Lost and Found
By Karen

Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary: Takes place the summer after "Destiny". Just how did Max and Maria become friends? And how good of friends were they? Told from Maria's POV

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Part One

I’ve become Jeff Parker’s bitch.

The thought often crosses my mind that Liz must have never done anything but study, go to school, drool over Max Evans and wait on her father.  I’m astounded that she ever found time to do anything else.

Of course, now Liz has packed all of the pieces of her broken heart into a suitcase and escaped to Florida to try to put her life back together and forget Max (like that would ever happen).  And in her absence, I’ve become the bitch.

I’ve never run so many meaningless errands in my life.  Go pick this up, go deliver that.  Be here to open, be here to close.  Leaving for the week, please water the plants.

Which is where I am now – standing in the Parker’s living room looking at a sickly Fichus tree.  Its leaves are all droopy and it looks like it might snap if I touched it.  I didn’t do that.  I swear – it looked like that when I came up here three days ago.  I guess I should try to help it…but I really don’t know what to do for it.  Do they have plant doctors?

I sigh and move away from the tree with my little can of water.  I’m glad Michael Guerin is downstairs in the Crashdown kitchen and not up here to see this humiliation.  I’m wearing a turquoise waitress uniform with silver bobbles on my head and I’m walking around like friggin’ Martha Stewart tending to the house plants.  It’s not the uniform that’s embarrassing – it’s the fact that I’m sixteen and I look domesticated.  I want to look mysterious, alluring – irresistible.  And this is so not that.

I wander through the empty apartment and feel like an intruder.  I’ve probably spent more hours here than at my own home, but I feel odd being here without a Parker in sight.  The wooden floors creak beneath my feet – something I’ve never noticed.  I guess because when I’ve been here before, I’ve been too busy chattering with Liz to notice.

Speaking of Liz, I’m standing in her doorway and a sad smile comes to my face.  Unable to resist, I put the watering can down on the floor and go to lie on her bed.  Her blankets smell faintly like her and I suddenly miss my friend more than my next breath.

I stare up at the ceiling and think back to all of the times I’ve been in this exact position, giggling with Liz, crying to Liz, holding Liz while she cried.  I was standing on this bed when she told me Max Evans was an alien.  We were all in this room just weeks ago when Max’s sister Isabel dreamwalked him when he was in the White Room.

I shudder just thinking about that.  Not because of what Max endured, but because of everything else that happened that day and the next.  We sprang Max from the government facility where they were torturing him, Michael killed Agent Pierce, the aliens found out their true destinies and Liz walked away from Max.  But that wasn’t the worst of it.  Not for me.

The worst was having Michael walk away from me.  Because he “loved me too much”?  What’s that?  How can you possibly love someone too much?  If he really loved me, then he’d be here with me.  End of story.

Which I why won’t let him go.  If he loves me at all, he’ll want to come back to me.  It doesn’t help that I see him nearly every day – he’s putting in extra shifts to get some spare cash and I’m always here because of my new bitch status.  But then I ask myself if things would be any better if I had gone away like Liz.

I’m thinking not.  If I was in Florida right now, I’d be dialing Michael’s number every five minutes trying to find out what he was up to, and God knows I can’t afford that kind of phone bill.  No, I like being right here where I can see what’s going on.

As far as I can tell, there isn’t much happening.  I see him with Tess a lot these days, but I think maybe she’s taken him under her wing to try to teach him how to use his powers.  It’s about time someone did – that boy’s a loose cannon.  I see Isabel once in awhile, but she just looks nauseated by the fact that she and Michael were engaged in a former life.  Cruel of me – but I find that funny.  I don’t want the Ice Princess to lay a hand on my guy.

And to me, he still is my guy.

I have about fifteen other chores on the bitch list, so I guess I should keep moving.  I pick up the can and water the rest of the Parker’s plants, then head back downstairs to wait some more tables.  At least down there I’ll get tips for my work.

As I pass the Fichus, I remember that you’re supposed to talk to plants to keep them happy.  I give it a nice, “Bite me.”

Wonderful!  Mr. Happy Evans is in my section.  Christ.  Here we go again. 

