Roswell Fanatics

It was an hour later that Liz finally entered her dream.

As she entered the orb, she saw the woman there laying on the bed covered with the sheet, her side exposed enough that Liz could tell that the woman wore nothing underneath. It took longer than it should have for Liz to realize that the woman was her – oh, an older her to be sure, perhaps in her mid-twenties, but her nonetheless. Perhaps it was that the woman’s breasts were quite full – fuller than Liz ever expected hers to be even when fully grown – but more likely it was because of how the woman looked, laying there on the bed.

Had Liz been the woman, laying there naked, she would have felt at least vulnerable – perhaps terrified. But the dream-Liz seemed confident and self-assured, a little impatient perhaps, but a little amused as well.

When the man in the robe came in the bedroom dream-Liz looked up, shaking her head in mock anger.

“I’ve given you the best years of my life and now, when I’m finally back in a condition where I’m fully functional again, you go off and leave me for a younger woman.”

Dream-Max was taller, heavier, obviously older – but he still had that panicky look in his eyes that he always displayed when he thought he was in a social situation where he was out of his league.

“Gee honey, I’m sorry. But when I heard Jessie cry I had to check her – then she had poopy pants and I had to change them – then I had to rock her back to sleep. I did get back as soon as I could,” he said somewhat defensively, apparently not at all sure the woman in the bed was just kidding him.

Dream-Liz flashed him a warm and reassuring smile. “Well, I forgive you, I guess. Get back in bed before our daughter hiccups or something, and you feel the need to abandon me again. I told you, I have plans for you tonight…”

Dream-Max smiled back nervously. “Are you sure you are ready? I mean, it’s only been six weeks now. I wouldn’t want to do anything that might hurt you…”

“Max…,’ said the woman. “It HAS been six weeks, and I had my six week checkup today, and the obstetrician said it would be fine for us to go back to ‘all the usual activities,’ which would certainly include fooling around with my husband.”

“It’s not that I’m unwilling, you understand, it was just that the delivery…”

“Max, the delivery was totally normal. Women have babies all the time, Max.”

“Yeah, well darn good thing they do, because I don’t know any men who’d be brave enough to go through that.”

“Why do I feel my husband is stalling here?” dream-Liz asked rhetorically.

“Because I’m scared to death of hurting you, that’s why!”

“Max, get back in bed,” said dream-Liz, pulling back the covers beside herself, and giving her husband quite an eyeful of breasts that seemed still engorged by the recent pregnancy. “We haven’t done this in almost nine weeks – twenty weeks since you were last on top.”

“Was it that memorable, or did you just write it down in your journal?” her husband asked, dropping the robe on the floor and quickly slipping out of his boxers as he slid in beside her.

When the man had exposed himself to her when she was kidnapped, it had been the first look she had ever had of that particular part of an adult male. Her only comparison had been of her male infant cousins when she helped on diaper changes. When the man had exposed himself he had seemed huge – threatening – terrifying. Liz only got a quick peek as dream-Max slid in beside dream-Liz, but Max seemed at least the man’s equal size-wise – but he was Max. He couldn’t ever be terrifying. In fact, he looked half terrified himself as he positioned himself cautiously above dream-Liz.

Liz wasn’t sure who seemed the most uncomfortable as Max started making slow movements – but dream-Liz’s discomfort was short-lived and eventually even dream-Max seemed to get into the spirit of things. The motion under the sheet was soon rhythmic, and obviously well practiced despite the apparent recent hiatus. Liz would have been embarrassed at her own voyeurism, had she not watched in awe at the obvious joy that the two gave each other. Eventually they finished and dream-Liz lay cuddled up close to dream-Max, their passion spent and both content to hold one another and give gentle caresses – at least until there came a high-pitched cry from down the hall outside the door.

Liz noticed – just as dream-Liz noticed, that dream-Max had that same deer-in-the-headlights look when he was in a social situation where he was uncomfortable, but didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by doing the wrong thing.

“Oh, go get her – it’s all right,” said a smiling and obviously happy dream-Liz.

Dream-Max moved in a blur, putting on his robe and going out the door. He was back in less than a minute, a small baby cradled carefully in his arms. He nestled down with his wife – the baby between them both – comforting his daughter as his wife looked on, a contented and only mildly possessive smile on her face.

The dream faded and Liz awoke to the darkened room. She could feel her own nipples slightly engorged – felt the wetness where her own Bartholin's and Skene's glands had done their thing in response to the stimulation of the dream.

She fumbled on the sheet for a moment and found the tampon. It went slowly into place – at least it did until it came to the hymeneal ring where the walls seemed to tighten against the foreign object. It wasn’t painful really – or scary, just somewhat uncomfortable, and Liz was more vexed than truly concerned as she whispered under her breath,
“ Come on now, if Max will fit, a tampon certainly will…”
The applicator slid slowly through and she pushed the tampon into place, before she really realized what she had said.

She blushed deeply then, the embarrassment hidden by the darkness and the fact that she was alone in her room. It was the first truly erotic dream she had ever really had, and it had left her breathless and feeling just a little bit less than ladylike.

But even so, she smiled as she fell asleep in the darkness, her thoughts certainly not upon a kidnapper who had once terrorized a young child. Somehow she knew – those thoughts would never trouble her again. She had much better things to dream about than that terrible episode of her life.

The moonlight streaming through the window had moved slowly from one side of the room to the other, scarcely noticed by the young man. He had been staring intently at a spot directly above his head, although that too he had scarcely noticed. He was lost in thought - had been all night, but as the moonlight faded and was replaced by the gathering sunrise that marked the birth of a new day, his decision was finally made.

'She needs that - her special someone - and if it will be hard for her because of what she went through, she'll need all the more time to find him.'

All three women on the panel had emphasized that - that you should take your time - not rush into anything. Some of the girls were already starting to flirt - go on dates - but not Liz.

'That's because she spends all her time with you, Max...'

He was, he knew, stealing the time from her that she could have been using to find her special someone. It was more than just gratitude he knew - she cared for him in a very special way. He wished that things were different - that HE wasn't different - or even that he'd told her the truth long ago. Sometimes he dreamed of being her special someone, but he knew they were only dreams - that they could never be anything else but dreams, especially now. Liz needed normality - a chance to heal. She'd given him so much - so much of who he was - so much of that humanity he had was because of her. The very least he could do was to give her a chance for a normal life of her own.

'You have to give her up, Max. You have to let her go - let her find her own special someone - and because she does care about you - at least the you she thinks you are - you're going to have to push her away.'

It would, Max knew, break his heart, and likely wouldn't be pleasant for Liz either, but he owed her so much - so much he could never repay - at least he could give her this chance.

It was the third day since Liz had experienced her epiphany - three long days that should have been some of the happiest of her life as she finally buried the demons that were caused by her abduction by the sexual predator. She had gone to school on Tuesday certain that a new age had dawned - an age where she could look at Max and actually believe that they had a future together. An age - Liz had thought - where they could actually start to make plans about THEIR future - where they would go to college - what they would do with their lives. Knowing that she would be able to give herself to Max - when that day finally came - had been liberating. Of course, that day was years away, but for the first time since being trapped in the car with that monster, she could think about - that - and feel good about it. Feel that the monster was the problem, and not - she struggled to get herself to even think the word ' sex' itself. It had been a happy Liz Parker who had gone to school on Tuesday, but things had been going downhill continuously since then. The problem was Max.

