Snapshot · (Roswell Fanfiction) · √

32. All the Small Things

Maria's Apartment
Monday evening
(2008) Maria is 23, Liz is 22

Maria took one look at her friend and instinctively knew what had happened.

"You told Michael about your feelings for Max, didn't you?"

Liz blinked her red, dry eyes, any planned words of greeting getting lodged in her throat.

"What?" she croaked.

Maria cocked her head to the side, looking at Liz calmly. "You thought I didn't know."

Liz's gut reaction was to ridicule Maria's insinuations, but she was left speechless, because the whole purpose of this visit was to pour her heart out to Maria. She was about to tell Maria anyway.

Liz swallowed. "How?"

Maria smiled at her and Liz was struck by how grown-up Maria looked in that moment. It was like her friend was some wise sixty-year-old who had experienced every hardship of love and had learnt invaluable lessons because of it.

"Hun," Maria said softly. "How about some ice cream?"

Liz nodded seriously. "Yeah. That sounds good."

As Maria retrieved the ice cream from the freezer and pulled out a drawer to search for spoons, Liz tiredly sank down on one of the plastic chairs in the small kitchen. Maria had lived in this apartment for over two years already, but it still looked like she had moved in yesterday. Half of her stuff was still packed in large cardboard boxes, Maria's handwriting announcing their content. There were Clothes, Stuff 1, Stuff 2, BE CAREFUL Michael. Might break and Crap. Around the plastic kitchen table was one beach chair and two plastic garden chairs. In the large room serving as TV-room, bedroom and sometimes eating area, a king sized mattress had been placed on the floor. Maria had never really gotten around to buying that bed frame.

Liz was not anally neat, but she liked order and she would never be able to live like Maria was. But for some reason, Liz always liked to be at Maria's place. The chaos made it homey and simple. Something Liz was always in the need for.

With the ice cream container in hand, Maria walked over to the mattress and sank down, gesturing for Liz to sit down next to her.

"How long have you known?" Liz asked quietly as Maria shoved two large spoons into the opened ice cream container.

She snorted and shook her head in frank incredulity. "You never really listened to me, did you?"

Liz frowned. "Of course I did."

"Oh, okay," Maria said skeptically. "Then you must remember the times I've hinted that there was more between Max and you than you wanted to tell me. Remember all the times I've told you that Max loves you?"

Liz grabbed one of the spoons and shook her head with a sarcastic huff. "But you never really meant it."

The confidence in her words evaporated as she looked up into Maria's serious face. "Yeah I meant it."

"No. You were just making fun of me."

Maria licked the cookies and cream ice cream off her spoon, her eyes fixed on the ice cream container. "Okay. Maybe it did sound as if I wasn't really serious-"

"Exactly," Liz said with emphasis.

"But that was just because you became so freaking defensive about it every time I brought it up. Seriously, Lizzie, did you really think you could fool me? The more you denied having feelings for him, the more I knew you wanted him. And Max hunting after all those girls?"