I stand in the kitchen and watch him through the window.  He hasn’t picked up the menu and I know he’s not interested in eating.  He wants to know if Liz is back – uh, hello! she said she’d be gone all summer – or if I’ve heard from her.  He keeps looking around the restaurant like he just expects her to appear. 

And what is with that green T-shirt?  I mean, I know it holds like every sentimental Liz memory that Max has – Liz told me it was the shirt he was wearing when he healed her, when he kissed her for the first time and from what I remember it was the same one he was wearing when she walked out on him.  But, what is it made of?  Why hasn’t that thing worn out yet?  Jeez – maybe he doesn’t wash it.  Ick.

I draw in a deep breath and head out to his table.

“Hey, Max,” I say, concentrating on my order pad and not his kicked-dog eyes.

“Hey, Maria,” he says, trying to look chipper.  Nice try, buddy, but I saw the sour puss from the kitchen. 

“What’ll it be?” I ask, trying to make haste.

He grabs the menu like he hadn’t realized it was there.  Yes, this is a restaurant.  “Just a piece of pie?  Whatever you have left.”

“Okey dokey.”  I try to move away, but my escape is never that easy.

“Maria?”

Shit.  Here it comes.  “Yeah?”

“Have you heard from –“

“No.”

I immediately feel guilty for cutting him off.  The little glimmer of hope he had in his eyes is dashed so quickly I’m not sure it was ever there.  He looks away from me, down at the tabletop.

I tap the pad, the guilt increasing.  “I’ll go get this for you.”

As I walk away, I wonder why I always have to be such a bitch.  As annoying as he is, he’s obviously still hurting from what happened.  I guess I should indulge him a little more.  No sense in making him feel worse.

“Hey, Guerin,” I say as I pop into the kitchen.

Michael looks up from the grill, a toothpick in one side of his mouth.

“Need some pie.”

He points to the refrigerator with his spatula.  “You know where it is.”

I sigh internally.  But, he’s just as short with me as I am with Max, so maybe this is karma.  I pull a couple of pies from the refrigerator.  Banana.  Lemon.  I have no idea which one Max would like.

“Michael?”

“What?”  His tone is clipped and I feel sort of stung.  I just wanted to ask a question.

“Never mind.”  It’s just not worth it.  I go to get a plate and I hear him snort.  “What?”

He mumbles something under his breath and waves the spatula in my direction.

And I never have been able to just let things go.  “Do you have a problem, Michael?”

He nods, meeting my gaze.  “Yeah – you’re my problem.”

Jesus, I hate him!  I set the plate on the counter and move over to face him.  “You should be so lucky!”

He laughs.  “Yeah, right.”

“The thing that you haven’t realized, Michael, is that I was the only thing in your life that wasn’t a problem.  I was the only good thing you had!”

He doesn’t answer and I think he knows I’m right.  Angrily, he flips a burger over so hard that it skids across the slick surface of the grill.

“What?  No sarcastic comeback.”

He continues his mad shuffling of beef patties while I wait with my hands on my hips.  Finally, his voice so low I can barely hear it, he says, “Your customer is waiting.”

I wait a beat longer, but nothing else comes.  “Fuck you, Guerin,” I mutter as I move back to the pies.  I think he flinches.  Good.  If there is such a thing as karma, then he’s got some major shit coming his way.

I pick the lemon pie, reasoning that it’s not as bland as the banana and it should taste better to an alien.  As I walk back to Max’s table, I have an overwhelming sense of empathy.  Yes, Max is anal.  Yes, Max is too serious.  Yes, Max is annoyingly perfect.

But Max is also hurting.  And I’m hurting, and I know what it feels like.  I have this hole inside of me that Michael used to fill.  But now it’s empty and half the time I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with myself.  I don’t know how to feel.  I don’t know what to think.  I can only imagine that Max feels the same way.

We’re both lost. 

So maybe he doesn’t need my abruptness.  Maybe he just needs a friend.  I put the pie down on the table and he doesn’t even look interested in it.

