Rating: T for language (may possible change later)
Disclaimer: Yeah, I own Roswell... I also own the whole of Europe and the internet cough
Author's Note: The song used in this chapter is 'Shut Up and Drive' by Chely Wright. I don't own that either.

Liz POV

How could he? How could he just play me for a fool like that? Did he really think I'd never find out, or that I'd be the naïve fool I was the last time? How dare he?

Angry tears streaming down my cheeks, rage pumping through my veins, I tear through the small apartment we have shared for nearly five years now. I pull a case from under our bed, our bed. The thought of sharing a bed with him now makes me sick. I can hear him talking at me from the bedroom door, but I tune it out. There's nothing he can say now that I want to hear. I yank the closet open, ripping clothes from hangers, seizing others from shelves. Turning to the dresser, I wrench a drawer from its runners, dumping the contents haphazardly into my rapidly filling case. He's still talking, promises that it will never happen again vaguely reaching my ears. That's what you said last time, jerk.

Pushing roughly past him, I head to the bathroom, sweeping everything I need into a bag and throwing it into the case. If a few things end up on the floor, I ignore them. He trails after me, empty words spilling from his lips.

"Liz, please……never again……a mistake……"

Blanking him, I grab some framed photos of my family from the sideboard. A picture of the two of us falls to the floor, smashing. It was taken just a few months ago, after our college graduation. Back when I stupidly believed everything he told me. When I thought that he meant it when he told me he loved me. I step around the broken glass. I don't care about the mess I'm making, it's not my problem anymore.

I pick up my purse, and head out to the car, battered suitcase in one hand, keys clutched in the other. I know he follows me out of the house, but I don't look back at him as I throw my case into the car, climbing in after it. I turn the key in the ignition as he bangs on the window, begging me to stop, to get out of the car and listen to him. He continues to bang on the car as I start to move. He's yelling now, but I don't let myself listen. I have to get out of here.

Shut up and drive
You don't know what you're talking about
He's not the one
You ought to know that by now

My tears start falling in earnest as I turn the corner at the end of the block. I don't really know what to do now. I've been with him since I was 15. I don't think I know how to be on my own anymore.

Back then everything was so simple. We were young. We were in love. Nothing else really mattered. I'd known him since 7th grade, when his dad moved them from LA to Roswell, New Mexico. He walked into my class, and my heart stopped right there. He had these beautiful, soulful brown eyes, and a shy smile that melted my knees. We were inseparable right from the start, but it wasn't until nearly two years later I finally worked up the courage to tell him how I felt. I remember being so happy when he told me he felt the same. That I was the first person he'd seen when he walked into that class, and he'd been crazy about me ever since.

At that time, I know he meant it. He was always so considerate, so sweet. He used to come and stare at me at work. If that sounds creepy and stalker-like, it wasn't like that. I was a waitress at my dad's café, and he would sit in a booth for hours just watching me work. He used to say they were some of the best hours he'd ever spent, even if we hardly had a chance to talk. We would slip through the back in my breaks, make out in the alley behind the kitchen.

We made love for the first time when we were 17. Both of us hopelessly inexperienced, knowing how we felt, but not exactly sure what we needed, beyond each other. Even with fingers shaking nervously, sweat beading on his forehead, he was slow and gentle. He didn't want to hurt me, he told me he never wanted to. He made our first time wonderful. He made all our times wonderful. I guess I was stupid to think I was the only one.

You've got one of those hearts
That keeps changing your mind
Your heart has a way
Of making you stay
So shut up and drive

We finished high school, both graduating with honours. Incredibly, our parents agreed to us sharing a small apartment when we left together to go to college. We were so excited. We were leaving home. We were going to college. But most of all, we were together. We were blissfully happy for two years. He asked me to marry him. I accepted, ecstatic at the idea of spending the rest of my life with him. We were going to be married at the start of next year. I'm glad I found out when I did.

At the start of our Junior year in college, I found out he'd cheated on me. I felt like an idiot. I felt like I was scum, even though he was the one who'd cheated. He apologised. Begged and pleaded with me to take him back. Swore it was just a drunken mistake. That it would never happen again. Fool that I was, I believed him. I took him back. But things were never quite the same after that.

Don't look in the mirror
He might have that look in his eyes
The one that's so strong
It strangles your will to survive

He's mastered the art
Of looking sincere
His eyes have a way
Of making you stay
Don't look in the mirror

He still told me he loved me, but thinking back on it now, it never really rang true. They had become just another group of words that didn't really mean anything. He said them, but he didn't act them anymore. Instead of spending time together snuggling on the couch, each of us with a book to study, he started shutting himself away in our room, insisting he needed total quiet to work. The halcyon days of our past where we could be happy and content just being with each other were long gone. We started spending less and less time together, and there were many times I nearly left him.

