Chapter Nine
"You were drunk again, weren't you?"
Of all the things for Liz to zero in and focus on...
They were still sitting in the street – Max exhausted and barely remaining upright; Liz sprawled out unselfconsciously on his lap. At the sound of her voice, he realized that he was idly running his fingers through her matted hair, slowly removing all traces – the blood, the dirt – of the trauma she had narrowly managed to survive, the trauma he had inadvertently inflicted upon her. In the murky haze of a fatigue, of a contentedness the likes of which he had never experienced before, Max's mind had been blissfully quiet until Liz's accusation had interrupted the stillness. Now, though, with her dismayed and saddened gaze drilling into him, reality came crashing down around him.
And it was amazing.
He laughed then – a carefree, light as air song of mirth and amusement. "Of all the things you could have asked me right now, that's what you picked? The world of science is disappointed in you, Miss Parker."
She immediately pushed away from him, putting distance between their formerly entwined bodies, but, still, even Liz's obvious discomfort could not dampen his good mood, and, amazingly, she did not sever the connection between them just simmering under the surface of consciousness. With a hard voice and an even harder expression, she accused, "that's not an answer, Max. Either tell me the truth, or I walk away – right here, right now. For good. No more second chances."
If he had been enchanted with her before what they had shared during the past several minutes, Max now knew that his very sanity, his very life depended upon maintaining some sort of relationship with Liz. Everything he had ever wanted was finally within his grasp – he had shared his darkest secrets with someone and they hadn't gone running off, screaming into the night. They had stayed, they hadn't shied away from his touch, and, to Max, it was like getting a glimpse of the unconditional love he craved so much but feared reaching out for. He was addicted.
So, it was with that need in mind that he spoke candidly. "It's not what you think, Liz," he told her pleadingly, imploringly. Reaching out a hand towards her, seeking and wanting to give support, he waited to see if Liz would grant and request the same from him. She did – tentatively, almost timidly, but, still, she eventually laced her fingers through his, and it was then that Max felt confident enough to continue. "You felt it, didn't you – the connection? When I healed you, it was like our minds joined. I saw you, and, for the first time in my life, I allowed someone to truly see me. The drinking... I did it because I couldn't risk connecting. It helped... or, at least, it used to."
She squeezed his hand. It was an encouraging gesture, one of appreciation for his sincerity. "I don't think I understand, Max."
He searched his mind for a moment, contemplating how he could make her realize just what exactly had truly been shared between them. Finally, with inspiration, he told her, "close your eyes." She looked at him warily for several seconds before begrudgingly giving in to his request. Watching her avidly, Max asked, "alright, now, tell me what you smell."
"You," was her immediate answer. Max grinned when he saw Liz blush with her admission, the rosy glow illuminated by the street lights above and the distant beams of his still running jeep. "I can smell the laundry detergent on your clothes, the soap, alcohol, and sweat on your skin. But that's not all," she said excitedly, and he watched as Liz became more animated. "I can smell freshly mowed grass... even though it has been hours since the sun set, and the dew is heavy tonight. I can smell the asphalt, someone smoking in their backyard down the street, popcorn popping in the house behind us, and I can smell the traces of my own blood despite the fact that you cleaned it up already."
"Good," he praised her, encouraged her. "Now, tell me what you hear."
"Your heartbeat, my heartbeat, the faint drone of a dozen televisions, cicadas, mosquitos buzzing, a child turning over in its bed, distant traffic from several streets over, and the flapping of a bat's wings. Max, this is amazing," she gushed, starting to open her eyes, but he stopped her.
"Wait, don't look at me, not yet," he beseeched her. "First, tell me what you taste – take a deep breath through your mouth, and tell me what you taste on the breeze."
"Grill smoke from a lingering barbeque, cedar chips from a nearby, recently mulched flower garden, and the exhaust from your jeep. It should be unpleasant, but it's oddly... relaxing, like I'm now a natural part of my surroundings instead of disrupting them."