“Lemon,” I say.  Then I reach over beside the ketchup bottle and grab the Tabasco sauce.

He looks at it, then up at me.  I smile at him and he looks startled.

Glancing around the restaurant in a totally reflexive action, I remember that I have no boss this week.  If I sit, there will be no Jeff Parker out here with another errand for me to run.  So I slide in across from Max and cross my arms on the table.  He’s looking at me warily.

“Look,” I start.  “I talked to Liz last week.”

He brightens a bit, possibly just at the sound of her name.

“She didn’t want me to say anything to you, but I don’t think it will do any harm if I let you know that she’s doing okay.”

He works his mouth, then finally speaks.  He has such a soft voice – he really needs to learn to speak up.  “Did she mention me?”

She did.  But I’m not about to tell him what she said.  Max doesn’t need to know that Liz is having a hard time with this breakup, but that she’s still determined to mend her broken heart.  She’s trying to write Max off.  Period.

I try to give him a gentle smile and hope my evasive maneuver works.  “Liz is at a turning point in her life, Max.  I think maybe you should just leave her alone for awhile.”  He looks downcast.  “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I think it’s what you need to hear.  She wants time, space.  Let her figure out what her path is going to be.”

He’s staring at the tabletop again, his lips turned down into a frown.  I was trying to make him feel better, but I think he only feels worse.

“Move on,” I advise him.  “I’m not saying you should jump into another relationship, but maybe you should find some way to occupy your time so you’re not thinking about her all the time.”

Yep, that didn’t work, either.  So I give up and start to leave.

“Thanks,” he says, so softly that I can hardly hear him.  He’s looking at the pie like he wants to vomit.  “How much for the pie?”

“On the house,” I say and move to my station behind the counter.

As I glance to the order window, I catch a glimpse of the back of Michael’s head.  That’s some good advice I just gave Max.  But I have no intention of using it for myself.

Part Two

I’ve left two messages for Michael today.  I feel a little bad about being such a bitch to him at work the other day.  All I want to do it talk.  I’m sure if we talk, I can convince him that we belong together.  I don’t care that he’s going to be a Universal Soldier – literally.  What does that have to do with us?

I’m at the Crashdown again because my presence is a requirement to keep the business going, apparently.  I already obsessively checked the schedule – even though I know it by heart – so I know that Michael won’t be working tonight.  He won’t come within five blocks of this place, either.  It hurts a little bit that he finds me such a nuisance.

But at least it’s night time and the crowd is light.  I know that won’t last – the anniversary of the crash is coming up in about a week and every weirdo in the country is going to flock to this little town.  It’s unbelievable overtime, but it’s also exhausting.  And I don’t want to do it this year without Liz.

At the end of each night of the festival, Liz and I would compare notes on the best costume we saw, the best planet someone claimed to be from, the best “alien” name they had given themselves.  It’s always something that begins with an X or a Z and sometimes sounds like the clinical name for antibiotics.  Wouldn’t the real world shit to know that alien names are as common as human ones?  That would raise the panic level – Oh my God!  They’re blending in and walking among us!

But, as I told Alex once – they won’t harm us, only our hearts.

I go about drying glasses behind the counter while the last few customers finish their meals.  Isabel is in a corner booth, alone.  She looks pissed.  But she always looks pissed these days.  A little part of me believes that it’s because we all saw her vulnerable side when Max was about two inches from death.  The Ice Princess doesn’t do vulnerable very well.  Another part of me thinks she’s pissed because she found out she has to spend an eternity with Michael Guerin.  I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat, sister.

Mr. Parker is at one of the tables, tallying receipts.  Every now and then I hear the click of the calculator spitting out paper and I realize how quiet it is in here.  Dead crowd – none of them even looks interested in the juke box.

I fish around in my apron pocket and pull out a quarter.  I start to walk over to the juke box when Isabel gets up, blows out a sigh and walks right past me without even acknowledging my presence.  I stop in my tracks and watch her exit the café, and I have to wonder if maybe I’ve become invisible to the alien/human hybrid race.  Then I look enviously at the length of her hair and wish I could get mine to grow that long.

“Maria.”

