Title: What's so great about normal?
Author: Jaester
Email: loudmouthposer@hotmail.com
Part: 1/1
Category: M/L
Rating: PG-14
Summary: Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess left. Set about three to five years
after graduation. This is Liz's POV piece about the pain they go through,
and the suffering she lives with. L
Author's note: I never write M/L, I'm a M/M writer mainly although I try and
include everyone in all of my stuffso, send me feedback on this one. It's
a tester. J
I'm Liz Parker and today I ask, what's so great about normal? Normal, what a pathetic word. It holds only sad, longing memories of when I only believed what could be explained by science. Days when I never thought twice about new students or teachers. Days when I never knew love, and days when my heart was still whole. Normal holds days of when I was never really alive. Overall, would I ever want to go back to normal again?
I think my experiences have made me stronger, more cautious. You have to be cautious when the next step you take could be your last. Some say we were naïve. Some say we were unprepared. I think that of all people, none were better to go through the leaving then us. Sure, we took it hard. What would you do if you woke up hearing your child crying over the storm, only to look over and find your husband missing?
I can't say I wasn't expecting it from them, just not from him.
I look back now and see how foolish I was to believe him as he told me he would never leave me, not even for his destiny.
Sometimes, you have no control over these things. Sometimes, you have no control over what's to come. Sometimes you are forced to leave, and sometimes you choose to. They chose. He chose.
Now, I sit here, just like every year, watching, praying that they will come back. But if they did, would I let them into my precious normal life again?
I'm twenty-five years old. Already I've had my heart broken more times then a child's toy. I've lived this entire time waiting for the bad ending. Living on a thin thread, knowing that one-day I'll be thrown off the string forever. I've had to watch my friends go through the same thing. I've risked my life, I've jumped off bridges, I've broken laws and I've died once. I've endured unspeakable amounts of envy. Envy of Tess, envy of Michael, of Isabel, envy of his stupid people. The people, who he didn't know, let alone love, which Max felt were important enough to leave me alone in this town. Scared out of my mind that someone had taken him, killed him, and dissected him. Scared until I found the note.
It's been two years since I burnt that note. I can still feel the old paper beneath my hands; I can still feel my fear. I can still feel my anger. I can still see the words that he wrote, only to tell me that he was leaving, for good. I can still see them looming in front of my face, taunting me for my denial and true belief that my Max would never write something like that.
So simple, just ten words, ten syllables. Each hurting more then the next.
Liz, I love you but I have to go home.
I don't know if there was more, I torched the thing before anyone else saw it. I can't tell Kyle or Maria that they might come back some day, because they might not. He left us, probably for good, and all I got was that stupid printed out note.
Now, I just sit back and pretend my life is normal. Because when it's normal there are no heartbreaks, no pain. Still, the past resurfaces when ever we look at Maria's Jetta, whenever we see a bottle of Tabasco sauce, whenever we watch the stars, and whenever Claudia asks where her dad is.
Deep down, I know he would never leave his child. Deep down, I know that he would never leave Kyle and Maria. Deep down I know he would never leave me.
He did, he left us all here alone, waiting for him to come back, and you know what? He probably never will.
Every time I think of it, dream it, remember it, I hate it a little more. Not that I could ever hate Max Evans, I hate what he's done. I hate how he left us, I hate how he never said goodbye, I hate how he lied to me, and I hate how he betrayed my trust. I hate how much I still love him despite all of these things.
Every day I look into his eyes, into Claudia 's eyes, and hope that one day he would come back to us, save us from what we have become. Empty, hopeless. Kyle is so hollow, so broken. All this time I thought he didn't care about us, but he took it the worst of all. Maria just goes through the motions of life, believing a promise that will most likely never be kept. We only have each other now. And sometimes, we barely have that.
I tell Claudia that he died. That her Aunt Isabel and Uncle Michael died too. It's easier that way. It's normal.
What's so great about normal?
Everything.
The End