That in a nutshell was the terrible thing. Max was a problem, and Max had NEVER been a problem. The very first time she'd ever met Max, he'd not been a problem, he'd been her salvation - and that had been the way it had continued ever since. Shy, somewhat socially inept Max had simply ALWAYS been her friend, right from the very start. Until three days ago.

Starting the very day after her discovery that her caring for - and attraction to - Max had literally been the antidote to the demons that had haunted her since her abduction. Max, she believed, had been continuously pulling away from her. She simply didn't understand. She had ALWAYS been his friend, right from that first day. But on Tuesday he had started to crawl back into a shell, by Wednesday he was barely speaking to her, and today - TODAY, he had avoided her altogether - not that easy since they sat at desks three feet apart.
She didn't understand - didn't understand at all. He seemed so unhappy - but he wouldn't tell her why. Was it her? Had she said or done something that had made him angry with her? Or something that had hurt him somehow? Max had always been hard to read, like there was always some part of himself he was holding back and never wanted anyone to see. She'd always attributed that to his shyness. But after these four years of being so close to each other - couldn't he at least tell her what was bothering him?

Liz heard footsteps coming up the stairs and was not surprised when there was a knock at her door, and her mother's voice.

"Liz? You got a minute?"

"Come in, Mom... Sure, you want to talk about something?"

"Well, I couldn't help but notice that you were a little distracted at dinner - and you didn't seem to have much of an appetite. I was wondering if you would come down and split a Martian Blast Sundae with me. It's kind of a young lady's tradition. If things go wrong, you drown your problems in ice cream and various flavored syrups."

"That obvious, huh?"

"Well, let's just say that your normal sunny disposition is a good deal less sunny than usual. Let me buy you half a sundae, and maybe we can talk it over."

In five minutes, Liz was downstairs at the family kitchen table, sitting across from her mother. The sundae was an impressive creation, she thought, based upon her professional experience as someone who had made a LOT of sundaes. It was a two layer edifice that combined crushed pineapple, bananas, maraschino cherries, and three flavors of ice cream. It was designed to look ominous - like the egg in aliens, nestled in amongst a bowl of whipped cream. Even if Liz had been hungry - which she wasn't - she doubted that she could have finished her half of it - but she also realized, this wasn't really about the sundae. The sundae was something for them to play with until she got up the courage to talk to her mother.

"So what is it, Liz? Still arguing with Max over next year's science fair project? Homework problems? Someone picking on Max again? You do realize, don't you, that you can tell your mother about things that are bothering you."

Liz looked up at her mother. A week ago, she would have trembled with fear and - maybe - been able to tell her about the terrible things that man had said to her - shown her - made her touch. Funny how one dream could put all that horror behind her. By comparison, perhaps, Max sort of snubbing her for three days really didn't measure up as a problem except - it was. Somehow - over the years - Max and his friendship had become a given in her life and its absence was - disturbing. Still, it would sound stupid to her mother. She had little doubt of that.

"No - it's nothing like that.I'm just - well, I guess I'm just having a bad week, that's all."

"And the cause of this bad week would be...?" asked her mother, spooning a small amount of blackberry ripple ice cream with pineapple sauce into her mouth and waiting for Liz to say the next word."

Liz sighed deeply. It was apparent that her mother wasn't going to drop this - as embarrassing as it was to talk about it. "Just suppose that you had a friend...," said Liz - unable to bring herself to say much more....

"Un-huh," said Diane, spooning another small bite of ice cream into her own mouth and, Liz instantly realized, lobbing the ball back into HER court. There didn't seem to be any way around this...

"Well suppose you - really cared about your friend and h-h-h... uh your friend, that is, suddenly didn't seem to be caring that much for you?"

Nancy gave her daughter a sympathetic smile. She had sort of believed the sex education class had been premature that it would be a few years yet before her daughter would even think about boy-girl issues. Obviously she had been wrong. In fact, she was the right age for a first crush, although Lizzy really didn't strike her as the type to have some superficial feeling toward some random boy in her class. Unless it were some older boy in one of the junior high school classes - which she doubted - that pretty much narrowed it down to Max Evans. In a way Nancy was happy that Liz was sort of the aggressor here, and Max apparently was hanging back. She liked Max - liked him an awful lot. How could she not? She had almost lost count of the times Max had hauled her only child out of some perilous situation. In fact, if Liz were eighteen and not thirteen, Nancy might well be encouraging her to go after the young man - not directly of course, that would have been the kiss of death for any relationship - to actually have your parents approve. But indirectly in a few years - yeah, Nancy would have to admit to herself, she'd worry less with Liz dating Max than she would anyone else on Earth. Somehow, Max was always there for Liz when she needed him. But not, apparently, right now - which was probably just as well.

"Well, Liz, that sort of depends what sort of friendship we are talking about here. If we are talking about just two friends - like you and Maria, I might have one sort of answer, where if I were talking about a boy-girl thing, that might be a little different."

"Why is that?" Liz asked.

"Well, honey - it's like this. Mother Nature sort of plays a trick on people with the boy-girl business. Men are stronger than women - physically at least - but they mature a little slower. In general, boys enter puberty later than girls, both physically and emotionally.
Now if this were a boy-girl thing I'd try to warn you that the young men in your class are usually about two years behind the young ladies both in puberty and certainly in thinking about stuff like dating and marriage. In fact, probably more than that. You know, once a month you get a reminder that you aren't a little girl anymore - that you are becoming a grown woman. Boys don't. So if this is a boy you are talking about, I'd suggest you just try to be his friend, NOT his girlfriend, because it's very likely he's just not ready to have a girlfriend yet. Give him a few years - there's a good chance he'll come around."

"But what if it doesn't seem like he even wants to be your friend anymore?" Liz blurted out, afraid that if she didn't get it out quick enough she wouldn't be able to say it at all.

"Well dear, what would you do if something like this happened between you and Maria. You've had your spats over the years, how did you handle those?"

Liz shoved some ice cream in her own mouth and let it dissolve while she tried to remember. "Well, most of those were just misunderstandings..."

"Well, until you've talked to Ma.... uh, your friend that is, you really don't know but what this is all just a big misunderstanding. If you really care for someone, you ought to at least be willing to tell them that something is bothering you."

"I guess..."

"Well, that's what I'd do anyway. Say, I forgot to tell you, you got some mail today," said her mother, pulling out an envelope from the Department of Paleontology of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Liz opened it quickly. " It's from Dr. Perkins. She wants to hire me and Max for another dig this summer. She said she sent him a letter too."

"Well, that's certainly something you need to discuss with Max. Maybe while you are talking, you could address any other questions the two of you have going on - don't you suppose?"

"Yeah," Liz said softly, " ...that'd be a great idea."

It was 9:55 PM on a Friday, and Liz was sitting at her desk trying to make her mind work on memorizing her vocabulary words for next week's test in English. It was a lame way to spend a Friday night, but probably better than the alternative – which was crying.

• Hubris
  Noun: overbearing pride or presumption.
  