Mr. Parker’s voice calls me out of my hair lust and I walk over to his table.

“I want you to go to a convention in Santa Fe ,” he announces.

I blink once.  I blink again.  He can’t be serious.  “A convention?” I manage to stutter out.

Jeff Parker nods.  He’s serious.

“What kind of convention?”

He shuffles some papers around on the table he was working on.  “It’s a restaurateur show.  No big deal – just some vendors trying to sell stuff.”

Well, that sounds like a party I don’t want to miss out on.  Sign me up!  Kidding.  I think I’d rather have my period for a month straight.  “What am I going to buy?”

He returns to crunching numbers as he addresses me, using the eraser of his pencil to push the keys on the calculator.  “Nothing.”

Nothing.  I guess it begs the question as to why I would want to go then.  I wait for him to explain, but he appears lost in thought with that damn calculator.  I clear my throat and he looks up like I just arrived.

“Why would I go to a convention where they are selling things and buy nothing?” I ask, trying to keep the bitchiness out of my tone.

“Oh.  I guess I didn’t tell you that, did I?”  He smiles and I want to smack him.  Maybe being fatherless isn’t as bad as I thought it was.  “They do a lot of give-aways and drawings and stuff like that.  Sometimes some of the vendors will offer year-long discounts if you just attend the convention.  So I need someone to go make an appearance.”

“Who usually goes?”

“I do.  But with Liz gone, I’ve had to pick up some of her duties.”  He gestures to the receipts he was working.  “She did a lot of stuff like this around here and I’m realizing I’m in trouble without her.”  He gives a sad smile and I suddenly feel sorry for him.

“My mom and I only have one car,” I explain, some of my reluctance fading away.  “Not that the Jetta would make it to Santa Fe anyway…”

His smile returns.  “That’s not a problem.”  He reaches into his breast pocket and produces an envelope.

I take it from him and open it – a bus ticket.  Then I check the date – two days from now.

He must read my mind.  “I’m sorry about the short notice.  I hope you can make it.”

Everyone is in need these days, aren’t they?  I need Michael to acknowledge me.  Max needs Liz to come back to him.  Mr. Parker needs me to go to Santa Fe .  He’s the only one I can help, so I nod.

“I can make it.”  I paste on a small smile and stuff the ticket into my apron.

“Oh, here, I almost forgot.”  He pulls his wallet from his pocket and starts taking out money.

“Mr. Parker, that’s not necessary,” I protest.

“I know, but I want you to be able to have some fun while you’re there, too,” he says, holding out a roll of bills.  “Please.  Take it.  Consider it expense money.”

Well, hey, it’s free cash.  And I think it might make him feel better if I accept it.  So I do.  “Thanks.”

“My pleasure, Maria.  I booked you a room at the Radisson on Main .  Shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“Okay.”  I start to walk away.

“Maria?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.  You know – for being so much help this summer.”

He looks a little broken.  I don’t suppose he thought he’d lose Liz for long periods of time just yet – that was supposed to happen when she graduated and went to college.

“You’re welcome,” I say and move for the juke box. 

The first song I spy is Santana’s “Smooth” and the memories of that hot, hot night with Michael come flooding back to me.  I feel a little flip in my stomach as I remember looking up and seeing him hovering like a stalker outside of the restaurant doors, his face sweaty, his eyes incredibly intense.  I can still feel his lips on mine, the taste of his tongue.

Then I remember him blowing me off at the rave at the Old Soap Factory not even a week later.  Typical Michael Guerin – reel them in just so they start to feel special, then throw them back cold.

I put the quarter back in my apron and return to drying the glasses.  I don’t feel like listening to music any more.

Lying on my back on my bed, I stretch my legs toward the ceiling and prop my heels against the wall.  My mother would shoot me if she knew I was doing that.  “Your dad is sending me to Santa Fe to some restaurant convention,” I say into the phone.

There’s a familiar laugh on the other end of the line.  “He’s not.”

“He is.  I can’t believe it.  Can you imagine the kind of people who are going to be there?”

“Maria, they’re people just like you and me.”

