Deal
by
Disclaimer: I disclaim. I don't own anything. Melinda Metz and Jason Katims own all, the WB, Fox, maybe even UPN own some portion. I'm not them!
Author's Note: I think that Isabel didn't really deal with Alex's death in the show. So, what better time to handle it than... summer?
Warning: More mentions of suicidal thoughts, and some drug use.
Summary: It's summer 2001, and though Alex was killed weeks ago, Isabel Evans hasn't had the time to process and deal with her grief. What will her summer be like?
Rating: By chapter.
Chapter Four- PG-13
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I woke up realizing that I couldn't do it. I couldn't hurt myself, not after making that promise to Max. Because, like it or not, drowning in misery or not, he is my home, and I couldn't hurt him that much.
So, I decided to pursue other avenues of relief from the pain.
*********
It's been three weeks, and I'm sitting in a hospital room on a gurney, waiting for the plastic and acid taste of the tube they put down my throat to pump my stomach to go away. Max is at my side, and he's not happy, neither are my parents, but at least they're gone now.
I don't even know what I took. I simply went to the best known drug dealer at my school, handed him my money and told him I wanted to forget my problems. He handed me a bunch of stuff, told me what to do with it, and never to tell anyone his name. I'd just nodded.
For a while, it had worked fine. Long hauls in the desert were ordinary for me and Max and Michael, so no one worried, and during those times, I could get wasted out of society's eyes. But I started having a problem when I craved those happy, carefree, and high times all the time.
And, it wasn't enough anymore. I could get high, but I still couldn't forget all my problems. So, I dumped the safety issues, and just took it all.
Teach me to do that.
I know what I did was beyond stupid. Drugs kill you, and they'd probably have killed me if Max hadn't found me. But sometimes, I think it's all worth it, for those moments when the pain went away, and I was just soaring on an ocean of freedom and ecstasy. No pun intended.
Now, getting your stomach pumped is not fun, though.
Max is rising, probably going to tell Michael and Liz and Maria and Kyle, who are no doubt in the waiting room, what a stupid thing I did. And then my parents are going to come in and lecture me. Like Max's wasn't enough.
Apparently, it wasn't, because he leans over me again, just looking for a long moment, and then begins to speak.
"Isabel, I can't believe you did this!"
"Well, I just took your advice, Max." Completely cold, ice-princess cool. I wish I could say that I'd learned more from my time at West Roswell High School than how to be a bitch.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Remember, 'if I have to, I'll tell Mom and Dad you have a drug problem'?" I parroted.
"Of course I remember, Iz! But I wasn't trying to give you a fucking idea!"
"Don't use that kind of language, Max."
"'Don't use that kind of language, Max?'" He parroted back. "That's all you have to say after you almost got yourself killed? You promised me, Izzy! You promised me!"
And suddenly I could see how scared he was. How afraid he was of maybe having almost lost me. How he could feel almost as alone on this earth without me as I do right now, without Alex.
I reached out to hug him. "I'm sorry, Max. I wasn't trying to hurt myself, I swear! I just wanted to forget."
Max's eyes tear up, and I can see lecture mode coming on. "But Iz, you don't want to forget! If you forget, than Alex is lost. But if you remember, he'll always live."
I look away from my brother's searching eyes. "I can't remember, Max. It hurts too much. It hurts so much that my chest is so tight... I can't breathe, Max."
Max looked at me, and reached a hand up to touch my cheek gently. Then he left the room, heading who knows where. Probably to go talk to Mom and Dad.
**************
Michael and Maria came to visit today. I've only been here for a day, and it's already to freaking long. But, I'm out of context.
Anyway, it seems almost like they're joined at the hip, like they're not Michael and Maria anymore, but more MichaelandMaria. It's kind of cute. They try too hard not to be too couply when they visit me, though. It seeps through anyway, though. Little gestures, little looks.
I love them for trying as hard as they do, but I have to put a stop to it. It isn't helping at all, and it's hurting them, I can see it. I know just how they feel. They feel the way I felt when Alex didn't want to come visit, because he had to study that night. Aching, just almost hurting, to be in each other's arms.
"Give it up, guys," I tell them tiredly, not really looking at either of them.
Michael gives me a funny look. "Give what up, Iz?"
"The facade. The not acting like a couple when everyone on this planet knows you are." I pause, then realize what I said. "And probably some on others, too." Totally cold humor, but I've found that if you display one at all, people tend to ask if you're all right less.
They looked at each other, and for the remainder of the visit, didn't seem to curb their impulses to touch each other, and be near each other. I can't say it didn't hurt me to watch them, but it was a familiar hurt now, knowing that they had something I'd had once, but could never have again.
About an hour before visiting hours were over, Michael and Maria left. Max came in to sit with me for a while, but he didn't want to talk, and my throat was still sore from the tube, so we just sat in each other's company for a while. Max left when Kyle showed up, and I did talk to him, though we kept it light, and by necessity, short.
I get to go home tomorrow, and that's what I'll have to keep telling myself to get through tonight. It's funny, when it's by choice, I can be hundreds of miles from my family and not miss them much at all, but now that it's taken out of my hands, I'm having trouble dealing with the fact that Max isn't a yell away anymore.
Then again, that's my whole problem, isn't it? Dealing, I mean. Because, honestly, I suck at it. If I didn't, everything that did, wouldn't have happened. Or at least, a lot of them.
