*2*

Everyone goes home after the police drag the barking lady out the door.

It's Friday, so were used to it.

I pass by the empty booths on my way to the stairs. One of them is not so empty.

A jacket.

Max left his jacket here.

So what do I do now? Do I put it in the back?

I don't really want to touch it. I don't know why.

I could just leave it there, say I never saw it.

Yea.

I make my way up the stairs and into my room. Privacy at last. Time to get lost in my thoughts.

If Roswell were to take on a human form, grow arms and legs and start walking around, the first thing it would do is blow it's own head off.

Yes, it's that sad.

Do you want to know the ingredients for a ticking time bomb?

Take a shitty town, slap it into the middle of nowhere, add an alien conspiracy, throw in a little gossip and fear. There you have it, now go blow something up.

It wasn't always this way.

It all started with a couple of kids screwing around in the desert. Exactly who it was that found the cave is a detail people still argue about in the halls at school.

Regardless, somebody found it. That somebody showed it to someone else, and so on. The number of people that knew about this grew at an exponential rate. Pretty soon everyone wants to know, what three people among us are aliens?

Funny thing is, lots of people in our school hang out in threes. Me and Maria and Alex, Max and Michael and Isabel, Tess and Courtney and Pam, Kyle and Tommy and Pauly. The list goes on.

That's when everyone started to hate each other.

It was seventh grade I believe.

We never told any adults.

The hate has grown since then, it's just grown a little quieter. It lives in the silence, in the quiet. You can feel it, everyday. When you're talking to someone, you can hear it lingering between the words.

That's why the people here try to be as loud as they can. To fill up the silence. They snort speed and drop acid so the silence is easier to take.

I don't know if this alien ordeal is the only thing wrong with Roswell. People don't really care who the aliens are anymore. Because this whole thing has taught us one thing: It doesn't matter. We're all the aliens. Each one of us is as alienated as the next.

Technically though?....I have my theories.

I think its Max and Michael and Isabel. Correction, I'm pretty sure I know it's them. I don't have proof. I wouldn't do anything if I had proof anyway. Roswell doesn't need to know.

I need to get out of this town, but it's like a snakepit sometimes. People say it's cursed, whoever leaves will probably just come back in a year or so and take on some underpaying job.

Not me.

I'll get out.

I look at the clock. I've been laying here for hours now.

I hear something outside. A voice. I walk to my window and open it.

The voice is singing. It echoes eerily off the brick walls of the alley. "Little Lizzy Paaaarkeeeerrrr."

Little Lizzy Parker. Tess used to call me that, a long time ago.

I climb out my window and hear the voice hiccup and begin again, "I know you're up there little Lizzy Parker."

I peer over the edge. Tess stumbles around in the stream of light below, flailing around a bottle. She must be drunk.

" There you are."

"Tess?" Her hair is messed up. She must be really drunk because you never see her hair messed up. "What are you doing here?"

"I just came..." She backs up onto the street so that she can see me a little better, "came to ask you a favor."

I'm starting to worry. Tess never lets down her guard. I've known her for a long time. Don't get me wrong. We're not friends, we just know each other.

"See little Lizzy Parker, I'm gonna kill somebody...And I'm gonna need your help."

Okay. Maybe she's a little drunker than I thought.

"Tess, maybe you should come up here."

"Don't worry little Lizzy Parker, I've got it all figured out."

She reaches behind her back and pulls out exactly what I expect her to, a gun.

I think she's starting to cry.

I think she's serious.

She clenches her eyes shut tightly, "If you don't help me, I can always get little Max Evans to help me, he'll do anything for me, won't he? Anyone will do anything for me."

I see a light in the distance down the street. A car. "Tess, get up here."

She's just drunk.

That's all.

She shakes her head and stumbles back more into the street. "Nobody wants to help me little Lizzy Parker."

I wish she would stop calling me that.

The car is getting closer. It's going too fast.

"Tess, get out of the fucking street."

She drops the bottle on the ground and waves at me, "Goodbye."

No. No no no.

The car will see her.

It's not slowing down.

Shit.

Okay.

I don't wanna see someone die.

I can't look at her. I can't watch someone die.

I'll watch the wheel, just focus on the wheel. The wheel spins faster. Around and around.

Clunk

It stops.

I hear someone screaming, "What the fuck was that?"

I hear doors slamming, I hear someone have a breakdown. I hear...crying...then silence.

I peer over the ledge, I can't look at the body. No looking at the body.

It's Max. He probably came to get his jacket. Isabel and Michael are with him. They are all panicking. He's leaning over Tess.

No.

No looking at the body.

They knocked her up onto the sidewalk.

There's blood on the street.

I can't do this.

I hear Isabel's panicky whisper, "Is it working?"

No one responds.

Max stands up.

"It's done," Michael says. "You got her, let's go."

Max shakes his head. This is the most emotion I've ever seen him show. "We can't just leave her here."

"The hell we can't." Michael grabs Max's arm and shoves him into the car.

They leave.

I wait.

She's going to wake up. Because they're aliens.

Please wake up.

I'll be here for her when she wakes up.

Ten minutes go by.

Please wake up.

I didn't sign up for this.

Twenty minutes go by.

Please.

She's moving.

Oh fuck, she's moving.

She's crying.

She's standing up and crawling up the ladder.

"Liz?"

I can't look at her, she still looks dead. She's covered in blood.

"What happened to me?"

I shake my head, "I don't know."

Her hair. There's blood in her hair. I wonder if it will come out.

She sits on my lawn chair. She sits for a long time.

She stands up, "You can't tell anyone...you can't tell anyone what happened tonight."

"I won't."

She's talking about the gun.

"I was drunk."

"I know."

It's okay now. Everything is okay. She's alive, she's a bloody fucking mess, but alive.

And the spinning? It's getting faster.

Part 3