Part 2

Liz breathed a sigh of contentment as she stepped out of her apartment building and breathed in the cool, moist morning air. In comfortable clothes, with her briefcase by her side, she leisurely made her way the three blocks to the Castro Street Muni station.

It was still early, and the fog had yet to burn off… Liz liked it that way…it was such a contrast to the desert that she had grown up with. She chuckled to herself at the thought… Liz loved everything about San Francisco…even the fog…especially the fog. Some people might call it dreary, but Liz thought that it was beautiful…it created this eerie atmosphere that Liz found intriguing.

Commuters went rushing by her at top speed, rushing around left and right to get to their jobs downtown, and Liz shook her head sadly at them, wondering how anyone could stand to not just relax and enjoy the beautiful city that they called home. They were just wasting their lives away…

Liz yawned slightly, and shook her head at herself in frustration. After having such a restless night of sleep, she was eager to take a step in the right direction now, by keeping her mind away from Max Evans, and concentrating on her new students instead. With Max on the brain, she’d never be able to get through the day…especially with that feeling that kept plaguing her…why did it feel like he was so close? It was just like the connection that had formed between them back in high school…they had grown so attached in high school, so in love, that they knew when each other were near…at times they could almost read each other’s thoughts, because they were so completely in tune with one another.

That was why Liz felt so empty when he left. It was like loosing her right arm… Max was a part of her.

SFSU was already busy when she stepped off of Muni, and crossed the street to enter the campus, with students rushing left and right to get to class on time, or some impatiently waiting at the coffee stand in front of the school.

Still, Liz just strolled leisurely into the campus, acting as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

She had spent her entire time as a student rushing around from class to class, stressing over her tests and papers…it was just so hectic. Now that she had settled down, she insisted on planning her time so that she could just relax and enjoy life.

Her entire life, Liz had never given herself a chance to mellow out. She was always absorbed with something from the time that she was very young, whether it was school, or friends, or waitressing.

Later, when she was in high school, it had been Max…keeping his secret, protecting him from the FBI, helping him discover who he truly was, fighting beside him against their enemies…

Liz smiled softly to herself. If only Max could see her now…he would never believe that she, Liz Parker, was actually carefree…and almost happy…

The tall, skyscraper-like buildings that made up the school where she taught were such a contrast to Stanford, where she was a student, as it was a widespread campus, while SFSU covered only a square mile. Both campuses were very different places: Stanford was as conservative as SFSU was liberal, but Liz loved them both.

Stanford was so elite and exciting to her at the time that she attended there, but the state school was so laid back and easygoing, which was exactly what Liz needed at this point in her life. She was sick of control and order…it reminded her of Max.

Liz mentally cursed herself for thinking of him. She sighed softly, and reluctantly gave in as the familiar feeling of his presence that had possessed her soul the night before swept over her again.

As she cut across the main quad, heading towards her office, Liz studied her surroundings, nodding and smiling occasionally to her ex-students or coworkers…but her breath caught in her throat, and she stopped dead in her tracks as a sole figure heading into the bookstore caught her eye.

Liz gasped aloud. No! It couldn’t be…it just wasn’t possible. Her mind was playing tricks on her, that was it. It was the damn feeling that she had been absorbed with the past few days…it was making her see ghosts.

Liz desperately tried to shake the image from her head as she headed into the biology building…but she couldn’t forget that for the briefest moment, she could have sworn that she had seen Max Evans at San Francisco State.