Michael, on the other hand, has gone back to his 'normal' self, not so much as glancing at Maria more then any other girl in school. When, by chance he runs into her, or is partnered with her in a project, he treats her with the same reserve he treats everyone. He is known as the town rebel, but is missing one of the key components, being the only rebel in the history of Roswell who is anti-social, not to mention drug free.

However much it hurts him to see Maria whisper with Liz and Alex about him, showing as much curiosity as any other girl in school (all of whom for some reason 'wanted' him) he keeps it to himself. At least, he doesn't tell Max or me about it. And how do I deal with it? How do I live with the knowledge that my boyfriend, my first love, doesn't remember our relationship? That he no longer has insight into my mind, doesn't know the truth about me? That he has no memory of the first, and last time we made love, surrendering both of our virginity to each other?

Pretty well, I suppose. I haven't tried talking to Alex, at least, staying in my own social circle. Daemon's last words ring through my mind pretty often, when I am feeling lonely or finding myself staring at Alex too long. "It didn't happen. They won't remember, because it didn't happen. But it will." And when it does, we'll be ready. Max has made sure of that.

I am getting ahead of myself. 14 years old, and the mind of a 19 year old. No wonder. I suppose I will start at the summer after 10th grade. We had just received a message from our mother, telling us about our destiny. She was so beautiful; I had to keep telling myself she was just taking a human form. Liz, shocked to hear from my own mother's lips the future Max was so furiously trying to deny, ran.

Michael stopped Max from going after her. And I know why, too. I would have stopped him myself if I hadn't been lost in 'that was my mother' land. We talked about it afterward. If I couldn't have Alex at that moment, the worst moment, and Michael couldn't have Maria, then Max couldn't have Liz. Selfish, maybe, but that was how we felt at the time.

Anyway, we did something stupid then. We drove home, and sat in Max's room, talking. I'm not sure why my room is like some anti-people place, but everyone always chooses Max's to hang out in. Maybe it's the person, not the room. Whatever. Point is, we should have run. No, we shouldn't have used the communicators in the first place, but having done that, we should have run. We would have run, too, if we had known. But we were idiots, idiots whose minds were reeling and thinking of destiny, other worlds, and procreation. The word evil was the farthest thing from our thoughts.

OK, OK, I'm off on another tangent. We're there, we're talking. Actually, it started with us just sitting there, thinking. I once asked them, later, what they had been thinking of at that moment, and they had an 'interesting' array of replies. "Liz" said Max. "Our home planet" said Tess. "Taking Maria home to our planet, and explaining that she was the one meant for me, not you" said Michael. What was I thinking of? Nail polish. I was looking at my nails, and wondering if they went with my army-girl outfit well enough. Then I wondered if I should get a new brand, because the one I was wearing was chipping an awfully lot.

This may have had something to do with bashing people with logs, but hey, I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about nail polish. Call me shallow. Say my mind was too stressed to think about anything important.

My theory, though, is that I had regressed back into the old Isabel. Ironically, the Isabel I am supposed to be now. The snobby, clothes-hound Isabel who cared about things like nail polish. I didn't want to have to acknowledge what had happened in the past year, so my mind pretended it hadn't happened, and thought about nail polish.

Truthfully, I think the others are full of crap. Tess kept glancing at Max, no doubt she was thinking about jumping his bones. Max, Max was looking at me, obviously wondering if I was going to break down crying or jump Michael's bones.

Michael, I bet he really was thinking about taking Maria home with him. But to his apartment, not our planet, and locking themselves in, and staying together until the world and the people in it had forgotten them. Either that, or he was worrying Tess wouldn't be able to control herself around Max. I can't know for sure, he's not willing to listen to my questions.

OK, so we are sitting there, thinking about various things. Real quiet, you know? And, after deciding to buy some Revlon Polish, I noticed the room was really tense. I was starting to get bored, too. Before I could speak up, in my 'oh so Isabel' way of mine, the phone rang.

Everyone jumped. I knew we were all thinking about our 'significant others' or in Tess's case, Necedo. Personally, I was hoping it WASN'T Alex, simply because I didn't know what to say to him. Of course, Max was dying for it to be Liz, so he could apologize and win her back. I knew better.

Liz had just been through this trauma. It can't be easy seeing your boyfriend's estranged mother telling him he was married to some other girl in a former life, and destined to, with her, travel to another planet and fight evil. Probably almost as hard as seeing your estranged mother (who might have been dead) for the first time ever, telling you that you were engaged (to a guy who you thought of as your brother) in a former life, and are destined to travel to another planet and fight evil. Or not as hard.