“No they’re not, Liz.  Remember all of those people we used to make fun of every time a convention came to town?  That’s what they’re going to be like.  And this time I’m going to be one of them.”

“Those are alien conventions.  They don’t exactly attract the most normal of people.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that, but they’re still going to be old.  I will be the youngest convention-goer in the history of the world.”

Liz laughs again.  “It won’t be that bad.”

“Easy for you to say when you’re safely several thousand miles away.  What am I going to do at night – pick up some fifty-year-old greasy spoon owner and go clubbing?”

She laughs again.  “Why not?”

“Ugh!  I don’t think so.  I already have one person who smells like grease 24/7 in my life.”

Her voice is light.  She seems relaxed, better than she did the last time I talked with her.  “How is Michael?”

I wave my hand and shrug.  Stupid, I know, since she can’t see me.  “No change there.”

“Maria, I’m sorry.”

And I believe she’s sorry.  I believe she thinks I’m doing the best thing for me, but I can’t say as I believe she’s doing the best thing for her.  I’m trying so hard to get what she could have just by asking.  It almost isn’t fair.

“It’s okay, Liz – I knew what I was signing on for.  Michael is about three suitcases worth of emotional baggage.”  I sigh.  “But I can’t give up on him yet.”  I don’t feel like talking about heavy stuff right now, so I wait a beat and switch the subject.  “How’s Florida ?”

“Humid.  But nice.  It’s nice to be away from…things.”

Things meaning Max Evans.  Then she blows me out of the water with her next question.

“How’s Max?”

I don’t know how to answer that.  I don’t want to say that he’s super and have her think her leaving meant nothing.  I don’t want to say that he’s still pining over her because she’s supposed to be getting over him and that will not help.

“Maria?”

“He’s doing okay, Liz.”  I leave it at that.

There’s a brief pause.  “Okay?  Do you see him much?”

I shake my head and kick myself for lying.  Then I remember that she can’t see me.  I’m not used to this being mine and Liz’s normal mode of communication.  “He comes into the Crashdown.”

“How does he look?”

Jeez – what is with all of the questions?  He looks the same – dark hair, sad eyes and ears that are always the first part of his body to get sunburned.

“I mean, does he look like he’s feeling okay?  I mean…emotionally.”  Her voice has lost some of its levity.

Finally, I sigh.  “Liz, what is it that you want to know?”  Honesty has always been mine and Liz’s best policy.  We’ve never lied to one another.  She couldn’t even keep the secret that Max was an alien from me.  “Are you asking all of these things because you’re reconsidering?”

“No, Maria.  I just don’t want him to be too hurt.” 

Too hurt?!  Jesus, she handed his heart to him and then fled town – how can that not hurt too much?

“I do care about Max,” she continues.  “I don’t want him to suffer, you know.  I don’t want him to linger.” 

“I think he’s doing okay.  Not so sure he’s too happy about his new royalty status, but he’s holding it together.”

“Oh.  Okay.”  She doesn’t sound disappointed about that, like she was hoping he wasn’t able to exist without her.  Hard to imagine, but maybe Liz really is separating herself from him.  “Listen, it’s really late here and I’m afraid I’ll wake up my aunt.”

“Okay,” I say, dropping my feet from the wall.  “You take care of yourself, Parker.”

“You, too, Deluca.  Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I click off the phone and am about to put it back on the cradle when it rings immediately.  Startled, I don’t look at the caller ID before I answer it.

“Hello?”

“Maria.”

My heart automatically starts to pound at the sound of his voice and my throat goes dry.  I can still feel his hands on my skin… “Yeah?”

“You have to stop calling me.”  His voice is strained, like he’s on his last shred of patience.  “We’re done.  Through.  I have new responsibilities.”

My heart is now thumping out of anger.  “Responsibilities?  When was I ever your responsibility?!”

“As long as you’re involved with me, you are.  And I can’t have that burden right now.  So quit calling me.”  Then he hangs up.

I pull back from the phone and look at it like it was the thing that just offended me.  I’ve never been anyone’s responsibility or their burden.  I’ve always been able to take care of myself.  I asked nothing from him but respect and sincerity.  Well, I guess I should be happy I at least got one of them.

