"Hey."

I can't even manage a polite 'hey' when he walks into the diner and sits down at the counter right behind where I clean the soda machine. I'd like to, but the words catch in my larynx and my mouth hangs open silently. I'd like to be able to turn around and look at him, but I can't even do that.

"Liz?"

He presses me. After all this time, you'd think I'd be able to just look him in the eye, but even the sound of his voice on two syllables is more than I can bear. I've avoided this moment for almost two years; I can go two more.

"We're closed." Please don't make me turn around, I can't do it. Don't make me see their death in your eyes.

"Liz. I can't do this anymore." And I can't do this yet. But, I swear, I'm trying.

I've buffed the same spot on the soda tap about twenty-one times. Once for every year I've been alive. Almost. Not that I'm counting.

"Please, Liz..." His voice is so thin, strained. "You're the only one I have..." He pleads solemnly to the back of my head.

"I'm sorry." The tears that are always hanging on the edges of my eyes overflow and drip to the chrome. I wipe them away from the surface with perfectly circular swabs of my rag. Clean the soda machine, Liz, just clean the machine and he'll eventually leave.

And eventually he does leave. I hear his rings clink against the counter and the chain on his wallet clank against the side of the stool when he stands. Eight seconds longer staring into my hair and hoping I'll talk to him. Twenty-three steps to the front door, the tinkle of the tiny bell and the lock clicking back into place so he leaves me just as he found me.

Locked inside.

Nice. I'm becoming nothing more than a mountain of clichés and denial.

I can't turn around even after I know he's long gone. I'm terrified that I'll still see him sitting in that spot. Another vision to add to the rest of the ghosts.

One day, maybe, I'll be all cried out. Until then, tears never fail me.

We were nineteen when it happened and, for me, time has stood still ever since. Nothing about me has changed, except everything. But the physical things, they're all precisely the same. The college applications I was finally going to submit still sit in their envelopes on my desk, my teddy bear stares at me from my nightstand where he stands court with the row of pictures I'm lucky to even have got in the first place. I still wear my hair the way that he liked it.

And in a little over a week, I'll be twenty-one.

I would have thought that by now I would be almost through with undergrad studies and looking for a school to do my post-graduate work at. I would have been far away from Roswell, New Mexico and calling home every few weeks with reports of good grades and fun parties and a decent job that pays the bills but doesn't interfere with my schooling.

Instead, here I am in exactly the same place that I've been forever. Same job. Same girl. Only now, everyone looks at me with that expression that only says 'Poor Liz. I thought she'd be a doctor by now.' They watched me grow up, they had the same dreams for me as I did.

Dreams killed at the same time they were.

I can't say it yet.

But, I swear, I'm trying.

He watches me from my window some nights. I feel him there. And every one of those nights, I tell myself over and over to turn around and show him that I'm awake, that I know that we should talk about this, talk about that day, talk about every day since. And every one of those nights, I cry noiselessly into my pillow and try not to shake.

I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry for both of us. I'm sorry for them. And I'm sorry for the rest of the world who will never get to know us; we could have been decent.

I feel so self-important. I've made all of this about me when everything should have been about them. But, then, he and I are the only ones left, so who else should it really be about?

Again. I'm so sorry. In so many ways.

"Javier? What's the E.T.A. on those burgers?"

"They're coming now, Liz, two minutes." Javier always smiles at me; it makes me feel half-alive. Then, I realize that he's only trying to make me smile too and the chance of that is slim. I let him down every time. I let everyone down all of the time.

I stand in the window and for just a millisecond forget everything. It's like that deep in auto-pilot, I forget everything except being a waitress and running mediocre food around in circles. Sixteen steps from the kitchen to table seven, eight more steps to table four, twelve from there to the counter.

"Please talk to me, Liz." His fingers wrap around my wrist and I'm paralyzed. Auto-pilot must have blinded me. Or maybe it was the denial. Maybe they're the same thing.