"And none of this is painful to you, right?"
This time, when she opened her gaze to lock with his, he didn't stop her. "No, it's not painful," she reassured him. "Why?"
"Because it used to be for me. Everything you're experiencing right now, I've dealt with my entire life... or, at least, since I was six when my parents found me. Before that, I'm not sure where or what I was. That's immaterial now, though. My heightened senses, however, weren't pleasant, and they certainly didn't seem natural. I had this... need, this instinct to connect with someone, but I couldn't, because I was afraid of what would happen if anyone found out the truth about me." Liz started to interrupt him, but he held up his free hand which was not entangled with hers, asking her to wait until he was finished.
"Because I refused to connect with someone, my body used my heightened senses to try and force me to. Everything was magnified, bigger, more. I tried to manage them, but, if my emotions were triggered, everything just became worse. Sometimes there'd be days when I just couldn't handle the sensory overload, and I'd get these debilitating migraines. Then, last fall, there was this night where my dad and I accidentally got our glasses confused, and I downed his scotch in one gulp. It was disgusting, and it burned my throat, but, soon afterwards, everything was just... muted. I realized that drinking numbed my senses. If I drank enough, I could act semi-normal. I could sit in the cafeteria with everyone else during lunch, I could play basketball, I could talk to you. Do you have any idea how much that meant to me, how long I had dreamed of just... being your friend?"
Liz's mouth quirked into a crooked smile, her eyes danced with amusement, and she squeezed his hand still held protectively within her own. "After what you showed me tonight... when you healed me, when we connected, I think I have a pretty good idea." This time, it was his turn to blush. She didn't allow the moment of levity to distract her, though. Getting back to the topic at hand, she prompted, "what happened then? I'm guessing your body needed more and more alcohol to achieve the same effect?"
"Yeah," Max admitted, never loving her or her brilliant mind more than he did in that moment. He was utterly amazed by her composure, by her grace under pressure. "Looking back now, I guess I built up a tolerance, though I can't really recall when I lost control of everything."
Gently, she told him, "you lost control the moment you turned to drinking in order to achieve an end result, the moment you started to believe that you needed a drink to do anything."
He recognized a tone of awareness, of knowledge to Liz's words that she shouldn't have. "You... how do you know so much about this?"
Instead of answering him, though, she stood up, pulling on his hand in a silent invitation for him to follow her. He did... if for no other reason than he wasn't ready to stop touching her. "We need to get out here before someone sees us. I can't believe we've had this much time as it is."
"Okay," he readily agreed. "Where do you want to go? I'll take you anywhere, but we're not done talking. There are some more things I need to tell you, and I'm sure there are a ton of things you still want to ask me."
"Yeah, you're right. We do need to talk some more, but you're not driving anywhere, Max."
"Wait, what do you mean? I'm fine, Liz. After what just happened..."
"Exactly," she interrupted him. "After what just happened, I'm not getting into a vehicle with you."
Leaving everything up to her, he asked, "alright, so what do you want to do instead?"
"Fix your jeep, move it, and park it here for the night. You can come back and get in the morning... when I know you're definitely sober." Reading between the lines, Max realized that Liz intended for them to spend the night together. Whether it was because she felt she had to babysit him, because they had so much to talk about, or because she just wanted to be near him, he didn't care. The thought of spending so much uninterrupted, private, personal time with his dreamgirl literally made any other concern, any other idea, flee his mind in a rush of pure, exulted anticipation. Realizing she was still talking, though, he shook away his own preoccupation and tuned back in to what Liz was saying. "... walk back to my place. It's not far. I do it all the time, was doing it tonight before..."
