Note: This next part is an Isabel POV. Please read before you chuck your
rotten veggies. I'm hoping to give answers to a couple questions, so
there's a reason for my madness.
Part Ten [I] Isabel [/I]~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
You think you know me. You think you know everything about me.
The usual. The stereotypical labels that get snapped on me everyday. I'm used to it.
But really, you have no idea. For how can YOU know, when I don't know myself?
I sigh, feeling slimy guilt coat my insides, but I quickly push it down.
Denial's useful like that.
Push it so far down so there's nothing left. Nothing but this hollow empty feeling. Ah, back to normal. Normal Isabel Evans, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect life, perfect everything.
Don't I wish.
Max just left. He was FURIOUS at me for what happened earlier at the Crashdown tonight. Maria told him, while Alex just looked at me disapprovingly. I think that's what really unnerved me. Alex? Giving me THAT kind of look? I'm used to his adoring sweet looks that I can see out of the corner of my eye. But this? This? It was.unsettling. And it made me feel horrible.
But then, what REALLY happened at the Crashdown? And how much did Liz hear?
Another emotion starts to ooze through my system. One that I am all too familiar with, one that has crushed my soul ever since the day I found out what I was.
A freak.
A monster.
A little green around the gills if you will.
ABNORMAL.
And that kind of fear.its consuming. It takes your every thought, every action, and turns it into a coping mechanism. A way to survive. A way to protect yourself from the world, the world that would toss you in a glass cage with probes and scalpels and leave you there to rot. But not before they dissected every bit of you, from your skin, body finally discarding away your soul.
Its that kind of fear that molded this façade. This mask in which I hid behind. To the unwitting world, I am Isabel Evans. Tall, blonde, Miss America, snob, the top of the social elite, and your typical cheerleader type.
Too bad I can't even do the splits properly without it hurting like a bitch.
But that's who I am.
Or is it?
The problem is, that I have spent so much time these past years in building and developing this façade, that now? Now I don't know whose behind it.
Was it worth it? Am I a bigger monster with my mask firmly in place than I was to begin with?
For the price of this façade, in order for it to protect me.it has to hurt people. My walls are icy and sharp to anyone who gets too close.
That is, they were.
Three years ago, the summer before sophomore year, someone stumbled onto our little secret. (I say our, as in Michael, Max and me). That certain someone stumbled onto our secret because of Michael's carelessness and stupidity.
Michael had had an extremely rough childhood. The Evans found Max and me in the desert that night but Michael (as stubborn as he's ever been) refused to go up to the car with us, and hid in the bushes. He was found by social services a day later and bounced through the foster care system like those balls that bang around through the pin ball machine. The last home he was in (if you can call it that) was a trailer with a man named Hank.
Man. That doesn't seem like an adequate term to call that rat face. He was awful. He would yell at Michael and call him derogatory names, and sometimes.sometimes he would even hit him. But Michael would never say anything about it. He was too worried that he would draw unwanted attention to us. And plus, he was Michael. Tenacious, hardheaded Michael.
Well, that one fine summer day was one where Michael was working his shift after a real bad run in with Hank. Michael had a lovely little shiner circling his eye, to which he claimed he had just fell. Max and I didn't buy it, but what could we do? Anything we said seemed to just piss him off.
So Michael came to work all angry and aloof. Even Maria DeLuca, who was working as a waitress that day could tell something was up. And she, being the nosy person she is, keep BUGGING Michael about it. Trying to get him to admit what was going on and get some help.
You can guess how well Michael took that. There was the usual row between them, and names were called, and then they stalked to their separate corners. Michael went into the back room to blow off steam, and Maria slammed down people's orders on her tables with a huff. But after a while, Maria's face changed. You could tell that she felt badly for it now. So she went back to apologize (I know, shocker. Maria? Apologizing?)
Only to come running shrieking back into the restaurant screaming her head off about powers, and muttering "Oh my God, oh my God," over and over and over, in her Maria rant-ish type of way. Max and I were instantly alarmed, especially when Michael came out with a predictable angry look on his face.
But there was something else there as he stalked out to grab Maria and drag her back into the backroom. That something that made Max and me dash after them, panic growing.
Fear, and guilt were also etched on his features.
Turns out that Michael's way of letting out his frustration was victimized on Maria's locker. He had gone to glue her door shut with his powers.
