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Chapter One Max waited patiently for the clerk at the One-Hour Photo Shoppe to put his pictures in an envelope and hand them to him. He paid and walked out into the sunshine to a waiting Michael. He opened the envelope and flipped through various shots of people at the café the previous night before he came to five pictures of Liz crawling on him with her top hanging open. "Jesus." Michael looked away. "I feel like such a perv." "Don't. I don't know what made you and Maria come back there and have a camera. Do you think this will convince Liz?" "I don't know how it couldn't." Michael glanced down then looked away. "She's going to freak out." "I know. I have to show her these today. Now." Max walked towards his jeep. "No way, let me and Maria do it." Michael got in the passenger side. "She's going to be embarrassed and scared. I don't think you need to be there." "I have to be there for her. I'm the one who's lost her." "You'll get her back, but she's not going to want to hear this from you. She might not even believe you." Michael tucked the pictures under his leg. "Maria and I can do this and then when she wants to, she'll talk to you." "Okay," Max relented. "I talked to Isabel this morning. She said Bret broke up with her when they got back to school." "Seriously?" "Yeah. Just said, sorry he didn't think it was going to work out," Max shrugged. "She's crushed." "I bet. She really liked him." "She wondered if she should call Liz. I told her not yet. Good?" "Yeah, but Liz isn't really mad at her. She said she would have done the same thing," he shrugged and turned up the radio. * * * * Maria and Liz were sitting at Maria's kitchen table sipping coffee. Liz had spent the night there. "I don't want to talk about Max," Liz spoke, reading her friend's mind. "Fine," Maria sighed and looked up as Sean and Jade walked down the hallway hand-in-hand, both in T-shirt and boxer shorts. "Oh God! What are you doing here? Did she spend the night?" "Yeah, see I'm allowed." Jade smiled and stretched her arms in the air and yawned. Her cutoff T-shirt raised with her arms until it barely brushed the bottom of her bare breasts. "Could I get any more grossed out in the AM?" Maria asked. "You could open your eyes and see what that freak who got you pregnant really looks like," Jade laughed and walked to the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. "That's it." Maria stood up and slapped her hands flat on the table. "I've had it with you. Sean, get your trampy little thing out of this house and don't bring her skanky ass back here!" Sean looked at his cousin and forced a smile. "You think this is funny?" "No, Maria, I don't," he finally spoke. "What I think is funny is that you're getting all upset because I have a girlfriend and she can come over whenever she wants." "Are you on something?" Maria looked at him then over at Liz. "Is he making any sense?" "I think so." Jade stood back next to him and rubbed her chest on his arm. "I think you little girls are jealous of us." "I'm sorry?" Liz stood up. "Jealous of what?" "I mean, look at you and then at me." Jade looked towards Liz then down at herself. "I think you're jealous because Sean dumped you for me." "Oh my God!" Liz laughed. "Where did you find her Sean? Was it before or after she was on Jerry Springer? For you information, Sean didn't dump me. You can't dump someone you're not with." Jade looked at Sean curiously. "Secondly, you are nothing to be jealous of. Anyone who has to try that hard to get attention, isn't worth it." Jade narrowed her eyes at Liz, unable to come back with anything. "I'm sorry, Jade, what did you say?" Liz cupped her hand to her ear. Maria stifled a laugh and even Sean suppressed a smile. Jade looked at Sean and turned away, stomping out of the kitchen and back down the hall. "I'm serious Sean," Maria pointed at him. "Get her out of this house." "I'm about done with her anyway." Sean glanced over his shoulder. "Hey Parker, sorry I exaggerated our moments." He leaned in closer to her. "When you told me Max Evans broke your heart, you broke mine." He half-smiled and then followed the path made by Jade. "Wow." Maria sat back at the table. "This is way too much fun for one morning. I don't know if I could handle any more." Maria realised she had spoken too soon when Jade reappeared in the kitchen, this time dressed in street clothes. She was fuming. "I think you both are little bitches," she sneered and walked past them out the kitchen door. They looked after her and then at each other, laughing. The moments of hysterics were interrupted by the phone ringing. It was Michael. "Liz still there?" "Yup," Maria answered, turning away from her friend. "I'm on my way, we got the pictures." "And you're going to do what with them?" "We are going to try to convince Liz that there is something wrong, but you have to be there. Just you and me." "Okay." "Max is dropping me off, I should be there in about ten minutes. Your mom home? Sean?" "No and yes, but that's okay. Bye." Maria hung up and turned back to Liz. "Breakfast? I'm starving. How about eggs?" Liz agreed and they made scrambled eggs and toast. They were just finishing breakfast when they heard a car outside. Instinctively, Liz looked out the window and saw Max's jeep. She looked back at her plate when the door opened and Michael walked in. Alone. "Eggs? Excellent." Michael helped himself to a plate and smothered them in Tabasco sauce. "So, how's it going girls?" "We had a nice run in with Sean's slut on this fine pre-Summer morning," Maria stated, finishing her plate and taking both hers and Liz's half-full one to the sink. "She's here?" "Nope, gone. But boy, she was a barrel of laughs while she was here, wasn't she?" "Hysterical." "Actually it was kind of funny. She