Oh gosh...

Thank you all so much for the feedback!! You are the best readers one could ask for!!! Thank you!!!

For those of you wondering about "Solar Eclipse" and "Lethal Whispers"…. My muse (dark-haired, mysterious, quiet. Goes by the name of Max) has left me on those stories. Anyone wouldn't know where to find him? ;-) And school has started – as has studying… As soon as I have a new part I'll post it for you though :-D

Again, thank you!!

End of chapter 25...


"I think…" She swallowed. "I think that I have to go. I shouldn't disturb you anymore."
She needed to get out of here. Maybe she was being ridiculous. It had only been a game. But she couldn't stop the suffocating feelings from drowning her. She needed air.
"Okay," Max said softly. One part of him wanted to prevent her from leaving, but the other part was stronger. He couldn't have her here any longer. He couldn't control himself around her.
Liz tried to get past him. "I'm just gonna…"
He stepped away from the doorway to give her room. "Sure."
He watched her as she disappeared down the hall, towards the guestroom, and he took a deep breath. But it didn't help. It didn't help him to get the air more easily into his lungs. The solution to the pain spreading inside of him was easy and automatic, after years of practicing it. With a final look down the hall, watching her disappear into the room, he turned his head towards the stairs and pushed it all to the back of his head. He mentally started to bury his heart again. The sand of denial quickly covered the feelings Liz Parker had started to dig up.





Chapter 26


When he reached the first floor, there was nothing inside of him. Just a big aching black hole. As it had been for the last two years. Detached, he moved towards the kitchen, his body coming to an abrupt halt when his downward eyes spotted the white substance on the kitchen floor. His eyes slowly followed the trail of white to the small shoe, occupied by a white-stocking clad foot. His eyes traveled further over the little girl sitting on the floor and he took a step further into the room, slowly taking it all in.

Michelle was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, flour covering both her and a large part of the floor. In front of her, between her outstretched legs in the shape of a V, floated a mixture of something. His eyes took in the broken egg shells next to Michelle and the yellowish tinge of the floating goo.
"Michelle," Max said slowly, getting her attention. "What are you doing?"
"Baking," Michelle answered, like it was the most natural thing in the world to bake on the floor, without a bowl and with a big wooden spoon.
"Really? And what are you baking?"
"A cake," Michelle said, beaming with self-pride.
Max rubbed his forehead tiredly. "Aha, that's what you're doing."
A soft sound to his left made him turn his head, finding Liz walking towards him.
She looked at him with uncertainty. "Uhm… I…" Her eyes absently flickered to her left and widened when she saw the mess. She looked up at Max in question, not knowing quite how to react.
"Michelle is baking," Max explained.
Liz tried to read his reaction, but it would've been easier to figure out what a wall was thinking. "Oh."
"Uncle Max is having a guest, we need cake," Michelle said.
Liz focused on Michelle and smiled a little guiltily. "That's so sweet of you, Michelle. But I have to go."
The lost expression on Michelle's face was heartbreaking to see and confused she looked at her uncle.
"Liz not staying?"
"I'm afraid not," Max said, "We'll just have to spend the day without her today."
"She's leaving?" Michelle asked again, her face crumbling. The little girl was trying to fight her tears. She wanted so badly to be a big girl and not cry. But she really wanted Liz to stay. She had thought that Liz would stay.

