Until Max Evans gave her a flower, that is.

Why did he have to do that? Liz frowned as she yanked her binder from the locker. One stupid little flower and Liz's carefully manipulated world had rocked once again. It wasn't fair. Nothing about Max was fair. It wasn't fair that he wasn't human. It wasn't fair that she loved him. It wasn't fair that he'd given her than damned flower.

At least she'd worked out her evasion plan long ago. She wouldn't bump into him until, oh, some time around seventh period. It was clear sailing until then.

"Good morning, Liz," came Max's soft voice from the other side of her locker door.

Liz dropped all of her books, her papers scattering across the hall floor. He'd sneaked up on her. Damn him. She stooped to pick up her belongings, and he knelt with her, corralling her loose notes.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, shuffling the papers into a neat stack. He grinned to himself when he noticed a little heart with his name in it scribbled at the top of one of her papers. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay," Liz breathed nervously. "Not a problem. Not at all." She grabbed her papers from Max and shoved them into her binder.

They stood at the same time and Max held out a book to her. "You missed one."

She checked the stack; nope, she had all of them. "I don't think so. It must be one of yours."

Max shook his head and gave the book a little wave. "No. This is definitely yours."

Liz stopped fidgeting with her books and looked at the one he was holding. It was smaller, new. She glanced at him, then back down to the book. She took it from his hand.

"Emily Dickenson," he said, smiling. "Do you know who she is?"

Liz turned the book over in her hand. "Of course, but I don't own anything by her." God, why was her heart pounding in her chest? Why were her knees so weak? Why wouldn't he just go away and leave her to her confusion? And for God's sake, why was he smiling at her like that?

"It's for you," he explained. "I like her work, but hers is a sad story, don't you think?"

Liz looked up to meet his gaze.

"She became a recluse at 17. Supposedly disappoint with love. She never recovered." He touched her arm so briefly she wasn't sure he'd ever made contact. "That's kind of young to give up, don't you think?" Liz and Max were both 17, and that point was not lost on Liz. Max blinked, his smile returned and he started to move away. "I marked my favorite."

Liz watched him walk casually away, her world still shaking. What was he doing to her? She scooted for her first class before the bell rang, but as the teacher was starting to drone about the Spanish Revolution, she flipped the book Max had given her to the bookmarked page:

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

Liz glanced to the bottom of the page where Max had written in his exceptionally neat handwriting, "All I can do is hope, Love, Max." Liz bit her lip, felt a familiar sting in the corners of her eyes. She'd been hurt by him, by the circumstances, so many times. But, if he kept doing these sorts of things, she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to resist him.

______________________________________________________________________

Max spotted Kyle sitting by himself eating his lunch in the quad. He stopped in his tracks, then walked over to Kyle's table. Max wasn't positive, but he thought he saw Kyle jump when he saw him.

"Can I sit?" Max asked, gesturing to the empty bench across from Kyle.

"Whatever," Kyle said flippantly, though his eyes never left Max.

Max slid onto the bench and started to dig in his lunch bag. "How are you, Kyle?"

Kyle eyed him curiously. "Fine. Why?"

Max shrugged as he shook some Tabasco onto his sandwich. "Just wondering. We haven't talked." Since Max had healed Kyle's gunshot wound, he meant.

"I know," Kyle responded. "Not much to talk about, I guess."

"I guess not." Max took a bite of the sandwich, dug around in the bag while he chewed. He pulled out a Ziplock bag containing some banana bread his mother had made. Pure blandness to the alien palate. He held the bag out to Kyle. "God, I hate this stuff. Do you want it?"

Kyle looked at the bag and didn't respond.

"Well, I'll just set it down and you can take some if you want." Max thought Kyle looked nervous. And he guessed Kyle had a right to be. Max had amazing powers. He could leap over tall buildings in a single bound. He had x-ray vision. He could fly faster than a speeding bullet. Or so Kyle thought. Max felt like he needed to put Kyle at ease. Fear was a dangerous thing - it might only be a matter of time before Kyle acted foolishly out of that fear.

Maria suddenly appeared at the end of the table. She looked distressed. "Max, you've gotta help me," she pleaded.

Shielding his eyes from the sun, Max looked up at her. "What's wrong, Maria?"

She reached down and pulled up the bottom of her short skirt. Kyle eyed the long length of her leg appraisingly. For some reason, Max seemed immune to her curves. There was a run in her stocking.

"It's going to run," Maria whined. "It's going to run all of the way down to my ankle by the end of the day. I had to pee, and when I pulled them back up, my fingernail went right through it."

Max suppressed his amusement. He was getting a kick out of being Maria's new "girlfriend."

"Don't you have any nail polish?" Max asked her seriously. "That's what I've heard girls use."

Maria pouted. "No, Max, I want you to fix it" - she looked over her shoulders to make sure the coast was clear - "the way that Isabel fixes hers." She widened her eyes. "I think you know what I mean."

Max glanced at a confused Kyle and laughed. "Okay," he conceded. "Sit down."

Maria did a little hop of joy and slid onto the bench with Max. She cradled her chin in her hand and batted her eyes at him. "Be gentle with me," she warned.

Max laughed and slid his hand across her thigh, under her skirt. Maria felt a little tingle, like static electricity, prickle her skin, then a chill as Max's hand left her leg. She peeked down at her stocking under the table, let out a squeal of joy and threw her arms around Max. She pecked him on the cheek and bounded away from the table.

Max looked up at Kyle and smiled. "It's always some crisis with Maria," he explained. He bit into the sandwich and started to dig through his folder for his math homework.

Kyle simply stared. He'd been having nightmares about a guy who used his powers to repair nylons. He was starting to understand what Liz meant when she said that Max didn't have it in him to harm anyone. How could someone who would fix a friend's stockings just so she didn't have to suffer the humiliation of a runner be a cold-blooded killer? Kyle felt his mouth drop open. Maybe he'd been wrong about Max Evans. Maybe he'd been wrong about a lot of things.