What happens next screws everything up. Every. Single. Thing.

Alex comes over. I'm giving Kyle a little pre-birthday party because he's Kyle. He's out of the room when Alex comes, doesn't even know anyone's there.

((Bear with me a second 'cause I don't talk about this a lot. I don't know if I can do this.))

Okay, Alex comes over and he knows about the infamous kiss.

Not my fault.

We're upstairs in my room and he's getting all worked up over this. Can you imagine if I actually slept with Max or something? Jeez, everybody just has to be so uptight about relationships and love and-

Fine, I'm making excuses. But you know what? I have the right to be pissed off too. I wouldn't have even done that if he hadn't been practically humping Isabel on the dance floor. What a hypocrite. This is such a guy thing.

I hate him.

I say, "I hate you."

Alex says, "What?"

I say, "What do you want from me?"

Alex says, "You could be honest with me. You could tell me right now if what we have is- what, anything to you?"

Let's go over some facts - I'm with Max. He's with Isabel. Yeah, I'd say 'what we have' is pretty much nonexistent.

I hate him.

I say, "You bastard."

"What did I do? I gave you everything! You- you just took and left me with nothing."

Oh for God's sake. Granted, there's a way of thinking where I look like this horrible bitch who used him. Comparatively, I did get the better end of the deal. He knew that from day one, remember? I get my past, my planet, my home. He gets some stock reels of slides we swiped from the film department and a pretend girlfriend in the form of some gorgeous leggy blond he saw on campus. He gets a negotiable credit one day for sending us all back into space to never see him again. Is this news?

"Just calm down," I say. "You want me to be honest? I kissed Max and we might be together now." I shrug. "I don't know, it's complicated."

He flinches and swallows. "Are you happy with that?"

No.

I say, "Yeah. Listen, I appreciate everything, but I think you should go now. We're going to be fine. You know this is what was supposed to happen. If I remember right, we were helping it along about a month ago."

"It changed."

"Nothing changed."

"Maybe not for you!"

"Hey, this all was your idea, wasn't it? You were the one who planted all this crap in our conversations. 'Oh yeah, I've got this cousin, I've got this trip, I've got this AP computer class.' Don't you dare act like I hurt you when this was our thing! Not mine, ours! And if you have a problem, maybe you should have considered it before you decided to start this little adventure! Maybe if you weren't so busy thinking about Isabel then-

"What?!"

"It was always because of that, right? That's how it started? You thought she'd magically start liking you if you did us this huge favor. You never did anything that helped us, and you wanted to prove what a man you were to HER!"

"That's not true!"

Yes it is. Yes it is. C'mon, Alex, this is over. It would be so much easier for me if that were true.

I say, "Why else would you do this, huh? What possible reason could-"

"Because I wanted to be near you!"

Shit.

I say, "Shut up."

"Tess-"

"No, shut up."

"You were- that day you came to my house and- nobody ever thinks I can help-"

"Shut up."

"You were the only one who wanted to see me play, you were so- I didn't even know it was going to work, what we did. I- I thought it might, I just wanted-"

He's crying. I say, "Go home," and my voice cracks and I hate him.

"I'm sorry - I shouldn't have gone with - we could still - you're so - " Bawling conversation is like the polar-opposite unfunny version of makeout conversation.

"I hate you, go home."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

I realize Kyle's standing around looking at us and I say "Get out!" I think I'm crying. Asshole.

Max remembers me. That counts for something. If it doesn't, what does that make my whole life so far?

Alex says, "I have nothing."

So go home and hate me and find somebody else. This would be so much easier. Nothing has to get screwed up, nobody's feelings have to get hurt-

Alex says, "How could you do this to me?" And then

((I don't talk about this a whole lot, I don't know if I can do this.))

((Okay.))

((Okay.))

And then he squints a little and then a lot.

((Okay.))

And he kinda puts his palm up to his head and makes a weird noise.

((Let me just breathe for a second, I don't know if I can- Okay.))

And then he's dead.

The thing you have to know (from someone slightly older and wiser than I was at that specific moment) is what happened was sort of natural. As natural as something completely ridiculous and fucked-up can be.

Apparently something snapped inside Alex's brain. I don't really know what causes these things, I cheated on all my science tests. One could assume flashes or getting laid or spending a few months in front of a huge computer could have something to do with it... if one wanted to torture oneself for the rest of one's life. That could have nothing to do with it though. I know it happens very rarely to teenagers but it's not unheard of. Everything's fine and then a vessel pops and they just keel over, something like that.

But then, I don't really know any of this right now. So basically my brain is going You killed him, You killed him, You killed him. Or maybe that's Kyle.

I *can* get a little nuts and high-strung sometimes, you know? The last time I was really pissed off, an entire army of Skins burst into flames. This did happen. Do you blame me for jumping to conclusions?

So that's why Alex technically died in a car accident. If I had calmed down a little bit, maybe there could've been an autopsy and a report. Maybe they could've showed it wasn't a suicide or a murder. Maybe everybody could've felt a little better about themselves, and nobody - me or the Valentis or the Whitmans or Liz or Isabel or Max - would've gone so far off the deep end over it. But Alex technically died in a car accident, and if you live with regret it only makes everything worse.

It's all sort of like a dream afterwards. I go to the Crashdown and meet everybody there. They're so incredibly happy, even Kyle. Like nothing happened at all. But then Sheriff Valenti comes in and we go see the body on the stretcher and it wasn't a dream at all.

Max goes into the van. I keep thinking about when we brought Nasedo back the first time and I was happy because he was all I had then.

Please, Max. Please please please.

I wonder if he'll tell people I killed him when he wakes up. Or if he won't remember and he'll just go back to telling me he loves me, and then I'll say I love him too and I'm sorry I never said it before.

Max is taking his sweet time in there.

And I'll say I'd rather have you than Max anyway but it scares me, and I don't know if I'm that scared anymore, and I'm so sorry I made you feel bad, and I'm sorry I lied and said I hated you, and I'm sorry I killed you for a little while.

Max comes out of the van alone. A night ago I was kissing this boy, and now he's wearing Alex's blood.

I keep thinking about the second time when we couldn't bring back Nasedo, and I was all alone.

Isabel turns into a wreck. I say, "Max. Go after her."

This is where I shut down. It's not pretty, not pretty at all.