The bile raises in the back of my throat and the tears well in my eyes. Again. I can't run from all my customers and I can't leave Javier and Missy to take care of the whole place again. I've done this to them too many times. I've run too many times.

"Please, Michael... Not now." Just saying his name is enough to bring it all back.

Michael has changed in all the ways that I haven't. His skin is more weathered than I remember it, his eyes darker and coarse. And his hair is long; a short patch of beard grows under his lip. If he passed me in the street, for a moment I might not even recognize him.

Everything that I've not done to remain exactly the same person I was the day before they were taken from us, is everything he's done to make sure that that person hardly existed.

"Later, then. Liz?" I can deal with later. Later I won't have been caught off-guard and pushed into a corner where I have to watch the tiny filmstrip loop repeatedly between us. Later I can disappear into my bathroom and cry on the tile floor until my head hurts so badly and I can finally fall asleep. Later, I can blow him off and we can dance this one again another time.

"Later." His fingers finally release me but I still feel the pressure where they had gripped.

I wonder why he hasn't left Roswell as far behind him as he's left the boy he once was.

I know why I'm still here.

I crave the protection of my parents and the day to day predictability that I lost when we were all still in high school. Everything is predictable now and nothing changes. Mrs. Rodriguez sits at the counter everyday at four o'clock sharp and orders the early bird special, whatever it is, and a cup of decaf that she'll ask for three refills on. Sheriff Valenti comes in for lunch every afternoon and Missy takes care of him because he's just another ghost to me whose face I can't look into.

He stopped trying a long time ago. Good man.

Nineteen stairs up to our apartment, seventeen steps to my bedroom, another three to my bed. Missy and Javier can handle an hour downstairs by themselves between the lunch and afternoon rushes. My father will pick anything up that needs to be covered and he'll never mention to me that I shouldn't have disappeared.

An hour is nothing in the scheme of things.

It's later that I worry about while my head is buried in my pillow and my bedroom is closed from the light. I hope that if I lie here long enough, later will pass me right by.

When I go back downstairs, the diner is near empty. I marry ketchup bottles on the counter until the next rush starts. Javier makes me a turkey burger because, left to my own devices, I probably won't feed myself and he knows it. They all take care of me in one way or another, feeding the different bits of me that I need fed.

Even Michael nourishes a part of me. Knowing that he's out there and that some part of him needs me -- just knowing that allows me to turn my back on him. I must like him out there.

As I take my last, mechanical bite and the plate is clean, the first group of dinner customers arrives. I can slip easily into auto-pilot for the next two hours at the least. This is how I move from day through day and start again. Routine can do wonders for pain.

"Liz, we're never going to get anywhere in these sessions if you don't let go of your silence. I think you need to find another psychotherapist, someone who maybe you'll trust more, don't you think?"

I could answer her with the same silence she's been used to, but part of my main objective -- keeping things exactly the same -- is keeping her the same. I answer her quietly, not wanting to shock her with the sound of my voice.

"I do trust you, Diana. I just can't talk about events and talking about events is the only thing that I'm here for. I don't want to bore you with the day to day monotony of my life." Maybe not the best words, but words nonetheless.

She lets out a long breath and swivels her chair around to face me, exhausted. "I'm glad that you feel like you can trust me. Ever since the first time we met, I've been glad that you know that you need help, know that you can't get through this alone. But, Liz, we've been meeting twice a week for over a year now and we're no closer to getting you through this. I can't help but think that maybe you don't want to. Your depression has become all-encompassing, and short of putting you on anti-depressants, I don't know what else we can do here. How do you feel about that?"

Everything always ends with 'How do you feel about that?' I know how I feel about that. But that's not exactly what she's looking to hear.

"You think that drugs would change anything?" I don't want drugs; I know this isn't about pharmaceuticals or brain chemistry.

"Honestly, Liz, I don't know. Anti-depressants can help a lot of people, but I'm not sure of anything with you anymore. I know so little about what's hurting you, and until you can face those things head on, you're not going to be able to move forward and I can't help you. You're not letting me help you."

