Biting your lips makes them redder. Sexier. Sometimes I do it until they bleed. Which, really, is not sexy at all. But I'm sure there must be a happy medium. I'm trying to find it now, as I'm standing outside the bus stop in this insanely cold weather. And, the careless and unthinking fool that I am, I don't even have my jacket. I thought that it was too bulky and too much of a burden, but God, what I wouldn't give to have it now. I don't think I was thinking too clearly when I was packing. I don't even remember what I packed. Great. They probably aren't even my clothes. Georgie's always storing her uglies in my closet.

I only have one hundred and sixty-four dollars. That's enough for a hotel room for what, two, three days, tops? After that, I'm out of ideas. I've been told I'm not much of a thinker. I need to find a job. And if I can get a job at a hotel, I could live there too. That's about the extent of my thinking right now.

I don't know why I picked Pine Valley. No reason, really, except that it sounded nice. Beyond that, it was just a speck on a map. A tiny, insignificant speck. Maybe that's what appeals to me. I can become something new here. Something other than Maxie Jones, the girl who always gets screwed over, literally as well as figuratively. Port Charles was suffocating me; seeing the same people that I've seen everyday for my whole entire life was getting tiresome. Or maybe I'm just trying to outrun the despair that's been closing in on me ever since Zander died.

I still can't believe it. I'm not sure if I actually do. I've read a lot about the grieving process, and I think I might be stuck in the denial stage. Because I haven't accepted that Zander's dead. In fact, I feel pretty strongly that he's still alive. I think I've gone crazy. God, I miss him.

He had always been some sort of distant figure to me. The kind of guy that Mac would warn me to stay away from, but that I still couldn't help but have a crush on. I mean, he was really, really good-looking. So goddamn gorgeous. But not only that, he was genuinely nice. I could tell. I remember, maybe two years ago, telling him about the transplant. And I didn't even know him. But he was so earnest, so sincere, that I knew he would listen. That he would care. And that what I was saying actually meant something to him. That might have been when my crush turned into full-blown, slavish devotion. But soon after that Kyle came into my life, and Zander Smith retreated back into the periphery.

But I had heard things. I would have been hard-pressed not to. I knew that he had gotten himself involved with the mob again. I mean, I had heard stories about his past: Drug dealing, kidnapping, shootings. I wasn't sure if I ever believed them though, no matter what Mac would say. But after Emily left him for Nicholas, he started working for Faith Roscoe, and he had become something of a menacing figure around town. But not to me. By that time Kyle was gone and I was bored and lonely, a teenaged girl with too much time on her hands. And I would see him around town in those suits, looking so wealthy, so powerful, so old, and I would will him to look at me. To smile at me, his eyes intense like the way I remembered. But he never did.

And then everything went crazy.

I don't even remember what I had been doing in that empty suture room. But hearing him hiss my name, coming out of the shadows, made my breath catch and my heart still. I helped him then, not even knowing why the police were hunting for him, only knowing that he hadn't done anything wrong. There had never been any doubt in my mind.

I brought him to my house, to my bedroom, only mildly embarrassed about the underwear on the floor and the self-consciously au courante posters on the wall. He didn't seem to care, sitting there while I hurriedly picked up my dirty clothes. Eventually I relaxed. But lying there, my mind too jumbled and jangled to attempt sleep, when I knew he was on the floor only inches away, was torture. I hope my feelings for him weren't as obvious as I sometimes felt they were.

I know that he didn't feel that way about me. How could I not, since he was always going on about his love for Emily. God, how I hated her. Usually I like to hold people accountable for their own actions. But Emily drove Zander to crime, to Faith. She told him that she loved him; she married him, all the while knowing it was a lie. She broke his heart, really she did. And in a way, she broke mine.

My favourite memory was prom, even though I didn't go. Well, not technically. My picture certainly wouldn't appear in any of the yearbook photos. But I wouldn't have had it any other way. Just being in Zander's arms, being close to him, was a million times better than being with anyone else, much less any guy from my high school. And for a second, after he finished lamenting about his none-too-great experience at Emily's prom, I could imagine that Zander felt the same way about me as I did about him, and that there was no one else out there but us.

It was a moment. One of the few pure moments I've ever had.

And then the fire.

That's when the good memories stop. And no one understands how I feel. Cheer up, they say, Mac's getting better! Your mother has really worked wonders! And I am happy, happy and relieved that Mac is okay, that he's going to recover. The guilt I would have felt had he been killed would have been too much to bear. But I'm not happy that Felicia's back. I refuse to refer to her as my mother, since she hasn't earned that title since throwing it away like so much garbage. She abandoned me, abandoned Georgie. And now it's too late. I don't need her anymore. I don't need anyone but myself.

Love only comes once, Maxie. His words, so soft, so sweet. Don't miss it.

He needn't have worried.

I hadn't missed it.

Author's Note- Okay, I'm clueless as to the direction of this story, so I thought I'd give myself a bit of a breather and bring in two of my favourite characters, Maxie and Zander. Yes, I have the attention span of a gnat. Plus, I'm a total Zander fangirl. How could you not be? Chad Brannon can act circles around half of daytime! And yet he got but a fraction of the screentime that Maurice Bernard had...and Sonny is a terrible character! I have serious hatred for that character...but anyway...