  
  Hubris is exaggerated pride or self-confidence often resulting in retribution. It is a common theme in Greek tragedies and mythology, whose stories often featured protagonists suffering from hubris and subsequently being punished by the gods for it. The word carries the connotation of the perpetrator comparing him/herself as equal to or greater than a/the god/ess/es.
  There was also a god called Hubris (or Hybris), the personification of the above concept, insolence, lack of restraint and instinct. He spent most of his time among mortals.

Well THAT sure hadn't helped. It was altogether too apropos, Liz thought.

Only twenty hours ago Liz Parker had been on top of the world – her entire future already planned out. All of it had revolved around one dark haired young man with soulful amber eyes – and somehow those plans had come crashing down in one day.

She had been anxious to see him when she'd gone to school this morning. Obviously she wasn't going to tell him about the dream – she'd have died of embarrassment if he'd known about THAT dream, or even about the new freedom she had from the nightmare of that horrible man. But she had been so happy – and it had all turned to dust over the course of six hours.

She had waited for him like she always did – waited until the last minute to ride her bike to school. He always rode with her - but not today. She had gotten to school just before the bell, so they really hadn't had an opportunity to interact until the first recess. But his bike had already been in the bike rack when she arrived.

She had been absolutely amazed when he went out to recess with the other students and at first bery pleased – she had been working for years to try to get him comfortable enough to do that. She tried to talk to him – to congratulate and encourage him- but he'd been hanging out with other boys – a particularly male chauvinist bunch of boys who didn't ever have anything to do with the girls in the class – even at recess. She'd tried to talk to him, and he had ignored her just like the other boys had ignored her. It seemed like he cared for his new friends more than he cared about her. She'd tried to talk with him at lunch and at afternoon recess too, with no better luck.

She had finally cornered him at the bike rack when school let out. She had wanted to be angry with him, but what he had done had hurt her too bad to even be angry. She fought back her tears, and they rode side by side back to the Crashdown.
She had tried to talk to him normally – to pretend that her heart wasn't breaking. She had told him about the letter from the university – just trying to make conversation – just trying to somehow bridge the chasm that somehow had come between them only hours after she thought all her problems were going away. It was his reply that had stunned her into silence.

Max had told her he was 'tired' of digs. He had gotten his letter, he said, but instead he was going to work for his parents in their legal office. He had already sent a letter to University turning down the summer job – AND HE HADN'T EVEN TALKED TO HER ABOUT IT FIRST.

As she sat at the desk, the tears simply couldn't be held back any longer. She sobbed quietly – tears dropping onto her school papers. Finally she looked at the clock. Her curfew was 10PM, and so was his. She might have time for one phone call.


“Hello?”

“Mrs. Evans? Can I talk to Max?”

“It's almost 10PM Liz – I don't think...” she started without thinking. 'Max has been in a funk all evening,' Diane thought to herself, '...maybe Liz can cheer him up.' “I'll put Max on the phone, Liz. It's Friday night but don't keep him up too late, OK?”

“OK, Mrs. Evans. Thank you.”

“Hello?” his voice came over the phone – sounding uncertain.

“Max? I've got to see you - face to face– tonight.”

“Tonight? Liz, that's impossible. I can't see you tonight. My parents wouldn't let me – YOUR parents wouldn't let me.”

Liz didn't care. He'd treated her like crap all day, and she wasn't in a mood to debate with Max Evans what was and what was not possible.

“I'll be at the quarry in ninety minutes. I'll stay there until you get around to showing up – however long that may take. You and I, Max, ... need to talk.”

Before Max could reply he heard the click of the phone disconnecting. He knew he was trapped – he couldn't let Liz stay out at the quarry alone all night. He would have to see her. Hey knew he had to break it off with her for her own good but he had been putting it off all day – unable to bring himself to say the words that would do it. Now he would have no choice.

There was a quarter moon overhead as Max pumped his bicycle furiously - heading for the old quarry. He'd decided to try to get to her house first - hoping he could get there before she'd left, and that decision had cost him. He'd arrived to find her bike already gone, and now he was riding in frantic haste down a desert road, looking for the lights of her bicycle. Either she was quite a distance ahead of him, or she didn't have her lights on. He had his off - knowing his night vision was better than that of most people - that is better than that of people, he corrected himself. For only about the millionth time in his young life he wished that was what he was - a person - not....different. 'But if wishes were horses...,' he thought to himself, recalling a saying his father often used.

The night air was cold - temperatures fall rapidly once the sun goes down in the high desert - but it didn't bother him. Pumping his bike furiously down the road, the exercise was keeping him warm enough - but he worried about her. There were too many things out there in the darkness that might hurt her - vehicles - creatures - predators both animal and human. 'Why couldn't she have stayed home in bed?' he asked himself - but the question he knew was rhetorical. It was his fault.

This was for her own good - for her own future happiness, but he knew he'd handled it - clumsily. He wasn't good with human emotions - with predicting them at least. Maybe it wasn't his fault - he'd somehow missed six years of his life - six years when human children were held - cuddled - cooed to - six years of bonding and learning - learning how to deal with their parents and their peers. He had, Max knew, spent those years - and God alone knew how many others - in an artificial pod that had nurtured his body - but not his soul. Max didn't lament that loss - it was simply fact and something he had to deal with - the machine had given him life - what he did with that life was up to him - but even so, he wished he wasn't this ignorant - wished above all else that he hadn't hurt her.

He had heard the sobs that interrupted her angry phone message, and his heart had almost broken - he never meant to cause her pain. But maybe it was inevitable - most of how to deal with other humans he'd learned from her and Liz seemed to know it intuitively. But it wasn't like he could ask her how to separate himself from her permanently - to allow her to go her own way and find the one who would be her special someone. It wasn't like he could have asked her to tell him what the right way would have been to force her away from someone she could never really love - and she couldn't really love him - not if she knew what he was. So it was probably inevitable that this had gone badly - but even so he was heartsick about it - heartsick and worried about her safety as well as her mental anguish.

He saw the gravel road leading from the county road - down to the niche where the conveyor belt once loaded the big dumptrucks bringing rock from the quarry. She would be down there he knew, as he turned his bike off the macadam and bounced down the abandoned road to the place they had parked their bikes while they had worked on the dig. He turned his bicycle off the pavement and heard the rocks crunch beneath the tires as he rode down to where they had always parked their bikes. He saw her bike there in the feeble light of his headlight and looked around for her in the darkness. He saw her finally, sitting on the rock wall that made up the side of the quarry, silhouetted against the quarter moon and looking out into the darkness of the quarry - a darkness as lonely as the feeling he had in his heart knowing that this would be the last time they'd be together here.

She heard the steps behind her and glanced back with nervousness - it was dark despite the quarter-moon, and the quarry was sort of in the middle of nowhere. She had been thinking ever since she arrived that this was a stupid place to meet him. It was funny how her wariness quieted down when she saw him. She still hurt - whatever had caused him to start behaving like this - just when she'd had that beautiful dream - she couldn't believe that he could be so heartless. But even so, the fear she'd been feeling about being just a young girl out in the middle of the desert night - the vulnerability - that had vanished. Max wouldn't let anything out here hurt her - THAT much she was sure of. The question was - why was he doing such hurtful things to her? Why had he turned down the job with the University for the summer? She'd been so happy working beside him - he'd seemed so happy. Those and a dozen other questions were running through her mind as she watched him approach.

