~~~~~
Part Four
Liz POV
~~~~~
I ended up getting to the coffee shop nearly a half an hour early, so it
didn't surprise me when Max's familiar face didn't greet me. I planned to
stay in the shop for as long as possible. Part of me knew that Jerry
wouldn't be like he was the night before. Part of me knew that, just like
always, he would come home after one of the bad nights and he would be the
amazing man that I had fallen in love with years before. Part of me knew
that tonight was safe.
The other part of me screamed that every night with Max had been safe.
I sat on one of the two couches placed towards the front, close enough to
see the street outside, but far enough back that I could turn away if
someone that I didn't want to talk to walked by. After all, it was the
lunch hour and I knew a lot of people that worked downtown. I wasn't
prepared to turn around from the person who did find me though.
~~~~~
Maria POV
~~~~~
I watched her walk in, order, and sit at a couch by the door. She was
making sure that she could run if she wanted to. Well, I suppose I cut
that plan off.
I waited a few minutes, knowing that I was early enough to just sit and sip
my coffee for a while, but I didn't want her to turn around, see me, and
decide to take off. I wasn't sure if the reason that I wanted to talk to
her was because I wanted to tell her off, or because I wanted to drag her
back to Roswell with me so that we could pretend none of it had happened,
but I knew that I had to talk to her. If anything, I had to tell her what
she'd done to us. It was something that I knew Max would never be able to
say to her, and it was something that she needed to know. It might not be
what she wanted to hear, but it had gone unsaid for too long.
Finally I pushed myself out of the booth and forced myself to walk over to
the little couch that Liz had seated herself on, making sure that I was
directly in front of it before I stopped walking. Liz looked up at me as
soon and for a moment all we could do was stare at each other. She didn't
look like my old friend anymore. Her hair was shorter, more business like,
and she just seemed. older, but I supposed she would say the same thing
about me. It really had been a long time since we had seen each other.
"Maria?" she gasped, obviously surprised at my presence. "What are you-is
everyone here?" she said, turning to look for the rest of "the group."
"No," I said. "They're back home-back in Roswell." She looked back at me
slowly, beginning to realize that this wasn't going to be the carefree
reunion that she had hoped for.
"Well it's good to see you," she said. "It's been a while."
"So are you just going to pretend it didn't happen?" I asked my voice calm
and even.
"Sit down Maria," she said, moving to give me room.
"Maybe I don't want to sit with you," I said defiantly.
"Can we talk like adults?" she said. "You're beginning to draw a crowd."
I looked around and faces instantly flashed back to the coffee cups in
front of them.
"Fine," I said, taking a seat beside her. "I want an
explanation." I turned on the couch so that we faced each other. "I want
to know why you left."
"Can't we just put it behind us, Maria?" she asked. "Years have passed.
Why do we have to worry about the past?"
"You ran away from it all, Liz," I said, anger edging into my voice. "You
weren't there. You wouldn't ask me questions like that if you had been.
You don't know what you did to us."
"I did it for you," she said, her anger coming to match mine. "Everything
I did was for all of you."
"Really?" I asked her, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "You almost got all
of us killed. Did you do that for us too?"
"What?" She looked at me, trying to gauge what level of exaggeration was
used in my last statement.
"Yeah," I say, shaking my head lightly. "When you left the fighting
started, both inside of our group and outside. Kyle nearly killed Max
himself when he found out that you had taken off. After that, nothing was
the same between the two of them. Eventually they found some even ground
where they could at least be in a room together, but Kyle hasn't spoken to
Max since. well at least not since Tess left."
"Tess left?" Liz breathed, pure shock evident in her voice.
"A few weeks after the fighting ended she took off. We haven't seen her in
years." I knew that I must've sounded bitter, but a part of me really
believed that Liz deserved it. She'd forced that supposed destiny on all
of us almost as much as Tess had, and I wanted her to know that it had
never been meant to happen. I wanted her to know that it had all been for
nothing, because it was the only thing that I knew would make her feel some
of what she had put us through.