Why do I care about going home? I'll just have to find another way to lose myself and get out of this misery, won't I? It's not like it'll be much different lying on the couch there, than lying in the bed, here.
And with those wonderfully upbeat thoughts, I'm going to turn in.
***********
I'm home today, but Mom and Dad are watching me like a hawk. I'd like to do a little dreamwalking at least, if there's no other form of entertainment available to me, but I can't, not with them so close.
I'm sitting on the side of my desk, just thinking. Suddenly, a photo on the corner of the deck catches my eye. An achingly familiar photo.
It's me and Alex, taken at the prom, obviously when we weren't looking. Someone captured us deeply enthralled in each other, I think it was right before I kissed him. God, if I'd known what I would be getting, I'd have kissed Alex Whitman long before I did.
I wonder what would happen if you tried to dreamwalk a dead person? Probably nothing. I can't see how it could hurt to try, though. And if Mom or Dad comes in and sees me asleep with a picture of Alex in my hands, they won't think much about it.
Slowly, I make my way to my bed, the picture clutched tightly in my hands. I lay myself back, straighten out, getting as comfortable as I can. I put my hand on the photo and think of him, just him, trying to forget that he's dead. Because, if I think about him while remembering he's dead, all I want to do is cry, and I really want to see what happens.
Nothing happens, but it takes me a long time to give up. I hear Mom open my door, and wait a long moment, knowing I look like I'm sleeping. I then hear it click as she leaves.
Three hours later, I admit defeat with a flood of quiet tears that would have rivaled anyone else's. I don't know what I had been expecting, a vision of Alex telling me that that number was no longer operational? Dreamwalking isn't exactly a telephone service.
I refuse dinner, and Mom brings it to me, though I don't eat it. At about ten, Michael clambers into my window, and I barely look up. Max probably sent him. He comes to my side and flops down on the bed next to me, giving me that warm feeling of comfort and safety that Max and Michael's presences always do. They're so damn protective of me. I can take care of myself, but it makes me feel good that they care that much.
"Max said you weren't doing so well," He remarks. I can hear the concern in his voice under the bland tone he's covering it with, but I pretend not to.
"Score one," I mumble impassively.
"What?"
"Score one," I repeat, this time louder. "Max sent you. One point for Isabel, none for Michael." I still don't look at him.
"Look, Isabel, Maxwell said you weren't doing so well. It was my own foolish idea to come here and try to talk to you!" He's angry, but surprisingly, he doesn't get up to leave. It wouldn't have surprised me. It would have been just like Michael. Way, way too quick to heat up. I suppose it's better than Max, who has a long fuse, but who lights up like a forest fire when he does.
"Sorry," I tell him, matching his previously bland tone with one of my own.
Michael sits up next to me, and looks down at my prone body, which, I might add, is barely decent in my skimpy nightwear. But he doesn't look uncomfortable, and I don't care, because whatever destiny might assume, Michael is a brother and best friend to me, no one with whom I have any kind of sexual tension.
"Isabel, we're all worried about you."
"We?" I question. I've never been very nice to Maria and Liz, I didn't think they'd much mind if I dropped off the face of the earth. It's just my brothers they'd miss.
"Maria and Liz would miss you, Isabel, no matter what you think. And you know that Max and I both... care about you. A lot." Funny how he doesn't mention Kyle. But then again, his relationship with Kyle basically includes walking the other direction whenever he sees him.
"Hm."
Michael's been trying the polite route, but like me, that really doesn't work for him, and he's fed up with it now. "Did you try to kill yourself, Iz?" He asks.
"No."
"Isabel. You may not be going about it the quick way, but you know you are." Never call Michael anything but blunt. "If you go on this way, you're gonna die without doing anything else about it."
I don't answer.
"What's wrong, Isabel, huh? What's so terribly awful that life isn't worth living anymore?"
That's the last straw, and I sit up as the anger comes pouring out. The anger at the rest of the gang for not understanding, the anger at the world for taking Alex away, just all of the anger that I've had stored up inside of me for these months.
"What the hell do you think is wrong, huh, Michael? My boyfriend is dead! As in rotting, never coming back, dead! Plus this little fact that I'm not from this earth! You, of all people, know how draining our lives here can be. And now, after the love of my life dies, you ask me what's wrong? God!"
We just sit there for a long moment, him watching me just a little too intently. After a while, it gets too scrutinizing, and I don't want to talk anymore, anyway. "Go."
"What?"
"Go. Please."
"No. Isabel, you have things that need to be dealt with, and I know I'm the wrong person to help. But there's no one except us, and you're going to have to accept that, sooner or later."
"Get out of here, Michael."
"Talk, Isabel. Then I'll leave."
"Get out, Michael. Go back to banging Maria, or whatever it is that you do in your spare time." As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. Michael backs away coldly, and gives me a glare that could freeze fire. He backs out the window, and I hear his footsteps, moving briskly away from me.
I hate it that I did that. I didn't want to hurt him. I just needed to be alone, and he wouldn't leave.
Yeah, that's right Isabel, keep telling yourself that. It's a nice, tidy excuse for why you just hurt the feelings of your best friend.
I wish my damn conscience would stop talking so much.
[Prologue] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Back to The Palace of the Royal Four
Back to The Palace of the Royal Four Fanfic