Just once, I wish something would happen. I'm so tired of just existing. I hide in the background of life, never really participating. I just want to feel like I belong here, like it's safe to be myself. I just want something different.

"Things are getting worse but I feel a lot better
And that's all that matters to me."

Isabel and Michael tell me that I'm getting careless, that I'm too attached to Liz Parker. But watching her is the only thing that makes me feel halfway alive. They worry about me, that I'm sinking into some sort of depression. Just because all I want to do is hang out at the Crashdown and torture myself by watching her and Kyle….

"Well Izzy hit the atmosphere
Caught herself a rocket ride out of this gutter"

Isabel hides from life in another way. Instead of hiding on the outskirts like Michael and I do, she makes sure she's the center of attention, the focal group of teen society. But she doesn't allow herself to truly feel anything anymore, as if that can somehow shield her from what we are.

"And she's never coming back I fear
Any time it rains she just feels a lot better
And that's all that really matters to me"

I'm not sure I'll ever get my sister back, how she used to be. She's hidden herself so completely within this guise of the popular ice queen. There's barely a glimmer of the sweet, beautiful girl left. Only sometimes, when it rains, and the three of us play football until we're covered in mud. Only then does the old Isabel resurface.

"We've waited so long
For someone to take us back home
It just takes so long"

Ten years we've been living on this planet, without knowing exactly how or why we're here. All we know is that we don't belong here, that we're outsiders, that no one can ever find out about us. Ten years of not living, just waiting for someone to come rescue us and take us home.

"Meanwhile the days go drifting away"

Ten years of doing nothing but hiding, pretending to be something we're not....

"And some of us sink like a stone
Waiting for mothers to come"

Isabel isn't doing so well. She tries to hide it, tries not to let me hear the tears she cries every night. It tears her up that we can't tell our "parents" about us. She wants so badly to have true friends, to have someone other than Michael and I to belong to.

"There has to be a change I'm sure
Today was just a day fading into another"

This was just another summer day spent sitting in the Crashdown. It's gotten so I can't even remember what day it is, how many hours I've been sitting there watching Liz. Michael teases me, but I know he watches Maria as much as I do Liz. I know he's glad that I give him an excuse to observe her.

"And that can't be what a life is for"

There has to be some reason we're here, some grand plan. I can't believe it was just an accident, that we'll be stuck here for the rest of our lives. I wonder what we'll do when we die, to keep our bodies from betraying our secret. I think there must be something I'm meant to do. There has to be something else besides just observing the lives of everyone else.

"The only thing she said was she feels a lot better
And that's all that really matters to me"

The most important things in my life are Isabel and Michael. They're everything. I have to protect them, even more than I have to protect myself. Strange, I almost wouldn't mind being captured if it were just myself. At least that would be something different. But I have to keep them safe. That's what I'm here for. And so I make sure that we all stay in the background, that none of us attract too much attention; that Isabel keeps up her ice queen front; that Michael isn't too careless.

"We've waited so long
For someone to take us back home
It just takes so long"

I wonder how much longer we can keep it up, if we can possibly continue this charade forever. I don't tell them, because I want to protect them, but sometimes I think of ending it all. If I were alone, I think I already would have. But they're here, and so I have to stay to protect them, no matter how much I don't want to live this life.

"Meanwhile the days go drifting away
And some of us sink like a stone
Waiting for mothers to come"

Michael isn't doing so well either. Living with Hank is getting harder and harder on him. I think Hank hits him, but I'm not sure. I don't ask, because I know Michael would deny it. He likes to think that he's strong, that he doesn't need anyone. But I worry about him. I worry that someday Hank will do something and it will be the last straw, that Michael will overreact, that his powers will go out of control, and then I'll have to figure out how to hide a dead body.

"All I really know is I wanna know"

All I want to know is why we're here. Why? Why haven't they come back for us?

"All I really know is I don't wanna know"

But at the same time I don't want to know, because the answers I imagine terrify me. I imagine that we were sent here as a punishment, that they will never be coming back for us.