tried to go off, but Liz dissed her into silence. Classic Parker." Maria nodded approvingly at her friend. "Thanks" Liz said softly and took a mock bow. "She was a pain." Michael nodded and finished his breakfast. Maria took the plate away and sat down next to him. They both looked at Liz. "What's going on? You two look like you're going to tag team me," Liz laughed nervously. "We are." Michael reached behind him and pulled out the picture envelope. He flipped through to the right ones and laid them on the table in front of Liz. Liz looked down and picked the pictures up to get a closer look. She looked at each one as her face turned red. She looked to Maria then Michael then back to the pictures in her hands. She laid them face down on the table and put her head down, sobbing. "Sweetie?" Maria slid to the chair next to her and put her arm around her shoulders. "Are you okay?" No," Liz mumbled. She looked up. "Where did those come from? When?" "Last night," Michael said softly. "Max came to the Crashdown and that was in the backroom." "I don't...I don't know what you're talking about." Liz shook her head. "He wasn't there last night." "I'm sorry Lizzie, he was." Maria pursed her lips. "You know I would never lie to you. I saw it. I saw you with Max." "Why don't I remember?" She flipped the pictures back over and looked at each one again. "I know this is me, I know it was last night because of that stupid silver scrunchee in my hair. I bought it yesterday. But Max? I don't remember him..." She looked to Michael. "You tried to tell me and I didn't believe you." "I know it's a lot to take in." "Max wasn't lying to me. Max wasn't doing anything to me that he thought was wrong." She put her hand to her mouth. "I accused him...Oh God! I should have known better. I know Max." "It's not your fault, girlfriend." Maria shook her head. "How the hell are you supposed to know?" "Michael said..." "Yeah, like Mr. Guerin isn't full of shit half the time anyway?" She winked in Michael's direction. "All the crap that's gone on the last few years that was so unbelievable at the time, this is different. This is you." "I don't understand any of it." "We don't understand all of it either," Michael confessed. "Tess is behind it. Why? We don't know. Why she decided to take you over, or whatever, and try to get down and dirty with Max is beyond me. You'd think it would be the other way around. That she'd want you two apart. Far apart." "Exactly!" Maria exclaimed. "See, that doesn't make sense. Tess hated Liz, why would she be pushing them together?" "Because then she could screw me," Liz said quietly. "Max has sex with me, but it's not really me. It's her. He screws her, again. It would drive a wedge so far in between us we'd never come back from it." Michael and Maria gaped at her, stunned. Maria was the first to speak. "That is so evil." "Does it sound like Tess?" Liz asked, then bit her lip. "Yeah." Michael ran his hands through his hair. "It does. Who are the two people she wants to hurt more than anyone else? You and Max. Max for obvious reasons, you for being the one he loved instead of her." "I told you all she was a skanky little hooker, didn't I?" Maria sat back in her chair. "How can we fix it? How can I get to someone who is invading my body and mind that's a billion miles away?" Liz asked, not expecting an answer, she knew there wasn't one. "I felt like a real perv looking at those pictures," Michael admitted after a few minutes of silence. "You should!" Liz laughed, a real laugh. "I hope you felt like one when you were taking them, too!" "I did." "So did I," Maria confessed. "It was so surreal. If I wouldn't have been standing there I would have never believed it." "So, little Liz Parker turned into a full blown sex machine, huh?" Liz blushed. "God, of all the things that could happen, why this?" "Sex is power," Michael stated. "Not to move on from your new found horniness, but you are going to have to talk to Max. He's freaking out." "I'll talk to Max, I can't wait to talk to Max." She smiled. "I said some really bad things to him, about him. I need to apologise." "Not to Isabel." Maria shook her head defiantly. "She needs to apologise to you." "Actually, she wants to call you but Max told her to wait a few days. She's sorry about what happened." "Like I said then, I'm not mad at her. If someone were saying my brother was a rapist I'd have done the same thing. I'll call her today and tell her that." "Good," Michael said. "That guy she brought home, Bret? He broke up with her as soon as they got back to school." "Why?" Maria asked. "Dunno. Didn't talk to him. Just thought I'd give you the four one one." Liz and Maria looked at each other and laughed. "You're laughing at me, why are you laughing at me?" Michael asked. "Because through all that rebel bad-boy shit, you are really just a big old dork!" Maria leaned over and kissed the corner of his mouth. "A dork that I love." "I'm going home. I need to take a shower and think about all the ways I can get the skanky hooker out of my head, literally." Liz stood up and grabbed her overnight bag from the floor. "Maria, I'll call you later. Michael, thank you. Thank you for everything." "Are you..." Maria trailed off. "Gonna call Max? No, I'm going over there after my shower." Liz blew them a kiss and walked out the kitchen door, her pictures tucked safely away in her pocket. "This has got to be the strangest thing," Maria decalred once Liz was gone. "I mean, can you imagine?" "No." Michael shook his head. "When we're together I know it's all you. Maybe it's different for them, but I can feel your soul." "You can be the sweetest man on Earth sometimes." She kissed his lips. "So, my mom's gone for like most of the day, do you wanna go and feel my soul." |
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