Max had no idea what to do or say. It was obvious she was angry with him - and hurt. He hadn't wanted either to happen. The pain of having to give her up was bad enough without this. How could he explain it to her? He was doing this because he did care about her - because he wanted her to find the special someone who would be important ot her - the special someone he could never be. He'd been thinking all the way out here- trying to decide if he was doing the right thing. He'd considered every option. He'd even considered just not telling her anything. He knew that he loved her - he wasn't sure how it had happened - but it had. It had happened way back in third grade. And somewhere during that time he came to realize that Liz was starting to love him - not the real him - the alien thing he really was - nobody but his sister could ever really love that - but the image that he hid behind to keep the world at bay.

If he hadn't loved her so much he would have just let it happen - he'd dreamed - more than once - that he'd someday be her special someone - but because he DID love her, he couldn't let that happen. They were friends because he deceived her about what he was - but he couldn't - he wouldn't - deceive her into that sort of a relationship. And if he told the truth - she'd hate him for what he was and for all these years he'd fooled her. And he really couldn't blame her. But he had to get this over - there was really no alternative - he had to let her go - let her be free to find someone she could love completely.

"Hi Liz ... uh ... you wanted to talk?"

"Yes Max, why don't you sit down."

"Uh, OK."

"Why, Max?" she asked. Even Liz knew that wasn't the way to start this - not fair - not right. But Liz was angry, and while she was pretty mature for someone her age, she really didn't have the experience to deal with this well either. Besides, she was hurt and she was angry and she was confused and she had been so very sure that Max - of all people - cared for her, and now he'd done - this. No, it wasn't fair and knowing the problems Max had always had dealing with people, that this approach would be disastrous was predictable even to her, but not tonight. Tonight Liz wasn't being Miss Perfect, Miss Scientist. Tonight Liz was just hurting - and was lashing out.

"Uh - why, what, Liz?" It was a stupid reply, even by Max's standards and sounded lame even to him. He knew he'd been putting distance between them - it had been the most painful thing he'd done his entire life. It was in many ways like giving up his life - or at least the part of it that meant the most to him. But what was he going to say - that he was some alien monster? That if she REALLY knew who and what he was, she'd go running off screaming into the desert rather than sitting on the ledge beside him? No, Max knew he was in deep trouble here, and he too was hurting. The best he would be able to do was to salvage the memory of all the wonderful times he'd had with her and - hopefully - depart as friends. But the best was not to be.

"You know DAMN well, 'Why, what..,' Max."

"Uh, uh...."

"Don't 'uh-uh' me, Max," she screamed, no longer able to keep the tears from falling - angered even more because she'd sworn she wasn't going to let him see her cry, "Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing me away? Why in HELL Max, did you turn down the job on the dig - WITHOUT EVEN TALKING IT OVER WITH ME."

"Liz, you know I'll always be your friend - but....."

"But what? Spit it out, Max. There has to be some reason that after all these years you don't want anything to do with me. What is it - did I suddenly develop cooties or something?"

"Liz, I'll always be your friend but - well, we are too different, that's all."

"TOO DIFFERENT?" What the HELL does THAT mean, Max. We aren't any more different this week than we were in third grade. We weren't 'too different' to be friends then. "Or in fourth grade - not 'too different' then, or in .... Cripes, YOU TELL ME, Max - JUST WHEN did we become 'too different'?"

Max looked at her, watching the tears flow down her cheeks - feeling the tears flow down his. He told her a partial truth, knowing he couldn't tell her the real truth, hoping somehow it would make the situation better. It wouldn't.

"Liz we are getting older - we aren't kids anymore, we are growing up and like ... you know, in 'Living Science' class, we need to look for people who we can care about long-term." And that actually was the truth - as Max Evans understood it, and he was being honorable by saying it. Liz Parker interpreted it somewhat differently.

"SO, I'm OK as a friend when we are BABIES together, but I'm too damn different - NOT GOOD ENOUGH - for any sort of more mature relationship, is THAT IT?" By this time the tears were coming down and Liz's face was a mask of pain and anger.

Max looked at his best friend - looked at the person he loved - and absolutely didn't know what to say. He had no idea how it had gotten so bad - so quick. He had no idea that anything could hurt this bad. Most of all, he had no idea what the hell he could do or say to make things better. He sat there speechless - unable to say a word.

There was a second when Liz looked at him that she knew - if he'd only said anything - said he was sorry - said he'd mispoken - said he just wasn't ready for boy-girl stuff - somehow she'd have put it behind her. She'd have waited for him - waited an eternity if she had to - but he hadn't said that. He'd said that she just didn't measure up to what HE expected in a girlfriend, and he acted now like that ended the discussion. The pain was still there, but the anger changed to bitterness.

"You're right, Max," she said. "We ARE different - too different to ever be close. You go your way ... ," she said as she reached behind her neck and unclasped the chain, " ... and I WILL GO MINE," she said as she flung the chain and pendant off the ledge into the darkness.

She rode home in silence, tears streaking her cheeks. He rode beside and behind her - making sure she got home before he turned and rode silently to his own home. He crawled into bed and lay there, looking up at the ceiling, the tears trickling past his ears to dampen the pillow for the next five hours. Then he would remember the pendant. It had meant so much to him, her wearing that. He couldn't bear to leave it out there in the desert. He got up at daylight and rode back to the quarry. He searched all morning and into the early afternoon, but could find neither the pendant nor the chain. It was like the desert had swallowed it.


Back at the Parker residence:
"Wake up, Liz," said Nancy. "...what's the matter? You've been drowsy all day. You fell asleep at lunch and you're almost asleep now. "

"I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't sleep well last night."

"THAT was obvious when I saw you at breakfast - but in just three hours Maria's mom is going to be here to take you and Maria to that movie. It would be MOST impolite if you fell asleep when they were treating you to dinner and a movie. Why don't you go get a nap for an hour or two. I'll get you up before they get here."

Liz didn't feel much like a movie - she didn't feel much like doing anything - but mom was right - she couldn't just keep moping.

"OK, mom," she said, climbing the stairs toward her room.

Nancy shook her head sadly, watching her daughter leave, then turned to the phone and dialed the number.

"Diane? This is Nancy - how's Max doing?"

"Well, he finally got back from the desert - I wonder if he was depressing it as much as he's depressing his whole family now?"

"I am SO sorry. I told Liz that boys develop slower than girls - I hoped she'd take the hint not to push Max about this."

"I love that boy dearly, but he has the social graces of a seven year old, and I'll swear he learned most of those from your daughter. I wish he could have let her down more - graciously."

"Puppy-loves are always hard, even when they are mutual, but when the apple of your eye is still too green..."

"Yeah, but it's not like we really want this relationship to... to .... bud - anytime soon anyway."

"Goodness no. But it's hard seeing your own daughter go through this..."

"Max seems just crushed too. Hopefully in a few years -better yet four or five - they can put all this behind them. Max really is too immature emotionally to really be looking at boy-girl stuff any time soon. Now ISABEL, her I'm going to worry about."

"You know, the strange thing is, when Liz has really needed him, Max could be as mature as anyone. I suppose that's why she sort of got carried away. He always has been her hero, sort of...."

As she reached her room, Liz walked slowly to the nightstand and looked down. She picked it up, the tears coming again. She had gone back to the quarry almost as soon as Max left - searched with a flashlight for three hours in the darkness until she'd finally found the pendant and chain where it had fallen among the large rocks. She'd feared she would never see it again. She knew it was over - what she'd said and he said had made that clear - but dreams die hard.