Liz had never felt as guilty as she felt right then, but she felt that Max didn't want her there any longer. Maybe not even Michelle should be there. On another thought, maybe she should because Liz was afraid what would happen if Max was alone. There was something very unsettling about him. For as long, or brief, as she had known him, he had never treated Michelle with the tiredness he was treating her with now. He had always been incredibly patient. Looking at him now, his eyes moving over the mess on his kitchen floor, she thought he might just fall apart right there.
Liz got down on her knees in the doorway and motioned for Michelle to come over. "Come here, sweetie."
Michelle bit her lip thoughtfully, before fumbling to her feet and walking towards Liz. The little girl was completely white on the front, the flour mixed up with some egg white and yolk, but Liz didn't care about that. She put her arms out for the little girl. The least she could do was to give the girl a hug. Michelle crawled into Liz's lap and put her small hands around Liz's waist, as far as they would go.
"I just have some other things to do today, okay?" Liz said, stroking Michelle's blonde hair.
Michelle nodded reluctantly. "Gown up dings?"
Liz smiled sadly. "Yeah, grown up things."
"'K," Michelle agreed and lifted her head from Liz's chest.
Liz gave her a comforting smile and smoothed away the hair from her face. "I'll see you later, okay?"
Michelle nodded with a somber expression on her face.
Liz inhaled deeply, lifting Michelle off her lap, and started to rise. "Okay."
She glanced at Max briefly, registering his closed off expression, before dropping her eyes to a safer target. Michelle.
"I'm just gonna… go then," she said slowly, feeling Max's eyes burning into her, even though she pretended that she didn't notice.
"Yeah," Max answered. "Bye, Liz."
The way he said her name made her heart sting. Her name rolled over his lips with such bittersweet ambrosia that it ached inside of her with confusion and grief.
With one final look his way, and a weak smile in Michelle's direction, Liz turned around and started to walk towards the front door, feeling like something had been taken away from her. Something that was never really hers to begin with.

------------------------------------------------------------



"Liz!"
Maria's surprise to see her best friend outside her door couldn't be mistaken. But the main shock came from the look on Liz's face.
"Hi Maria," Liz said weakly, "Can I come in?"
Maria frowned. "What happened?"
Liz brushed past Maria, inviting herself in, and started to take off her jacket. "Nothing. Nothing."
"Okay," Maria said slowly, "You really have to start working on getting better at lying, girlfriend, because this really isn't working."
Ignoring Maria's reply, Liz started to take off her boots. "Is Michael home?"
"And the pretending-that-it's-raining attitude is a total giveaway, Liz," Maria said. She spotted the small suitcase behind Liz. "Moving in?"
"Yeah." Liz straightened up and brushed an errand strand of dark hair out of her eyes. "Is that okay? Could I stay here for a while? I promise I'll start looking for an apartment first thing tomorrow."
"Deal," Maria agreed and Liz smiled gratefully. "But…"
Maria watched the smile starting to slip off Liz's face as she continued, "Only on one condition. You have to tell me what happened. You look like…your best friend just died."
"That's not too far away from the truth," Liz mumbled. She took a hold of the suitcase and started to drag it over the floor, pass Maria.

Maria watched Liz sink down in the sofa and put her hands on her hips, looking at her friend sternly. "So what did he do?"
"Nothing, nothing," Liz said, her whole being sighing with bone deep fatigue.
"There it was again. Liz, you got to know by now that you won't fool me at all by saying 'Nothing, nothing' over and over again. Something obviously happened. I thought you and Max were getting really cozy over at his place. So what's with the long face?"
Liz opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Instead she took a deep breath, trying to stop what she knew would happen from actually happening. But the feelings were too intense. Her dreams were shattered, hanging on with burning, stinging strings.
She could feel the familiar burning in her eyes. Her eyes felt hot and the back of her throat burned. The first, lonesome tear slowly left the safety of the eye and started its slow descent down her cheek.
"Liz?" Maria asked worriedly. She hadn't seen Liz cry in ages. She had talked with Liz over the phone while she was crying, but that was not the same thing. Liz was strong and she rarely let anyone actually see her cry.
Liz's face crumbled and she buried her face in her hands. Maria stared at her for a fraction of a second, momentarily frozen to the spot, before reacting. Quickly, she sat down next to Liz and put her arms around her. Liz turned in her arms, letting her tired head drop on Maria's shoulder.
"Shh… Shh… It's okay, Lizzie," Maria soothed, stroking Liz's hair. "Whatever he did, we'll work it out."
"He didn't… he didn't…do any…anything," Liz sobbed.
"Honey, you wouldn't be in tears if he hadn't done something. He must have done something."
Liz sniffled and lifted her head from Maria's shoulder, brushing the tears away from her cheeks with frustrated movements.