"Why didn't you go after her?" she asked.
"She didn't want to be one of us. We didn't come after you either, and we
wanted you back a hell of a lot more. She wanted out. We weren't going to
hold her captive just because of what she was. She wanted a life, and she
knew just as well as we did that she couldn't ever be anyone but Ava, the.
Czeckloslovakian queen, if she stayed in Roswell. She finally wanted to
be. human."
Liz looked at the floor and I wasn't sure if it was doubt or fear in her
eyes as she looked away. "I answered your question," I said after a
moment. "You need to answer mine."
"I left because I didn't want to be in Roswell anymore," she told me.
"That's bull and you know it," I said, staring her down. "You left without
telling a soul. Even your parents didn't know where you were. If you had
just wanted out of Roswell, all you had to do was tell them. You know that
they would have let you go live with family somewhere. It was bigger than
that. You didn't want us to be able to find you."
"Please, Maria," she said with a sigh. "I think you've been living in this
whole conspiracy life a little too long."
"You're lying Liz. You never lied to me." I looked at her while she
trained her eyes on the floor. "What happened to you?"
"I grew up," she said, her voice suddenly strong again as her eyes raised
to meet mine. "I couldn't keep playing the little games. I couldn't keep
lying to everyone. I couldn't be a part of that life anymore. I'm normal
here Maria; do you understand that? I'm normal again. No one knows about
the shooting. No one associates me with some conspiracy. My friends
aren't only my friends because of a secret that I know about them. I'm
free here."
My answer comes without pause. "That's bull too. You know that they
weren't just your friends because of what you knew about them."
"Oh please, like they would have even talked to us if Max hadn't told me
the truth."
"It started like that, but that wasn't what kept us together. The fact
that we care about each other has kept us together. Obviously you didn't
care that much though."
"That's not fair," she said, her voice growing louder. "Besides, Kyle and
Tess left too; why don't you go and give them this speech?"
"They were never really a part of any of this," I said, trying my best to
keep my voice even so that we wouldn't gain an even larger audience. "You
are the reason that this all started. You are the reason that we all
became the friends that we are. You and Max were the center of all of
this. I mean, did you even think of him when you left? Do you know what
it did to him when you took off?"
"I did it for him," she said, raising her voice again. "It was for his own
good."
"Oh," I said sarcastically, "so years of sleepless nights and heartbreak
were for his own good? I don't think that he saw it that way. You almost
got us all killed because of what you did. Max stopped caring when you
left. He didn't care about doing what he had to do. He didn't care about
saving himself, and therefore the rest of us, when his enemies came. He
didn't want to keep going without you, and it was a really bad time for him
to stop caring about his own welfare."
"You can't blame me for that," she said stubbornly. "He's obviously over
me now, and it's better this way. Us together was. it was never meant to
be."
"You think he's over you?" I asked her. "Please! I know that you didn't
fake what you felt for him, unless our whole friendship was a lie, and have
you ever gotten over him?"
"Yes," she said strongly, surprising me. "Yes, I have. I'm married now
Maria." She dropped her left hand on the couch in between us to show me
the beautiful diamond ring. "I'm not the girl that you knew anymore."
"Obviously not," I said, still staring at the ring.
"Look, Maria, can we please just. can we just catch up like-"
"Like normal people?" I finished. She nodded softly. "Well I'm sorry.
I'm not normal, and I haven't been for a long time. My best friend would
have known that though. I guess you have changed." I looked at her,
pausing for a moment. "I have to go."
"Maria wait," she said, grabbing my wrist as I stood. "Don't leave like
this. Let's just catch up."
"I can't. I promised Alex that I'd call him and tell him how Christmas
went."
"Then meet me tomorrow."
I looked at her as she pleaded with me and I really saw that she had
changed. The Liz I knew was not the begging type, and a part of me wanted
to know what had changed my friend. "When and where?"
"There's a little restaurant in Clackamas called Gustav's. Five o'clock is
happy hour. We can have dinner." I nodded and left the girl in my best
friend's body to her coffee.
