Author: X_tremeroswellian
Email: [email protected]
Disclaimer: Liz, Max, Alex, Isabel, Michael, Maria and any other people you're familiar with such as Diane Evans or Kyle belong to Melinda Metz and Jason Katims and the WB. Cassie is Linda's, used with her permission. Alyssa and Matthew and Alan and Pete and Tonya and the ones you don't recognize are all mine.
Rating: R for language, violence and content.
Category: Well, a lot of this is about Liz, but it's also M/L, A/I, and M/M...
Spoilers: Up through "Blood Brothers" from the tv show, Roswell High book 5, and my fic, "Matters of Trust."
Author's Note: This is a sequel to my fic, "Matters of Trust" and if you haven't read it, I strongly suggest reading it before you read anymore of this one. Hold on guys, this isn't even half finished yet, I don't think...There's a long road ahead...
Warning: This part is a little bit more intense, and a bit more depressing than the past few, but I'm trying to make this as realistic as possible.
Feedback is always appreciated, and is very motivational!
Ghosts (Part 19)
The room was dead silent.
Liz couldn't believe she blurted it out like that, here, in front of everyone, at her uncle's funeral visitation. She felt Max's arms tighten around her and was more greatful than words could ever express for his strength.
Both of her parents were staring at her, her dad looking shocked, her mother looking a mixture of angry, shocked, and confused.
"What?" her dad finally said.
Somehow she found her voice to speak again.
"Uncle Charlie did things to me," she whispered. "When he would come and stay with us while he was in town."
"No," her mother said softly.
Liz felt rather than saw Alex and Maria both move closer to her, so they were standing on either side of her while she remained in Max's arms. She knew Michael and Isabel were standing close by, too.
"When?" her dad asked, his expression going from shock to blank.
She swallowed hard. "It started when I was six."
"No," her mother said again, shaking her head, tears filling her eyes.
"It's true," Kyle said quietly. "A few years ago at the Crashdown when Liz was working, he had her cornered in the back room...he was...touching her when I came in and stopped him."
Liz met his eyes and thanked him silently.
"No!" her mother shook her head vehemenatly and glared at Kyle.
"Mom--" she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek.
Nancy Parker turned her glare at her daughter and a second later Liz felt her mother's hand on her cheek as the slap resonated through the air. "You're a liar!"
"Nancy!" Amy DeLuca gasped.
For a second, Liz actually felt her heart break into a billion pieces and crumble inside of her. Her knees went weak and had it not been for Max holding her up, she'd have fallen to the ground. Instead, he turned her around in his arms and pressed her face into his chest.
"She's not lying," Max said quietly, his eyes filled with anger.
Liz trembled and fought desperately to keep from sobbing. She did not want to have a total breakdown in front of everyone twice in one day.
"It's all in her mind! Charlie would never have done anything to hurt Lizzie!"
"You're wrong," Alex said, meeting her eyes. "Liz didn't make it up, Mrs. Parker."
"Stay out of this," her mother said, glaring at him.
"No! Alex won't stay out of this, and neither will I," Maria spoke up, wiping tears off her own cheeks.
"Maria--"
"Why would she lie about this? It doesn't make any sense!" Her voice was full of anger.
Michael reached out and put an arm around Maria.
Liz closed her eyes as her friends defended her to her mother. She wished she could just make herself disappear so she never had to turn around and see her mother look at her with such a expression of hatred in her eyes again.
"Just get out of here! Get her out of my sight!" Nancy said angrily, turning away.
Liz felt the final remnants of her heart fall to the floor and shatter. Max's arms pulled her closer, more protectively. She realized she was moving, that Max was taking her somewhere, but she didn't know where she was going. He was leading and she didn't debate whether or not to follow, she just did it.
She was too numb to do anything else.
Alex sat tensely on the Evans' living room sofa, in between Isabel and Maria, with Michael sitting on Maria's other side. Across the room on the loveseat, Kyle and Cassie sat talking softly.
"Okay, tea for everyone," Amy DeLuca announced, carrying a tray into the room and setting it on the coffee table in front of them.
Alex glanced up at her, and realized she didn't look much better than the rest of them. He knew Maria's mother had always thought of Liz as another daughter. He accepted a mug of the herbal tea she'd fixed to try and calm everyone's nerves. "Thanks, Mrs. DeLuca," he sais quietly.