"Michelle was there," Liz said, sniffling.
"Oh."
"And she wanted us to play this game."
"Aha."
"Just…just normal playing."
"Mhmm."
"House."
"Aha. And you were…?"
"The queen."
"Aha. I thought it was mom, dad and child."
"Max was the king."
"Right."
"Michelle the princess."
"Okay."
"The king was apparently leaving for work and Michelle wanted us to kiss goodbye."
"Kiss goodbye…? Like on the cheek…right?"
"Uhm…not really."
"Aha."
"I think this is where it went totally wrong."
"So, okay, you just skipped the kiss. What happened? So he kissed you right? Or you kissed him? You kissed each other. Well, something like that."
"We kissed."
"Aaaand…?"
Liz's head fell back against the sofa, a sigh passing over her lips. Maria wasn't sure if it was a sigh of pleasure or regret.
"It was… I've never felt anything like it before, Ria."
"That's a good thing right?"
Liz smiled sadly at the ceiling. "Yeah, that's a very good thing."
"And he didn't think so?"
Liz swallowed deeply. "I thought he did, but I guess…"

"So details, babe. What happened?"
"There's really not much to tell," Liz said evasively. "We kissed and it was…great. And then he just… closed off."
"How do you mean?" Maria asked, looking at Liz's compassionately.
"I don't know if he realized what had happened and that's why-"
"But why did he close off at all?" It didn't make any sense to Maria. She had seen the sparks between Max and Liz. Isabel had seen them. Even Michael had seen them. Why wouldn't it work?
"His wife…"
"She's dead, Liz," Maria said, pointing out the obvious.
"Not to him," Liz answered. "It's almost like I can feel her looking over his shoulder. I almost feel like I'm doing something wrong."
"This is bad," Maria mumbled.
Liz grimaced. The story of her life. "Yeah."
"Did you guys talk about it?"
Liz looked at her like she had gone insane. "What was I supposed to say? That I felt like I was tempting him to cheat on his dead wife?"
Maria scrunched her nose. "Maybe a little more discreet than that…"
Liz let out a frustrated groan and raked her hands over her face. "God! Why can't life just give me a break sometime? Why do I have to fell in love with the most complicated guy out…"
Her voice trailed off as she saw Maria's smile.
"What?"

Maria silently raised one eye-brow and gave Liz a pointed look. Liz opened her mouth to ask again, when she backpedaled what she had just said. Maria's grin widened when Liz closed her eyes and her head fell back against the couch.
"So, love, huh?" Maria asked. It was taking all of her strength to control herself. What she really wanted to do was to squeal and drag Liz up from the floor and dance around.
"Did I really say that?" Liz mumbled behind the hands now covering her face.
"You've never said that before," Maria said.
Liz inhaled deeply. "What should I do?"
"Don't sound so miserable. You're in love, Liz. For the first time in your life. You should be happy."
"I should. But it's so hard. It doesn't help the situation any that I just realized that I'm… that I'm… That I have certain feelings for him. He still told me to get out of there."
Maria's eyes widened in appalled disbelief. "He said that?"
"No, not really. He just… I couldn't stay there anymore. I could just feel the mood changing and it was suffocating me. I had to get out of there. And he didn't stop me."
"Oh-kay. This really is difficult."
Liz rose from the couch. "I think I'm going to deal with this later."
Maria stared at her. "Don't push it away. You have to deal with this, Liz. You have to talk to him. You can't just end it like this."
"I know. Believe me; I don't want it to end this way." If it was up to her, she didn't want it to end at all. "I just can't think straight now. I need to… do something else."
Maria rose from the couch and pulled Liz into a hug. "Okay, girlfriend. Just don't bury it. You have to deal with it."
"Later," Liz promised.
"Yeah. I'll be here if you need me."
Liz pulled out of the hug and smiled weakly. "Thanks."

To be continued…