*24*

What we are is this mixture. This Max and Liz blended frappe drink. A smoothie, whatever. This blended mixture of arms and skin and blood and tears and wet underwear and legs and detachment and fear and lies.

He doesn't want to let me go.

We're mixed together in this pool, and we sit here drinking each other's air because he doesn't want to let go.

I don't want him to let go either but he has to, because this isn't real yet.

This isn't real yet because I don't know him yet.

I'm talking to deities because this isn't real yet. I'm not sure I believe in anyone but I'm talking to deities anyway, just in case.

I'm saying: Buddha, It can't be that bad, can it?

And I can't look into his eyes and he can't look into mine because we both know it can be that bad.

I'm saying: God, make me love whatever he has to say, no matter what it is.

So we're drinking each other's air. He doesn't want to let me go and then he's gone to go get me a towel.

I can understand that. I couldn't tell him in a car, he can't tell me in a pool.

Cars and pools are shotty places for resolution. Plus there's nowhere for us to run.

I'm saying: Venus, show me something beautiful.

I'm saying: Death, make up your fucking mind.

I'm saying: Somebody, anybody, give me a fucking break for a change.

The gods are stirring around in the heavens and with my luck, I'm making everything worse. Who does that girl think she is, talking to us like that? Make that wound bleed a little bit more.

Make that head spin a little bit more.

I don't know what he could possibly tell me. I'm not even going to try to prepare, it would just be the wrong kind of preparation anyway.

What hurts the most is that this whole time I thought I knew him.

And I wonder what it could do to us. He couldn't make me stop loving him, but he could scare me.

He could make me afraid of him.

I'm sick of crying.

I want to stop crying now.

I'm sick of bleeding.

He pulls me out of the pool and wraps me up in this towel and I bet it's a bitch to get blood off of white towels.

We walk to the hotel room, clothes in hand, him after me, eyes to the floor, like a funeral procession.

I try to turn around and look in his eye but he doesn't let me, but I can still see what's in them. Doom. Fear. I can see that he never meant to tell me this in the first place.

He was just going to let it go, live on with some secret tearing him apart and me sitting there thinking this was real.

We get to the hotel room and I'm regressing now. I don't want to know. I don't care if this isn't real. I know him enough.

We can pretend, we're good at that.

Three weeks and I'm dead, but that's not completely true. Blood coagulates, wounds close up. They close up and you can still remember what happened but you can pretend it was never there.

We can just pretend this never happened.

Hope there's no scar.

He dries his boxers with his alien powers and his boxers are worthier than I am.

I'm saying: Little Lizzy Parker, poor you.

He puts on his pants and sits down on the bed and next thing is he's got this bloody, crying, me all over him.

I'm resorting to seduction and I am in no shape to seduce, but I'll try it anyway.

He's got this bloody, crying me attacking his mouth and who even knows what my hands are doing. Bloody, crying me messing with the buttons on his pants and pushing him back onto the bed.

He grabs my wrists and my life isn't the only one that's falling apart.

His eyes are scaring me. He's afraid so I'm afraid.

He pulls me closer and he's hugging me to him and he says, "I have to tell you Liz, I have to."

Bloody, crying me, shaking my head.

His eyes change to hopelessness. Bloody, crying me is not helping the situation. I can sense something, if he doesn't tell me then he can't be with me, it wouldn't be fair.

I can understand that.

I had to tell him before I could be with him.

I say, "What will I see Max, what will I see if you heal me."

He says, "Guilt."

We're this Max and Liz blended frappe drink on the bed. Bloody, crying me mixed with guilty, life-falling-apart Max.

I'm saying: Tragedy, go away.

I'm saying: Romeo and Juliet, die already.

He's petting my hair and breathing and kissing my forehead. He's kissing my forehead like it's the last time before I run away.

His eyes drop down and this means get prepared if you have a good sense of insight. If you don't, then you're shit out of luck.

I don't, so I am.

His eyes drop down and he's petting my hair and he says, "I had a dream about us Liz, we were at the poppy field, we were sleeping."

His hands are running over my arms and smearing blood all over the place. Blood is supposed to coagulate but it's not coagulating, the wounds not closing up.