"I'm sorry. Please don't fire me, Diana. I need this in my life." I've never been fired from anything before, seeing as I've never had a job outside of the family, but that was what her little diatribe seemed to be saying. And I do need this. I need this more than she can possibly know.

"Liz, I don't want you to think of this as rejection, but all these sessions ever amount to is me spouting off everything I learned in school about psychoanalysis and you staring at me as if I had six heads. We're going nowhere and I can't keep taking your money. I can refer you to another doctor, if you think that you might benefit from someone else's help, or we can start over and you can start talking to me. I can't help you if you never allow me to." She looks at me so earnestly. I almost feel bad for putting her through this and dragging her into my own private hell without showing her the sights. "You're so sad, Liz. I want to help bring you out of your sadness."

The doctor leans back into her chair and stares at me, waiting for me to say something. I think that she believes that she was finally making headway, at least this time I said something even though it wasn't really anything. I think that, in and of itself, surprises her.

And maybe she is making headway.

In a lot of ways, I'm tired of keeping this inside me. There's nothing more that I want than to push all of these memories out of my head, to stop seeing them in front my eyes during almost every waking moment. But I can't seem to bring myself to repeat them either.

So we're back to square one.

"Doctor, please... I'm trying..." It's the best that I can do and it's my biggest excuse. I placate and then stroke my denial.

"All right, Liz... All right... But, from today forward, no more silence. You have got to talk to me." She looks at her watch and we both know that my time is up. I stand, cross the room and shake her hand and she nods at me, probably hoping that we've come to some sort of understanding. Then, I walk outside, write a check to the nice secretary, who always looks at me so sympathetically and comes into Crashdown every Sunday with her boyfriend for lunch, and set up the next appointment.

Narrowly, I skirt another disastrous change.

Michael is waiting for me at the curb in front of the office when I step outside. My entire body stiffens and I feel like I can't breathe, everything begins to shudder around me. I hate him.

"I'm sorry for coming here, Liz. I had a feeling that if I tried to find you later that you'd just avoid me and I didn't want to let you do that this time." He gives me that same sympathetic look that everyone gives me, but his is laced with the same sorrow I see everyday in my own eyes.

"Why not, Michael? Why not?" Why does everyone seem to think that talking about the past will make it go away?

Nothing will ever make this go away.

For the briefest moment, I wonder how long he's been following me around and memorizing my schedule and then realize that I don't really care.

My movements are robotic as he leads me along the darkening streets and neither of us speak. One by one, street lights are illuminated and the windows of the apartment houses brighten. It's only early evening, but it feels late. Summer is like that.

Too late, not late enough.

I don't even know why I'm following him, why I allow him to affect me at all, why I allow him to do anything. If I had never listened to him in the first place, maybe things would have turned out differently back then. He should know that himself. Meanwhile, we act like we know nothing when we know everything.

And that's the problem.

"Michael?" He turns at the sound of my feeble voice and he looks at me long and hard as if waiting for more. I don't know what I meant to say anymore.

"It's been so long..." He leads me further and I finally realize that he's taking me to the apartment he still lives in. I guess some things don't change as much as I might have thought. It's been even longer since I've even been in this part of the neighborhood.

He slips his key into the downstairs lock and holds the door open for me to enter. My pause is long and, try as he might not to, he still looks impatient. Against every iota of best judgement, I cross past him and make my way up the stairs. It has been a long time, but not so long that I've forgotten my way.

When we arrive at his door, I'm frozen again. The last time I stood inside his four walls was the last time I ever wanted to, and roughly thirty minutes later everything we both knew as our lives ended. It all comes flooding back in a spread of painful heat across my stomach just standing in front of the open door. I feel like I may vomit.

"I can't... I can't... I can't..." I start to turn to run back down the stairs and outside and away, but Michael is on me immediately, his arms wrapping around mine and his body holding me fast against his. My heart slams in my chest and I can hear its pounding in my eardrums.

