Disclaimer: I own zilch.
Spoilers: season 1-2 I guess
AN: AU FROM DEPARTURE. English is not my native language, so please excuse any grammar errors.
Chapter One
Tu me manques tellement
I miss you so
I can't remember what I did that day, it's a complete blur. Everything leading up to that moment has been wiped from my mind, like that single second, that horrible memory, was just to big, needed too much space in my brain to let anything else in there remain.
Oh, I know what I did that day. I know that me and Maria visited him and that he talked to Isabel on the phone. I know that I skipped breakfast that morning and that right before Sherriff Valenti came in Michael and Max were arguing over a movie.
I know that these things happened, but I can't visualize them. I can't go back and view events in my mind's eye. It didn't really bother me before, ofcourse I hadn't really had time to think about it, I was way too busy trying to solve his murder. But now, with Tess gone, I've had more time to think about it and I wish I did remember.
I wish I remembered what he was wearing that day, the way he laughed with us, his nervous expression as he called Izzie. But I can't and somehow that makes the fact that he's gone even harder to deal with.
It hurts to speak his name, hurts to even think it for that matter. Everytime I hear Maria mention him (which she does incessantly, I guess it's part of her grieving process) I feel like someone is twisting a knife in my chest and I feel like I can't breathe. I see his empty seat in AP English and it takes all of my strength to keep the tears at bay.
--
I sigh heavily as I close my journal and try to let these downer-thoughts go. He wouldn't want me to feel like this. I lean back against the tree where I'm seated and look around at the other high school kids enjoying their lunches. I don't eat with the group anymore, haven't eaten with them since the big fall out over my theories that he…that Alex was killed by an alien. It's not resentment on either part, it's just that for weeks I was completely on my own. And when I finally had Maria on my side again I realised that I hadn't missed her, hadn't missed any of them really. At first I just tought it was my grief over losing him that was creating those feelings, but even when I heard that they were leaving I didn't really feel sad, I felt betrayed, yes, they were leaving the Sherriff, Kyle, Maria and me to fend for ourselves while his...Alex' KILLER was still out there. Oh, I'm not saying that my grief didn't play a huge part in my decision to part ways with the rest of the 'I-Know-An-Alien-Club', because it did. But it's more than that. Alex and I first met when we were still in diapers and couldn't utter a single word besides 'blah' and we were like siamese twins from that moment on, then Maria joined us in kindergarten and by the time we reached grade school our group dynamic had changed. Maria was, is and probably always will be a dramaqueen and that tends to lead to some tension between us from time to time, Alex became our buffer, the keeper of the peace, both mine and Maria's confidant, but my relationship with him always ran just a little deeper than hers, somehow just a little bit more meaningfull. But still, while we had some bumps in the road, Maria and I were very close and I'd throught that the three of us wouls stay together forever. And then he died and Maria abandoned me, her now only best friend and though I can't really blame her, she was grieving too, it made me see that she wasn't the friend I thought she was. After Maria, Michael and I had found the translation and the pod squad was busy dealing with their issues and Maria was back to being a wreck, I had some time to really evaluate my life and the way I had been living it and what I saw didn't make me very happy. I wasn't living my life, I was living Max Evans's, or at least the way he wanted, needed, me to live it. Somewhere along the way, in my infatuation and misguided loyalty that I mistook as love for the boy (and that's what he is, no matter how much he thinks otherwise) that saved my life, I lost my sense of direction and my sense of self, I transformed into what he wanted me to be because I thought I owed him that. I don't think that anymore, after the way he treated me I don't owe him anything. I want to be that girl again, I want to be the Liz Parker I knew again, that girl who I could actually respect, but it's going to take time 'cause she's damaged, she's broken by what's come to pass. I'll never be completely the same, but that's to be expected, I just lost one of the most important people in my life. But I've made my decision, I'm going to get her back, I'm not going to let anybody tell me what to do or how to live ever again. That's why I've seperated myself from my 'friends', they'd never let me change, never let me grow. I'm going to do what I want, live the way I'm going to live, because if his death has taught me anything it's that life's too short to do anything else. My musings are interrupted when a shadow falls over me, I look up to find his tall figure standing next to me, his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved deep inside his jeanspockets. He looks at me with uncertainty in his eyes, something I've never seen in him before. 'Can I join you?' he asks. And to my surprise I find myself nodding.