"Yeah... before," he repeated lamely. But then he couldn't help himself, and Max smiled at the beautiful, amazing girl standing before him – a big, dopey grin that, if he wasn't so happy in that moment, despite everything, would have totally embarrassed him. "Okay." With one last squeeze of Liz's hand, he let go of her and ran off to do what he was told. After moving the jeep, parking it, and turning it off, he jumped out to fix the damage to his front end. He worked quickly, and, out of the corner of his eye, he watched an astonished Liz observe him. Though a million emotions were flashing across her face, the one that he didn't see was fear. Buoyed and emboldened by the fact, once finished, he moved back to her side, slipped his left hand into hers, and said, "let's go."
; : ;
"Rise and shine."
He felt a foot connect with his leg... at least, he thought it was a foot, and he was pretty sure it was his leg, only Max had no idea what in the world was happening, let alone where he was. Squinting against the dim light, he tried to roll over onto his side but failed. Giving up almost immediately, he moaned into what he quickly realized to be a cement floor. "Huh?"
"I said rise and shine. The day doesn't wait for anyone... not even you."
He knew that voice. While it wasn't one he was used to hearing, it was also one that, years ago, he had made a point of memorizing in the effort of easier recognition. Twisting his neck around and swallowing several times in an effort to provide his extremely dry and extremely foul tasting mouth with a little moisture, he finally observed the man trying to rouse him. "Mr. Parker?" As soon as the name was out of his mouth, he ricocheted into a sitting position, bending to the side in an attempt to see past his living, breathing wake-up call and into the room behind the balcony on which he was still reclined. "Where's Liz?"
But Mr. Parker simply mimicked his actions, bending over so as to block his view. "She's asleep... in the room I share with her mother. Did you really think I'd allow my innocent daughter to stay anywhere near you last night? While I might not be a teenager anymore, Max, I also wasn't born yesterday."
He hadn't even realized that he had spent the night at the Parkers until that very moment... let alone that Liz had informed her parents of his presence the evening before, but Max's common sense was at least present enough to realize admitting just how out of it he had been the night before was probably not the best idea in the world. So, instead, he asked, "uh... what time is it?"
"It's 4:30 AM," Mr. Parker responded in an unreasonably chipper mood given how earlier in the morning it was. Before Max could adjust to the older man's pronouncement, a pile of clothes was dumped in his lap. "Get dressed."
For a moment, he feared the worst, but a quick look down at his own body confirmed that Max had not sometime during the night stripped and made an exhibitionist of himself. Reassured that he wasn't indeed naked, he inanely said, "but I am dressed."
"Not for what we're about to do." Checking his watch, Jeff Parker added, "two minutes, Max, and then we're leaving. I have a restaurant to open, don't forget."
Without offering further protest, he tried to stand gingerly, but the movement was wobbly and uncoordinated as a newborn colt's first steps. He head screamed in pain, rebelling against the early hour and the rude interruption from sleep, and his body felt weighed down and clammy. His hands shook when he reached to remove his shirt. What he needed was a drink... maybe two. A drink would settle his mutinous stomach and calm his nerves. After all, it wasn't every morning that a guy was woken up by their dreamgirl's father after spending the night on said dreamgirl's balcony. Not only did he need a drink, Max believed that he deserved one. It wasn't until he found himself glancing around the concrete and brick expanse of Liz's private oasis that he realized what he was doing, what he was thinking, and the realization made him freeze. As flashes of Liz's broken, bleeding body tumbled before his eyes, his heart cringed in regret and misery even though he remembered that he had just barely managed to save her before she died in his arms.
Quietly, compassionately, Mr. Parker broke him out of his revelry. "Max, we really do need to get a move on here."
Without glancing behind him, he nodded in acquiescence, rushing to do as requested. Stripping off his dirty t-shirt, Max finally felt the crispness of the air when a cool, morning breeze puckered and raised his exposed skin. The chilliness made him dress even faster. After trading his own jeans for a pair of borrowed sweatpants, no doubt Jeff Parker's, Max then retied his shoe laces, glad that he had been wearing sneakers the night before and not work boots.
"Just leave your clothes. Nancy will put them in the wash this afternoon, and I'll give them back to you tomorrow."