"You can. Liz, there are no ghosts here..." My knees go out under me and I feel my body limp in his embrace. He leads me inside and to the sofa and sits me down backing away slowly. Strange how he's so unrelenting and so passive at the same time.

The couch is new, at least new to him; I don't remember the orange and brown weave. Almost everything around me is different, I have no memory of the chrome and glass coffee table that sits in front of me or the bookshelf that stands against the far wall filled with books. Michael watches me with squinted eyes and pursed lips, almost the boy that I knew, but so much older in so little time.

That makes two of us, except I haven't grown a day.

"You want something to drink?" He's wringing his hands and moving back and forth slowly in one spot. Somehow, watching him act as nervous as I feel makes all the difference. I find it almost soothing. As soothing as sitting here can possibly be.

"What do you have?" Anything to postpone the inevitable. I should call my parents, let them know I'm okay. Up until tonight, you could have tracked my comings and goings like clockwork and they're probably just about starting to worry for my whereabouts. Like a lot of things, I also can't remember the last time I wasn't exactly where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be.

Michael lists off half a refrigerator of beverage choices and I nod somewhere in the middle of his words not really paying attention to what I've just agreed to drink and not caring either way. When he brings me back a stolen pint glass filled with juice, I ask to use the phone, further prolonging our agony.

My parents sound pleased that I've done something to change my patterned behavior and when I hand Michael back the phone, he takes a deep, deep breath and stares down at his hands.

"Two years next week and then, your birthday."

"I know." Of course I know. I've been counting down each day as it passes me by. "And?"

He moves just slightly closer to me and I want to inch further away.

"And it never gets any better, does it?" I've never known him to be so sincere, or at least I never thought that he was or that he even had it in him. In my mind, Michael always had an ulterior motive to everything, always had his own interests in mind.

"Not so far. But we both know that... So why am I here, Michael? Why have you dragged me here to make me feel worse?" I know that's not his true intention. I know that Michael doesn't want to hurt me more and that he doesn't want to feel this way either, but trivial calendar reminders aren't what we're here for and I know that too.

"You scream out in your sleep almost every night and I hardly sleep at all, there's got to be a way to drown out the demons, Liz." I can smell him now, he's so close and I think that he's using every ounce of strength he has in him not to touch me. Even when we were close, we weren't very close. And at the end, I don't know what we were.

"This is stupid, Michael. I want to go home." When I get scared, when I get angry, when I remember back to the last day, I only want the darkness of my own bedroom and the safety of my blankets. I'm so angry and so scared, and I remember it all so well.

"Please, Liz... I feel like if we talk about it..." Sometimes he's so helpless, like a child. I remember Maria telling me once how he cried in her arms and she held him until the shaking stopped and he fell asleep. It must have been a lot like this moment.

But the Michael that I knew wasn't that Michael. There was nothing defenseless about him, nothing quiescent and nothing constant. The Michael that I remember was uncontrollable and angry and spiteful. The Michael that I knew didn't cry and didn't apologize and would never beg.

We buried that Michael when we buried what was left of the rest of them and what's missing of me.

"Tell me that it wasn't our fault." He stares into my eyes as if I might possibly know something that he doesn't.

"I can't do that, Michael. I try to tell myself the same thing everyday and I haven't started believing it yet. Maybe it's not our fault directly, and maybe we should have been there and died along with them, but I don't know... I just don't know." His red eyes fill with tears and his mouth quivers and his body trembles. I want to reach out for him, but I don't.

The Michael I pretend to remember wouldn't have wanted me to.

He inches slightly closer and I don't move away this time. The very least that I can do is be the warm body he needs near him, even if I'm unreceptive and mostly cold. But every inch nearer reminds me of how alone I've been myself and how much I've missed human proximity.

We've missed out on so much.

Sometimes, I curse the day that Max brought me back to life just to end my life and begin it again and end it again and then to end it completely. Had he just let me die the first time, I wouldn't be here now wishing for life or death and not this cross between the two.

