Part 5/11: confessions (Maria)
I knew he didn't want me to ask questions. I could tell by the way he was looking at me. He was silently begging me just to listen to him, to trust him. So I did.
It was a quiet walk back to his apartment. At this rate, I thought bitterly, all we'll be doing all night is walking from his apartment to my house and vice versa. But I didn't really care. After all, I was so tired, I could barely keep myself from collapsing in the street.
As we unlocked the door to his apartment, Michael cleared his throat and said he probably owed me an explanation.
I nodded weakly, although at that point I couldn't have cared less. All I wanted to do was fall on the sofa, or even the floor, and sleep until noon.
Michael obviously felt the same way. He suppressed a yawn and said, "I'll just give you the short version: Tess never left Earth. I found her in your kitchen looking through your refrigerator. When I kicked her out, she left everything, including this key."
I was barely listening. "Tess was inside my house?" I screamed. Topolsky warned me...
Michael looked slightly taken back. "Yes...," he replied. "That's why it's not safe." He cast another strange look in my direction and shook his head.
He doesn't know, I realized. I never got to tell him. "Michael...Tess killed Alex." I felt like it was happening all over again. I wanted to cry.
"Tess WHAT?" Michael screamed twice as loud as I had earlier.
"Michael...don't you have other people in this apartment who might like to sleep?" I didn't want him making this any worse than it already was.
"Right," he said looking around guiltily. "Why would she do that?"
"She mind warped him so he would decode that stupid book, and then she kept doing it until there was nothing left and it killed him. Kyle was there, but she mind warped him too...she mind warped a lot of people, Michael. It was almost like a common everyday thing for her; like it didn't even matter to her anymore, you know? Every time anyone gave her trouble..."
"She mind warped me too," Michael seemed to realize as he stared into space. "So I wouldn't know she hadn't left." He turned to look at me again. "How long have you known this?"
"Since the morning Max and Isabel left. We tried to tell you, but you were already in the pod chamber; you couldn't hear us pounding on the door."
"I'm sorry."
"It's my fault. If we'd figured it out just a few minutes earlier, Max and Isabel would still be alive now." The guilt was eating away at me. It's my fault Michael's lost everyone. It's my fault Liz has lost Max...
"No, it's my fault. I knew I didn't want to leave. I should have told Max and Isabel and gotten out of there. Then I would have found out, Tess would be gone, we would stay on Earth. We would all be living completely different lives. We would all be living." He sounded like he was about to cry and I felt bad for lying to him earlier.
"Michael?" I asked sleepily.
"What?"
"I have a confession to make."
He looked at me warily. "What?"
"That key Tess left behind? I have seen it before because it was one of the many things she left...over at Kyle's house. I saw it and I thought it was important...I took it and kept it in the fridge...so no one'd find it by accident, but I guess Tess was spying on me...She's probably been waiting years to get it back..."
"Why do you think she hasn't gotten it sooner?" Michael wanted to know.
I shrugged. "Who knows?"
There was a long silence.
"I don't think I can stay awake any longer," Michael mumbled. "I think I've been like half asleep."
"Me too..."
"I saw everything when I healed you..."
"I know." I felt like there was something else I should say. I had been hit with a sudden feeling that something was horribly wrong. "Michael..."
"What...?"
But then it was gone just as quickly as it had come. I shook it off like a bad dream. "Forget it."
We slept, knowing when we woke up everything would still be the same, but hoping anyway that all our problems would have disappeared. I should have known we were wrong, that everything wouldn't be the same at all...