Hi all!
First of all, I wanted to say something concerning this site. I've mentioned in my author's note that I will be updating this story every Friday but I realized that sometimes the chapters are not added immediately, even a couple of days later. So, if the update is not up on Friday, I apologize. All I can do is add the chapter on Friday and hope for the best.
Magali – Lots of good thoughts there. The answers are coming. I'm positive you'll figure it out. Thank you for the feedback!!
Three
There's a few seconds of silence before his soft low voice asks, "Are you okay?"
"Max…?" she whispers, barely audible.
"Uhm…" he says and almost instinctively she knows that he wants to look away to avoid her gaze, but that he is failing.
"Max Evans?" Liz repeats. Is she really staring at the boy who has prevented her from having a good night sleep the last couple of nights?
He clears his throat, realizes that he is still grasping her arms, lets her go, and obviously finds his tongue. "Liz Parker?"
Liz looks at him, having the strangest feeling that his surprise is not genuine. He recognized her from the beginning. Maybe even before he decided to prevent her from falling.
"I…" she licks her dry lips. "I haven't seen you since high school? How are you?"
His gaze is intense and under normal circumstances she would have looked away under its heavy scrutiny. But she doesn't. Something tells her this is not normal circumstances.
"I'm good, I'm good," Max says, his voice flowing freely now. "And you? You look…" He smiles softly, his eyes roaming her face appreciatively, without inhibitions. "You look great."
She knows that she is blushing, but still has the wits to protest, "Please, I look horrible." She was just looking at herself in the mirror and she knows that she looks like death warmed over.
He shakes his head slowly, obviously not believing her words. "No, Liz. You look really great." Something unreadable enters his eyes and he mumbles, so softly that she almost misses it, "Happy."
"Ahum…," she nervously bites her lip, "How have you been?"
"Alright," Max answers lightly, but a slight nuance to his voice makes her suspect that is not the whole truth. There's something ageless about his eyes, as if he has been through more in his life than a person five times his age.
"We should grab a cup of coffee, catch up," Liz suggests.
He seems to hesitate and she watches with a combination of fascination and worry the thoughts fly through his head. At least that's what she's imagining, because his face is expressionless, a blank slate. It's strange, how she is certain that she can see inside his head at that moment, see his every thought. Still, his reply surprises her.
"I can't. I'm sorry, Liz."
"Oh," she pushes out, not for a second thinking that he would say no. "Okay then… Well, maybe some other day. When are you free?"
"No, I can't, Liz. I have to go."
She might be mistaken, but Liz is sure she can see regret in his eyes before he diverts them to the ground. She wants to fight his refusal, because even though he's already turning away from her, she has the feeling that he is waiting for her to stop him. But she must be wrong, because as she opens her mouth to say something, anything to stop him, he beats her to it.
His eyes fixate on the ground as he speaks, "It's better this way."
He has the chance to take a couple of steps, before she finds any words, "What do you mean by that?"
He stops, his back towards her, and a memory flashes through her mind. A memory of her running after someone looking exactly like that the day before. Same broad shoulders, same weary tilt of the head. Did Max somehow cause all those confusing feelings she experienced yesterday? But how is that even possible?
"I never believed you, never dared to hope," he mumbles finally.
Liz shakes her head, frowning. This man is talking in riddles. She reaches out and grabs his arm and her body sways as something akin to electricity rushes up her arm. She gasps and he looks down at where her hand is connected with his arm. He looks up at her, sadness in his eyes.
"Liz, please. I can't…"
Before she has a chance to stop him he pulls away and before she can fathom what just transpired she is alone.
------------------------------------
Maria throws the keys on the bed as she walks through the door. "Honey, I'm hooome!!"
Liz barely acknowledges her but Maria doesn't seem to notice as she kicks off her shoes and throws herself on her bed.
"So, how was your day?" Maria asks, unwrapping a lollipop and pushing it into her mouth with a subdued moan of delight.
"I saw Max Evans."
Maria almost chokes on the lollipop. "You what?"
"I saw Max Evans," Liz repeats, calmly, bordering on causal.
"You saw Max Evans?" Maria parrots.
"I bumped into him outside the Ladies at school," Liz clarifies.
"You bumped into- What?"
"It was weird," Liz continues.
Maria is staring at her friend with eyes the size of saucers as if telling her 'duh'. "Remember that conversation we had the other day? When I mentioned that Max was weird?" She spreads her hands out in front of her in an act of 'what did I tell you'. "Oh my God, this is really weird. Who have you been talking about, like non-stop, the last couple of days? Max Evans!"
"That's not the weirdest part," Liz says, which grants her a skeptical look from Maria. "The whole conversation was really weird. It was like… Well, first of all, it was like he knew something that I didn't know."