Trouble is, that Maria had walked in on him in the midst of his hand glowing. Hence her freak out.
To make a long, long story short, we ended up telling Maria. It was Max's idea of course, as Michael just wanted to tell her false lies until he was blue in the face (or in our case, green in the face). But Max knew Maria wasn't stupid, and if we didn't tell her, if we didn't tell her what was a stake her, she would have gone straight to the Sheriff with what she knew. And it wouldn't take an idiot to figure it out.
The Sheriff's been onto Max ever since he put out a grease fire with his powers in front of our mom. When the Sheriff arrived, Max bluffed saying that he used water, and mom, too stunned to say anything else, agreed with story.
Too bad Max forgot that water doesn't put out a grease fire.
So that's how Maria and Alex found out.
I know what you're thinking. Alex? How does he fit into this equation?
Turns out Maria weren't as solid as a fortress as Max had hoped. While she was still wondering in terror whether we would turn into little green men and eat her, she freaked out and blabbed to Alex. But Alex, bless his heart, saw immediately the danger we would face if our secret were revealed. I mean, he's a smart adorable little dork whose seen X-Files. He calmed Maria down and we started our happy little "I know an Alien Club"
Five pops to join. Sign right up.
And by letting them in, my façade began to crumble. Maria and Alex were worming their way into my heart.and I hated it. I was so scared every minute of every day. I didn't trust them at all. I even went as far as going into Maria's dreams to scare her a little. It was awful of me, but there you go. I'm not here to make any excuse, any justifications.
But what scared me the most was that I was afraid Maria was going to take Michael away from me.
Don't get me wrong. I don't like him like THAT or anything. He's practically my brother. I was used to having him and Max always by my side whenever I needed it, but it was quickly not becoming the case anymore. Maria and Michael discovered that their open hating of each other was really covering up deep down attraction.
Come on. I could have told you THAT.
What also scared me was the way Alex saw right through the carefully maintained façade, right down to the core. It was like I was naked or something (in a non sexual way, though I'm not sure Alex would have minded too much). It was unsettling. So I pushed him away too. I couldn't afford to be exposed like that. I couldn't let anyone see the real me, to get that close. Because who knows when we're going to have to go back home?
But over time.long long time, might I add.I grew used to the idea of having.FRIENDS. Not the giggly superficial girls I usually hung out with at school to keep up my appearance of normalcy.but people with whom I could talk to, about my alien-ness. About stupid stuff that went on at school. People to laugh with. A family of sorts, a family of friends. I could count on Maria and Alex, just like I could count on Max and Michael.
It was strange, for sure. But now, I know I wouldn't change it for the world.
Unfortunately, the question of it changing or not didn't rest in my hands. No. It rests in the unwitting hands of Liz Parker.
When she first came to Roswell, I could feel everything shifting. Everything changing. The trembling house of cards that was my life came tumbling down. And for the first time in three years, I felt that inexplicable fear again. The façade that had been softening blew up again with a vengeance.
I lashed out at her poorly done hair, catty like and superficial. I was back to being Icy Isabel again.
Max, Maria, Alex, even Michael were appauled at my behavior. Maria even yelled at me, and demanded that I apologize to her. So I did. With as much unfeeling as I could muster.
Liz was troubled, for lack of better terms. You could tell by the way she looked at the floor when spoken to. Part of me felt compassion and a likeness to her. I probably could relate to her if I tried.
But I didn't.
I could see it happening. The way Maria and Alex were taking to her, leaving me standing back in a corner, watching.
But I could have handled it. I could have shared my two best friends.
But Max?
Max, the one who has always taken care of me, the one who held my hand that night in the desert to keep from getting lost, my brother, the one I could NEVER do without?
I was already loosing him when dad went on this maniac search for "what Max is hiding." Dad became obsessed, ever since Sheriff told him about the grease fire incident. It was awful, the way they would fight, so bad, eventually Max left to go live with newly emancipated Michael. But dad never suspected me, perfect little me with her façade up and running. Without Max in the house, I was already having part of our close relationship taken away. And Liz Parker was going to further tug him out of my grasp, leaving my alone.
So earlier today, when Maria and Alex suggested we invite Liz to our annual movie night at my house, I freaked. I babbled all this stuff about not trusting her, how she was weird, how she might find out our secret and expose us and blah, blah, blah.