She put the pendant and chain in the bottom of her jewelry box. She would be unable to bear looking at it for many months....

The sun beat down on the rocks of the quarry and Liz sweated as she swept the packed dirt away from the fossilized bone. It was slow repetitive work, and she did it like an automaton - her mind not on the 6 million year-old fossil, but rather on what occurred three months ago, up on the edge of the quarry a quarter-mile distant.

Dr. Susan Perkins looked at the young girl. She certainly had no complaint with her work ethic. Liz showed up at least 15 minutes before everyone else on the dig, stayed at the job until she shooed the young teenager home - barely in time for her own dinner. To the casual observer, Liz would have seemed lost in her work, but not to Susan. Susan had seen her the summer before when she'd worked nearly as hard, but smiled just a whole lot more. She shook her head as she turned back to Nancy Parker who had driven out to the quarry to deliver Liz's lunch - the one she'd left on the kitchen table this morning when she'd bicycled out to the dig.

"Do you want to take it out to her, or just leave it here?" asked Susan.

"I'll be glad to do it, I'm just afraid I'll step on something," replied Nancy.

"Oh, the digs are pretty well marked, but ... you know what? It'd be better if you did just leave it here. I don't want her eating out there alone I guess. I'll call her in at lunchtime. I want to see her drinking some fluids and ... well she can cool off here, too."

"Thanks for looking after her," said Nancy. "Somehow it just never occurred to me that she'd be out there all alone."

"Well, that wasn't anyone's intention - she just seems to want it that way. I never really had to worry about looking after her last year and I'm inclined to forget ...."

Nancy shook her head sadly. "It is the damndest thing ... I worry every day about something happening to her. For all the trouble that Liz has experienced in her life - and she's had more than her fair share - last summer when she and Max were coming out here I didn't worry at all."

"What happened to Max? I mean, what happened between Max and Liz? I brought him up a couple of times and I've never seen any subject changed quite as quickly."

"The short answer is that he's working with his parents this summer. The REAL answer....? I'm not sure. Somehow the two of them had a falling out. To tell the truth, I think it might have been a good thing for Max. He is interacting with other people more - not so dependent on Liz for social interaction - although Diane - his mother - says he has been going around all summer like someone shot his last dog. Liz insists that she doesn't miss him and doesn't need him - I'm not sure I believe that. If I had to guess I'd say they had their first real spat, and neither really has the experience in boy-girl relationships to find their way back from it, but...."

"But...?"

"But it's something more than that. I'm not too sure what it is. I mean, it's understandable that Max doesn't have the social skills of most kids his age - he was a foundling who didn't even speak until he was six or so - but ... somehow I would have thought the two of them could work it out."

"Well Liz is certainly mature enough, but Max always did seem very young. She was always the more responsible one."

"Yeah .... unless she needed him."

"I would think - as mature and knowledgeable as Liz is, it would be hard to envision a situation where she would really need him."

Nancy's eyes rolled skyward, and she shook her head. "That's right, you don't know about them, do you. I mean you aren't from around here..."

Susan's hand went to her mouth. "Omigawd, I'd almost forgotten what the deputy said about the sexual predator. That really happened? I wasn't sure he wasn't just pulling my leg?"

"I assure you, that happened. I have never felt so helpless in my life, seeing my child stolen. I'll never forget seeing the man take her out - go to put her in the trunk. I'll never forget seeing Max hit the man either. He knew what he was doing - taking the man over the embankment. I don't think Max expected to survive - but it didn't matter to him. He was saving Liz .... again."

"Again?"

"It wasn't the first time, simply the most dramatic. It seems like Max has been saving Liz since the third grade. He's - I don't know - he's the least mature child in his class - maybe the least mature in his school until something threatens Liz. Then he does - God, I don't know - I guess he does whatever he has to do to keep her safe - things that even most adults would not think to do."

"He is a very nice boy but ... that just seems so impossibe."

"What's impossible is the way I feel about Max. Max's mother and I gave a talk to the kids on --- well, the local version of sex ed. We had a talk with the mothers of the girls in the class afterwards - told them about the threats out there - the problems the kids get into and, of course, it's the girls who are most at risk. They were all scared spitless of their daughters starting dating - becoming aware of boys. All I could think about was how much MORE comfortable I was knowing that my daughter and Max were together. How weird is that?"

"Well, he did always seem polite and considerate of Liz ... and of course she was very kind and helpful to him. If you HAD to have your 13 year-old daughter dating, he'd be a pretty benign choice I'd imagine."

"I suppose so," said Nancy. She knew that Dr. Perkins didn't really understand. She was just as happy that Liz WASN'T starting dating anytime soon, but her relationship with Max was more complex than that. "But it's more than that. He cares for her. He really does. He cared for her before either of them understood anything about there being an opposite sex, and I think he cares for her still. Why neither of them can bridge the gap that's come between them - I just don't know."

"They certainly were a lot happpier as a twosome last summer than Liz is by herself this summer."

"Yeah, Diane says it's the same way with Max. But whatever happened, it's something they'll have to work out for themselves," said Nancy, putting the lunch bag in the refrigerator.

Out at the dig, Liz moved the brush again over the skeleton of the long dead oreodont, trying to convince herself that it didn't matter to her that Max wasn't there - that she didn't need him. She was less than entirely successful, but her pride wouldn't let her admit it.

It was perhaps an hour before sundown as Max looked out at the quarry from the edge where Liz had thrown away the pendant. He’d spent at least an hour looking for it – without finding it. It was as if the earth had swallowed it up. He’d told himself he wasn’t sure why he was even looking for it – but he knew that was a lie. She’d worn it continuously for years and just seeing the chain around her neck – knowing it was there under her blouse – it had meant so much to him. Right now he’d give anything to have that feeling again – not that he’d get it from a discarded pendant. Still – he couldn’t really help himself.

‘If nothing else, I’m getting in good shape,’ he told himself. He was trying to be philosophical. He’d read somewhere that when you had nothing else, you could at least be philosophical. He got up early every morning so he could ride his bicycle to the quarry – trailing far enough behind that she couldn’t see, but close enough he could be sure she arrived safely. Then he’d bicycle back to the law office and work for six hours with his folks – leaving in time to bicycle back out and shadow her as she rode back to her house. Then half the time, he’d ride right back out and look for the pendant – but he’d not do that third trip again. It simply wasn’t there. It was gone – like the happiness in his life.

He stood on the quarry ledge and felt the warm wind blow out of the north – hitting the face of the cliff and pushing itself up to where he was standing – trying to blow him backwards – back towards the road toward town. He leaned forward – his weight in front of the edge – surfing the wind to keep from falling forward the twenty or thirty feet towards the rocks below. As he teetered there in the gusts he thought how easy it would be – just use his powers – just for a second – to hold back the wind. Just tumble forward off the cliff into oblivion. It would, he thought, be over quickly then. Liz would find her special someone – and perhaps remember him fondly for the years they had been friends, rather than hating him like she seemed to do now.

A sudden gust blew him back from the cliff face and broke through his thought. Perhaps some day they could again be friends. Perhaps someday she’d no longer hate him. He had to get home, he decided. He had to get up early in the morning – get ready to shadow her as she rode out to the job he wished he still shared with her. She needed for him to give her up if she was ever going to find her happiness – but until then – until that other someone was there to protect her – he still had a job to do.

