“Can you not look at me like that this early in the morning, you’re creeping me out.” She tried her best to avoid eye contact, not wanting him to see all the joy dancing in her eyes.

“What, late night last night?” She could sense the indignant tone in his voice.

“Look Michael,” she was beginning to get fed up, “you lost the right to ask me any questions about my personal life, when you decided you didn’t want to be a part of it.” She now felt confident enough to meet his gaze.

In his heart Michael knew she was right. He had no right to be mad at her, but he couldn’t believe she could forget about him that easily. “Doesn’t she love me?” He thought At least when he was ingoring her, he knew she still cared for him. But now, with this whole Max thing, he wasn’t so sure he had made the right decision. And even though he knew he shouldn’t be mad he still couldn’t help all the anger and jealousy he was feeling.

“Fine, I guess I’ll just have to talk to Max about what happened last night.” he said as he began to turn around back to the cafe.

She knew that that could only lead to trouble, given what happened the night before, so she said “Look Michael, I know you’re upset”

“Upset?” he said swinging back around. “Why should I be upset? You can do whatever you want.”

“Then why did you ask me in the first place then. God you can be so infuriating sometimes” she said as she rubbed at her temples.

“Look Michael, you said it yourself. It’s over between us. And I can’t help that . It was your decision.” pointing her finger at him. “Now that I’m accepting that and moving on, you can’t handle it? What’s that all about?”

“I know Maria, but God” he ran his fingers through his hair, “why did you have to pick my. . .” He stopped himself, realizng his true colors were beginning to show and put up the stonewall once again.

“So does Liz know about your little date? Hmm Maria??” With that one question, Maria felt as though she had been puched in the stomach. Up until now she didn’t realize how this would affect Liz when she found out. A look of fear came across her face and she suddenly felt the need to sit down.

“Feeling a little faint, Maria?” Michael said condescendingly.

Just as Michael said this, Liz came down the backstairs in her Crashdown uniform ready to start her shift. When she reached the bottom, she noticed Michael and Maria in front of her. She looked from one person to the other, realizing she had just walked in on something intense,

“Hey guys, what’s up?” she asked timidly.

“Why don’t you ask Maria” Michael spat out and turned on his heel and headed back into the kitchen.

Seeing that Maria looked a little green Liz made her way to the couch and sat down next to her, “Are you okay?” she asked, really concerned. “Did you guys have a fight?”

Maria couldn’t bring herself to look Liz in the eye, not after she had had a romantic evening with her recent ex-soulmate the night before. And here she was being a typcial best friend, when Maria’s actions last night indicated anything but that.

“Eh. . .nothing, nothing’s wrong.” Maria conteplated keeping quiet. But she realized she had to come clean with Liz, she owed her that at least. She slowly turned to Liz dreading every second of this uncomfortable conversation.

“Look Liz, I have to tell you something.” She took a deep breath. “Well you know that me and Max spent alot of time together over the summer while you were gone” she hesistated a little bit. “and we really got to know each other and became really good friends.”

Liz nodded her head, “Yeah” not knowing where this was coming from.

“Well we’ve all been dealing with this destiny thing and trying our best to accept it and move on.” Maria began wrining her hand nervously.

“Well last night Max and I decided to go have some fun, just to get our minds off all the stuff that’s been going on lately, and” she was quickly interrupted by a very confused Liz.

“You mean you went out on a date?” Liz looked hurt and Maria could see the tears start to form in her eyes.

“No...no..it wasn’t a date, really. We were just hanging out, you know. I just wanted to tell you because, well I didn’t want you to think we were hiding anything from you.” Maria smiled nervsouly hoping Liz would buy her story.

“Well if it didn’t mean anything then why did you feel like you had to tell me, like you were hiding something from me?” Liz was getting more and more emotional, seeing the guilt in Maria’s every gesture.

Liz quickly wiped away her tears realizing she didn’t want to hear anymore, “Look I’ve got to get to work, and so do you. We’ll talk about it later ok?” She hurriedly wiped her face and went out into the cafe not even giving Maria a chance to explain further.