The thing is, I didn't even know what I was saying. It just all.came out.
I didn't mean most of it. And I certainly didn't mean for her to overhear it. And I didn't mean for Maria and Alex to get angry with me, to walk out and leave me sitting alone on the coach with the unopened movies at my side, and the un-popped bag of popcorn still sitting in the microwave. And I didn't mean to anger Max, who ran into Maria on his way home, who told him what happened.
Max had come home, and yelled at me. I don't really remember what he said, but something in me realized something. If I kept up this stupid façade, I was going to loose more than just myself. It wouldn't matter what Liz would do. I would loose everyone anyway.
It would be easy to blame it all on Liz. To angrily shout that none of this would be happening if it weren't for her.
But I'm tired of taking the easy way out. And I'm tired of the facades.
So I just sit here on the couch, and dwell on the sound of Max's voice, irate and accusing, at the sight of Maria walking away and most of all on Alex's disappointed face, the face that made my heart clench, even now.
A thought strikes me suddenly. This is the same way I felt when we first let Maria in. My fear wasn't as strong as it is now, but it reminiscent all the same.
It's funny really. Not funny, haha, laugh until you choke kind of way, but in the way where it stuns you for a minute and you cant move.
I heave another loud sigh, and bury my face into my hands, a turmoil raging within me, when the phone rings.
I reach over and glance at the caller id.
Shit.
It's Grant. My most recent boyfriend.
I REALLY don't want to talk to him right now. He's just another example of the façade I put up. He likes to go out with beautiful, petty Icy Isabel Evans. He doesn't know the real me. I've never let him see, and he's never asked.
But he makes me feel.NORMAL. Like a regular girl. And for so long, that's all I wanted..
Deciding I'll call him back when I'm in a better mood, I flop back on the couch and let the machine get it.
So judge me if you must. God knows I've done my share of it unfairly.
Maybe its time I threw away the façade once and for all and stopped hiding in plain sight. Maybe its time I try and fix things before it's all too far out of my control. Maybe its time I got to know the real Liz Parker, the one who makes Alex and Maria laugh, and the one that makes Max spend an extra hour in the bathroom cleaning his face with his powers (so did not need to see that by the way.). Maybe, just maybe, its time I stop pretending and get to know MYSELF.
Part Ten [I] Isabel [/I]~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
You think you know me. You think you know everything about me.
The usual. The stereotypical labels that get snapped on me everyday. I'm used to it.
But really, you have no idea. For how can YOU know, when I don't know myself?
I sigh, feeling slimy guilt coat my insides, but I quickly push it down.
Denial's useful like that.
Push it so far down so there's nothing left. Nothing but this hollow empty feeling. Ah, back to normal. Normal Isabel Evans, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect life, perfect everything.
Don't I wish.
Max just left. He was FURIOUS at me for what happened earlier at the Crashdown tonight. Maria told him, while Alex just looked at me disapprovingly. I think that's what really unnerved me. Alex? Giving me THAT kind of look? I'm used to his adoring sweet looks that I can see out of the corner of my eye. But this? This? It was.unsettling. And it made me feel horrible.
But then, what REALLY happened at the Crashdown? And how much did Liz hear?
Another emotion starts to ooze through my system. One that I am all too familiar with, one that has crushed my soul ever since the day I found out what I was.
A freak.
A monster.
A little green around the gills if you will.
ABNORMAL.
And that kind of fear.its consuming. It takes your every thought, every action, and turns it into a coping mechanism. A way to survive. A way to protect yourself from the world, the world that would toss you in a glass cage with probes and scalpels and leave you there to rot. But not before they dissected every bit of you, from your skin, body finally discarding away your soul.
Its that kind of fear that molded this façade. This mask in which I hid behind. To the unwitting world, I am Isabel Evans. Tall, blonde, Miss America, snob, the top of the social elite, and your typical cheerleader type.
Too bad I can't even do the splits properly without it hurting like a bitch.
But that's who I am.
Or is it?
The problem is, that I have spent so much time these past years in building and developing this façade, that now? Now I don't know whose behind it.
Was it worth it? Am I a bigger monster with my mask firmly in place than I was to begin with?
For the price of this façade, in order for it to protect me.it has to hurt people. My walls are icy and sharp to anyone who gets too close.
That is, they were.