I'm saying: Biology, don't fail me now.

"When?" I ask.

"The night of the party."

This isn't such a surprise until he says, "The first party."

His hands are on the side of my stomach and he's frowning, smearing blood all over the place, saying, "Your a mess."

He's cleaning me up now, alien powers.

I say, "So did you know we'd come here?"

He shakes his head, "It was just a dream, I just wanted to take you here."

"So what does that mean?"

He closes his eyes and breaths, saying, "It means I'm a good liar. It means how could I ignore you after that, how could I not love you after that."

Me, I'm sitting here saying: First party, this doesn't make sense.

He says, "You know about dreams Liz, I wanted you and I couldn't lie to myself about it, I couldn't even try."

He says, "It means I'm a good liar, it means that I didn't want you to know so you didn't know."

He says, "It means that I wanted you to think I didn't notice you so I made you think I didn't notice you."

He says, "I'm just as obsessed Liz, if not more."

And what is god's name is he talking about.

I'm saying: First party, this doesn't make any sense. Best buddies is what we were after that night. Best buddies and he still couldn't look me in the eye and he still saved that smile for Tess and he still went out on dates and gazed at her with that look and he wasn't fucking in love with me.

I still haven't stopped crying yet and I'm shaking my head saying, "You're getting your parties mixed up."

"No I'm not Liz," And he kisses me, this tortured mixed up kiss, like the last one before I run away. He says, "You thought I didn't notice you even when we were friends. I was hanging on your every word, Liz Parker. Every second I had with you......"

"What are you talking about."

"We we're friends. That was my first mistake....I couldn't not be around you...." He's dropping his eyes and petting my hair and breathing and there is so much going on inside of him right now. So much that I don't know.

He thinks that I don't want to know this.

"But I couldn't look you in the eye.....then it would be over. You thought I never looked at your eyes but every second you were looking away I was looking at your eyes."

He's falling apart and saying, "Every second..."

I'm just shaking my head because I don't understand what I'm supposed to be understanding.

I say, "You didn't want me to know?"

His eyes go scary. He looks up and maybe on the inside he's talking to deities. He says, "Do you know how hard it was, pretending not to care. I was good at it though."

He's letting go of my hands, he's detaching himself.

I say, "Tess."

"Tess. I went on dates with Tess and we talked about you and Kyle the whole time. She never even asked why I pretended to like her in front of you, she was too far gone, she didn't care."

He leans back, detaching himself and even his eyes are going distant. He says, "You told Dr. Amos that if you found out who the aliens are, you would have them publicly burned at the stake."

I thought I was out of tears but I was wrong. Did I do this to myself?

He says, "I found out that you liked me and you hated me in the same night."

The tears go drip drip dripping on everything. I don't want him detaching so I'm leaning forward with my hands on his arms and I'm pleading because I did this to myself. He ignored me because of something I don't even remember saying. I'm begging, "Max I never hated you I just said things...I said...I said I was a snail in my past life....I told him that I fought in Nam....It was before I knew you..."

He's petting my hair and his thumb is on my lips. His body language is telling me to calm down but his eyes are so wet with tears that won't come out, they're saying that he's gone, he's detached. He's somewhere else.

He's not even here.

He says, "Aliens fucked up your life Liz. I fucked up your life, I'm the reason you lie so much."

And I'm clutching onto him now, crying harder than I ever have before because once again I'm the guilty party and he's taking all the blame and I'm just saying, "No.....no."

And he's gone now, not even trying to comfort me because he's not even here. He says, "Roswell got fucked up by aliens and ruined your life. Roswell made you have all these problems."

I'm pleading, "Roswell, Max. Not aliens, Roswell has so many secrets and lies and rumors because it's a fucked up place and I couldn't handle it....."

He interrupts me with something in his voice, with contempt in his voice, he says, "Secrets, whoever found that cave and started all those true rumors screwed up your life, is that what your saying?"

And I don't even know what he's asking and I'm saying "I...I guess, Max...It just wasn't you...you didn't do anything."