Though Max picked up on the fact that Mr. Parker was assuming that they would see each other the next day, he didn't ask how or why the older man took such a conclusion for granted. While he was certainly not at his best that morning, he had picked up on the fact that, whatever was about to happen between the two of them, Jeff would be doing most of the talking, while Max merely listened and occasionally confirmed that he was paying attention. He also somehow knew that, after that morning, his life would never be the same.
Wordlessly, he obeyed and then followed Mr. Parker down Liz's balcony ladder. Once both of their feet were solidly placed upon the alley's pavement below, Jeff started stretching – twisting his torso, contorting his arms across his chest and behind his neck, reaching down to touch his toes, and Max mimicked his actions. After several minutes of warming up, Jeff simply started to jog, never once looking back to make sure that Max was following him, simply taking it for granted that Max would. And he did.
They ran for several minutes before Mr. Parker spoke up, his breathing only slightly more noticeable than normal. "Before we go and talk with your parents, we're going to sweat out all that booze you consumed last night."
"I...," he started to argue, not wanting Liz's dad to know such things about him, but he was immediately interrupted.
"And don't try to deny it. You smell like a distillery. In fact," Jeff mused out loud, glancing in his direction out of the corner of his dark, knowing eyes, "just what in the world were you drinking last night? You smell awful... and you look even worse."
It was too late to deny, so Max elected to try being candid. "I really don't know. Plus, I slept on a concrete floor. Outside. Trust me, I feel even worse than I look."
Solemnly, the older man replied, "it could have been worse. You could have spent the night in the drunk dank... or the morgue."
"Just what exactly did Liz tell you about last night?"
"Well, for the both of your sakes, I hope the truth – that she found you on her way home from Maria's, drunk and attempting to drive. She made you get out of your vehicle, took your keys, and had you come home with her. She said once you got back to the apartment, it didn't take you long to pass out, and that's when she came to talk to me."
From what Max could remember, aside from the whole part where he had hit Liz while attempting to drive and it was the accident which made him get out of the jeep, Mr. Parker pretty much knew the truth. Despite his best intentions, it had been impossible for Max to stay awake much longer than what it took to walk back to the Crashdown and climb the ladder to Liz's balcony. Between all the alcohol he had consumed and then the ensuing exhaustion from healing Liz's wounds, he had been dead to the world mere minutes after arriving at the Parker's residence... which meant that he and Liz still had a lot to discuss.
He couldn't say any of that to Jeff, though, so, instead, he asked – genuinely caring about the older man's response, "she's not in trouble, is she?"
"For doing the right thing?"
"For bringing me – a guy – back to her... well..."
"Liz was upfront about her actions, and her mother and I trust her, Max, because she's never given us a reason not to."
That stung. Even if Mr. Parker hadn't said so, his meaning was clearly implied: that Max had given his parents plenty of reasons not to trust him. In the meantime, his lungs were also starting to sting. Though it had only been a few months since he had been booted from the basketball team, he was clearly out of shape, and, after only ten minutes of running, he was feeling the pinch of his body's deficiencies. For someone whose ability to escape, to run from danger was possibly imperative to his basic survival, the realization was quite telling. It was like one wake up call after another. The first and most powerful had been hitting Liz with his jeep, then it had been his reactions to waking up so hungover that morning, and, now, it was the fact that a 45 year old man was clearly out running him.
He wasn't allowed to contemplate his thoughts for long, though, because Jeff was already moving on to yet another topic of discussion. "And I don't want you to be upset with Lizzie either. Yes, she broke your confidence by confiding in her mother and I, but she did so because she cares, and she did it because she knew, if anyone could understand what you're going through, it would be me."
That made Max stop in his tracks, his body coming to an abrupt halt. "What?"
"Keep up, Max," Mr. Parker ordered him. "Like I told you before, I don't have all morning."
Pushing himself to catch back up to the older man, once they were even again, he asked more coherently, "what did you mean by that – that you'd be able to understand what I was going through?"
