I finally got them to invent me something like paper. You would think, seeing as I am the wife of the national hero, they would be a bit more eager to help. But I don’t think they understood the concept, no matter how many times we all tried to explain. It escapes me how a species that has discovered advanced space travel can skip having a written language almost entirely. I guess it doesn’t matter, however. I’ve got my paper, now I can get this out without driving Maria, Max, Isabel, Alex, or Michael to distraction.

Where to begin? Summer after sophomore year, I think. Tess was busy trying to ingratiate herself into the alien trio, and we humans formed our own little support group, trying to forget the same alien trio. It didn’t work. I still cried myself to sleep every night.

Apparently my connection to Max had gotten stronger than I thought, because one night he jumped in my window, saying that he couldn’t listen to me cry anymore, no matter what I said. At that point I was so desolate that he didn’t have to argue with me for more than twenty minutes. After that, we gave up the pretense and told off destiny.

Strange thing was, it didn’t seem to have much affect on Tess. She complained in a half hearted kind of way, like she was trying to be affected by the news. You can imagine that we were a bit surprised; what happened to “It’s our destiny”?

Kyle happened. He waltzed his way into her life at a speed that left us all gasping for breath. I don’t know how he did it; I didn’t know Kyle had that much sensitivity in him. He certainly never acted like that around me. Tess was so swept away that she let him in; two weeks later my ex-boyfriend and Max’s ex-destiny were holding hands as they walked down the school hallways, looking for all the world like Max and me, the meant-to-be couple. I was surprised, but not exactly upset.

Max was in high heaven. Tess was happy. Kyle was content. And I was with Max. Things couldn’t get better, right? Wrong. Isabel and Alex took it as a sign, and began seeing each other again. Michael and Maria? Well. . . those two always did do everything their own way. But they did eventually end up, if not exactly together, somewhere in the near vicinity. That made eight of us. We were together. We we’re the only ones, but we were not alone. We had each other. And we were happy.

Junior year came and went, as did senior. We were amazed it was so quiet; we all remembered Nasedo’s warnings, about the enemies. But everything seemed normal enough. Sure, everyone at school wondered how jock-boy Kyle, popular Isabel, geeky Alex, quiet Max, brainy Liz, airhead Maria, new-girl Tess, and loner Michael fit together. It was like taking a slice out of every click in school and shoving them together. But after the first couple months everyone just figured it was on of those inexplicable things and went back to the more routine gossip.

It wasn’t until summer after senior year that things started to get ugly. A man showed up in Roswell one night and tried to assassinate Isabel on the way home from Alex’s house. He failed, mainly because Michael was on his way to Maria’s at the time and hit the man with a power shock just in time. After that, no one walked anywhere alone. But it just got worse.

More and more attempts were made, and they got pretty damn close. The started in on Alex, Kyle, Maria and me about three weeks later. That’s when Max decided we should leave, because there was no way to fight back. Alex, our technical genius, couldn’t figure out where they we’re coming from. Neither Isabel nor Tess could connect with them. The rest of us, using good old-fashioned detective work, came up with nothing. They just kept coming, and other people in town were starting to notice. Besides, we were all living on the edge of horror right then, never knowing who was a friend and who was a foe. . . so we left. We just told our parents that we were taking a road trip before heading to our colleges, packed up our stuff, and we’ve never been back.

We have nothing left to go back to. They killed our parents. It’s been three years, and here I am, still crying. . .

We almost got caught on our way out of town, but after that things seemed pretty clear. Until Max and Isabel’s mother showed up again. This time it was for real.