Part Four

February 14th 2001

Liz's heart skipped a beat as the mail dropped through the letterbox. As stupid as it seemed, she was desperate to see if her now infamous 'secret admirer' would send her yet another card. In fact, the thought of receiving one from him once again was practically the only thing that had been keeping her going the past couple of months.

After Valentine's last year, Liz had taken Maria's advice and kept quiet about the anonymous cards, and she had carried on in her relationship with Scott as if nothing had ever happened. As time went on and sophomore year came to an end, she found herself thinking less and less of the mysterious sender of the cards and more about her current relationship with Scott. They'd been getting on really well over the last few months and Liz found her feelings for him growing steadily. Although they'd kept their relationship fairly innocent until then, by the end of August, and with junior year fast approaching, Liz finally decided that she was ready to take the next step with him.

Her first time was not exactly what she had expected it to be. She had been incredibly nervous, and although her boyfriend had done everything he could to help her relax, the whole experience had just been awkward and uncomfortable. Since then, they'd been intimate several more times, but each time, Liz felt that something was missing. Sure, Scott was sweet and loving and made sure that he paid attention to her needs, but making love to him wasn't as all-consuming and passionate as she had hoped and always imagined it would be.

Needless to say, it didn't really come as a surprise to her when, in December, Scott had sat her down and told her that he didn't think they were working anymore. Even though she knew that he was telling the truth – that they'd really only been going through the motions for the past few weeks – it still upset her that they were no longer together.

She had moped about the house for a few weeks afterwards, but one evening when she was cleaning her room, she came across the old Valentine's cards that her 'secret admirer' had sent her for the past three years. Suddenly a flicker of hope rose up inside her chest. Maybe this year, her admirer would send her another Valentine and maybe she could find out who he was.

With a sigh, Liz snuck a glance at the pile of letters on the doormat. Sure enough, there was a pink envelope lodged between her mother's cookery magazine and the phone bill. She reached down and picked it up, closing her eyes briefly as she plucked up the courage to peek at the handwriting on the front.

It was from him.

Excitedly holding the card to her chest, she rushed up the stairs and shut herself inside her bedroom. She tore open the seal of the envelope and it pulled out. Again, it was that same teddy bear on the front, but this time, a cute girl bear was next to him, placing a kiss on his cheek.

She didn't know what she'd expected to read inside the card, but when she opened it up, she found herself sighing with both disappointment and frustration – yet again, it was signed, 'Love, Your Secret Admirer', with no other indication of who it might be from.

God, why would someone send her all these cards if he didn't want her to know who he was?

Her thoughts briefly focused on the fact that this year and for the past few years (apart from when she was with Scott, obviously), she'd also been sending anonymous cards; God, she hadn't been able to resist and had even done it again this year. The thing was, she didn't even consider that to be on the same scale as her predicament. For a start, Max was the most popular guy in school, and hers were most likely just three cards in a pile of dozens. After all, it wasn't like Max would actually have spent any time trying to figure out who had sent them. He had better things to do; including dating gorgeous girls like Amanda Thomas and the rest of the junior class. So, she'd decided once more not to send him a card this year. Last year, her reason had been obvious. She'd been in a pretty serious relationship and it really wasn't appropriate to think about another guy at the same time.

It didn't even cross her mind that the very person she had been secretly admiring for so long could be the same guy who'd been admiring her from afar for just as long.

And in any case, why would he be interested in someone like her anyway?

March 25th 2001

It was stupid. Max had once again given in and sent a Valentine to Liz Parker for the fourth year in a row, and although it should have been obvious, he still didn't know why he kept doing it; or why he made sure not to give away his identity. What he did know however, was that something was stopping him from going up to her and asking her out, thereby admitting the truth in the process.

Maybe it was because he was popular, or because Liz was considered a brain by his friends and therefore not worth his time, but every time he even entertained the idea of spilling his guts to her, a small voice in the back of his head warned him not to.

Which was why, when the opportunity arose for him to get his mind off her, he complied eagerly; and now today, he was feeling over the moon.

Max had a date tonight with the nicest girl he'd met in a long time (excluding Liz, of course, but he didn't really know her that well, so he wasn't counting her). He hadn't really dated all that much since he'd broken up with Amanda last year and then Kyle had asked her out, but a couple of weeks ago, he'd met someone new at a party…a sophomore named Jennifer Scott. She was pretty, with wavy dark hair and smiling hazel eyes. Max couldn't say for sure what it was, but something just drew him to her and when his friend Alex introduced them, he found himself talking animatedly with her for the entire night. He offered her a lift home and as he pulled up outside her house, she asked him for his number.

He hadn't really expected her to call, especially since they'd both been drinking that night and neither of them were entirely sober, but lo and behold a couple of days later, she called. They went to the movies that weekend and Max found himself having a great time with her. Now, two weeks later, here he was getting ready for their third date – something he hadn't experienced with any girl since Amanda. He knew how important the third date could be for a relationship and he also knew that Jennifer could be expecting him to want to take the relationship further, and if he was being honest, Max wasn't totally opposed to the idea. It wouldn't be his first time – he'd slept with Amanda a few times and a couple of girls before that and let's face it, Jennifer was hot! He couldn't deny that he was physically attracted to her. Maybe getting laid tonight was just what he needed.

