In a small town like mine where you go to school with the same people for twelve years you begin to feel like you know everyone. So quiet. So reserved. So withdrawn. Max Evans had managed to remain the single great mystery in the sea of the obvious and the familiar. His eyes reflected so many feelings, memories, and emotions he refused to share with anyone. How I never came to notice his loneliness I will never know. I was so ignorant, so oblivious to the fact that the day he stepped off that bus in third grade my life, my heart, my fate, would be forever altered.

I suppose it could be attributed to the age-old cliche oft repeated by your parents during grade school. You know the one, they tease you if they like you. Michael and Maria were the definition, the only solid piece of evidence needed in support of that theory. That was, when Michael bothered coming to school. But when he did deep down both him and I knew it was for my best friend. (You could never tell with Alex, he just followed Isabel around like a love-sick fool, a lost little puppy. But that was just as obvious as Michael's relentless taunts). But Max, he was different. He was kind and gentle. He'd help me up when I fell down, always let me have his spot in line for lunch. Who would have known...

It was just the year of that magical day when Maria began using her favorite taunt, "Max Evans is staring at you." I would laugh nervously and unbelieving...what was there to be staring at? We were in eighth grade, the hormones were kicking in, and guys were basically the only topic of conversation...at least where Maria was concerned. When I would gather enough courage to actually turn and follow her gaze I would see the truth in her words. Max Evans always was staring at me. But only for that one shining brief moment before our contact would send signs of fright and shock across his tortured face and he would quickly dart those soulful brown eyes away to something else. I would find Maria looking at me with a ridiculous smirk and raised eyebrows. "What?!" I would put on my best innocent act.

"Just admit it Lizzy."

"There's nothing to admit."

"Whatever, you could do worse." And she'd always leave it at that. Which was always disappointing because secretly I yearned to talk about Max some more. But my stubbornness to admit the truth would always get the best of me.

Although I myself couldn't quite settle on what the truth was. I know that I used to wait for Maria to make another comment. And that I would childishly try to drop Max's name into the conversation in hopes she would pick up on it and begin discussing his supposed crush on me and our beautiful future together. I know that every time I passed him, heard his name or Maria's anticipated statement unfamiliar sensations erupted in my body. I'd get goosebumps. I had never felt this way before. Sometimes I'd be brave and turn to him in one of our many classes together. We'd lock eyes for those few precious seconds before he would look away embarrassed. Crushes came and went but I knew I'd always reserve a portion deep inside my heart for Max Evans.

It was the summer before high school, when the teachers and classrooms would change but everything else would remain familiar and boring. Except for Max. Now he would have more secrets and perhaps, this was wishful and rather petty thinking, more muscles. I was coming off another one of my unrequited love scenarios with this boy named Ryan. In the few weeks away from him I could hardly remember the sound of his voice. Max Evans, however, was all but forgotten.

I had spent the day at Maria's sunbathing and giving and receiving manicures and facials. I was just removing the cucumber slices from my eyes when I checked my watch, ten minutes until six-- demanding my attendance at dinner. With that I gathered my things for my daily walk home. I gave Maria a brief hug and began the now redundant descent through the streets of Roswell. I had no idea what was to come, that the walk home would never seem so dull ever again.

It was a typical day in Roswell, the heat was too unbearable for shoes and I often cut through the front lawns of the families I had grown up with to avoid the scorching pavement. I also liked the feeling of the crisp green grass tickling my bare feet. I entered what I now know to be the Evans' front lawn and heard a faint hissing sound. I paused in my confusion but soon was enveloped in a soft and sudden shower. The sprinkler system.

"Liz!" the all to familiar voice cried out. Temporarily blinded by the rush of water I finally was able to make out my knight in shining armor, Max Evans racing out the front door. He had been watching me. Perhaps as he had done everyday. I would never know. Max would never tell me.

I was speechless and frozen in place. So I stood serenely in the middle of the yard letting the water wash the sweat away from my small body and wetting my long hair.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know how to turn it...." This time it was my turn to do the staring as I watched the look of concern and apology spread over Max's well-featured face.

I smiled, trying to express my contentment with the cool water sprinkling over me, the added adventure to my otherwise routine walk home, and most of all...Max's presence.

And then something amazing happened. He smiled back. I realized that I had never seen Max smile. I swear my heart skipped a beat. He took one step toward me as he too entered the fray; his white shirt was soon soaked and I could see his tan chest peeking through.

