*25*

Connection.

How do I explain a connection like this?

It's harder than you think.

This is exposure to the umpteenth degree.

A connection is neurosurgery. A cut on the scalp and a drill through some bone and there's your brain, all opened up for anyone to see. Every detail. Dendrites to neurotransmitters, across synapses, to the soma, down the axon to the dendrite terminals and over and over and over.

Inside, Max is laughing at my biology-centered thoughts. I know this because of the flash.

I also know that he calls them flashes because of the flash.

These little fleshy colored brain cells are showing me everything he's ever known, because of the flash.

It's not just about what's under his bed or in his closet. It's not just about dirty laundry piled up on the bed.

It's deeper than that.

It's the little crumbs stuck between the carpet fibers, the ones that you never even knew were there, the ones even a vacuum can't reach. It's the way your bedspread fades under the sun, each little bedspread cell losing its color and you don't even notice because it happens so slowly.

Max thinks that this is a very good analogy.

I know this because of the flash.

Expose yourself as much as you can. Go as far as you can go. Physically, emotionally, mentally, get all around naked. Expose yourself until you think you couldn't possibly expose yourself any more.

Then expose yourself more.

That's what this is like.

And this is just the beginning, it hasn't barely even started yet.

Guess what, I know this because of the flash.

It's hard to explain in words because it's not really a verbally centered thing.

You hear some words, you see some pictures, you feel some emotions. But mostly, it's energy. This pure energy telling you things, giving you information in a way that you never knew existed. Like some sort of sixth sense.

This energy is telling you memories. The oldest memories are dusty, faded.

And it's intense.

It takes your whole body apart. You feel it in your insides.

I'm feeling his guilt inside my bones.

Start from the beginning and I'm seeing stars exploding. Space debris flinging to all corners of the universe. Nebulas and galaxies and planets spinning and floating and twirling around each other. But it's fuzzy, it's not completely there, it's like an idea, like a badly made, black and white, space movie.

I'm seeing the adoption process. A little boy and girl hiding in the corners, waiting for the paperwork to be over. Holding hands because they only have each other. I'm feeling Max's fear. I'm feeling his fear but I see him being strong for his sister.

This little boy is thinking that this is what all little kids go through. This little boy is telling himself to ignore the fear because this is normal.

He's so small, and he's telling his sister that little kids are born in the desert, because this is his only explanation.

I'm feeling the first time he felt okay. He's standing in this distorted field of orange flowers. The flowers are moving and swaying, up and down and all round, doing things that flowers don't usually do, like something out of a surreal painting. His parents are there, and his sister with her new jean jacket with pink rhinestones. He sees blurry edges, that kind of not-all-there feeling you have when you try to think of your earliest memories.

He wants to take me to this poppy field because he remembers that in the poppy field, everything is okay.

I'm seeing him realize that little kids aren't born in deserts. Adoption agencies checking up on him and prodding him for memories. They want to know how he got into that desert, somebody did a bad thing, abandoning their kids like that. And they need to be prosecuted, so he needs to remember more.

I'm seeing him realize that he was abandoned.

I'm seeing him realize that not all little kids can heal.

But he loves his new parents and everything will be okay, they tell him that everything will be okay.

One time he heals this bird and his mother starts looking at him differently. No less loving, just differently.

Because that's just what he is, he's different.

I'm seeing his first day of school. His sense of completion when he finds Michael. His terrifying realization that he's more different than he thought.

He's an alien.

And there's nothing more different than an alien.

He's this little kid and he's hearing people say that illegal aliens should be exported.

These three little kids are miserable and their parents don't know what to do because these kids barely talk anymore.

These kids don't talk to anybody anymore because they can't be noticed. If they're noticed then people will realize just how different that they are. They'll be exported.

They don't want to be abandoned again.

They grow up a little bit more and they feel more and more miserable every day. There's this sort of egocentrism that goes along with being an adolescent.

They don't want to be the only ones that suffer.

Their misery is so bad that they want to push it off onto other people, these people around them that they're starting to hate.

They don't want to hate these people but they do. They don't want to be noticed because it's dangerous, they tell themselves that all they need is each other and they convince themselves of this.

But deep down, they just want to be normal.

So they form this plan.

They can never be human, so they make this plan.

This plan is to make everyone else the alien. Make all these people they hate feel how they do.

Seventh grade, they were so young.

I'm trying to tell Max that I understand but then the pictures stop, the fragments of conversations stop.

And there's this rumble of energy.

A rumble of doom, you just know what's coming is bad.

Guilt, like some stampede of animals coming from far away, my insides are shaking. My bones are shaking.

And then everything stops and there's just Max healing me on a bed.

I'm a wreck, I was a wreck anyway but I'm more of a wreck now. You can't control yourself when your having these connection things and his hand is on my wet cheek.

He's giving me this concerned, guilty look. I don't know what he saw.

We're both breathing heavily.

I'm feeling this compulsion.

Me, with my weak voice, I say, "More."

I almost know him, completely.

His hand slides from my cheek, down my arm.

It starts again.

He wants more too.

Me and Max, the only way it's going to work for us is if we know each other like this. We can't be with perfect people, we need people that make mistakes, we have to be normal to each other.

There has to be nothing left to pretend about or to lie about.

This is the hard part, because the darkness is coming. I see shadows, the dark chambers inside his mind, dank and dripping wet with guilt. He repented immediatly but there was nothing he could do to take it back. I hear this quiet whispering. The only thing he can do is hate himself.

I see him giving himself what he thinks he deserves.

Teen queen Tess. He walks through the halls at school and he doesn't give a shit about anything but hating himself. He has no hope and behind this stoic demeanor is hate. Teen queen Tess. They having nothing in common, they have so much not in common that calling them opposites would still be saying they have more in commen than they do.