Three years ago, the summer before sophomore year, someone stumbled onto our little secret. (I say our, as in Michael, Max and me). That certain someone stumbled onto our secret because of Michael's carelessness and stupidity.
Michael had had an extremely rough childhood. The Evans found Max and me in the desert that night but Michael (as stubborn as he's ever been) refused to go up to the car with us, and hid in the bushes. He was found by social services a day later and bounced through the foster care system like those balls that bang around through the pin ball machine. The last home he was in (if you can call it that) was a trailer with a man named Hank.
Man. That doesn't seem like an adequate term to call that rat face. He was awful. He would yell at Michael and call him derogatory names, and sometimes.sometimes he would even hit him. But Michael would never say anything about it. He was too worried that he would draw unwanted attention to us. And plus, he was Michael. Tenacious, hardheaded Michael.
Well, that one fine summer day was one where Michael was working his shift after a real bad run in with Hank. Michael had a lovely little shiner circling his eye, to which he claimed he had just fell. Max and I didn't buy it, but what could we do? Anything we said seemed to just piss him off.
So Michael came to work all angry and aloof. Even Maria DeLuca, who was working as a waitress that day could tell something was up. And she, being the nosy person she is, keep BUGGING Michael about it. Trying to get him to admit what was going on and get some help.
You can guess how well Michael took that. There was the usual row between them, and names were called, and then they stalked to their separate corners. Michael went into the back room to blow off steam, and Maria slammed down people's orders on her tables with a huff. But after a while, Maria's face changed. You could tell that she felt badly for it now. So she went back to apologize (I know, shocker. Maria? Apologizing?)
Only to come running shrieking back into the restaurant screaming her head off about powers, and muttering "Oh my God, oh my God," over and over and over, in her Maria rant-ish type of way. Max and I were instantly alarmed, especially when Michael came out with a predictable angry look on his face.
But there was something else there as he stalked out to grab Maria and drag her back into the backroom. That something that made Max and me dash after them, panic growing.
Fear, and guilt were also etched on his features.
Turns out that Michael's way of letting out his frustration was victimized on Maria's locker. He had gone to glue her door shut with his powers.
Trouble is, that Maria had walked in on him in the midst of his hand glowing. Hence her freak out.
To make a long, long story short, we ended up telling Maria. It was Max's idea of course, as Michael just wanted to tell her false lies until he was blue in the face (or in our case, green in the face). But Max knew Maria wasn't stupid, and if we didn't tell her, if we didn't tell her what was a stake her, she would have gone straight to the Sheriff with what she knew. And it wouldn't take an idiot to figure it out.
The Sheriff's been onto Max ever since he put out a grease fire with his powers in front of our mom. When the Sheriff arrived, Max bluffed saying that he used water, and mom, too stunned to say anything else, agreed with story.
Too bad Max forgot that water doesn't put out a grease fire.
So that's how Maria and Alex found out.
I know what you're thinking. Alex? How does he fit into this equation?
Turns out Maria weren't as solid as a fortress as Max had hoped. While she was still wondering in terror whether we would turn into little green men and eat her, she freaked out and blabbed to Alex. But Alex, bless his heart, saw immediately the danger we would face if our secret were revealed. I mean, he's a smart adorable little dork whose seen X-Files. He calmed Maria down and we started our happy little "I know an Alien Club"
Five pops to join. Sign right up.
And by letting them in, my façade began to crumble. Maria and Alex were worming their way into my heart.and I hated it. I was so scared every minute of every day. I didn't trust them at all. I even went as far as going into Maria's dreams to scare her a little. It was awful of me, but there you go. I'm not here to make any excuse, any justifications.
But what scared me the most was that I was afraid Maria was going to take Michael away from me.
Don't get me wrong. I don't like him like THAT or anything. He's practically my brother. I was used to having him and Max always by my side whenever I needed it, but it was quickly not becoming the case anymore. Maria and Michael discovered that their open hating of each other was really covering up deep down attraction.
Come on. I could have told you THAT.
What also scared me was the way Alex saw right through the carefully maintained façade, right down to the core. It was like I was naked or something (in a non sexual way, though I'm not sure Alex would have minded too much). It was unsettling. So I pushed him away too. I couldn't afford to be exposed like that. I couldn't let anyone see the real me, to get that close. Because who knows when we're going to have to go back home?