I don’t even realize I’m crying until I look to my window and remember him standing out there in the rain, wanting comfort.  I took him in and it had nothing to do with a sense of responsibility.  I did it because I loved him.  Obligation never even crossed my mind, but apparently it crossed his and I can only draw one conclusion – he never loved me.

Suddenly I can’t wait to go to Santa Fe .  And I’m doubting it will be far enough away.

Part Three

Forget Jeff Parker’s bitch – I’m just a bitch today.  Period.

I’ve been up all night, crying over that bastard living in that bug-infested, skanky apartment on the other side of town.  My eyes are all puffed up and red and on top of it I can’t find my shoes.  If I don’t get my ass in gear, I’m going to miss that goddamned bus and lord knows I don’t want to have to explain to Jeff Parker why that happened.

I drop to my knees on the floor and lift the bedskirt.  There’s all kinds of crap under there – a couple of CDs, some socks, lots of lint – but not the shoes.  Dammit.

Down the hall, I hear Mom’s voice.  I can’t hear her words, but I can hear the tone – she’s bitching because to her I appear to be “taking my sweet time” getting ready to leave.  Great – I don’t need her on my ass as well.

I draw in a breath and try to remind myself that she isn’t aware of Michael and his quest to be Asshole of the Year.  She hasn’t a clue that I’ve been up all night, wasting my time and my mind worrying about what he has said.  So I brush off my knees, grab my bag and walk barefoot out to the kitchen.

“Mom, have you seen my shoes?”

She pours the remains of her cup of coffee into the sink.  “Which ones?  Jesus, Maria, you own a thousand pairs of shoes.”

Must. Keep. Control. Of. My. Temper.  “The ones that go with this outfit.”

She eyes my clothes somewhat disapprovingly, then shakes her head.  “But would you please hurry up?  You’re going to miss your bus and I’m going to be late for work unless you get it in gear.”

“But I can’t find my shoes –“

“Then take a different pair.”

I can’t help it this time – I toss the bag angrily onto a chair and stomp back to my bedroom.  Just once could she be a little more supportive?  She could have helped me look for them.  She could have helped me pick out a different pair.

How can the whole world not see that I really need a break right now? 

Just as tears of exhaustion and grief are coming to my eyes, my foot catches something and I go sprawling on the floor.  My knee bangs the corner of my dresser and I feel a shooting pain all of the way up to my hip.  Wincing, I pull my knee up to my chest and hold my breath until the pain starts to fade.  Then I look around for the source of the problem.  Oh, look – my shoes!

Cursing, I grab them and stuff them onto my feet, then return to the kitchen, limping.  Mom doesn’t look humored.  She’s got her car keys in one hand and the doorknob in the other.

“Maria.  Hurry up.”

“I’m trying, Mom,” I say as I lift the bag and limp past her.

As we approach the car, I hear her annoying voice behind me, “I don’t know why you wanted to wear those shoes.  They obviously hurt your feet.”

Yeah, well it’s not my feet that hurt, but I don’t feel like explaining to her what happened.  If I were going to be home just a few minutes longer, she’d see the welt on my knee and understand.  But I don’t want to be home any longer.  I want to get as far away from this place as fast as I can.

Here comes the lecture.  She drives with her left hand and uses her right to punctuate every word.  Sometimes it waves so close to my face that I momentarily go cross-eyed.

“Now, Maria, I know what happens at conventions.”

I look at her and sigh.  I don’t really want to hear this.  I’m not going to do any of the things she’s going to warn me against.  I want to crawl into my hotel bed and never come out.

“There will be no partying, no drinking and no staying out all night.”

How would she ever find out if I did?  I guess she’s using the theory that a mother’s threat is as good as a ball and chain.

“And don’t forget that this is a privilege, Maria.  I shouldn’t even be letting you go after what you did not too long ago.”

As I watch the small houses of Roswell skip past my window, I knit my eyebrows together and try to remember what I did.  I can’t come up with it, so I look at her silently.