In any case, if it didn't work out afterwards, then it didn't work out; but if it did…well then, he would have a gorgeous, smart and funny girlfriend, and the sex would just be an added bonus.

October 15th 2001

Max's third date with Jennifer had worked out and now, six months later they were still happily together (and the sex was great). Although Max thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Jennifer, he found he was also noticing Liz more and more. It didn't help that this year they shared the majority of their classes and he occasionally found himself chatting to her in class or asking her about their homework assignments outside of class. Because many of their classes were the same, it also meant that they had similar free periods. He would often find her working pretty much alone in the library and occasionally he would join her at the table she was working on. They'd work almost in silence most of the time (well, it was a library, after all), only speaking when one of them was having a problem with an assignment and needed help.

Over the last few weeks, he'd gotten to know her even better. Despite being good students, they had both been struggling in their shared Physics class and the whole class in general had received bad grades in the recent midterms. In any case, Liz's mom had bumped into Max's mom not long after and had apparently discussed finding an outside tutor to help them out. So, it turned out that he and Liz were now spending Thursday evenings in a joint tutoring session with a local college professor; which meant that, since Liz did not yet have a driver's license, he was required to pick her up from her house and drive them both to the professor's house and back every week.

Although he felt a little awkward being in such close proximity to her for almost three hours in one night, especially considering that he had a steady, loyal girlfriend, who as far as everyone at school was concerned, he loved very much, he couldn't help looking forward to spending the time with her every week. He was beginning to see more of the real Liz Parker; the funny, slightly kooky persona that not many kids at school knew about. On the odd occasion, he even imagined confessing to her that he'd been her secret admirer all this time, but if he was totally honest, he wasn't sure that he could see them working as a couple in the world of high school politics. And anyway, he hadn't seen her with a new boyfriend since Scott. Maybe she just wasn't interested in a relationship right now.

No matter how hard he tried to just forget about Liz and concentrate on his relationship with Jennifer, he still couldn't help offering her a ride home from school occasionally when he saw her walking home. After all, the offer was reasonable, since they lived only a couple of blocks from each other and it was almost a forty-five minute walk back from the high school. It really didn't seem like that much of a big deal anyway; because Jennifer was usually in the car with them too and she didn't seem to mind.

But, as much as he'd like to say that things with Jennifer were going badly and that if her could, he would dump her and ask Liz out instead, he couldn't. Jennifer was a great girl and he really didn't see their relationship ending any time soon.

So, for now, he pushed any lingering thought of her aside and continued on with life as normal.

Liz was also pretty content with her life right now. It had been ten months since she and Scott had broken up, and although she'd been on a few dates in that time, she hadn't had any proper boyfriends, which was fine by her. She felt that she needed a breather for now and in turn, that gave her more time to concentrate on her schoolwork. It had been a pretty tough year so far, and if she had any chance of getting into her top choice college, she really needed to work hard for it.

It didn't help that she'd been failing in Physics recently, although it didn't seem so bad, because apparently the whole class was finding the course difficult and therefore were getting bad grades. Liz couldn't believe it however, when her mom suggested that she go for private lessons with a tutor…and with Max Evans no less!

She'd barely spent any time thinking about him this year, preferring to concentrate more on school and less on boys; but still it was weird being alone with him in his car for close to an hour and also spending two hours in a room with only him and their tutor every week. She knew that he had a girlfriend, a pretty serious one if their reputation around school was anything to go by, but it still felt kind of nice to spend some time with him away from the high school social ladder. She was also getting used to being in close proximity to him without going all shy and girly. In order to have a normal, simple conversation with him about homework and tutorial arrangements, she found that she had to put all thoughts of him as an attractive guy to the back of her mind and pretend that she was just talking to one of her friends. She just hoped that she didn't turn red and give away her feelings whenever they spoke.

She found it rather flattering that he often chose to sit with her in the library when they had a free study period. All of her own friends had different schedules and were usually in class during those times, so she would end up studying on her own. But Max would come in occasionally and instead of finding himself another table to sit at alone, he would ask to join her.

It was nice, like a reminder that they had indeed known each other for all that time before junior high began. She had to smile at the fact that even six years on, he would still sometimes call her Lizzie, the name she went by in elementary school. When they first started at West Roswell Junior High, she'd decided that 'Lizzie' sounded too young and that she would be going by 'Liz' from now on. But since she and Max hadn't really spoken much those first few years, he still knew her as Lizzie.

Liz had to laugh though at the situation that had occurred last week whilst they were studying in the library. A class of freshmen had been browsing for books for an English assignment, and halfway through fourth period, one of the freshman girls had approached their table and confessed that her friend on the other side of the room thought he was cute. Liz just sat there, studying her Math textbook whilst biting back a grin as she witnessed Max trying to get out of that situation.

Of course, she knew that this was not a one-off occurrence for Max Evans; she had seen many girls approach him over the years, but this time, she got to watch his reaction firsthand. It was great, he was so polite towards the girl, somehow letting her down gently and also managing to persuade her to return to her friends only a minute later and when she had gone, he looked over at Liz with a sheepish grin and rolled his eyes. She had grinned back, and they had shared a quick moment, before they'd both turned back to their work and it was forgotten.

TBC…