Max got on his bike and rode back toward his house. It was, he told himself, just the dust in the desert wind that caused his eyes to tear as he rode along. His heart, unfortunately, knew better.

If one equates maturity with responsibility, that is if we were to say that a mature person is one having a capacity for moral decisions and therefore accountable; a person capable of rational thought or action then it is a mistake to equate age with maturity. Indeed, some people grow old without ever becoming responsible adults, while some very young people behave with great responsibility. Nonetheless, age and maturity due have some degree of correlation, if only that increasing age gives one more experience with which to season the decision making. In their own ways, both Liz and Max were mature in some respects and quite immature - or at least inexperienced - in others. This summer would be the most miserable summer of their young lives, despite their relative maturity - or perhaps because of it. Partly it was a matter of each of them not asking themselves the right questions.

If someone had asked Liz if Max cared for her, she would have been tempted to respond angrily that he did not. She had bared her soul reaching out to him romantically, not really understanding the fears of rejection that drove him to reject her first bumbling attempts at romance and neither understanding how difficult the trauma of her abduction had made those overtures. Had someone asked her the question - would Max die for you? - she wouldn't have hesitated to say yes, because he'd proved it often enough, perhaps realizing that those efforts alone proved his caring.

But as each day went by - as she rode to and from her work in the quarry, not realizing she had an unseen escort - Liz thought in terms of the first question and the obvious answer - No, Max didn't care for her - in fact had given a very lame excuse that demonstrated he didn't care for her. A more mature - or more experienced - young lady might have made a greater attempt to understand - to find out what the real reason was behind the rejection. But Liz was new to this game - she'd laid herself bare with her opening overture to Max, and been heartbroken at his fumbling reply. Hell hath no fury - the saying goes - like a woman scorned, and while Liz was new to the business, as the days went by the fury grew.

For Max, the problem was similar. If you'd asked him who among all the humans in the world had shown him the most friendship, Liz's name would have been at the top. But he had six years less life-experience than Liz, was not as far along in his puberty, and was hiding the fact that he was 'different' from the world, and if he did consider at all that human beings MIGHT accept him, he certainly didn't thing that anyone - and certainly not anyone as wonderful as Liz - would ever consider accepting him THAT way. Besides, Max had been willing to sacrifice himself for Liz before - and what maturity he did have said that by putting Liz's happiness before his dreams now was the right thing to do.

So for each it was a long miserable summer, Liz eventually dealing with her hurt by converting it to anger, Max dealing with his own loss of Liz only by counting the days until they could at least be lab partners again. It was perhaps inevitable that her coping mechanism with the loss of Max all summer - anger, and his coping mechanism for the loss of Liz all summer - anticipation of seeing her when school resumed - would inevitably collide. And they did - on the first day of classes.

Mr. Raff was annoyed to see the unexpected student in the fifth period Seventh Grade Science class. It wasn't that he didn't like students in his classes, it was that the fifth period class was something special, and this student certainly wasn't. It wasn't a formal thing – not listed in the schedule as an advanced course – there really wasn't an official advanced Seventh Grade Science Course. Nonetheless, that's pretty much what it was – or at least what it was intended to be.
The understanding that Mr. Raff had with the other teachers – well, with anyone who could do student scheduling really - was that they would check with him before putting students in his fifth period class. That understanding had obviously been violated and a quick check of the records told him who had done it. Why, he could pretty much guess. It was the new PE teacher, Ms. Bronson.

Ms. Bronson was a late addition to the faculty, and had been added to the faculty only four days previously to replace Mrs Worthington whose husband – a very junior executive in an oil company – had been transferred over the summer to the United Arab Emirates. Roswell didn't exactly have an abundance of young girls PE teachers laying around, and Ms Bronson – a new graduate from the University of Albuquerque – had only been in town a week and had not yet learned about the unofficial policy regarding his fifth period class.

Why she had put the girl in the class was equally obvious. Ms. Bronson had inherited Mrs. Worthington's duties as cheerleader coach, and the fifth period elective had been necessary to get the girl into Ms. Bronson's own sixth grade PE class – the one where all the cheerleaders were concentrated to allow them to travel to the away games more readily.

The problem was that this was more than just a violation of the petty perks of junior high school protocol. Fifth period science was more advanced – particularly in its lab portion – than the other science classes and while it had no formal prerequisites, informally Mr. Raff had always wanted good grades in math and successful participation in one of his introductory science courses in elementary school for placement in fifth period science.

Pamela Troy had not only blown off every science lecture she'd ever been given but she was – according to her transcripts – a very marginal student in arithmetic. Unless one of the other students who was particularly strong in math and science partnered with her, the girl was unlikely to pass the lab part of the course and passing the non-lab portion would also be doubtful. In fact, unless he was to seriously lower the standards for this course, there were only two students he could partner her with in lab with any reasonable expectation they would be strong enough to carry the girl - and they were no doubt going to partner with each other. They always did. It would be, he was certain, a very difficult problem. Mr. Raff was right of course, it would be a problem – just not for him.

It had been hard eating lunch by himself – giving Liz the space she needed to start to have her own social life – to eventually find her own special someone. They only had two classes together this year - Miss. Huttlemeyer's introduction to Algebra class, and Mr. Raff;s fifth period science class.

It was not true that Miss Huttlemeyer was as old as the specimens that Liz had been helping the University of New Mexico paleontology department retrieve from the floor of the quarry all summer – it just seemed that way. There was NO socializing in that class and the seating was alphabetical – Miss Huttlemeyer felt that this facilitated taking roll and no doubt helped her remember the names of the legions of students she had taught over the years.

There were only twenty students in the class – none of them with names beginning with letters before 'E' or after 'P.' That had resulted in Max sitting in the right front seat – Liz in the left rear seat – diagonally across the classroom from each other. Had they been in different classrooms they could not have had less interaction.

But fifth period science was FINALLY here, and after a summer of lonely sadness Max was at last looking forward to just being with Liz again – oh not too close, he needed to give her her space – needed to let her find her own destiny – he'd certainly told himself that often enough over the summer to convince himself of that – but he just wanted to hear her voice, see her face smile as they worked through their science problems. He just wanted – he struggled to avoid admitting to himself – a reason to CARE about getting up each day in a world that would always be alien to him – a world where he would never truly fit in.

These five hours a week would – he hoped – sustain him, even if he could never have the sort of friendship they had in the past.

“It's time for pairing up for lab partners,” said Mr. Raff. “Unfortunately, we seem to have an odd number of students, which is going to mean someone is going to have to work just a little harder in lab than the others because they will be solo. I'll let you discuss it amongst yourselves for a few minutes – all pairs are voluntary and must be by mutual consent. When you have agreed with your partner, you may come up and sign up on the posted list...”

There seemed to be a general rush for the front of the room. Apparently, Max thought, most of the lab partner pairings had been long worked out. It made sense – he and Liz had agreed on this way back in the middle of last year.

Trying to control the general rush for the lab partner list, Mr. Raff held up his hands. “Wait, it's getting a little crowded up here and we need only one of the lab partners to sign for both members of that team. Let's go ladies first, please.”