"You're welcome." She perched nervously on one of the lounge chairs, staring at the clock.
He stared into the mug, but he never really saw the liquid inside. He was seeing the devistation on Liz's face as her mother slapped her and called her a liar not an hour ago at the funeral home.
Alex shook his head and stood up, the first move any of the four of them had made in the last forty five minutes. He set down the mug and moved to stare out the window.
He felt Maria come up and stand next to him, gazing up at cloudy sky. "Do you think she's okay?" she whispered.
He glanced over at her, and wordlessly he put an arm around her shoulders. "I don't know, Maria," he said honestly.
"I wish I knew what was going on in there," she said, sighing in frustration.
Alex nodded. A second later, they heard footsteps coming down the hallway and they both turned around to see who it was. Max appeared in the entrance to the living room. The usual calm look in his eyes had been replaced by a mixture of sorrow and anger Alex didn't remember ever seeing before.
"Max?" Isabel asked, rising off the couch and to her feet.
"Mom's in there with her," he said, his tone flat. "She wanted to know if you'd go in with them, Mrs. DeLuca."
She stood up. "Yes, of course." Maria's mother hurried out of the room and disappeared down the hallway.
"Max, how is she?" Maria asked, leaving Alex's side and walking across the room to him.
Max just shook his head, leaned against the wall, and stared up at the cieling.
Kyle Valenti hated waiting.
He'd hated it since he was a kid, when he'd spent so much time waiting for his mom to come back after she'd walked out on him and his dad.
Some small part of him was still waiting for that to happen, but the rest of him knew it would never happen. His mom hadn't loved him, that's why she walked out. She wasn't coming back. It was the same with Cassie's mother, which was a big part of the reason that they'd hit it off when she started attending U.N.M.
There was only one other person who knew how much it hurt him that his mother had walked out. The only other person that he had admitted it to.
Liz.
They'd been going out for awhile before their sophomore year, and Liz had come over to his house to watch a movie. It was the sixth anniversary to the day that day, and he'd never cried in front of anyone before, not even his father. So when Liz showed up and he was crying, needless to say, she'd been shocked, but had wrapped her arms around him and told him how sorry she was and that everything would be okay. She'd listened while he told her everything...and much to his surprise, it felt good to have someone to talk to like that. Someone to lean on.
Of course, not long after that, Liz had dumped him for Max and then all that weird shit happened...his dad obsessing over finding out "the truth about Max Evans" and then by some miracle that was unknown to him, the six of them--Liz, Max, his sister, Whitman, Guerin and Maria had all paired off, but somehow managed to seem like one big family.
Kyle remembered walking into the back of the Crashdown that day, the way her uncle was looking at her, had his hands on her. He remembered the terrified look in her eyes, and he hadn't hesitated in calling the bastard on it. When Liz admitted to him later that it was her uncle, he'd been shocked, and horrified. He knew without question that it wasn't the first time her uncle had harassed her...and he suspected that was a big part of the reason the six of them had been bound together, though he always had the feeling there was something else keeping them together, too. Some other reason they kept their group tight-knit and rarely permitted anyone else to join them.
He'd been one of the few that got to experience what it was like to be a part of that group, even though he'd always felt like he was a bit on the outside. He'd sat with them at lunch a few times, had hung out with them at the Crashdown and at the occasional school dance, but he never asked questions or expected them to reveal their secrets. He knew it wouldn't happen anyway.
Of course, for awhile, he'd still been jealous of Max, and of his relationship with Liz, but after he'd watched the two of them together for awhile, that faded away. He had seen the looks that passed between them, how they could communicate without speaking, and he was blown away. There hadn't been a doubt in his mind since then that Liz and Max belonged together.
So he'd wasted time in high school, played football, hung out with Tommy and Paulie, and occasionally with the six of them, and had never really given another thought to dating someone else from West Roswell High. He hadn't had hopes of finding a girl that would look at him the way that Liz looked at Max, and he didn't think he could feel that way about a girl, either.
It wasn't until the beginning of this past semester of college at U.N.M. that he'd started believing differently.