~~~~~
Michael POV
~~~~~
"So," I said, dropping onto the couch beside Max. I had been rudely re-
awakened by Isabel as she beat me with her pillow and told me to "get my
lazy ass off of her floor and go talk to her brother," so, ten minutes and
one explosion of down feathers later, there I was. talking to Max. "How
was Portland?"
"Great," Max said. "It was great seeing the relatives."
"Oh," I said, not hiding my boredom well. "Sounds like fun." There was a
good lesson in this whole conversation. Tact was a hard thing to use.
"Michael, what do want? I know you didn't come to talk to me about my
trip."
"Hey, I am very interested in what is going on in your life!" I said
defensively.
"Michael, you and I both know that you don't give a damn about Portland, so
why don't you get to why you came over here?"
"Fine," I said, not noticing as Isabel walked down from her room. "Isabel
heard you call out Liz's name while you were sleeping and we wanted to know
why."
"Michael!" Isabel said, suddenly behind me as she smacked me upside the
head.
"You heard me say Liz's name?" Max asked Isabel, paying no attention to my
newly wounded skull. "When?"
"Today," Isabel said, glaring at me. "I came down when I heard you get
back from the airport, and I was looking through the airport bag, and I
heard you say her name."
"You were looking through the airport bag?" Max asked. "Why were you
looking through the bag?"
"Don't try to change the subject with such an idiotic question," I said.
"I think we both know why Isabel was in the bag." She hit me upside the
head again. "Well we do," I told her. Glaring, she decided to ignore me.
"Max, why did you say her name?" Isabel said, trying to redirect the
conversation.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe I was dreaming about her."
"Why would you dream about Liz?"
"I don't know. Not all of us have as much control over our dreams as you
do, Isabel."
"You have to have some idea."
"I don't." Max reached out to the coffee table and grabbed the television
remote. Without turning back to us he switched the TV off and stood up.
"Now, if you think you can survive without me for a few hours, I have some
things to do." He walked out without another word and left Isabel glaring
at me again.
"Nice tact, Michael."
Part Four
Liz POV
~~~~~
I ended up getting to the coffee shop nearly a half an hour early, so it
didn't surprise me when Max's familiar face didn't greet me. I planned to
stay in the shop for as long as possible. Part of me knew that Jerry
wouldn't be like he was the night before. Part of me knew that, just like
always, he would come home after one of the bad nights and he would be the
amazing man that I had fallen in love with years before. Part of me knew
that tonight was safe.
The other part of me screamed that every night with Max had been safe.
I sat on one of the two couches placed towards the front, close enough to
see the street outside, but far enough back that I could turn away if
someone that I didn't want to talk to walked by. After all, it was the
lunch hour and I knew a lot of people that worked downtown. I wasn't
prepared to turn around from the person who did find me though.
~~~~~
Maria POV
~~~~~
I watched her walk in, order, and sit at a couch by the door. She was
making sure that she could run if she wanted to. Well, I suppose I cut
that plan off.
I waited a few minutes, knowing that I was early enough to just sit and sip
my coffee for a while, but I didn't want her to turn around, see me, and
decide to take off. I wasn't sure if the reason that I wanted to talk to
her was because I wanted to tell her off, or because I wanted to drag her
back to Roswell with me so that we could pretend none of it had happened,
but I knew that I had to talk to her. If anything, I had to tell her what
she'd done to us. It was something that I knew Max would never be able to
say to her, and it was something that she needed to know. It might not be
what she wanted to hear, but it had gone unsaid for too long.
Finally I pushed myself out of the booth and forced myself to walk over to
the little couch that Liz had seated herself on, making sure that I was
directly in front of it before I stopped walking. Liz looked up at me as
soon and for a moment all we could do was stare at each other. She didn't
look like my old friend anymore. Her hair was shorter, more business like,
and she just seemed. older, but I supposed she would say the same thing
about me. It really had been a long time since we had seen each other.
"Maria?" she gasped, obviously surprised at my presence. "What are you-is
everyone here?" she said, turning to look for the rest of "the group."
