Quickly, Liz made her way to the girls' bathroom, locking the door behind her. After looking in the mirror, Liz took a deep breath and slowly unwrapped her hand. Just as last night, her hand was perfect. No cut, no stitches, not even one little scar. Liz turned her hand over also noticing the tiny mole that was on her pinky was missing too. I never did like that thing.

"What am I thinking?!" Liz exclaimed. Taking a deep breath, Liz closed her eyes. Max Evans has done something to me, and all I can think is 'I never liked my mole!'

"I need help," she whispered, leaning on her hands. Which, Liz noted, didn't hurt. She needed to tell someone. Maria! Her mind screamed.

But what if Maria told someone? True, she was best friends with Maria, but she did kinda let things slip now and then. What would people say?

What would happen to Max? Liz suddenly thought.

"Liz, babe? You in there?"

Cursing, and making a decision, Liz started to wrap her hand back up. No matter how much she wanted to tell someone, she had to keep this to herself.

"Liz?" Maria asked again.

"I'll be right out!" Liz replied, quickly snapping the bandage into place. Taking a deep breath and one more look into the mirror, she calmly walked over to the door and opened it.

"Hey, you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Liz replied cheerfully.

Maria gave her a look, but didn't push. "Ok…hey, you're not mad at me, are you?"

Liz shook her head no, breezing past Maria. "I'm over it."

Maria followed. "Good to hear. How's you're hand?"

"What? Why?" Liz exclaimed, spinning to look at her best friend.

"Cause I wanted to know," Maria replied, her voice filled with confusion.

Liz nodded and masked her face with a smile. "Oh…um, yeah, it's fine-it's still hurt though." Sighing on the inside, Liz made a note to be less paranoid.

"Ok, exactly how many pain killers have you taken?"

Liz gave a fake laugh, walking away from Maria. "That's funny." Making a face, Liz quickly started back up the steps to her apartment. "I'll see ya later."

"Liz, whoa, what's wrong with you?" Maria asked.

Stopping and taking a deep breath, Liz finally turned to look at Maria. Her face was filled with concern, and Liz could feel her guilt rising. "Look, just ignore my little outburst. I'm just under a lot of stress right now."

Maria nodded, her face now showing understanding. "Ok, but I just wanted to tell you that Max left."

"I know. I saw him leave," Liz admitted.

"Him and Michael had a fight. He seemed kinda upset when I mentioned last night," Maria added.

"What did you say about last night?" Liz asked, her paranoia coming back.

Maria shrugged. "Nothing-he just seemed…"

"Seemed what?"

Maria gave Liz a sympathetic look before saying, "he acted like he didn't want to see you."

Liz felt her heart skip a beat. Maria must have noticed a look on her face cause she added, "he may've just been too shy to do anything in front of the others."

Liz nodded, trying to make Maria feel better. "Yeah…I'm sure it was that," she mumbled, backing up the few steps. "I'm gonna go upstairs," she added.

"Hey…you ok?" Maria asked, coming a few steps closer.

"Yeah…" Liz replied. She turned and bolted up the steps, heading straight to her room. As soon as she got in, she shut her bedroom door, leaning her back against it.

She had no idea what was going on with Max, how he did…whatever it was…he did. But she did know that him avoiding her hurt. And what was I gonna do? A little voice reminded herself. I wasn't exactly up for a talk either.

Liz walked away from her door, heading over to her dresser. She pulled out her candles and bath beads and went into the bathroom. She needed to think, relax, and figure out what she was gonna do.

Maybe Max was just as shocked as she was, in the dark about how it happened.

***

"I don't know how it happened," Max added. "I was thinking about wanting to make her pain go away, and it just suddenly did."

Glancing back up into the bathroom mirror, Max sighed, disgusted with himself. He's been trying all day to come up with a way to approach Isabel and Michael with this information. But everything he thought of just sounded corny or unbelievable. And he wasn't even sure if they had a right to know. Sure, Michael would love to hear this; it branched right out on his theory of them being different. But Isabel…this could make her worse.

Isabel was a nervous wreck these last few days. He knew she was trying to deal with what she saw when she touched that guy, but she was also completely denying the smallest possibility that there might be something happening to them.

Did he blame her? No. Max wanted to join her viewpoint-to just ignore it all and pretend that it was just a bad dream.

Nice choice of words, he thought grimly.

Plus, Max wasn't even sure if Liz's hand was healed. For he knew, last night was just all in his imagination. But the pit in his stomach told him otherwise; he did do something to Liz. If he only knew what.

***

Michael sighed in frustration as he tried to wipe off the paint before it dried. Mr. Evans said he wanted the door yellow but the trim white, which was hard to accomplish if you get the yellow paint on them both. After trying a few times to wipe it off and not succeeding, Michael threw down his paintbrush.

"Izzy, fix this," he called out, pulling Isabel over.

She looked at the spot, then just waved at it. "Forget about it. We can go back over it with white paint," she explained.

"Max should be dealing with this too," Michael mumbled, watching Isabel go back to her spot.

"He'll be out in a sec."

Turning back to the mess-up, Michael was shocked to see it was gone. "Isabel…"

"What?" she asked, not looking over.

"Isabel…" Michael tried again, still staring at the nonexistent spot.

"What?" she asked again, raising her voice some.

"Isabel," Michael tried again, giving his voice an edge.

"What?!"

"Look at this," he instructed.

Sighing, Isabel came over. "What? You see little green men in…" her voice trailed off as she noticed the paint was gone also. "Where'd it go?"

"I don't know…you waved it away," he said in a whisper, looking up at her. "Just like the ice cream."

Isabel's face went pale and she backed up a few spots. "No…it just faded."

"Isabel-"

"What's going on?" Max asked, coming over.

"Isabel made paint disappear," Michael blurted.

"I did not," she exclaimed. "I didn't," she repeated, looking at Max.

Max stared at Michael, asking for an explanation. "Max…it was there. We both saw it. Then Isabel waved at it, and it was gone a minute later," Michael explained.

"Isabel…was it there?" Max asked.

Isabel shook her head, rubbing her neck. "I-no…maybe-maybe there was something there but-but I didn't make it…leave," she got out, flailing her arm. "It could have evaporated."

"Isabel, god, quit being so naive!" Michael yelled.

"Whoa…what's all the commotion?" Mr. Evans asked, walking out onto the front porch. "I could hear you guys all the way in the house."

Michael and Max both looked at Isabel, who was shaking her head back and forth, looking up.

"We were just…" Michael trailed off, not knowing where to go with his lie.

"Practicing," Max threw out.

"Practicing?" Mr. Evans asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, we're in a play," Michael blurted out, looking at Max for assistant.

"Um, yeah; a play. Right Isabel?" Max asked, looking at his sister.

Michael looked too, noticing how she was taking in deep, calming breaths. "Yeah…we're practicing for a play," she said after a moment.

Mr. Evans finally nodded, walking back into the house. Michael sighed and looked back at Isabel. "Isabel-"

"Don't…I'm going over here," she added, backing up and going to the other end of the house to paint.

Michael sighed and looked at Max. "It was there, I swear."

Max nodded finally and looked around. "I believe you."