I'm touching his arms and his face and he's just pushing me away, and there's this sort of closure in his voice when he speaks next, like we're nearing the end, like this is where I run away.

He says, "Nobody found the cave Liz."

He says, "I started the rumors, me and Isabel and Michael."

I sit.

I sit and not think about anything because I can't think about anything.

He gets up and walks to the other side of the room because this is him running away and not me.

He says, "We took the first group of people there, we pretended that we found it, we fucked up Roswell and everyone in it, we made everyone hate each other."

"Guilt, Liz. Now you know why I hate myself. Now you know."

----------------------------

Seventh grade.

Six years ago.

Six years ago three kids go into this chamber, this place they call home, and they have this plan.

This plan is to start this rumor.

You wonder why at first but you have to think back. Think back and wonder what they were like, what do you remember about them.

Then you realize why they did it. Because you don't remember them at all. You don't remember where they ate at lunch and you don't remember if they were in any of your classes.

They might as well have not existed.

These three kids that hid in corners and lived in their heads and they thought they were helping themselves out.

These three kids that were alienated from everyone and no one noticed they had a problem.

What kind of town was it that didn't notice these three kids?

Seventh grade, maybe the town wasn't as great as you remembered it to be in the first place.

Or maybe the town never had anything to do with it.

Seventh grade, they were so young.

I was young too. I was this kid, this kid living in the world. I should have been happy, but something was off.

Maybe it was bad timing, puberty, who knows, I don't even remember anymore.

Seventh grade I started living in my head.

Seventh grade I started having these problems, I was this depressed kid, and everyone wanted to know why.

So did I.

Two months later these three kids carry out this plan.

They started these rumors.

This is the kicker: nobody cared.

Nobody cared until I got a hold of this rumor.

I milked it for all it was worth. I latched onto it for life. I spread it wherever I could. I was the first one to accuse, I was the one that made everybody care.

I was the one that made everybody hate each other.

I was the catalyst, if it wasn't for me, none of this would have happened.

People wanted to know what was wrong with me, I wanted to know what was wrong with me. So with the help of these three kids that I didn't know, I found this problem. I manufactured it. I made it mine. I made it what was wrong with me.

I have this problem, this problem with lying. I have this problem where I don't know who I am.

The biggest lie I ever told was one I told to myself. I convinced myself that aliens were my problem. I made myself forget about the manufacturing.

I never wanted to believe that my problem was self-caused.

I never wanted to believe that maybe there was something inside me that was just....off.

I never was one for taking responsibility.

Until now.

Because right now the only thing I know is that I don't care what's wrong with me. Because I know that I can be healed, and I know who can heal me.

And I know that if there is always going to be something wrong with me, there's a certain person that won't care.

You see, there's this person that I can't lie to, that can't lie to me.

There's this person that thinks he screwed me up when he really made me better.

This person was in love with me longer than I thought, this person noticed me.

This person was crying for help for so long and nobody noticed, this person noticed my cry for help.

We did these really horrible things when we were young. We've been carrying these things around, lying to ourselves all this time.

Both of us, we did this to ourselves because we did these things when we didn't know any better and we lived with it for so long. We created our own guilty lives, we made our own heads spin, together.

And together, we can make it stop.

My eyes are closed and my brain is working. I open my eyes and I see things.

I'm seeing things differently.

One might call this an epiphany.

Bloody, crying me is looking awfully ridiculous, sitting here in my underwear.

Max is faced away from me, just waiting for me to run away. Head down, eyes to the floor.

No way in hell I'm running now.

His voice is so quiet and I barely hear it, he's talking to his chest, saying, "I'll take you home if you want, or I could call a cab for you...I'll pay."

I say, "No."

I say, "I'm still bleeding."

He turns around reluctantly and if he would just look at me he would see something, he would see me having an epiphany, but he's not looking and that's okay.

He sits next to me, sitting there hating himself, he says, "What do we do now."

I say, "I'll die in three weeks if you don't heal me."

"That's it?" he says, "I heal you and it's over."

I grab his hand and put it against my cheek. It sucks when your having an epiphany and the person sitting next to you is not.

I say, "Heal me and find out."