But for one hour a week I can pretend I’m a normal teenager with normal teenage problems… when the worst that could happen to me is getting a D- in Trigonometry… not that it doesn’t matter, because I know dad’s not going to be happy about it, but I guess I can’t told him that while I was at Arizona I met face to face with another aliens that happen to be my enemies… and that that kind of distracted me for the test…

I’ll probably have to say some excuse about it… like not having sleep well. But wait… if I told that to my therapist, he would ask why am I not sleeping well… it’s not like I couldn’t start a list that just keeps going and going… But, I better come with a better plan before him and dad find out.

While I patiently await for him to come back (and I don’t know where on Earth did he go) I watch the clock on the wall and think that I still have 22 minutes of this feeling. Because I manage to feel *normal* in here. I don’t know how, but every time I sit on this couch, I just block out everything *alien related* on my life. Maybe it is because I can’t talk about it, and I have to find something to talk about… Everything that is truly human. Or that any human would say, for that matter.

It is not as if I could tell him that I’m unbalanced… Unbalance as I have never been in my entire life. That not even stepping a mile back would return me to that balance that I desperately need those 167 hours that I’m not in here, but that I manage to pretend anyway…

Sometimes, when I tell him that I go “camping” because I need to be alone, and he says that from time to time everybody needs to be alone, I wish I was telling the truth. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt me to go one weekend to the open and watch the stars, even if they are a constant reminder of how much I don’t know and how much I don’t belong here. And yet, staring at them, I do realize where I am, and that no matter what, Earth *is* my home planet. But there’s no time for weekends alone. And definitely, I need every *camping excuse* I can get, because I’m sure there will be a lot of more outgoings that I would like to imagine.

And the door opens suddenly, and he walks in with his glasses on his hand and looking to some papers in a folder. I’m sure they are my grades… and that that excuse for that D- shall better come quickly…

And for some reason, I think when was the last time when being an alien was my biggest problem in the whole world…

I don’t know what Isabel does or thinks on her own hour a week. But I suspect it can’t be really that different of what I do. I would even dare to think that for that hour she’s just Isabel Evans, without any Vilandras haunting her. Without worrying about mom and dad and this secret, and yet knowing that all she wants to say is exactly what she can’t.

I hated the first time I came in here…well, to be sincere, I hated all that first month… because this was useless, helpless and silly from my point of view. Sure I could use a therapist right then, and maybe right now too, but what’s the point if you just can’t talk about it? How is he going to say what’s wrong or what you should do if he doesn’t know the real reason?

But every time I came and said something *normal*, I kind of liked the idea. And even if I didn’t give it a second thought any other time of the week, those ten minutes that take me from home to here, I was wondering how my life was suppose to be. Because *that* was what I had to say. And it really bother me that I had to make excuses all the time to some stranger, when what I was really doing was saving the world… more or less.

But ultimately, I just accept it. It makes my parents happy… well, kind of… and it makes all those crazy things that go on my mind quiet for that hour and those ten minutes when I’m thinking of all those excuses. At some point between that first month and now I started seeing what moments of the week I’m truly just a normal teenager. And to my surprise, those moments weren’t so few. I go to high school, I do my homework, I help at home, I have a job. Ok, every time I’m doing those things I’m thinking on what the next challenge would be, but still, I’m *doing* normal stuff.

I guess what I really like about all this, is that I can calm down, or at least try to, and have a break of everything. I’m really working hard, and I’m really doing my best and I’m not in panic because I have to make the decisions. But I do realize I need a break, and since he is not looking forward to me expecting that my next word is the final decision to his fate, I’m kind of relieve… in an odd way.

So, this hour is like a game to me. It is like having two lives, and in this one, everything is perfectly safe, and promises of a better future are always in sight. It’s not like I forget who I really am, because I’m never turning my back on that. I wouldn’t change who I am, but still, being here makes me wonder. All I wanted not so long ago was to be normal… Now it is not an option to even consider, so I guess this is as normal as I’ll get.

And surprisingly, my therapist doesn’t ask about my D-. And while he starts talking about that being friends with Liz is the right thing to do, I realize that I kind of like him. He doesn’t know anything for real, and yet his comments kind of make sense. Just like those comments at History or Chemistry class make sense to me in a way that makes no sense to anybody else.

And suddenly, my hour is over. And he tells me he’ll see me next week, and I say thanks and see you then. Of course, I cannot promise I won’t go *camping* next week, or that *he* even be around next week, but I like to think we’ll both be here. Because for one hour a week, I’m just Max Evans, not Zhan the king, or Max the leader, or anything or anyone else. I’m just a normal teenager who has normal problems, and who has loving and caring parents that arrange this hour for me to find myself.

Maybe next week he’ll ask me for that D-, but I can’t think about that right now. I know I will in exactly 166 hours and 50 minutes. But as I walk through the hall way, I go back to my *normal* self. To that other life that I have where nothing is predictable. Not that I don’t accept it. But I suddenly ask myself what would he say if he knew that my next word could be the final decision to his fate.