"Michael he's just her friend." "Don't tell me you believe that," Michael laughed. "That's just because she's going out with the Sherriffs son. You and I both know that if he wasn't -"

"Max would still stay away from her," Isabelle defended her brother.

"Like he's staying away from her now?" Michael glared at Isabelle and she just looked down at the floor. "We can't ask so much from him, Michael...I mean he tries - he really does."

Michael laughed. "Yeah he sure stayed away from Liz like he said he would."

"He's trying, Michael - but you can't make him -" "He's not trying." "He is," Isabel almost yelled, "he is...we can't expect him to...they're just friends."

Michael smiled at the statement and laughed to himself. "They're not gonna stay friends Isabel, you know that - you see the way he looks at her." "I trust him." "You want to trust him." "He's not going to tell her - I do know that." "How do you know he hasn’t already? She could know about all of us."

Isabel rolled her eyes. "God Michael, why are you always like this?" "Like what?" Michael shot back, "I'm being safe. We can't get involved and Max knows that." "Making a friend isn't going to endanger our lives..." Isabel began to slowly see the reasoning Max had been using on her for the past week. "You don't know what it's like for him..." she suddenly softened, "you don't know what it's like to have someone like that, that you feel like you can tell anything to - who you can have..fun with, feel normal with -" Isabel said with a sense of longing in her voice.

"And you have someone like that?" "No, but Max does..." Michael didn't respond, "Let him have her." Isabel stated plainly. "Have her?" Michael raised his eyebrows, suggesting more than Isabel had intended in her statement. "You know what I mean...let him...have a friend...let him - get involved. For the two of us at least let him get involved."

Maria's eyes remained fixedly on the eraser room and though she couldn't see anything through the frosted window pane she appeared as if she was watching an entire scene being played out on the glass.

"What're you looking at?" Max suddenly questioned, approaching Maria from behind. Maria turned around sharply, caught off-guard at Max's comment. She and Max had talked in the Crashdown after Max had spoken to Liz yesterday evening. He'd even offered to help Maria who was short-staffed and manning almost the entire room alone.

She'd insisted that he needn't and though Max had persisted at first, he'd finally relented - seeing Maria's stubborn resiliance. In the small gesture however, he'd simply shown to Maria that he wanted to be her friend. He knew he was part of Liz's life now - whether Michael and Isabel liked it or not - and that being involved in that life meant being friends with Maria. She had returned the gesture, knowing full-well the same thing.

"Your sister just went in there with Michael..." Maria stated curiously, as if she was expecting an explanation from him. Maria couldn't help but notice it. Michael had entered the tiny room first. She'd been watching him. She'd been watching him for the past two years. Though she made cracks about him all the time, calling him an 'ex-con' or 'a juvenile delinquent', she couldn't deny the fact that she was attracted to Michael. Over the past two years he'd become less of a scrawny little kid with an uncut mop of sandy blonde hair, into something she couldn't quite put her finger on. He was an enigma - the type of person her mother would call a 'vibrator'. He just sent out these vibes. Sure she'd never talked to him, except once in the eighth grade when they'd been paired together on an English project that she'd ended up doing all the work on, but there was just something about him.

"Michael...Michael Guerin?" Max doublechecked and Maria just shook her head.

"Yes Michael - goes-to-class-once-a-month - Guerin," she couldn't help the comments that flew from her mouth. Max's mouth remained in a thin, straight line and Maria wasn't entirely sure why he seemed so upset. Before he could say a thing his name sounded from down the hall.

"Evans!! Evans!!" it sounded and both Maria and Max turned their heads. The cries continued and suddenly Kyle came sprinting down the hall. He was in his basketball warm-ups, and looked as if he'd just run a ten mile race he was sweating so hard. "Max," he uttered breathlessly, stopping next to a genuinely confused Max and Maria. "I've been looking all over for you...we need you." Kyle said desperately.

"Who?" Max asked naively, unsure as to what could be so important as to have Kyle address him in such an urgent matter.