Her mouth is open in disbelief.  “You don’t remember.  You stayed out all night with those friends of yours and never had the decency to call me and tell me you were okay.”

She continues to rant, but I’ve blocked her out as I recall all too painfully where I was – helping to spring Max from a torture chamber.  She’ll never know about that, either, and I don’t believe she’d ever understand it anyway.

God, Michael was so heroic that night.  Breaking into the army base, posing as a member of the Special Unit, dragging Max’s drugged, beaten ass out of there.  I loved him so much at that moment.  And then a few short hours later he dumped me.

“Do you hear me, Maria?”

I jerk back to reality.  “How could I not?” I snap, unintentionally.  “People in Pittsburgh can hear you.”

She stares at me for an uncomfortably long period of time considering she is driving a car, then glances down at the gauges.  “Jesus, Maria!” she shrieks.

“What?” I ask, startled.

“You left the gas on empty!  I’ll never make it all the way to work on fumes!”  She spouts a string of curses as she cranks the steering wheel hard to the right and pulls the car into a gas station.  I grab for something to hold onto while she whips the car into a spot by one of the pumps.  “You’re pumping.”

I look at her incredulously.  I am going to be late.  Has she not realized this?  She’s allowed to be late – she owns the store she works in.  And it’s not like the mobs are going to get her if she’s not there exactly at nine o’clock to open the doors so they can buy blow up alien dolls.

She doesn’t budge, so I snort and get out of the car.  God, I hate pumping gas.  As I start to unscrew the gas cap, she pops her head out of the window.

“I don’t like your attitude, young lady.”

I’m going to say something extremely mean to her, so I just turn my back on her.  While the pump clinks and whines, I look at the wonderful little burgh I call home.  There’s nothing here for me anymore.  I hate it – it’s hot and dusty and brown.  I think if aliens did really crash here fifty years ago, they did so because they flew low enough to see what it was like and decided to bail at the last minute, pulled up a little too hard on the stick and smashed into the side of the cliff.  And yet somehow Michael Guerin survived.  Imagine that.  I’ll bet he crushed someone else in the process.

“Maria…”

“I know,” I snap, jerking the nozzle from the car.  I run as well as my swelling knee will let me to the building, pay the attendant, then hustle back to the car.

Mom peels out of the station, the tires squealing.  Then she does the unthinkable – she stops at the intersection closest to the bus stop and tells me I can walk the rest of the way.  I look at her incredulously.

“It’s hard to turn around down there, what with all of the traffic,” she explains.

“Mom, I don’t have time to –“

“Time’s wasting.”

Jesus!  She’s really going to make me walk.  It’s a good two blocks, I have a heavy bag and my knee is swelling.  But she’s not moving, so I grab my bag and jump out of the car.  Before I take two steps, however, she calls me back and I’m thinking she changed her mind.

“Remember what I said,” she reiterates.  “No partying.”

And with that she pulls away and disappears down the street.  There she goes, folks – Mother of the Year.

I glance at my watch.  Shit.  The bus is leaving in about a minute.  I start to run, the bag over my shoulder.  The sun is already hot.  Hey, it’s New Mexico , it’s the end of June – the sun is usually hot around the clock.  So, now on top of everything, I’m sweating.

Every time I put my foot down, a pain shoots from my knee into my thigh.  I bite back the pain and keep running, as well as I can.  I can see the bus stop ahead.  I’m going to make it!  All of that worrying and pretty soon I’ll be on a nice, air-conditioned bus, traveling far away from this dusty, evil city!

Then the bus pulls away from the station and disappears down the street, the opposite way my mother went.

Exhausted, I drop my pace to a mere stagger, the bag falling from my shoulder.  It drags behind me on the ground, making a nice scraping noise.  I’m probably wearing holes in the fabric, but I know longer care.  My chest burns from the running, my knee is throbbing, I’m sweating, and now I’ve missed the bus.

I’ve missed the bus because Michael Guerin is an ass and my mother understands nothing.  Feeling stupid but still unable to stop myself, I start to sob.  Dropping the bag entirely, I cover my face with my hands and just stand there in the middle of the sidewalk on