"Uhm…okay. Well, you know. That is very likely since you have lived separate lives since you moved out of Roswell. I'm sure there's a lot of things he knows but you don't."
Liz frowns. "No, that's not what I mean. It was like he knew things about me – about us – that I didn't know about."
"Us? As in you and Max?"
Liz nods. "And it was like he was trying to avoid me. He was different."
"Liz, a lot of time has passed since you saw him last. People change."
Liz rubs her forehead tiredly, trying to make sense of her jumbled thoughts. "He was looking at me so knowingly, like he knew me. Like he knows me."
"You're really not making any sense, you know that right? I mean, you were lab partners for quite some time, if I remember correctly. You saw each other almost every day in class and he always came to the Crashdown in the afternoons. Of course he knows you."
"Not like that," Liz emphasizes, frustration making her voice prickle with exhaustion.
"Then what, Liz?" Maria asks, her voice softer. For some reason, Liz is very upset by the meeting. She can feel the negative energy radiating off Liz in waves.
"He said some things. He didn't want to meet up with me for coffee-"
Maria scrunches her nose in disbelief. "He didn't?"
"-and then he said that 'it's better this way'."
"It's better this way?" Maria repeats.
Liz nods. "I asked him what he means and he says something about not believing me, that he could never hope."
"Huh?"
"My thought exactly."
Maria shakes her head, as if to shake off the nonsense Liz is telling her. "He's obviously weirder than we thought. I don't understand why you had such a crush on him, Liz. He was pretty gorgeous, but that high weird factor-"
"What?" Liz interrupts.
"'What' what?" Maria asks innocently, twirling the lollipop in her mouth. "Come on, you don't remember having a crush on him?"
There it was again. Maria remembering something she couldn't remember at all. Why couldn't she remember having a crush on Max Evans? Why couldn't she remember something dramatic as a shooting in her parents' restaurant?
"No…" she whispers, her throat feeling tight because the second she denies knowing, her feelings for Max come rushing back to her, followed by memories of her staring at him longingly in class when he wasn't looking.
"I think it started when he moved to Roswell – I mean, we were only in third grade, but you were baking cookies for him and drawing hearts with Max and Liz written inside. You were over the moon in love with him. Come to think of it, I've never seen you like that since."
"How long?" Liz squeaks and swallows nervously.
"How long the crush lasted for? Uhm… I don't know, Liz. I don't remember you ever telling me that you were over him. I can't believe I forgot all about that when you suddenly started talking about Max a couple of days ago. I should've known he never left your mind. Now he's in your dreams, huh? Actually, you were constantly making lovey-dovey eyes at each other. Max was so in love with you. It was obvious."
Maria momentarily stops ranting, frowning, "So weird that you never got together. I would have assumed you would give in sooner or later."
"Yeah, weird," Liz agrees. Weird seems to be the word of the week.
"What's even weirder is that you don't seem to remember," Maria says. "You don't have some kind of dementia that I don't know about?"
Liz absent-mindedly shakes her head and Maria takes Liz's lack of attention as a sign to change the topic.
"I met that guy again – Simon. He's actually really great. You know, he's loaded. I mean, seriously loaded. His father owns this huge multimillion dollar company-"
Giving the occasional nod, Liz listens to Maria's story, but her mind is with Max and with every passing second she gets increasingly determined to find Max again.
It is going to be easier than she thinks.
----------------------------------------------------
"So, you wanna get together to work on that assignment this afternoon?" Nicole asks.
"Yeah," Liz says.
Nicole stops and smiles at her.
Her smile makes Liz self-conscious. "What?"
"You look better today. Did you get some sleep?"
Strangely enough, Liz had the first dreamless night in five days. She slept like a dead. "Yes, I feel a lot better."
Nicole smirks. "Sleep is a marvelous thing, isn't it? You don't appreciate it until you can't have it, though."
"True."
"Oh God, look at that guy."
Liz looks in the direction Nicole is discreetly pointing and finds herself staring straight into Max Evans' eyes.
"Isn't he delicious?" Nicole purrs next to her. "Is it just me or is he looking straight at us?"
Straight at me, Liz corrects silently, feeling her heart rate pick up.
"Excuse me," she says weakly before she starts hurrying over in Max's direction.
Nicole shakes her head in disbelief. She totally saw him first!
Max breaks eye contact as soon as he sees her moving towards him and he turns, walking in the opposite direction. No, walking is an understatement. He is almost running.
Liz stops, her breathing shallow, almost sweating and stares as Max is swallowed by the myriad of students. Why is he, literally, running away from her?
TBC…