wince of what she had to go through. And therefore, she could not let it be through of that she could do it without a good reason. “She was tortured, okay, Michael, she was tortured” Max blurted out. “You don’t want to know what they did to her to make her decide to leave…”
“She says she was tortured, but was she really?” Michael asked dismissively once more.
“Come on, be sensitive for once Space boy” Maria sighed. “I know you have it in you to be, and not to be that jerk that you were back in high school.
Michael is Michael Max muttered to himself. “I don’t mean tortured as she did not want to be do what she did, because she did it in the end” he sighed. “We will never be able to forget that, but I mean it Michael. They gave her a hellish time,” he sighed because he still did not want to think of what he had seen during their encounter. Liz had not wanted to speak of it, and I had not wanted to approach it until I could.
Michael could only shake her head. So, she says he would mutter to himself.
Max and Maria knew what Michael was thinking, and ordinary, it would be understandable, and it was. But Max knew what he did know. “White Room bad Michael” was all he said, as if it was code.
It was indeed code.
And Michael stopped in his tracks. So, did Maria. But Michael in particular knew how bad it was for Max. Sure Max did not want to talk about it he thought, and I don’t all that happened because Max did not want to talk about it, but he could only imagine and he knew what Fisher had wanted, and had put Max through, thanks to Isabel’s little mind trip he thought of Isabel’s ability to dream walk, and fortunately, they had been briefly able to get through to Max’s drugged subconscious, and they were able to know.
But there was still so much they did not know.
But Liz did.
So, White Room is a code to remember a horrific time and even Maria knew it although she had not been there that day. She had stayed behind. But she knew a little about it from Liz, before she high tailed it to Florida, she muttered to herself. So, she knew it was bad.
And how Liz had hated to walk away, but felt it was too much.
Way too much and even Maria knew from experience because Michael was being his jerkish self, only time would tell him the weight he feels about his actions during that time she muttered to himself.
But Max had to go through something else all together different Maria knew.
Oh god Maria whispered because she could only imagine how bad it was for her best friend.
It was indeed bad. But across town. Liz was not even thinking about it, because she was thinking of another time in her past that was pretty bad, and it sometimes eclipsed what she would later experience, okay, not really, she would tell herself. But then she had largely made peace with what happened in the future. Which is now my distant past.
Even if she could not talk about it. Because why would I want to?
It was hell to experience in the first place she muttered. Why go over and over it she muttered to herself, but that issue was not one that was pressing for her now. It was something entirely different. It was one that her daughter had flung on her in the middle of her breakdown. Are you kidding me? she asked herself and wanted to ask her daughter.
But she wisely did not. Because she knew it would not do anyone any good. Because it would not help her daughter.
Claudia was distraught. And Liz was too, in her own way. “What?” she said in a more restrained way. Because her brain was not being coherent in any way. I know Archie.
And he is not the baby formerly known as Zan in my early life she sighed. Of course, Tess would name her son after Max, as if it was joke. Especially now that we know she was lying or misleading about the paternity of said child she muttered.
Claudia knew her mother had to be using stronger language within her but was keeping it restrained. Because she knew that side of her mother. As an only child for eight years, and then significantly older than her brother. She got a full sense of who her mother was as a person. Or I thought I did.
Because this trip to Roswell was opening channels that Claudia had not been aware of, and it was a daily surprise. So, she said what she had just said before…
Before the room went into a zone of silence.
“It seems like Archie’s birth name was Zan. “His birth mother was Tess Harding, and that means, for about a minute and half, he was Dad’s son.”
Hell Liz muttered to herself, that is ludicrous, right?
Right…
…or maybe not so. So, she tried again to formulate a more coherent thought. “Are you sure?”
Of course, she is sure Liz, she told herself as she looked at her daughter.
“I don’t know about anything anymore,” Claudia muttered. “Everything is not what it seems” she muttered to herself.