Max sat back down in his seat. Liz was the second person to reach the list and Mr. Raff smiled at her. “I take it, Miss Parker, that you will be partnering with Mr. Evans again?” he asked.

Liz glanced back at Max and her face was expressionless as she looked in to his eyes, before turning back to Mr. Raff and smiling sweetly. “No, I talked it over with Pamela at lunch. I'm going to partner with her this year.”

While surprised, Mr. Raff was somewhat gratified. Unless Pamela Troy was as dumb as a box of rocks, partnering with Liz would get her through the lab part of the course and most likely keep her eligible for JV cheerleader.

Max could feel the eyes of half of the students in the class looking at him as the blood drained from his face. It wasn't so much pain at first as numbness – disbelief. He sat there like a statue until the last pair had signed the list.

“So, it looks like our solo lab person is Mr. Evans,” said Mr. Raff. “OK, then, let's review the lab safety guidelines, your course objectives and homework policies, and the optional science fair project...:

The class continued for another thirty minutes but Max heard none of it. He sat there – numb – fighting back tears – suddenly feeling more alone than he'd felt since third grade. Eventually the bell range and as the class exited he hurried after her through the crowded halls – finally catching up just as Liz and Pamela Troy were about to go into the girl's locker room. Liz held back as he approached, motioning for Pam to go ahead.

“Yes, Max?” she asked with a thin smile, “did you want to speak to me?”

“I thought – I mean, we said last year that we were going to be lab partners again in junior high, remember..?.”

“Oh, I remember alright, Max, but at that time I guess I didn't realize how ... how ... different we were. Certainly you wouldn't want someone so different for a lab partner,”she said. She paused for several seconds as if waiting for the speechless Max to say something - anything. Then she abruptly turned on her heels and walked quickly in to the girl's locker room.

For Max the numbness was like an emptiness at his core – like a black hole sucking all the happiness out of his universe. But as he saw her back retreat through the doors, his core was empty no longer. It was filled with pain. He turned away, oblivious to the tardy bell – oblivious to everything but his own pain.

As she entered the locker room Liz turned away from the area where the other seventh graders were suiting up for PE, seeking an isolated area among the eighth grade lockers. She could no longer hold back the tears, and she didn't want anyone to see them. He had hurt her – hurt her worse than anything in her young life had hurt her. She had wanted to hurt him like he had hurt her but his face had shown no reaction. He didn't even seem to care. All she had done was make a fool of herself without bothering Max in the least.

She had expected – or at least hoped for – an apology for how he'd treated her – for his lame excuse for why he had chosen to stay away from her the entire summer. She thought maybe they could have even talked to Mr. Raff about a three way lab partnership - so they could take turns tutoring the worthless twit. All he would have had to said was 'I'm sorry.'

Instead he had ignored her – acted like he didn't care at all – and apparently he really didn't, she thought, as she fought to hold back the sobs. She'd been a fool to care so deeply about him, she told herself. Her very rational and scientific mind told her she was over-reacting – her heart told her something very different. If she'd just gotten a reaction out of him – any reaction at all – she could have told herself there at least was hope. But she hadn't – she hadn't seen any reaction from him at all..


When school was over, he couldn't even bring himself to talk to her. He followed her of course - unseen and from a goodly distance – to make sure she got home alright. Then he bicycled alone out to the quarry, parking his bike at the entrance to the cleft descending to the quarry. But he didn't walk down that path – the path he had walked so often with her that wonderful summer they had worked together on the digs below. He couldn't bring himself to see those sights – to recall those memories. He walked instead up along the cliff overlooking the quarry – but that proved no better. He found himself suddenly at the very spot that she had thrown the pendant away – thrown it out to be lost forever among the cracks and crevices of the floor of the quarry.

The tears came then. What was he doing here – on this planet? There was nothing in it for him – nothing at all. He leaned out over the edge of the cliff looking down, with the warm desert wind blowing in his face. It would be so easy to just lean further – to tumble forward. All of his troubles would be over then – all of the pain would stop. He leaned forward – balanced against the wind. He wouldn't even have to do it himself – just totter there – eventually the wind would stop and he'd just slowly fall forward – it wouldn't be his fault. It would be over quickly – maybe she'd even be sad when she remembered him. But the wind was steady – unrelenting – balancing his lean with the meager force of his body acting as a sail. Max used his powers to form a torus in the air – a doughnut of revolving air with himself at the center - whipping the wind into his face. He leaned forward further into the wind – his body leaning thirty degrees forward, fully half of his weight supported by the wind he was causing to blow against he cliffs. It would take no effort at all – merely not continuing the torus – to send him crashing to floor of the quarry so far below....

Jim Valenti had come back to the quarry searching for a site for an exercise for the Chaves County Search, Rescue, and Recovery team. The edge of the quarry appeared ideal, its steep sides would present a challenge, both rappelling down the sheer face, as well as pulling up the victim by Stokes litter The place had everything he had hoped for as a training site – just as he had expected it would. What he had NOT expected was to find a seventh-grade boy appearing to body surf into the wind, leaning impossibly far over the ledge, kept from falling only by a freakish gust out of the north that could stop at any time. Jim wasn't secured, but there was little time to spare. The gusting wind could stop at any time – plunging the boy into the rock floor below.

Jim reached out as far as he could and - keeping his center of gravity well away from the edge - grabbed the boys belt from behind and yanked him physically away from the edge.

The sudden pull from the back was entirely unexpected, the wind in his face had kept him from hearing whatever had come up behind him. Max was yanked backwards five or six feet and the torus died abruptly as he lost his concentration. Max quickly looked behind him – into the face of Jim Valenti.

“What the Hell were you doing, Max? It is Max, right? I'm Deputy Valenti – Kyle's dad.”

“I know who you are, Deputy,” Max replied, wondering just how much he had seen. It wasn't like he could have actually seen the torus – that was just a swirl of air. All he could really have seen was him leaning over the cliff edge. Max was determined to keep the secret. Perhaps it was just habit, perhaps it was for the sake of Isabel and Michael because a few seconds ago it sure hadn't much mattered to him if he lived or died, but it was important that Jim Valenti not find out. “I was just looking down at the floor of the quarry. I – I lost something down there once, and was hoping to be able to see it.” It was, Max decided, only partially a lie. On this spot he had apparently lost something quite precious – something that had disappeared as surely as the pendant had disappeared in the quarry below.

Jim shook his head. Perhaps it had been an optical illusion, perhaps the angle he had been looking at the kid ... or perhaps there was more to it than that. You got to see depressed people in the police business all the time. Sometimes young teens could get depressed and upset for no reason whatsoever – raging hormones, unrequited love – whatever. It sure had looked like the kid was leaning dangerously over the edge – like only that freak wind had kept him from tumbling to his death below. He needed to get the kid home – at least advise his folks of what had gone on. They probably ought to have a psychologist talk to him, just to be sure.

“Well, come on with me. I'll drive you home.”

“I have my bicycle.”

“That's fine, Max, because I have the Search and Rescue 4 wheel drive pickup. We'll put your bike in the back of that and go home and have a chat with your parents.”

Max looked back at the edge. It would have been so easy to go over it – just like the pendant had gone over it. All of his troubles would be over then. But he couldn't make the Deputy any more suspicious than he already had. It wouldn't be fair to Isabel or Michael.

