“It was just an overwhelming sadness?”

“Well, I was also worried, angry, afraid, and”—the left side of his mouth curved up into a half-smile—“in love.”

“So what did you do after that?”

“What do you mean?” He gave her a strange, disbelieving look. “I waited until my heart stopped racing, and I left.”

“You didn’t try to touch it again to see what would happen?”

He shot her another strange look. “You’re starting to sound like Michael. Why are you so impatient?”

Isabel put down her brush. “I don’t know. I just—I’m sorry, Max. Why don’t we hold a meeting tomorrow and see what everyone else has to say?”

“Ok.” He started towards the door but hesitated.

“What is it?”

“It just felt so real. Even though I knew that it was all coming from the granilith, the feelings felt like they were my own.”

* * *

Max, Michael, Maria, Liz, Isabel, Tess, Alex, and Kyle filed slowly into the granilith chamber. It would have been only seven of them, but Kyle was a part of the group now. He was the last to come in, staring up at the granilith in awe and murmuring, “Wow.”

As they all gathered in the front of the chamber, Tess said, “Maybe something will happen when we touch it.” She reached out and touched the base, but nothing happened. Michael and Isabel each tried as well, but with no results.

Liz was standing off to the right side of the group, studying on the opacity of the granolith. She reached out and touched it, suddenly crying out and jerking her hand back, stepping back into Alex. She had gotten a flash of a future version of herself reaching out to touch the granilith with Future Max inside it as he suddenly disappeared.

Alex caught her and looked down at her. “Are you okay, Liz? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. What happened?”

Everyone was looking at her now, and she let out a strangled cry.

Tess stood up and walked over to Liz. “Max said you knew something about the granolith that you couldn’t tell him. Does that have to do with this?”

Liz had the most horrible look of sadness on her face as she opened her mouth to say something but seemed to have temporarily lost the ability to talk.

“Does this have to do with that whole little charade last fall, Liz?” Kyle began. “I knew it had to be some alien thing that would make you do something like that. I just thought—”

Liz found her voice in time to say, “Kyle! You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“What are we dealing with, Liz?” Max asked.

I can’t”—she looked up to try to keep herself from crying, but it wasn’t working all that well—“I can’t tell you.”

Max looked at her penetratingly. “Why would there be something about us that you can’t tell us?”

Liz put her hand over her mouth in an effort to control her quiet sobs.

Maria, trying to help her best friend, said, “Look you guys, we’re dealing with the destruction of the human race.” That got everyone’s attention, Maria thought, but stopped herself from smiling. “It hinges on whether or not Liz tells you.” Liz was just gaping in horror now, but Maria continued, “So I think you’d better not—hmm… Well, actually, if—no, she shouldn’t tell you.”

“If what?” Isabel asked.

“If Tess…” Maria began, but Liz cut her off.

“I think you’ve revealed enough.”

“No. I really think it’s okay now. If Tess promises never to leave the group, we can tell you—well, she can tell you—what happened last fall.”

“Why me?” Tess asked, slightly hurt that she was once again being singled out.

Maria tilted her head and smiled in the sugary sweet way that only she could. “Do you promise?”

Tess glanced over at Max, Michael, and Isabel now standing by the granilith, and her eyes lingered for moment on Kyle before she replied, “I promise.”

Liz’s hands dropped to her sides, and she stared at Tess in amazement.

Maria nervously filled the silence by saying, “At first, she even made me think that she slept with Kyle.”

Max locked eyes with Liz. “I knew you wouldn’t…”

“She wouldn’t even tell me what was going on,” Kyle added.

Michael, who had been mostly silent, suddenly jumped back in with his usual impatience. “Sooo… what happened?”

“Well,” Liz began slowly, taking a deep breath, “Max visited me from fourteen years in the future using the granilith to rip a tear in time space, though that’s not its real purpose.”

“What’s its real purpose?” Michael interrupted.

Maria glared at him. “Calm down, space boy; this is gonna take a little while. Why don’t we all sit down?”

“Just like story time,” Michael spat back at her.

After everyone stopped talking, Liz explained what had happened back in October, finally finishing by saying, “I wanted to tell you so much, Max. It was worse than when I couldn’t tell Alex who you were”—Alex gave her a sympathetic look—“because you couldn’t be there, helping me through. Every day, it just ate away at me that you thought I had betrayed you, that you thought I had slept with Kyle.” Liz paused for a moment, blinking away tears. “That flash you got in Las Vegas was real. It really happened in the other timeline. You—he—he told me.” A little smile played on her lips. “In the Elvis chapel. That’s why… why I didn’t want to go to Las Vegas. Because it would remind me of what I had lost.”

For a brief moment, everyone stared at her until Maria said, “Don’t just sit there! Say something! She’s had this all bottled up for, like, four months, and you aren’t responding?”

Kyle said, “Geez, Maria, give us a chance,” at the same time that Tess mumbled, “No wonder she was so grumpy in Vegas.”

Michael looked over at Max. “You had a flash when we were in Vegas?”

But Max didn’t seem to hear him because he was concentrating on someone else. “Liz…” He went over to her, taking her hands in his and tilting her chin up so that he could look into her eyes. “You are so strong, stronger than any of us.”

He hugged her tightly, and she whispered, “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed making you smile,” he whispered, low enough so that only she could hear, “hearing your laugh, sharing my life with you. But now…”