Regardless, Liz had suffered a low blow, and was not the type of girl to come running back. Her years in a small town as the only daughter and the best student in school have given her a strange sense of duty, and she certainly wasn't going to get in the way of Max fulfilling his.

So it wasn't Liz, and thank my lucky stars, it wasn't Alex. Leaving, of course, Maria. Who, while usually a strong woman, was desperately in love with my friend/brother/fiance, and had just heard the words 'I love you' for the first time from him, a brick wall. Whether followed by a 'too much' or not, they changed things for her. Forced her to call.

I picked up the phone, and upon hearing her scared, shaky voice felt my eyes fill with tears. I couldn't help it, really. Maria reminded me of spring, of happiness, of the past, of Alex. I could barely choke out a "Michael's right here, Mar-" before he grabbed the phone and flew off into my room. I guess he's immune to the anti-people vibe.

It was funny, really. I went and hugged Max, and told him it was Maria, which he'd already figured out. He rubbed my back with his hand, and made comforting (supposedly) sounds. And you know what Tess did? She patted my back awkwardly with her left hand and, grinning, said "Don't worry, Isabel, he's your destiny. You know that now, Maria won't get in the way."

Max and I must have looked at her like she was insane, because she said "What is it?" Before I could tell her why I was really crying (having suddenly wanted to talk to Alex more then I wanted to breathe), adding in a few choice words about Michael's loving Maria, Michael flew into the hallway where the phone is.

I just looked at him, remembering the dreams and the deep feeling I'd felt in the cave. Then my heart started screaming NO! THIS IS WRONG! and I knew that nothing would ever happen between Michael and me. Don't get me wrong, we were to try many times in the future to feel for each other that way, but I knew in my heart it would never happen. I always have, I guess.

As Michael headed down the steps and to the door, Tess was the one to stop him. "Where are you GOING?" she practically screeched. To this day, three years of memory time (something I will explain later) since I have heard her voice, I remember the exact tone she said that in. It was a tone of despair, of desperation. It spoke volumes to me, much more then any illusion she could set up, or any dream of hers I could enter. The girl was afraid. After all of her hard work to convince us to drop the humans and accept our destiny, Michael was going to dare leave us? What else did she have to do?

More, I guess. "Maria's. We'll be back soon." Michael told her, not pausing to grimace at her voice. As I saw her eyes grow worried, and heard Max protest, I felt it was my job to speak up.

"Michael, I know you have grown really close to Maria, and I respect that and all, but come on. There are some things that are just for us, and we should really talk about this before running off to make out with people we just saw this morning, ok?" Or something to that nature. I was kind of babbling, and I could hear my own voice getting shrill, but for some reason, I felt it absolutely necessary for Michael to talk to me before going to Maria's. I was probably afraid he'd gotten the idea into his head that the two of us would be instantly in love, accepting our destinies with smiles on our faces and happiness in our hearts. Or something to that nature.

He obviously felt my anxiety, and turned away from the door. "We were sitting up there for half an hour, just sitting. I'm not just running off. But if you want to talk, Isabel, talk." He said it in such a typically Michael way that I felt myself start to whimper again. I really hate acting like a sniveling baby, a wimpy little Liz, (probably something left over from my dominant-Isabel days) so I was getting angry, too.

Finally, I looked him straight in the eye, and said "We're never going to be together, Michael. You might as well be my brother." At that Michael gave me a look, a Duh! look. "I know, Izzy, I know. You might as well be my sister. That's what I'm going to tell Maria."

"What? Max, talk some sense into them. This is our destiny." whined Tess. Honestly, I was getting sick of her. If she said the words 'This is our destiny' to me again, I was going to slap her. The girl was family, as in my own species, but she was terribly annoying about this destiny thing.

Sure, she'd had more time to adjust to it then us, but could she honestly be in love with a guy that, in all actuality, she'd just met a few weeks ago?

"We are who we want to be, and we're with who we choose to be with," Max uttered, looking positively defeated. That was Tess's breaking point, I guess. The soft, sly Tess we all knew and (feared? despised? pitied? certainly not loved?) had gotten used to disappeared, transforming into a screaming, whining girl who had just been told her lifelong mission, her reason for living, was not going to happen.

The girl we'd all learn to love, to care for, to respect, to sympathize with. To mourn. That will be the weirdest thing about sophomore year.