Leaving Normal …..

Sonnabitch! Max paced the Mens’ bathroom, his anger barely contained. Helpless. This was helpless. He wanted…needed to be with Liz, if only to comfort her, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t. He punched the bathroom stall in frustration and the wall collapsed.

“Ow.” Michael climbed out from beneath the metal stall. Okay, so hiding in the bathroom wasn’t so great an idea. He sighed, crossing his arms across his chest and critically examined his friend. “Gandhi feeling frustrated?”

“Shut up.”

Michael lifted a brow. The unflappable Max Evans was not so calm. “Let me guess...you're in love with a girl and she's with another guy.”

Max made a sour face, his eyes darting hate messages at Michael. “You realize that you can be really annoying, right?”

Michael made a face, yeah like he cared. “I got something else that's gonna cheer you up.” Slapping Max on the back, he sat back smiling at Kyle Valenti across the way as he tried to open his locker.

“What the hell are you doing?” Max asked, slightly pleased as he watched Kyle struggle. But a sinking feeling was starting in his gut that negated the feeling.

“What am I doing?” Michael was confused. What the hell was his problem?

“What are you doing?”

“I'm helping you out.”

“No, you're not helping me out. You promised me that you wouldn't do anything to those guys.”

“I promised I wouldn't hurt those guys.” Michael shook his head in the face of such ingratitude.

“You're putting us in danger, Michael.” Max said, the frown of his face darkening.

Michael stifled an angry response, but the unfairness was too astounding. “You're the one who put us in danger when you saved Liz. You're the one who screwed up.”

“Yeah, and I'd do it again right now.” Max closed his eyes for a moment. He knew it was true. Even knowing everything he knew now, he would still take the risk to save her.

“Let's hope we can trust her.” Michael doubted it. Liz Parker had already broken once by including Maria DeLuca in on the secret. She would break again.

“We can trust her.”

“Well, I don't trust anyone these days.” Michael didn’t bother telling Max he shouldn’t either; there was no use talking to a brick wall.

~~~

Maria paused in the hallway on her way to the library to talk herself out of a book fine. Liz. Her eyes softened in sympathy seeing her best friend’s dejected look, the toll of despair on her shoulders. Straightening her carriage, Maria went to lend a shoulder.

“Liz, how's she doing?”

Liz tried to smile, but it fell flat. “She's ok...we're just going to wait and see.”

“Come here.” Sitting down, Maria offered the only thing she could give, human contact. “So, what are you doing at school?” Liz put her head in Maria’s lap as Maria twirled Liz’s hair, her voice low and comforting.

“I was at the hospital all night. My parents just wanted me to take a break. My mom said she'd page me if anything changed.” Maria’s hand paused. They were friends, but there was a world of difference between their demeanors.

“Well, you know, you should be at home then...binging on junk food and Rosie.” That was the sane response, the only response to a life altering situation. School? God, only Liz would choose to go to school.

Liz sat up, slowly, her pretty face concerned. “Maria, I'm getting this really weird feeling from Max.”

Maria schooled her face to not show her feelings. Max Evans again? Her grandmother was dying and she is getting ‘ a weird feeling from Max’? Unreal. Maybe she should take Liz’s temperature. Obviously the alien suck zone was baffling her friend’s normal thought processes. “What kind of feeling?” Maria asked, trying to remember that friends don’t judge, they support.

“It's like he's pulling away or something...he can't even be pulling away because we're not together to begin with, but I feel him like avoiding me.” Maria stopped from rolling her eyes or snorting. Like that would be a bad thing?

“Well, wasn't that the whole agreement, that you guys wouldn't be seen together for awhile?” she reminded Liz gently.

Liz pushed her hair out of her face, her unhappiness in her eyes. “Yeah, but it's different. I saw Max before and he had this...like this tone like I was his enemy or something.”

“Maybe you're just reading into this too much. I mean, with everything that's going on.” The enemy? Maria breathed through her natural reaction of panic.

“Maybe.” Liz wasn’t so sure. The girls both looked up as the bell rang.

Sighing, Liz sat up. “So, I'll just...I'll see you at work.”

Maria let an incredulous expression move over her face. First school, and now work? “Work? No way you're working tonight, Liz.”

Liz sighed. Not her first choice of things to do. “No, Stephanie's on vacation, Karen's pregnant, and those tooth people are going to invade. I cannot leave you by yourself.”

“Liz, you should be with your family, ok? I can handle the Crashdown.” Maria shook her head. At the very least, Mr. Parker should be worrying about covering the shifts at the Crashdown, not Liz.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, and besides, I'm not alone. I have Agnes.” Maria almost bit her tongue. Oh yeah, like that would be worth anything. She was so doomed.

She watched her friend go. Sighing, she went back to the pursuit of her original destination before seeing Liz. The damn librarian, there was no way she was paying those fines. It was outrageous the inflation! Who ever heard of getting through a book in less than a month or two?

The noise coming from the art room made Maria pause. Peeking in, she was startled to see Michael Guerin in front of an easel. He was painting with a headset on. Stepping cautiously into the room, she peered at what he was doing, her glance following the lines on the canvass.

Passion.

He was strangely animated. Maria frowned. In all those years, she hardly noticed him except as this big scary standoffish guy who almost never went to class. Michael Guerin was the epitome of indifference and disdain, his features schooled in blankness.

There was nothing standoffish about him now.

Licking her lips, Maria slowly backed out of the room, leaving him. Somehow, she didn’t want to know that much about him, to see that much inside. If he was more than she knew, it would make it difficult. He wasn’t something she could afford.

~~~

Maria stretched her body, tiredness rushing through the lines of her back. The Crashdown had been a nightmare, one of the worst she could remember. Entering the hospital, she avoided the hospital staff, not wanting to hear a lecture on visiting hours. Liz was where she suspected she’d be, in the waiting room alone. She should go home, but she couldn’t, not until she made sure Liz was okay.

Liz quickly hugged Maria, their eyes meeting. There was a touch of finality to the air, and Maria gulped hard. She loved Claudia Parker as much as she loved Liz.

“She could still come out of it.”

“Well, the doctor doesn't think so. I saw it in his eyes.”

Maria sighed. What the hell was a doctor doing talking to a young girl? Too much. This was too much to handle at sixteen. She rubbed a weary hand over her forehead.

“I can't believe this. I mean, you saw her yesterday, you know? She was so full of life.”

Maria nodded, her eyes bright as her voice thickened. “I know.”

Liz wrung her hands. “I can't believe I went out. I was out all day. I wasted all that time in the video store.” She looked at Maria, not needing a response. Her guilt and regret were apparent enough. “I had all this time that I could have just spent with her and I left. What was I thinking?”

Maria refrained from piping in a platitude. It wouldn’t help. Nothing would. Not now. Not ever. This was something Liz would have to deal with on her own, in her own mind.

Liz saw it in Maria’s face, all the things she would not say. “I know, it's irrational. I'm being irrational.”

“Liz, I'm glad you're being irrational. I mean, this is hard. This is really, really hard.” Maria held Liz’s hand tight. It was late, and she had a long day, but she would stay. “Are you sure you don't want me to stay?”

Liz could see the tiredness in her friend’s face, and she let go of her hand. “Yeah, it's fine, but thank you.”

Maria quickly hugging her. She had to leave or she wouldn’t. “Ok, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Death, it was a harsh reality. A lifetime of loving a person, a parent or grandparent, and you were always aware that your time with them was short, but nothing ever prepared you for the moment that time ran out. Time. There was never enough time when it came to long, but maybe that was the point. Learning acceptance, and letting go was perhaps as important as loving in the first place.