"My father died when I was young. I was an only child; my mother, by that point, was very involved in her career; and I had no aunts, uncles, or cousins to turn to. So, instead, I turned to music. I joined a band; we started hitting the local club scenes... well, as local and as clubby as all the honkey-tonk bars across the state of New Mexico can be considered; and, as it became more and more apparent that music was neither going to be my ticket from rags to riches nor the answer to my loneliness, my pain, I started to drink. I met a girl, and she partied as well, so that only compounded the problem. Eventually, the band fell apart... and so did I, but I didn't realize it. Instead, I just kept on drinking. Then, one night, I got drunk and killed that very same girl."
Jeff paused then. Whether he as merely taking a break in order to regroup, allowing Max a moment for the story to sink in, or waiting for Max to respond, he didn't know, so he elected to just remain silent, struggling to run and breathe beside the suddenly introspective man beside him. Eventually, though, Mr. Parker broke the silence once more.
"Thankfully, it was a one car accident, so I only ruined one life that night. We hit a tree, by the way... in case you were wondering. And I was so drunk when the accident happened that I passed out behind the wheel and had no idea what had occurred until I woke up the next morning in jail. Not only did I have to contend with the fact that I had just killed the woman I loved, but I also had to deal with my mother's disappointment, her doubt in her abilities as a parent, and a murder trial. I was convicted of vehicular manslaughter – only because I was a first time offender and because the girl's family didn't press for a harsher charge – and spent three years in prison, the first six months of which were in a rehab facility. However, I was lucky, because, even though my actions and my inability to admit that I had a problem took an innocent life, that accident also saved my own. I don't think I ever would have gotten help if someone hadn't forced me to, and, if I wouldn't have gotten help, I never would have met Nancy, we never would have gotten married, we never would have had Liz, and we never would have had our amazing life together, the three of us."
"While I appreciate the fact that you're confiding in me," Max prefaced his question, pausing for a deep, bracing, much needed breath. "Why are you telling me all of this?"
"Because, apparently, my daughter cares about you; because she asked me to help you, and I try to give my daughter everything I possibly can; and because I don't want to see what happened to me happen to you, too, Max."
He had to stop then. Doubled over and gasping for air, sweat dripping from his pores, he queried, "so, what does that mean?"
"That means a lot of things," Jeff answered, pausing as well, though he was by no means as winded as Max was. "It means that you're going to start going to AA and that I'm going to be your sponsor. It means that you're going to get a job – at the diner, in fact, and you're going to start paying your parents back for all the grief you've caused them: court fees, fines, tickets – whatever the case may be. And it also means that, every morning, the two of us are going to go running together, bright and early before you help me open up the restaurant. I find that running helps to ground me, helps to center me, and I think you could benefit from that, Max. It also means that we're going to cut across the park to get to Murray lane, because our jog is almost over, and we have a conversation with your parents awaiting us. I already called them – last night, in fact, so they wouldn't worry about you needlessly, and they're willing to hear both what I have to say and what you need to say to them."
"They're not going to send me away?"
"Not if you take this opportunity and get your life together."
"I... I don't know what to say," he stumbled with his words, flabbergasted at what Jeff Parker was offering him. "Thank you."
"First of all, you're thanking the wrong person. It's Liz who deserves your gratitude. And, secondly, don't thank me yet. We have a long road ahead of us, and I can tell you right now that it's not going to be a pleasant trip."
"That's okay."
"Well, alright then," Jeff nodded in approval, slapping Max on the back as well. "Now, get yourself in gear, because I've barely broken a sweat, and I don't like to waste a good run."
Before he could respond, Mr. Parker was already shooting forward, leaving Max to follow in his dusty path. And he did so, dutifully. By the time they reached Murray Lane and his front yard, the sun was just starting to rise, peeking up over the tops of Roswell's residential roofs. The moment, the sight, felt like a good omen, and, for the first time in a long time, Max smiled.