Cassie Owens transferred in from the community college in San Juan to begin attending the University of New Mexico. He remembered the first day he'd seen her there. He hadn't recognized her right away, but knew there was something familiar about her. She had shoulder-length red hair, pale skin and the most amazing, mesmerizing green eyes he'd ever seen.
By some twist of fate, their professor had assigned them to work together on an English project, and it was then that he remembered where he knew her from. She'd graduated in the same class as he had, had been part of his life since the first grade, and he had never even noticed her. Whoever said that sometimes when you look too hard for something you miss what's right in front of you, must have been a genius.
Cassie was everything he'd searched for, dreamed about. She was intelligent, fun to be with albeit a bit quiet, and when she smiled...it was as if the world lit up around her. Like everything was dull and pointless until the corners of her mouth turned up, and then everything seemed to come to life again. And they'd had more in common than he ever could have imagined.
Her mother had walked out on her at a young age, and she hadn't had anyone to lean on, either. Her father was still around, but, like Sheriff Valenti used to be, he was too busy to notice her. And as it turned out, they liked the same music, the save movies and tv shows, and though she never participated in sports, Cassie enjoyed going to his football and basketball games during the seasons. She was the most caring, kind person he'd ever met, and had more patience than anyone he knew.
And when he was sick of waiting, Cassie took his hand and squeezed it, as though she'd sensed what he was feeling.
He smiled at her, a slight smile to let her know he was thankful she had come back to Roswell with him. Kyle knew how much she disliked it here. The place didn't hold a lot of good memories for either of them...and apparently not for the other five people gathered in the Evans' living room.
Kyle watched as Michael sat on the couch, staring at the tv that was turned off. Across the room, Alex was still standing by the window, not moving. A few feet away from him, Max sat on the floor, back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling while Maria paced around the room. Isabel had disappeared into the kitchen a few minutes ago, and hadn't returned yet.
The whole group was losing its normally calm, cool composure.
Not that he blamed them. Kyle wasn't feeling so great either. He'd seen the look in Liz's eyes as her mother called her a liar. It was something he wouldn't forget as long as he lived. He might not feel the same way about Liz as he had back in high school, when he'd thought he was in love with her...but Liz wasn't someone that you could just stop caring about. And he didn't want to. He valued her friendship even though he didn't see her very often. In fact, he didn't have anything against any of these people at all anymore. And he didn't want to see any of them hurt.
He just wished he could do something to make them all feel better. But for now, he'd have to wait with the rest of them, and see how things turned out.
Isabel leaned against the kitchen sink, staring out the window above it into the distance. Up until today, she had never lost her composure in front of a group of people other than her five best friends. And even that was a rareity.
She was Isabel Evans, Queen of Composure. Nothing could get to her. It was something she wanted people to believe...most of them, anyway.
And she'd never seen Liz fall apart like she had that morning, either. Sure, she'd seen Liz cry before, and she'd seen her upset, but the look on her face today was going to be something forever emblazoned in her memory. It was like her whole world had collapsed around her.
Isabel thought about Mrs. Parker's reaction to Liz telling her the truth about what Charlie had done to her. She'd gone from shocked, to confused, to denial to complete and total anger--all aimed directly at Liz.
Tears came to her eyes as she thought about it. Liz hadn't done anything wrong. She didn't deserve all the horrid things her mother had said to her. She couldn't imagine what Liz must be feeling right now. Isabel and Diane were close, very close, and always had been. Ever since the day that Diane and Phillip Evans came to adopt her and Max at the orphanage. Diane was home to Isabel.
Would she react the way Liz's mother had if Isabel told her who she really was? Would she think she was lying, or back away from her in utter disgust?
She didn't think she could handle that if it happened.
Isabel had always wanted to tell her mother the truth, but Max and Michael were very against it. Max was afraid of not knowing if their mother would still love them if she knew, and Michael was just afraid she'd turn them over to Sheriff Valenti, or to some government agency.
She had always been fairly sure that her mother would still love her--love all of them, and she felt beyond a doubt that her mother would never turn her over to any kind of authorities.
But after the way that Nancy Parker had reacted today to Liz's secret, she wasn't so sure.
Of course, she reasoned, Liz and her mother were never close to start with.
And the aching need inside of her was growing. She wanted to tell her mom. Wanted to tell her more than anything. One of these days she wasn't going to be able to handle the ache anymore.