I let out an excited laugh because a) the sight of Max doing so was quite a sight to behold and b) I didn't know what else to do. Next I simply pushed my damp hair behind my ears and looked up at Max longingly. He responded with a similar look of desire and desperation. And at the moment I forgot everything else when I became lost in his brown orbs. It was like a magnetic attraction as Max and I both moved towards the other. My heart was racing at this point. I was ecstatic, exhilarated, and scared to death.

After what seemed like eternity I reached Max. He finished the small task of tucking my stray hair behind my ears. Still attempting to swallow the lump building in my throat I instead tried to convey my intentions and cravings through simple gestures. I reached up and stroked Max's soft cheek. I could feel the fresh whiskers of his newly sprouting beard and the sudden contact caused me to go weak at the knees. But this could hardly prepare me for what was to come.

Without hesitation Max reached down to cup my face and laid the most delicate kiss on my lips. He parted for a moment in anticipation of my approval. I eagerly granted it with a nod of my head and he again lowered his lush lips to mine. This was my first kiss and judging by Max's limited social circle, well more of a triangle, I'm pretty sure this was his as well. My first thoughts, once I was able to regain the ability to think, were that we could at least clumsily fumble around together. But there was none of that. Max was wonderful, everything I could have ever dreamed of.

He gently massaged my back as he rubbed his hands up and down, exploring my body. I responded by deepening the kiss, slowly slipping my tongue inside his mouth, exploring the deep recesses of Max Evans I thought I would never know. He followed my lead and before the two of us knew what was happening we were engaged in a heated make out session that left me feeling as if I was floating. I ran my hands up and down Max's broad chest, the damp t-shirt pressing to him tightly. Then I played with the soft hair at the nape of his neck before I wrapped my arms around him, hoping he'd never let go. I could only hope that Max was feeling the pure paradise kissing me that I was kissing him.

There in the refreshing shower of the sprinkler, under the setting sun Max Evans and I shared the most intense moment of my adolescent life. And I'm not sure whether it would have ever ended had it not been for her. Oblivious to the two of us, the timer signaled the end of the romantic shower and the water retreated. I was much too distracted by the contact of my and Max's bodies...not just our lips, but everything from my legs tucked in-between his (thankfully keeping my balance) to our chests to our now entwined hands. The passion relaying between our two wet and sweaty bodies was intoxicating. Breath-taking really. And unlike anything I've ever experienced.

"Max? I thought I heard the do...oh my god..."

Isabel.

We simultaneously and ever so reluctantly separate and I'm already feeling the loss of Max wrapped around me.

"I...uh...we were just..."

"Sucking face," Isabel said blatantly.

Max and I nod but he looks in my eyes and we both understand that it was so much more. Something happened between Max and I, some kind of attraction, and we would never be the same.

"I, uh, I better go," Max whispered although his expression showed that that was the last thing he wanted to do.

"Yeah, I guess so." It was the only thing I could think of.

He squeezed my hand, still tightly gripped to his and I slowly released the last connecting part of Max Evans.

"This is not good Max," I overhear Isabel preaching as they slowly walked up the front porch. He nodded but not so much in agreement but in solemn acceptance. Then he took one last glimpse in my direction, apologizing for his sister's rudeness and wishing that things could be different...normal.

At the time I was incapable of reasoning why a teenage girl would be so upset over her brother locking lips with the girl he had been pining away for his entire life. Now I know. But we've moved past that.

I can hardly remember leaving Max's yard and hurrying belatedly home. But I do know that the bland dinner of Saturn Rings and a Will Smith burger served when I missed supper by half an hour had never tasted better. It paled only in comparison to the taste of Max Evans....

********

I suppose Max received quite a lecture from Isabel that night because he never made another move. Every time I could find a time to go up and talk to him it was like she was breathing down our necks. Max and I were assigned lab partners (fate perhaps?) for the next two years but our conversations never strayed outside homework and dissection. I assumed that Max was either over me or afraid that anything else would only lead us to each other...and that wasn't allowed. But deep down I knew it was the latter. And I was reassured every once in a while during Max's frequent excursions to the Crashdown when I began working as a waitress.

Max was my first kiss. This was good in that it was absolutely perfect. Bad, in that no one could even begin to compare afterwards. I never told Maria about the incident that summer. Every so often I would be cleaning the milk shake machine and she would exclaim "Max Evans in staring at you again." I would roll my eyes and smile to myself. I knew I couldn't tell her both because I could never find the words and because what happened was private and between only Max and myself (all right, and Isabel). Sometimes I wondered if I was merely dreaming, that it had happened only in my head.

Max never shared his secrets with me. I knew with the approaching summer would come heartbreak. I began dating Kyle Valenti but it was never anything special. Every time he kissed me I thought of Max. Just a glance from him made me feel more special than any kind of kiss from Kyle.