“OK, Deputy.”

“That was sure a weird wind out there, wasn't it?”

“Yeah, I was having to lean into it just to be able to stand there...,” said Max, truthfully as far as it went.

Jim Valenti looked at the boy again. Perhaps he was over-reacting. Perhaps he was just a normal kid who did something stupid and unsafe. It wasn't like Jim Valenti hadn't taken stupid chances as a kid, he remembered. He'd just let the parents know what he'd seen – hopefully they would have a better read on their son than he did and would know what to do.

“Yeah, well don't lean TOWARDS a cliff. Search and Rescue doesn't need the business that bad, you got that?”

“Yes, Deputy,” said Max. He helped load his bike in the back of the pickup truck and they headed back towards town. He wasn't looking forward to the talk with his folks, but then he only thing he HAD looked forward to was the start of science class and that only so he could be lab partner with Liz. Look how THAT had worked out. 'My life sucks,' thought Max as the pickup truck bumped along the road back to town.


“Tell me Maxwell,” said Ms. Levant-Johnson ,”... is there anything bothering you right now?”

It was three days later and he thought he'd pretty much managed to convince his mother and father that what had happened at the quarry had been an optical illusion caused by the perspective that Deputy Valenti had seen as he had come up behind him. A smaller person, a downhill slope, the dropoff beyond the edge – he had largely convinced Kyle's dad not to believe his own eyes by the time he'd gotten home. His mom and dad had given him the third degree – asked him what he was doing out there after school at all without telling them. He'd reminded them that he had spent most of the previous summer out at the quarry – reminding himself of those wonderful days crouched beside her brushing sand away from some fossilized bit of bone – the good old days when he and Liz were still together. But he'd convinced them that what he was really doing out there was to find a site for experiments he wanted to do for his science fair project – experiments on wind energy. That reminded him. He needed to work that into the current conversation.

“Uh – global warming I guess. That's why I was looking for a place to do my science project – it's on wind energy.” That wasn't actually truthful. Max wasn't at all convinced that global warming was a problem at all – besides, technically it wasn't even his globe. Of course, that wasn't at all what the woman had meant. She was trying to find out if he'd actually considered jumping in to the quarry and he could hardly tell her the truth about that. It wouldn't be fair to Isabel.

Ms. Levant-Johnson was from Child Protective Services – something called a psychiatric social worker. Although he had pretty much convinced Deputy Valenti that he hadn't seen what he'd seen – rational people tend to believe the laws of physics as they know them Max knew – apparently Department Policy required him to file a report if he had any minor in custody – even just giving them aride back to their home – and the reasons for doing so. Since Child Protective Services routinely reviewed these reports, and since both he and Isabel were adopted, the department had sent out Ms. Levant-Johnson to investigate – to make sure he and Isabel were being properly cared for. Ms. Levant-Johnson had interviewed his parents – then Izzy. The scathing look on her face as she'd left the interview room had told Max all he wanted to know about what his sister was going to say to him for getting his parents in this kind of trouble. She'd probably do it in a dreamwalk – Max was already wondering how long he could go without sleeping.

The social worker smiled and shook her head. “That's not exactly what I meant, Maxwell. Perhaps I should have phrased it this way. Is there anything going on in your life that you are unhappy about? That concerns or depresses you?”

'Unhappy? Me?' thought Max. 'Just because my best friend – my only friend – now hates me? Just because I'm marooned on a world where I don't fit in – can never fit in? Just because my whole stinking life is a lie – because my own parents can't even know what I am or they would hate me too? Now why on Earth – and even that expression depresses me – would I be depressed?'

Of course, what he said was something different. He put on his most serious – serious but not depressed – expression and said, “I think that all of us should be concerned about Global Warming Mrs. Johnston. That's not a laughing matter. If we don't all do our part now, hundreds of years from now we'll all be dead.”

Naturally that begged the fact that hundreds of years from now they would all be dead no matter if anyone did anything about global warming or not. But he'd been doing things to sidetrack her ever since they had started this. He knew he was wearing her down.

“Uh, that's MS. LEVANT-JOHNSON,” she repeated for the third time, wondering if the boy had attention deficit disorder, or if he just plain wasn't paying attention.

“Oh, OK,” Max said for the third time. He knew that, in fact it was apparently part of a political statement of some kind that the woman believed in. That's why he'd been purposely fouling it up – to distract her. He was sure getting tired of this. Hopefully she was too.

She had already given him a standard Beck Depression inventory which he knew wasn't actually normed for seventh graders anyway, but he had nonetheless given down the middle sort of answers to except for the two questions he had intentionally tanked. When she'd followed up with him about those he had replied in ways that suggested he had totally misread the question. It seemed to satisfy her own need for superiority over her clients. Maybe she'd think he had Attention Deficit Disorder if he kept this up.

“What I meant, Maxwell,” she continued, “..was to ask you if there was anything in your personal life that's not going well. Are you unhappy with how your parents are treating you? Are you worried or unhappy about anything at school?”

“Uh, not really, “ said Max, looking vaguely nervous.

“Maxwell, I can tell SOMETHING is bothering you. Can you tell me what it is?”

Max looked to either side as if assuring himself no one else could hear, then bent slightly forward toward Ms. Levant-Johnson. “I'm worried about – swirlies.”

“Swirlies? I'm not sure I understand what that is, Maxwell. Perhaps you could explain it to me?”

“Another seventh grade boy told me that if you get the eight grade boys mad at you they'll gang up on you in the boy's bathroom. A couple push your head in the toilet while one flushes it. It's called a swirly. He says he had it done to him, and you know Miss Levy-Jones....”

“That's MS LEVANT-JOHNSON, Maxwell.”

“Oh yeah, Levant-Johnson, a lot of times junior high school boys don't even flush the toilet and it can be really gross.”

“Maxwell, I'm fairly certain that's just sort of a junior high school myth.”

“Oh no it isn't .. I've seen the toilets myself. It's not like with girls – I mean they'd flush all the time probably, but guys don't even use the toilets to pee, they use the urinals for that, so if they forget to flush, you can be pretty sure the swirly would be pretty awful....”

“I wasn't referring to the state of the uh – commodes themselves, Maxwell. Certainly I will concede that men's toilets are no doubt considerably less -uh – hygienic – than those of women and I would suppose that those of adolescent males would likely be even worse than that. But what I would be referring to, Maxwell, was your fantastic allegation that older students would do something like a – swirly – and that the school authorities would actually permit it to happen.”

In fact, Max doubted very much that anything of the sort actually occurred as well, and normally he wouldn't have belabored the point – except of course that distracting the woman was the whole point of this exercise.

“But Kyle Valenti knows an eighth grader who got a swirly last year. He says the boy's hair used to be blond and now it's a dirty brown.....”

It actually took another fifteen minutes of Max talking in circles for the woman to decide that she didn't want to pursue this any farther. With a few reassurances to Max's parents that – while clearly not very mature, Max did NOT seem suicidal, she left.

'If only,' thought Max, ' as he rode silently in the back seat of the car, '... my other problems could be solved this easily.'

Except of course they couldn't be. He knew that. He loved Liz – had since that very first day. But if he truly loved her he had to give her up – hope somehow she could find someone she could be happy with – someone normal. And he could – and would do that – but he hadn't realized how painful that sacrifice would be.