"No," I said. "They're back home-back in Roswell." She looked back at me
slowly, beginning to realize that this wasn't going to be the carefree
reunion that she had hoped for.
"Well it's good to see you," she said. "It's been a while."
"So are you just going to pretend it didn't happen?" I asked my voice calm
and even.
"Sit down Maria," she said, moving to give me room.
"Maybe I don't want to sit with you," I said defiantly.
"Can we talk like adults?" she said. "You're beginning to draw a crowd."
I looked around and faces instantly flashed back to the coffee cups in
front of them.
"Fine," I said, taking a seat beside her. "I want an
explanation." I turned on the couch so that we faced each other. "I want
to know why you left."
"Can't we just put it behind us, Maria?" she asked. "Years have passed.
Why do we have to worry about the past?"
"You ran away from it all, Liz," I said, anger edging into my voice. "You
weren't there. You wouldn't ask me questions like that if you had been.
You don't know what you did to us."
"I did it for you," she said, her anger coming to match mine. "Everything
I did was for all of you."
"Really?" I asked her, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "You almost got all
of us killed. Did you do that for us too?"
"What?" She looked at me, trying to gauge what level of exaggeration was
used in my last statement.
"Yeah," I say, shaking my head lightly. "When you left the fighting
started, both inside of our group and outside. Kyle nearly killed Max
himself when he found out that you had taken off. After that, nothing was
the same between the two of them. Eventually they found some even ground
where they could at least be in a room together, but Kyle hasn't spoken to
Max since. well at least not since Tess left."
"Tess left?" Liz breathed, pure shock evident in her voice.
"A few weeks after the fighting ended she took off. We haven't seen her in
years." I knew that I must've sounded bitter, but a part of me really
believed that Liz deserved it. She'd forced that supposed destiny on all
of us almost as much as Tess had, and I wanted her to know that it had
never been meant to happen. I wanted her to know that it had all been for
nothing, because it was the only thing that I knew would make her feel some
of what she had put us through.
"Why didn't you go after her?" she asked.
"She didn't want to be one of us. We didn't come after you either, and we
wanted you back a hell of a lot more. She wanted out. We weren't going to
hold her captive just because of what she was. She wanted a life, and she
knew just as well as we did that she couldn't ever be anyone but Ava, the.
Czeckloslovakian queen, if she stayed in Roswell. She finally wanted to
be. human."
Liz looked at the floor and I wasn't sure if it was doubt or fear in her
eyes as she looked away. "I answered your question," I said after a
moment. "You need to answer mine."
"I left because I didn't want to be in Roswell anymore," she told me.
"That's bull and you know it," I said, staring her down. "You left without
telling a soul. Even your parents didn't know where you were. If you had
just wanted out of Roswell, all you had to do was tell them. You know that
they would have let you go live with family somewhere. It was bigger than
that. You didn't want us to be able to find you."
"Please, Maria," she said with a sigh. "I think you've been living in this
whole conspiracy life a little too long."
"You're lying Liz. You never lied to me." I looked at her while she
trained her eyes on the floor. "What happened to you?"
"I grew up," she said, her voice suddenly strong again as her eyes raised
to meet mine. "I couldn't keep playing the little games. I couldn't keep
lying to everyone. I couldn't be a part of that life anymore. I'm normal
here Maria; do you understand that? I'm normal again. No one knows about
the shooting. No one associates me with some conspiracy. My friends
aren't only my friends because of a secret that I know about them. I'm
free here."
My answer comes without pause. "That's bull too. You know that they
weren't just your friends because of what you knew about them."
"Oh please, like they would have even talked to us if Max hadn't told me
the truth."
"It started like that, but that wasn't what kept us together. The fact
that we care about each other has kept us together. Obviously you didn't
care that much though."
"That's not fair," she said, her voice growing louder. "Besides, Kyle and
Tess left too; why don't you go and give them this speech?"
