-Flashback-

"I can't go another day without her Michael."

"I hate to be blunt here Maxwell but you did it for seven years, you can withhold a few more."

Max thought about Michael's stinging words. Event though they had only held that conversation a few weeks ago, it felt like his need for Liz was ever growing more and more.

"I love her, I need her, I want her." Max relaxed and decided that he had to let Liz know this. Let her know that no matter what anyone says, they need to be together. He would tell her. Soon enough, when the time was right, he would tell her everything he felt.

Max closed his eyes and drifted away into a quick dream. He pictured Liz at the Crashdown wearing the most revealing of bikinis.

"Well, well." He thought smiling.

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Liz and Maria walked into the busy halls of West Roswell High.

"It's that's time of year again. Sure, the summer is over but now it's time to stake out some hot guys, fail a few tests, and shop for new school clothes. Oh, got to love this month. And we're juniors! Can you believe it babe? I mean it seems like only yesterday we were these little gawky freshmen who didn't know a thing and---"

"Maria?"

"Yep?" she said looking at her annoyed friend.

"That's enough babbling. Now here's my locker." Liz stopped and opened it up.

"I'm gonna go find mine. See you in chem.?"

"Yea. See you" Maria walked off and Liz heard someone call her name. Suddenly Jason opened up the locker next to Liz's.

"Liz!"

"Jason, hey"

"Hey. I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other." He piled some books into the empty locker.

"Yea, I guess so," Liz said, trying to hide her surprising excitement.

"Yea…you have chem. first period, right?"

"Yea." Liz said

"Me too, I'll walk you there."

They grabbed their books and walked down the hall to the chemistry room together. When they got to the room, they looked around and Liz staked out some observations. Maria was sitting next to Alex, there was a really ugly cactus on the teacher's desk, Tanya was wearing the most heinous looking blue cardigan, Jeff DeSorte tried bleaching his hair…

Then her eyes landed in place at one station. "Max" Liz thought as her eyes stumbled upon his handsome self. There he was. Just sitting there. There was one available station and one seat open next to Max. Liz decided to sit at the open station next to Jason. "Safer on neutral territory, right?" she thought.

At the time, Kyle Valenti took the seat next to Max. There was really no hard feeling between them anymore. Max had saved Kyle's life and he was grateful. As Max saw Jason and Liz sit next to each other, he felt a twinge of pain and jealousy. Maria couldn't help but smile at them. She knew Jason had it bad for Liz, ever since the other night.

Mrs. Lewis called the class's attention. She started to call out the chem. Partner names. "Berkley with Palmer, Hughes with Carter, Thomson with DeLuca, Walsh with Jamison, Adams with DeSorte, Hartman with Summers, Evans with Christensen, Myers with Whitman, and Parker with Valenti."

Max was pissed. Not at the fact that Liz's partner happened to be Kyle, but that Liz's partner happened to not be Max. And who the hell was Christensen? He had never heard of a Christensen before. Guy or girl for that matter? And at that, the guy who was sitting with Liz walked up to Max.

"I'm Jason. Max, right?"

"Yea." Max just looked at him. There was something about him he didn't like. Maybe it was the fact that he was flirting with Liz the other day at the Carshdown, maybe it was the fact the he walked in with Liz, maybe it was the fact that him and Liz sat together, he didn't know. But they weren't it. There was just something about him that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Max forgot about it and they got on with class. As they were half way into the experiment, Max saw Jason staring at Liz across the room.

"Uh, boiling chips please." Max said dryly. Jason snapped out of his trance. "Oh, sorry." He handed him the container and then looked back at Liz. "That Liz Parker, she's really something." Jason said quietly to Max. Max just looked at him.

"Do you know her?" Jason asked him.

"Liz?" Max said slowly, "We're, uh, friends."

"So you know her like personally? Well then you can tell me about the guy that broke her heart."

Max just stopped altogether what he was doing, no longer caring about the experiment. "What?"

"Well she told me the other night that she just got out of a serious relationship and she seemed a bit stung by the expression on her face. I mean look at her. Beauty and brains all in one. Very hard to find. Who would end a relationship with her? Unless of course she ended it. But it seemed like he was the one who did because she acted like she still cared about him. If you don't want to share any info that's fine. I just wanted to know what kind of jackass would let something as rare as Liz Parker slip through his fingers."

Max was speechless. He didn't know whether to say, "Actually, I'm the jack ass who let her go" or to just jump the guy for calling him a jackass. Even worse, for going after Liz. His Liz.

Thankfully, before Max could say anything, the bell rang.

"Hey, catch you later Max." Jason said as he got up and left the room.