The heat from outside permeates the stale air around us. And even though Michael has turned on the fan and it oscillates near the window, the heat only grows. When he takes off his long-sleeved flannel, leaving him in only an undershirt, I see the scars. Long, thin, purposeful; they snake over his forearms and biceps and into his tank. I pretend not to notice.

I've hurt myself too, more than a few times. I've put my fist through the window of my bedroom and paid off the glazier so he wouldn't tell my parents each of the three times I've had him come to fix the panes. I understand where that comes from, not that I'm proud of it. My only wonder is why he doesn't heal himself, but then I realize that for Michael, part of trying to forget must be fighting to remember.

"It would be too easy to kill yourself, wouldn't it?" My words leave my mouth before I can stop them and I regret their being said almost immediately.

"I've thought about it, but then I think I'd be letting us all down and I can't do that. I've done that enough. Can I show you something?" He pulls away slightly and looks into my eyes again as I struggle to avert them. Looking too deeply hurts too much.

I do see Max inside him, and Isabel and Tess too; even a little bit of Maria is left in there. I suppose he sees her inside me as well, but it's not as easy to recognize.

"Do I want to see it?" Probably not.

He reaches under the couch cushion behind him and pulls out a black book like one of those bound sketchpads they sell at the art supply store. It's worn from handling and pages written, read and re-read. He places it on my lap and leaves his hand heavy on top of it, pressing it into my legs.

"Take it home with you, I want you to read it." He has that pleading look in his eyes again and it tears me apart. I nod just perceptibly, knowing that I won't read it. Not yet.

"I don't know if I can, Michael." In the time that I've been sitting next to him, I've gotten used to the sound of his name again. It's been years since I've said it aloud, but it slides from my lips easily now. It's almost nice. Every time I've heard it inside my mind it was spit with ugliness.

"Please, Liz, try... I read your journal once, so long ago, and it made me feel sorta better. Maybe mine can do the same for you." He thinks that referring to a better part of the past will remind me that things weren't always so abysmal. He's trying to play me, but it's not working.

"No, that's not why you want me to read it." And it isn't, this is all for him, what he wants. "You want me to try and live this through your head for a while, for you to feel better because you've forced me to see your rationalizations and the way that you've come to terms with them. No. Screw you, Michael, I won't do it your way. And the worst part is, I don't even know why you think that I can free you from this. It has nothing to do with me."

For once, my voice is strong, almost a screech, and so loud. Michael winces but doesn't remove his hand from the book on my thighs. Instead, he waits, knowing that when I do go, the book will come with me and eventually I will read his words. I won't be able to help myself.

"You know, Liz. This is all bullshit. It's all about you. I want to move forward... Do you have any fucking idea how many times I've tried to move away, to get Roswell completely out of my mind and put everything in the fucking past? Jesus Christ..." He's tired of placating me. His fingers tear through his hair as he pulls it away from his face and his voice carries further than mine had. "But I can't. I can't leave and I can't move on and I can't fucking do anything, and that, if nothing else, is entirely your fault. I can't leave, because you won't. And I can't move on, because you won't. And every goddamn day, I wonder why I even give a shit about you when I can barely care about myself."

He's won my silence in his honesty.

"Everything has always been your way, Liz. Everything... So don't tell me that you won't do it my way, it's just bullshit. I don't even have a way anymore."

And he's probably right, but I didn't make it that way. That was his choice.

He gets up and paces around the room maniacally looking as if he might hit something or toss something hard around the room. I wait patiently for his crash, bracing myself, but nothing comes. Poor Michael, flaccid in his anger, just because of me.

"I'm going home." Better to just get out of here and try to forget all about it, right?

He nods and when I close his door behind me, I wait on the outside stairs and listen closely for whatever he held back while I was still inside. He doesn't fail me. He never does, and he probably never will. In that way, we're exactly the same.

I walk the long way back to town and stop more than once to collect my thoughts and cry onto the cover of Michael's journal. When I've finally gotten it together enough to walk through my own front door, I tuck it under my arm and go home.

We've gotten nowhere.