And I would be the one to hold you down, kiss you so hard, I'll take your breath away and after I'd wipe away the tears, Just close your eyes dear..."

Possession, Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, Sarah McLachlin

* * * * * * *

It's June 6th.

I'm Liz Parker and for the first time since I started my journal last September, I do not want to analyze what's happening in my life. I don't even want to record it. That would make it more real that it already is. And it's plenty real now. So, no pen. No paper. No organizing my thought processes or weighing my options.

I have no options. And my thought processes are like mud.

Or like a dream.

The kind of dream you can't control, that goes in directions you didn't expect and takes you to places you don't want to be. Like being at the shore, wet and cold in the waves, when all you want is to be warm and dry and safe somewhere. Or like being tossed into the stark sunlight of the day when all you want is the darkness and isolation of the night. Sun or stars? Reality or oblivion? The lady or the tiger. . .

Running down that hill, running away from the things I had no power to change, and no right, all I kept thinking was that I was doing the right thing. This was what you needed. What they needed. My god, Max - you have a duty, a purpose here, you know? People waiting for you. A world. I have no place in it. Even if there were no Tess. . .

So I kept running, afraid if I stopped for even a second, or turned around, I wouldn't have the strength to keep myself from running back ...

Back to you. . .

* * * * * * *

'...how is it possible that I could be the happiest that I've ever been in my entire life...you know, and now the saddest all at one time?'

Sorry, brain. Tissue break.

Always happens when I stare at the stars. Like I keep expecting them to say something really important to me. Like I'm waiting for them to give me permission.

To be with you.

So. . .

You love me. You love me.

It's not like I had any doubt, I can feel it when we're together, when we kiss, not just in the way you touch me, but in the way you touch me in here -- in my head, but hearing it, hearing the desperation in your voice made the knowing more real. There was an urgency to your declaration and a relief, like you'd been holding that thought, protecting it like a candle against the wind, through the whole ordeal in that . . . in that place, waiting, hoping, praying you'd have the chance to tell me before it went out. To make it real for yourself, too.

And you did.

Oh, Max. . .

But, see, this has never been about what we wanted, has it? Not from day one.

All this time, you've been fighting to be a 'just a'. Just a normal kid. With just a normal life. And just a normal girlfriend. How could you have not known, from the very, very beginning, that just a normal anything was a thing you could never be?

Hard to be normal and the leader of your people at the same time. . .

I think I felt it. I think I knew.

There was always something about you, something more. . . more intense. It's like you were somehow more solid, more real, more in focus than the rest of the world. Like there was too much . . . you in there to be contained in one human body.

And now I know why.

Knowing why should make it easier to accept. Maybe in time, it will. But not now.

Now I've got my mom and dad all worried and wanting to know why I'm upset and what 'that boy' has done to their baby girl. How do I tell them that my life is over - before it even began? That right now I can't see past five minutes from now. That I don't want to go to school on Monday. Or ever again. That I want to leave Roswell and find some new reality to fill the spaces in my head where the old one used to be.

Now I've just got unasked questions from Maria and Alex that I want to pretend I didn't not hear them ask. I know they get it, though, what's going on, and they've got their own stuff to deal with at the moment, their own little non-parts in the destiny play. I wish I could go to Maria to talk this out, and to help her, because I know she's going through as much hell as I am, but I just can't. I can't deal with this anymore than I already am. I wish I wasn't dealing with it at all. I wish I could just shut my brain off. . .

But it won't shut up.

It keeps telling me to damn the hour and climb down the fire escape. Walk the mile and a half to your house in the dark. To tell you I love you enough to fight for us.

But, see, that's selfish. I can't do that.

Grandma Claudia once told me I had to follow my heart and right now, my heart is much more rational than my brain is. . .

In between its beating and jumping around down there in my chest, it's saying that the things that are right aren't always the things that we want them to be. And to be true to my heart, I need to be true to that.

What's right, Max, is to not stand in the way of how your life is supposed to be. How it needs to be.

There's too much at stake. I couldn't live with myself. I don't think, in the end, you could either.

Today, Kyle told me I was being too noble, but I don't think that's it at all.

I'm not noble, Max. I'm selfish.

I don't want a life with you that's filled with guilt at what I've made you give up. I couldn't bear to know I'd made you betray a future that was decided long before I was even born.

You. Tess. . .

I'm just trying to save myself the pain, Max. That's all.

No, really. I mean it.

. . . aw, who'm I kidding?

That's bullshit and I know it. (Kyle would be so proud right now. Like he taught me a new word. . .)

I am selfish, but not because I'm trying to spare myself. I'm selfish because I don't want to give you up. Leaving yesterday, telling you goodbye and then walking out of that cave, that was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. In my life.

You own me, Max Evans. Nothing's going to change that. Not your destiny. Not my stupidity. Not even World War III and the melting polar ice caps combined. . .

I want. . .

I want to touch you so badly right now I could scream. I close my eyes and all I see is that awful look of confusion on your face. And I just want to make it go away, Max. I just want to. . .

Nope. I wasn't going to do this anymore. It's not going to get me anywhere. (Except maybe back to the hall closet for another box of tissues. . .)

Bottom line, Max:

This isn't about what I want. Or what I need.

It's about you.

I can live with that because I'm going to have to.

Or if I can't, I'm just going to have to try.

Oh, and damn the stupid stars. They're too far away, anyway. . .