Teen queen Tess, they have nothing in common, nothing except that they both hate Max Evans.

Good enough for him, he needs a little torture. She's perfect, he's not, he forms a little unhealthy preoccupation.

But something happens, teen queen Tess isn't as perfect as she looks, all of the sudden she doesn't hate him anymore, she wants to be his friend.

Enter me out of nowhere. Zero to lab partners in 3.5 seconds. He never noticed me because I didn't want to be noticed. But this one day, he had to.

He has this dream.

Enter me and I'm shaking up his perfect little world of guilt. What I am is not perfect, but what I am is perfect for him. I give him this feeling that he shouldn't be having and he wants me to go away and he wants me to stay with him.

Hence, we become best buddies. We continue to live in our respective heads.

I'm shaking up his world because he finally met someone as crazy as he was. Someone that might understand. Someone that might make him feel good but he doesn't deserve to feel good. Someone that he might understand.

He finds out that I like him and I hate him in the same night. He finds out that I know his secret and the guilt is at full force.

I see him thinking he screwed up my life, him thinking that if I knew he spread the rumor I would hate him even more.

He has this deep dark secret that he could never tell me. That no one could ever understand. He doesn't want me to like him anymore because I would just end up getting hurt. So he hurts me, he figures he should just hurt me a little because it will be less hurt in the long run. He talks about Tess's eyes and he hurts me.

He's killing himself with guilt.

I hear fragments of conversations. He's talking about me to Tess, they're becoming friends. She's giving him these romantic pointers, she's telling him that he's worthy. She's telling him we'd be a good couple because we're both wacko. He's never had a friend like Tess before and she's starting to convince him.

They're such good friends and she drops this bomb on him. She was using him at first, but then they became friends. She's glad they became friends but she still feels bad, oh, and by the way, will he help her kill someone?

I see this pool and he's slipping up. He's got himself in this position where I'm half-naked and he's half-naked he's losing his control.

Then I just feel this confusion. Pure confusion. I saved him and then I'm leaving town. I spend a weekend doing nothing and he spends the weekend talking to Tess about what he should do.

The party, spin the bottle. Tess suggested this because she's a sucker for romantic surprises and he doesn't think he'd know romantic if he ran into it with his car.

Which is just stupid, in my opinion.

He can't let me leave town. At least not without telling me how he feels. And he's still confused. He doesn't know if he's worthy or not but he'll have to try because if he doesn't it would kill him more than the guilt.

I see him looking into my eyes and I see myself. It's just me, it's not this hyped up, ultra version of me. It's just me in all my neurotic glory.

Me sitting on this couch saying I'm not playing and trying to be this megabitch and he's seeing right through me.

Me, sitting there, neurotic, with all my unperfectness and I'm perfect for him. And he loves every unperfect-but-perfect detail about me.

To him, I'm beautiful just the way I am. He's not seeing things that aren't there. Just me and I'm beautiful.

He loves how I make fun of his ears. He thinks that my mean streak is sexy.

He loves how I gravitate towards pools in my underwear.

He's looking in my eyes and it's over.

He wants to see me exposed. He wants to know every thought that I think, he wants to know every emotion that I feel. He wants to know what I smell like and what my skin feels like. He got some of this in the pool but he didn't get enough, because I wasn't really there.

Max Evans wants me.

He thinks I'm this great big mystery. Not the kind that you don't want to figure out, the kind that you do. The kind that you'll die if you don't figure out.

And my insides are shaking.

I want him to figure me out.

We want to be the only people that know each other, that really, intensely, deeply, know each other.

We're obsessed with each other.

And now it's just all a blur. An intense blur. These fragments of conversations and visions and feelings are converging and twisting and turning.

And then everything goes quiet. Like this beautiful quiet after this release.

The only sound is us breathing.

We just breath, just sit here and breath in the quiet. His hand is on my arm, I can feel this. Every part of my skin that he's touching is pulsating.

My eyes open slowly and we're both in this stupor.

It's still so intense, intensity making every part of my body feel like it's weeping for something, for him.

I don't even know how I'm worthy of this. Girls like me don't fall this hard.

Max sits there motionless, only his eyes moving. He's peering at me with this mixture of relief and apprehension. His hand hasn't moved.

I close my eyes and my breath is catching. I'm this shaky mess and I can barely breath.

His hand moves, sliding slowly down my arm. We both just sit here and watch his hand slide down my arm, trying to breathe.

His fingers hover around my wrist, lingering there before he retreats his hand and places it on his lap.

We're both so tired now. He's awake but I can tell he's not completely here.

I say, "Um...wanna.......go.....to bed."

He just looks at me for a second. Then he grabs my hand and he's pulling me next to him.

I'm glad he did this.

We're holding each other now. And this is finally real.

His eyes are lined with red. He says, "Yeah."

We get into bed and he's on his side facing me. Touching my hair and arms. His fingers are tracing the line on my arm where the wound was and I'm closing my eyes.

He touches my cheek and he whispers to me, "I saw you almost die, I should have been there Liz."

"It's over now."

He says, "Do I deserve this."

"You deserve everything."

"So do you."

He leans down and rests his head next to mine, grabbing my hand.

He says, "I did some bad things."

"We both did.....we'll make it better."

"How?"

"We just will.....we'll think of something."

"Stay in Roswell Liz."

"I will."

He closes his eyes and lets out a sigh. "Wait for me to graduate and I'll take you anywhere."

I'm smiling in the dark. Biting my lips and feeling his breath against my skin.

I say, "Night Max."

He squeezes my hand and nuzzles his cheek against mine.

"Night Liz."