Take a good look at me now
Cause I'll still be standing here
And you coming back to me is against all odds
It's the chance I've got to take...

September 5, 2001 - Roswell, Mexico

Journal Entry 98

I'm Liz Parker and nine months ago I died.

Or at least that's what it feels like.

When you left Max - my life just ended. Oh, I go through the motions. I have kept my promise to you. I am strong. I am a rock. I am everyone else's shoulder to cry on.

I refuse to cry.

Max! Where are you???

I am trying so hard to be strong but it just gets harder and harder every day...

I feel so alone. I miss you so much.

Everyone misses you. It's like we've all gone to sleep waiting for you to come back...even though Michael keeps telling Izzy that its not going to happen.

You'd think that he'd be the one who'd want you back the most, since its all his fault in the first place.

I know that the way I feel about Michael is completely irrational, but I can't help it. I try to hide my anger, but I think that Maria knows and I'm almost sure that Isabel is beginning to suspect too...

Liz Parker looked up abruptly from her journal when the telephone in her bedroom began to ring. She sighed, glanced down at the leather-bound book on her lap.

She knew that if she stopped writing now, she might not come back to it. It seemed impossible to believe but it was the first time she had picked up her journal since the week after Max Evans had disapeared.

After he had left, she had read if from cover to cover, reliving every wonderful, heartbreaking moment of their entire relationship. Then she had returned it to its hiding place behind the brick in her bedroom wall and had ignored it.

She had known that trying to write in it would have been too much. She was always at her most emotional and open with her journal. She had a promise to keep to Max - emotional meant weak...

Liz had finally given in today. She had needed something to turn to after what had happened at school that day. She couldn't turn to any of the others. If she had started with them, the floodgates would have opened and that would have been the end of her resolve.

She knew that they were all worried about her, wanted her to open up. But she had to be there for THEM.

She had promised.

After the third ring, Liz finally gave in. She laid aside her journal, climbed in through her bedroom window, picked up the phone.

"Hello?" She knew it had to be one of four people: Isabel, Alex, Tess or Kyle. No one else ever called her anymore. Everyone else at school thought she was weird.

Liz didn't mind. All of her friends were now considered weird too.

"Hi Liz." It was Isabel. Liz blinked. Her best friend sounded uncharacteristically cheerful, totally unlike the the morbid Isabel Evans who had haunted Roswell since Max had left. Liz had once heard Kyle's old football buddy Paulie mutter to someone as he had passed Liz and Isabel in the hallway, "Just looking at her makes me depressed."

There was no question that Isabel had taken her brother's "death" hard. For that was what everyone in Roswell thought had happened to Max Evans - that he had fallen into a freezing cold river on the Father's Camping trip the previous January and had drowned.

Although Max's body had never been found, no one had any reason to doubt it. Max's parents and Sheriff Valenti were the strongest supporters of the story. Only ten people knew the real reason that Max Evans had disapeared...

"What's going on Iz?" Liz demanded, her heart suddenly being faster.

"Just get over here now." Isabel told her cryptically. "Something has happened. Don't worry! It's nothing bad."

Liz bit her lip, trying not to hope. Hope was a luxury they could not afford. "Is it about Max?" She finally managed to ask.

"It's complicated. Just hurry." Before Liz could ask another question, Isabel had slammed the phone down in her ear.

Liz stared at the receiver in her hand, shook her head in annoyance. She finally replaced it on the telephone and went to grab her car-keys off the bedside table.