But then, out of the blue, he'd do something incredible for me. Something that made me feel special and cared for. Something that would make me fall in love with him all over again. Something that always made me stay.

It was those moments that would remind me of the boy he'd once been. The shy, amiable, sweet boy that was a hopeless romantic. My first love.

Maybe he somehow sensed I was on the brink of leaving. His romantic gestures always came at just the moment they were needed to change my mind.

I'm the voice you never listen to
And I had to break your heart to make you see
That he's the one who will be missing you
And you'll only miss the man
That you wanted him to be

When we finally graduated, he took me away to the coast for the weekend. I'd never seen the sea before, and he knew it was something I'd always wanted to do. That he remembered something like that made me feel that maybe our relationship could be ok again. It was a great holiday. Not that we saw an awful lot of the beach or the sea – we spent most of the holiday in our room. The last few years, that was the only place we still gelled; in bed. They say a lot of relationships get through the rough patches by shutting themselves in the bedroom…I guess we've been trying to ride out this 'rough patch' for years now. Or at least I was, maybe he just didn't care enough.

He encouraged me to wait for the job I really wanted rather than taking the first decent thing that came along. He insisted that he could support us until I found my dream job. So I waited, wondering how I managed to get so lucky as to have a guy that would work harder so that I could wait for that job. But then again, on reflection now, maybe his motives weren't so altruistic after all. I mean, if I don't have a job, and I'm relying on him to support me, I can't leave him can I? But I guess he got that one wrong, because even though I didn't, and I was…look at me now, I just did.

Turn the radio on
To drown out the sound of goodbye
Blink back the tears
Show me you've still got your pride

Just get yourself lost
In a sad country song
Those guys that they play
Know just what to say
Turn the radio on

It was just this morning that I got the call. It was one of his colleagues, a really great guy called Alex. We've gone out with him and his girlfriend a few times in the last few months. Isabel seemed a little snobby to start with, until she lightened up and let us see how lovely she really is.

It's always nice to hear from Alex, but what he had to say today wasn't so nice.

I can't believe I was so blind. He always put her down, called her a slut, and a lot of names not nearly as polite as that. And then Alex called today and told me about the affair. How did I manage not to notice?

Tess Harding. The trashiest receptionist you ever did see. She's actually proud of the fact that she's slept with about half the males in the office, including the boss. It's probably how she got the job in the first place.

I knew when I picked up the phone and heard how subdued Alex was that something wasn't right. Alex is usually cheerful even when things have gone to crap. He's a born optimist. It was clear from his tone that he didn't want to be saying what he was. And when he finally spit it out, I didn't want to believe it. I questioned Alex thoroughly about his certainty, because I desperately wanted it not to be true. I needed for it not to be true.

Even after hanging up, I wasn't totally convinced. I was sure that if I asked him about it, he would be able to tell me honestly that there had been some misunderstanding somewhere. That it wasn't what it seemed.

I'm the voice you never listen to
And I had to break your heart to make you see
That he's the one who will be missing you
And you'll only miss the man
That you wanted him to be

I hate that he tried to hide it by telling me how little he thought of her, when he was sleeping with her behind my back the whole time. I hate it.

But I'm not sure if it hurts more to know that than it does to know he didn't even try to deny it.

I sat and waited for him to come home all afternoon. Part of me hoping it was all a mistake, part of me already dying inside because it just hurt so much.

I finally heard him open the door and come in, an indifferent look on his face as he wandered into the lounge and dropped his case.

Softly, calmly, I asked him the question I'd been waiting to ask all afternoon. His answer destroyed me.

"How did you find out?"

Not even a token denial. I guess I should be happy that he was honest. But somehow, I'm not. I wonder why.

I jumped to my feet as the angry tears started to fall. Ran around the house gathering the things I needed. I couldn't stay.

Shut up and drive

Don't look in the mirror

Turn the radio on

Get out of here

So here I am. Leaving him. I don't need him to live, I don't. I'll get by. Somehow. Tears are streaming down my cheeks, making it hard to concentrate on the road, but I don't stop. I need to get as far from him as I can. I don't know where I'm going and I don't care.

Max Evans is no longer a part of my life. I control my own destiny. I don't need him to survive.

Shut up and drive