"They were never really a part of any of this," I said, trying my best to
keep my voice even so that we wouldn't gain an even larger audience. "You
are the reason that this all started. You are the reason that we all
became the friends that we are. You and Max were the center of all of
this. I mean, did you even think of him when you left? Do you know what
it did to him when you took off?"
"I did it for him," she said, raising her voice again. "It was for his own
good."
"Oh," I said sarcastically, "so years of sleepless nights and heartbreak
were for his own good? I don't think that he saw it that way. You almost
got us all killed because of what you did. Max stopped caring when you
left. He didn't care about doing what he had to do. He didn't care about
saving himself, and therefore the rest of us, when his enemies came. He
didn't want to keep going without you, and it was a really bad time for him
to stop caring about his own welfare."
"You can't blame me for that," she said stubbornly. "He's obviously over
me now, and it's better this way. Us together was. it was never meant to
be."
"You think he's over you?" I asked her. "Please! I know that you didn't
fake what you felt for him, unless our whole friendship was a lie, and have
you ever gotten over him?"
"Yes," she said strongly, surprising me. "Yes, I have. I'm married now
Maria." She dropped her left hand on the couch in between us to show me
the beautiful diamond ring. "I'm not the girl that you knew anymore."
"Obviously not," I said, still staring at the ring.
"Look, Maria, can we please just. can we just catch up like-"
"Like normal people?" I finished. She nodded softly. "Well I'm sorry.
I'm not normal, and I haven't been for a long time. My best friend would
have known that though. I guess you have changed." I looked at her,
pausing for a moment. "I have to go."
"Maria wait," she said, grabbing my wrist as I stood. "Don't leave like
this. Let's just catch up."
"I can't. I promised Alex that I'd call him and tell him how Christmas
went."
"Then meet me tomorrow."
I looked at her as she pleaded with me and I really saw that she had
changed. The Liz I knew was not the begging type, and a part of me wanted
to know what had changed my friend. "When and where?"
"There's a little restaurant in Clackamas called Gustav's. Five o'clock is
happy hour. We can have dinner." I nodded and left the girl in my best
friend's body to her coffee.
~~~~~
Michael POV
~~~~~
"So," I said, dropping onto the couch beside Max. I had been rudely re-
awakened by Isabel as she beat me with her pillow and told me to "get my
lazy ass off of her floor and go talk to her brother," so, ten minutes and
one explosion of down feathers later, there I was. talking to Max. "How
was Portland?"
"Great," Max said. "It was great seeing the relatives."
"Oh," I said, not hiding my boredom well. "Sounds like fun." There was a
good lesson in this whole conversation. Tact was a hard thing to use.
"Michael, what do want? I know you didn't come to talk to me about my
trip."
"Hey, I am very interested in what is going on in your life!" I said
defensively.
"Michael, you and I both know that you don't give a damn about Portland, so
why don't you get to why you came over here?"
"Fine," I said, not noticing as Isabel walked down from her room. "Isabel
heard you call out Liz's name while you were sleeping and we wanted to know
why."
"Michael!" Isabel said, suddenly behind me as she smacked me upside the
head.
"You heard me say Liz's name?" Max asked Isabel, paying no attention to my
newly wounded skull. "When?"
"Today," Isabel said, glaring at me. "I came down when I heard you get
back from the airport, and I was looking through the airport bag, and I
heard you say her name."
"You were looking through the airport bag?" Max asked. "Why were you
looking through the bag?"
"Don't try to change the subject with such an idiotic question," I said.
"I think we both know why Isabel was in the bag." She hit me upside the
head again. "Well we do," I told her. Glaring, she decided to ignore me.
"Max, why did you say her name?" Isabel said, trying to redirect the
conversation.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe I was dreaming about her."
"Why would you dream about Liz?"
"I don't know. Not all of us have as much control over our dreams as you
do, Isabel."
"You have to have some idea."
"I don't." Max reached out to the coffee table and grabbed the television
remote. Without turning back to us he switched the TV off and stood up.
"Now, if you think you can survive without me for a few hours, I have some
things to do." He walked out without another word and left Isabel glaring
at me again.
"Nice tact, Michael."