The Truth: part 1-Wounded Spirits
(This is the intro leading into my story, recap of last few minutes of "Cry Your Name")
Max's head fumed angrily as he numbly walked out the Whitman's front door. Tess, Isabelle, and Michael were at his heels. Once everyone in angry silence got into Max's Jeep, Tess slowly put her left hand on Max's shoulder. "Liz has NO right to blame us for Alex dying!" Tess jumped and drew her hand away quickly from his shoulder. Everyone just stared out the front windshield. "It was an accident.... wasn't it?" Max said with emotion stinging each word. No one answered as Max banged his fists against the steering wheel and started the engine. In the backseat Isabelle let silent tears of anger and sadness roll down her cheeks, still staring straight ahead.. Max peeled away from the house and sped the few blocks to his house. He needed to cool down after what Liz had accused him and his kind of doing. The thought of her thinking he was responsible tore at his already wounded conscience.
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Liz choked out her last sentence before leaving Alex's room. "I know what I know. And I am gonna find out the truth. I OWE that— to my friend." She turns around and walks out, shaken. Max's eyes flashed with hurt again before her, as they did a few seconds earlier. The look will always haunt her, but that couldn't keep her from trying to find out the truth. That was what is important. Later that evening, after pacing across her rooftop deck for what seemed like forever, it began to rain so she climbed back into her room and closed the window. Liz slowly turned her head to her desk where a CD of Beth Orton lay across some of her recently developed roll of Prom pictures. She had to draw in her breath sadly as she caressed the photo's edges. She picked them up, along with the CD, and carried them down to the Crashdown dining area. On her way she grabbed her portable boombox. As she set things up, without realizing what she was doing, she set the pictures down on one of the tables in piles sorted by size or content. Liz placed the CD in the boombox, and pressed play. ("She cries Your Name"by Beth Orton comes on, loudly).
Liz turns around, towards the pictures, feeling the wall of denial she had built up since hearing the news about Alex come slowly crashing down. Eyes wide, she had a flash of Alex at Isabelle's 18th birthday party just 6 months before, him in his rented cop costume. As the tears blanketed her sight, she shook off the image and got set to work, not knowing the purpose of what she was doing. The search for the truth has been what has been keeping her tears from falling before now, but with Max so upset at her, and Maria grossed out that she went to Alex's crashed car in the compound lot, she felt the search at a dead ed, and the tears rushing in to finally break free. Flashes of Alex continued, as she sadly smiled when remembering how ridiculous he looked and danced, the way he made everyone laugh at that party. ‘Oh god Alex. No you can't be gone.' There were no stopping the tears now as the realization that she'd never have Alex there to make her laugh or comfort her about their whole situation was such an overwhelmingly depressing thought. Liz sat down in a booth with the last group photo they'd all ever be in and finally wailed without trying to quiet it or stop the tears from falling. Liz's mind screamed for Alex to come back, but her screams in her mind were interrupted when she heard the knock on the Crashdown's doors. She gasped and sucked in her tears, wiping her wet cheeks dry with the back of her hands. She opened the door for Danny, and he came inside, soaking. "I've been thinking about what you said," he replied quickly, "and I remembered something. You see, his credit card receipt, it was sent back because of the way it was signed." He handed the receipt to Liz as she read the sequence of numbers quietly to herself. "11100100100111011001" Liz looked up slowly, wide eyed. "Does it mean anything to you?" Danny asked. All Liz said was, "Yes. It means– I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."
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Since Max couldn't sleep he got up out of his bed, and slipped some jeans on. ‘4:37am' he read off the clock on his bedside table. He groaned, and grabbed his jacket. He didn't care who he woke up with starting the Jeep. He needed to get out of here. Now. Max got into the Jeep and headed straight out of town. The desert whipped by him, darker and more empty then Max usually saw it to be. ‘Everything is empty and dark now.' Max stated in his mind. He needed answers, or comfort or something since Liz was turned against him, and he was still a little upset that she blamed him. If he discovered the truth, and told Liz it wasn't an alien related accident, maybe..... no, even with the truth it would still hurt him to think back at how Liz had stood there and suggested he had some part of Alex now being dead. ‘ Oh why did he have to die,' Max thought sorrowfully. His sister Isabelle was so distraught by it, blaming herself, feeling cursed that whoever she got close to gets hurt or dies. But then someone else besides herself blaming her for the involvement of Alex dying had tore at her deeper then before. Even with the hurt that others thought what she thought, she still managed to stand up to Liz in Alex's room and walk out with her head held high, like the old Isabelle would do. Only to let it go when she was in the car, close by to their home. The devastation of it all got to Max. He was tired emotionally, more then ever before. Max suddenly swerved off the road and parked in the middle of nowhere. He got out and looked around, not sure of what he was looking for. He realized where he was, even though he wasn't told exactly where it was. He was at the accident site. Max drew in a breath, the air smelling of wet sand and concrete, burnt rubber and something else.... something that Max classified as the smell of—death. A sharp piercing pain surged through his brain, as he knelt down to touch the semi's old tire marks. A flash of the previous night played at fast speed through his mind, unable to get a clear picture of anything. Max just screamed out in an ear-piercing volume, as the images just whizzed by his eyes at 100mph. Then it all stopped and Max grabbed his head in agony. The memory of that night was in his head, but it was unclear, and Max couldn't get the images to slow down. But the thing he felt the clearest was the fear that Alex felt that split second before impact, and it burnt a hole deep in Max's heart. "Ooooh god." Max wailed slowly, with pain seeping on the words. He had to crawl over to the side of the road and throw up his last meal, it hurt so bad. It took Max over an hour to calm down enough to get up and into the Jeep, where he laid back, nauseous still. Then, at about 7:15, he felt well enough to start driving back into Roswell. Deep down he had found out the truth, somehow given to him just through the touch of the road, but he couldn't recall that knowledge up for some reason. He hated to admit it to himself, but something was out of place about Alex's death... he just felt it. This truth that he knew, would definitely give him an answer, and he knew either way the answer would have sad and painful consequences. The strain of guilt on poor Isabelle....that's all Max could think about. Just affirming her fear of getting involved with Alex got him killed would shatter her already wounded soul.
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