But over time.long long time, might I add.I grew used to the idea of having.FRIENDS. Not the giggly superficial girls I usually hung out with at school to keep up my appearance of normalcy.but people with whom I could talk to, about my alien-ness. About stupid stuff that went on at school. People to laugh with. A family of sorts, a family of friends. I could count on Maria and Alex, just like I could count on Max and Michael.
It was strange, for sure. But now, I know I wouldn't change it for the world.
Unfortunately, the question of it changing or not didn't rest in my hands. No. It rests in the unwitting hands of Liz Parker.
When she first came to Roswell, I could feel everything shifting. Everything changing. The trembling house of cards that was my life came tumbling down. And for the first time in three years, I felt that inexplicable fear again. The façade that had been softening blew up again with a vengeance.
I lashed out at her poorly done hair, catty like and superficial. I was back to being Icy Isabel again.
Max, Maria, Alex, even Michael were appauled at my behavior. Maria even yelled at me, and demanded that I apologize to her. So I did. With as much unfeeling as I could muster.
Liz was troubled, for lack of better terms. You could tell by the way she looked at the floor when spoken to. Part of me felt compassion and a likeness to her. I probably could relate to her if I tried.
But I didn't.
I could see it happening. The way Maria and Alex were taking to her, leaving me standing back in a corner, watching.
But I could have handled it. I could have shared my two best friends.
But Max?
Max, the one who has always taken care of me, the one who held my hand that night in the desert to keep from getting lost, my brother, the one I could NEVER do without?
I was already loosing him when dad went on this maniac search for "what Max is hiding." Dad became obsessed, ever since Sheriff told him about the grease fire incident. It was awful, the way they would fight, so bad, eventually Max left to go live with newly emancipated Michael. But dad never suspected me, perfect little me with her façade up and running. Without Max in the house, I was already having part of our close relationship taken away. And Liz Parker was going to further tug him out of my grasp, leaving my alone.
So earlier today, when Maria and Alex suggested we invite Liz to our annual movie night at my house, I freaked. I babbled all this stuff about not trusting her, how she was weird, how she might find out our secret and expose us and blah, blah, blah.
The thing is, I didn't even know what I was saying. It just all.came out.
I didn't mean most of it. And I certainly didn't mean for her to overhear it. And I didn't mean for Maria and Alex to get angry with me, to walk out and leave me sitting alone on the coach with the unopened movies at my side, and the un-popped bag of popcorn still sitting in the microwave. And I didn't mean to anger Max, who ran into Maria on his way home, who told him what happened.
Max had come home, and yelled at me. I don't really remember what he said, but something in me realized something. If I kept up this stupid façade, I was going to loose more than just myself. It wouldn't matter what Liz would do. I would loose everyone anyway.
It would be easy to blame it all on Liz. To angrily shout that none of this would be happening if it weren't for her.
But I'm tired of taking the easy way out. And I'm tired of the facades.
So I just sit here on the couch, and dwell on the sound of Max's voice, irate and accusing, at the sight of Maria walking away and most of all on Alex's disappointed face, the face that made my heart clench, even now.
A thought strikes me suddenly. This is the same way I felt when we first let Maria in. My fear wasn't as strong as it is now, but it reminiscent all the same.
It's funny really. Not funny, haha, laugh until you choke kind of way, but in the way where it stuns you for a minute and you cant move.
I heave another loud sigh, and bury my face into my hands, a turmoil raging within me, when the phone rings.
I reach over and glance at the caller id.
Shit.
It's Grant. My most recent boyfriend.
I REALLY don't want to talk to him right now. He's just another example of the façade I put up. He likes to go out with beautiful, petty Icy Isabel Evans. He doesn't know the real me. I've never let him see, and he's never asked.
But he makes me feel.NORMAL. Like a regular girl. And for so long, that's all I wanted..
Deciding I'll call him back when I'm in a better mood, I flop back on the couch and let the machine get it.
So judge me if you must. God knows I've done my share of it unfairly.
Maybe its time I threw away the façade once and for all and stopped hiding in plain sight. Maybe its time I try and fix things before it's all too far out of my control. Maybe its time I got to know the real Liz Parker, the one who makes Alex and Maria laugh, and the one that makes Max spend an extra hour in the bathroom cleaning his face with his powers (so did not need to see that by the way.). Maybe, just maybe, its time I stop pretending and get to know MYSELF.