*12*

Maria is giving me her death glare, in her red shirt, so it must be Monday. She only wears her red shirt when she feels like killing people and she only feels like killing people on Monday. That's why she's always in a good mood on Tuesday, compared to Monday, any mood is a good mood. Color therapy, she calls it. But you knew that.

Somebody call in the National Guard, the sacred social networking system of West Roswell High has just been blown to smithereens.

And aside from Alex and Maria, I've got so many new best friends that I could bottle my popularity and sell it on a street corner.

Of course, none of them are friends with me because of my charming personality, it's because they want information about other people:

Kyle, in a sorry attempt to make his life even worse, wants to know the details of Max and Tess's little suoree. Details that I don't know. In Max's words "They didn't do anything" which, by definition, is just bullshit since anything includes everything, like sitting around, driving, picking your nose, staring at the wall, boinking, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So unless they dropped from existence that night I doubt that they "didn't do anything."

Tess wants to know if Kyle is "OK", to which I replied "He's just fine and dandy." I made the sarcasm in my voice apparent enough to send her crying off to the bathroom. And yes, of course I felt bad, but as has been illustrated more than a zillion times, this isn't about me.

Tara Fisher wants to know if she can touch my arm 'cause Tess has been sleeping at my house. She wants to know her work schedule, the color of her pajamas, her brand of toothpaste. Unhealthy preoccupation much, Tara Fisher?

In fact, the only people that have addressed me personally are Max Evans and Eddie Williams.

Eddie Williams wants me to be his new drug queen. Apparently, he likes girls that screw with his head. So when he recovered the memories about the night of the party he went around school asking everyone if they knew the girl with the Converse All Stars. It was pretty easy for everyone to figure out it was me because I was the only girl not playing spin the bottle.

So Eddie, he comes up to me and says, " You're the girl from the party?"

And I go, "Huh?"

And he goes, "Let's go to the movies tonight."

And I go, "Let's not."

And he smiles and says, "Your perfect"

Apparently he likes girls that screw with his head and turn him down a lot. Apparently he's a glutton for self-punishment like another who will remain nameless. Apparently the drugs have done a number on his brain.

Speaking of the nameless, lets talk about Max Evans.

Max gained a few best buddy points today, he knows that I'm ready to kick my lying up a notch.

"Did I mention it's a three hour drive to Nowhere," He said.

"Nope."

"Did I mention we're not going to school tomorrow," He said. He had is conspiratory-evil grin on.

Apparently, I'm not just his new best friend. I'm his new partner in crime.

I can't help but get the feeling that if anyone else knew his secret, I wouldn't be getting so much attention.

So the end of the school day is finally here. And as I walk quickly down the hall to avoid Maria's death glare and Alex's disappointed glances and Max's evil grins, I hear Eddie Williams say, "You sure you don't want to go to the movies tonight?"

"Yes," I say.

And Eddie smiles.

I'm digging myself into a hole as we speak.

Bring on the therapy.

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Dr. Amos has a bunch of cool little knick knacks all over his office, for you to play with while he rips open your mind.

My favorite is this little plastic skeleton on a neon green podium. The skeleton is held up by a bunch of tightly pulled strings. You push a button at the bottom of the podium and the skeleton collapses into a pile of bones. You release the button and the strings tighten again, the skeleton is good as new.

There's a little black smiley face painted on the skull.

Push the button: bye bye smiley face.

"Fix me," I say to Dr. Amos, "I'm ready to be fixed."

Release the button: hello again, happy little skeleton.

"You want to stop lying?" Asks Dr. Amos.

"That's not what I meant."

"What do you mean?"

"I need to stop liking somebody."

Push the button: Hello you sad little pile of bones.

"The alien?" He asks.

"Maybe."

"You want to stop liking him?"

"Yea...isn't there some sort of behavioral conditioning or something?"

"Behavioral conditioning." He says.

Right about now, Dr. Amos is probably wishing he never lent me his clinical psychologist's field guide. He lent it to me thinking it's best for patients to be 'in the know'. Plus, he knew I could just go out and buy one of my own. But I think he's a little annoyed now that I've memorized every sort of treatment that exists.

Release the button: I keep dismembering you yet you stay so happy. If I were you, I wouldn't be smiling.

"Behavioral conditioning," says Dr. Amos, "Works best with phobias."

"It works with sex offenders." I say.

"You're not a sex offender." He says.

Yea, I know that doctor.

"It works with fetishes." I say.

"You don't have a fetish," he says, "You like a boy."

And I'm thinking: he's not a boy, he's an alien.

Maybe I have an alien fetish.

Nah.

"They did this study," I say, "Where a bunch of people had a shoe fetish. They put them in this room where there was this movie playing. And it would flash between pictures of shoes and pictures of corpses and blood and guts. After a while the people started to associate shoes with death. And Wa-la, no more shoe fetish."

"Or maybe," says Dr. Amos, "You could just ask him out."

"It's not like that. I'm his best buddy now. I get to hear about how much he likes Tess. I need to stop liking him by tomorrow. Maybe if I thought about something really bad every time I looked at him, maybe I could condition myself."

Do I sound too desperate?

"I don't think that would work." Says Dr. Amos.

"What would work?"

"There is nothing wrong with liking someone, Liz."

"There is if it's unhealthy."

"I don't think you liking someone is unhealthy."

This is where I want to tell Dr. Amos everything that I read in Max's file, get myself in huge trouble.

I could go about this in a roundabout way.

"So where is the point when it becomes unhealthy?"

"It's unhealthy," he says, "When you want someone so bad that you don't even care who it is, when you use it to punish yourself."

Release the button: Hello happy little guy. Hello completion. Hello togetherness. Hello unity.

"Why is it," I ask, "That the one you want is never the one that wants you back."

Push the button: Hello pile of bones. Hello destruction. Hello incongruency. Hello disillusionment.

"I don't know." He says.

"I'm going on a three hour drive to nowhere." I say.

"Why three hours?" He asks, thinking I'm speaking in metaphors.

Who am I to prove him wrong?

"Didn't you know.." I say, "That everything happens in threes? I've got six toes on my left foot and three on my right. I was born on March 3rd, 1933. And, oh yea, I'm a triplet."

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Max picks me up early in the morning, about the time we should be heading for school, and not two seconds into the drive does he start to blab.

And after about fifteen minutes, he wants to know, "So what about you?"

"What about me?"

"You know all my deepest darkest secrets," he says, "So what are yours?"

Good question, Max.