'See that box?' he said, pointing to one of the crates the movers had left.
Liz nodded.
'You'll find about five hundred petri dishes inside. I want you to wash every one of them.'
Liz gaped at him. Washing dishes? That was her fantastic new job? She could do that at the Crashdown!
'Just… wash them?'
Dr. Sosa rolled his eyes. 'Did you think you'd be splicing genes for your summer job?' he asked.
Liz felt tears sting the back of her eyes. This guy was a jerk! 'I'll get to work,' she murmured.
Isabel stuck another grape into her mouth and sighed. 'Are we really watching General Hospital?' she asked her brother, who sat next to her on the couch.
Max continued to stare at the TV
'Because I kinda had the impression that you'd rather be tortured in the White Room than watch a soap opera,' she went on.
Max didn't answer. He just stared straight ahead, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. If he didn't get bored and leave, Isabel was going to have to take matters into her own hands. She needed him out of earshot before her new boyfriend, Jesse Ramirez, called. 'In fact I thought soap operas gave you hives,' she added.
No answer.
Isabel pointed her finger at Max and used her powers to shoot a tiny zap of electricity at his cheek.
'Ow!' he yelped, jumping in surprise. He glared at Isabel, then picked up the remote. 'Just for that, I'm not letting you watch General Hospital,' he said, changing the channel.
Isabel snorted. 'You've been sitting here for fifteen minutes brooding and moping,' she said. 'And totally not paying attention to what's in front of your face. What's going on?'
'Nothing.'
'Oh, please, Max. Don't make me resort to dreamwalk-ing'
'You can't dreamwalk me,' Max said.
'Don't be so sure.'
They sat in silence for another minute, now watching an infomercial on TV If Max hated anything more than soap operas, it was infomercials. 'It's Liz,' he said suddenly.
'Well, duh,' Isabel replied. 'What happened now?'
'I think she took that job at Meta-chem just to get away from me.'
'Max, Liz won the job in a scholarship contest,' Isabel pointed out. 'It couldn't have been some premeditated way to avoid you.'
'I guess not. But I'm afraid she's having doubts about us,' Max said despairingly. He clicked off the TV and turned his big, sad eyes on Isabel.
Great, she thought. Now I'll never get rid of him before Jesse calls. It wasn't that she didn't care about Max's problem. But she wanted to talk to Jesse in private, and she could not let Max find out about him. Her relationship with Jesse was still so new, and she was sure Max wouldn't approve. In fact he might disapprove so much that he would tell their parents about it, and that would be a disaster. First of all, Jesse was older… eight years older. And second of all, he worked for Isabel's father. No, there was no way she could let her parents find out about Jesse.
Once upon a time she would've trusted her brother with this kind of secret. Once upon a time he was her best friend. But Max had changed over the past year. Learning about their alien destiny had been a shock to all of them, but Max had taken it the hardest. Because Max was the king, a king whose responsibility it was to save a planet he'd never even seen. And whose destiny was to love a girl
he barely even knew. Somehow, in the middle of all that, he'd lost track of who he was. He'd managed to alienate all his friends.
And about two months ago, he'd done the worst thing Isabel could think of: He'd turned on her. He took his role of king so seriously that he thought he could make decisions for all of them. He'd decided that he didn't want Isabel leaving Roswell to go to college, and he'd threatened to do whatever it took to make her obey him. Even if that meant lying to their parents, telling them Isabel was on drugs.
Max had apologized later, and she'd forgiven him. But Isabel wasn't sure she could ever trust her brother again.
And Jesse was too important to her to give up. If Max didn't want her with Jesse, he might try to tell her what to do, maybe even threaten her again. So she just had to keep Max from finding out.
Isabel didn't feel like talking about Max's troubles with Liz. Those two were never happy, and there was nothing anyone could do to help.
'Max, you and Liz are the interplanetary Romeo and Juliet. She's disgustingly in love with you,' Isabel said.
'She got really upset after I had that flash of my son,' Max told her.
Isabel sighed. Clearly she was going to have to help Max through this, even if it meant missing her call from Jesse.
'Well, you did sleep with Tess and get her pregnant,' Isabel said. 'And Tess killed Alex and lied to all of us. So it's sort of understandable that Liz would get upset when you have psychic flashes from Tess.'
'The flash came from the baby' Max corrected her.
Isabel put her hand over his. 'You can't know that for sure,' she said gently. 'You don't know anything about the baby. And you have to admit, if the situation were reversed, you'd be freaked out too.'
Max nodded sadly. 'What am I supposed to do about it?' he asked. 'All I want is for life to go back to normal.'
'News flash, Max: Life never was normal.'
Max smiled wanly. 'You know what I mean. Before we knew about Antar and being the Royal Four.'
'Before Tess.'
He shrugged. 'But there's nothing I can do about it now. I can't escape the responsibility. I'm the king. And he's my son, Isabel. I have to find him, no matter what. Don't I?'
Isabel thought about it. Max's son. Her own nephew. It all seemed so remote, so unreal. Tess was gone, and she'd taken with her their only way to get back to their home planet, Antar. They were stuck on Earth now, with no means of fulfilling their duty to save Antar from its current, evil rulers. It seemed as if fate had taken it out of their hands. 'I don't know, Max,' Isabel said slowly. 'I don't know if it's even possible to find your son. I think maybe it's time to admit that our lives are going to be here,, on Earth.'
'I tried that,' he replied. 'And as soon as I started rebuilding my life here, I got that flash from my son. He's telling me that I can't give up… even if it means sacrificing my relationship with Liz.'
The misery in Max's face was so extreme that Isabel felt her own eyes filling with tears. Maybe she'd been too hard
on him. He had problems on a universal scale. Maybe she should just let go of the past, try to trust Max again…
The phone rang.
Isabel froze. It was Jesse, it had to be!
Max grabbed the cordless from the coffee table and clicked it on. 'Hello?'
She watched his face as he listened to the voice on the other end. Max's eyes sought out Isabel's, and he frowned. 'Just a minute,' he said into the phone. Then he held it out to Isabel, his eyebrows raised questioningly.
Isabel looked in Max's eyes, but she couldn't read his expression. Did he suspect her relationship with Jesse? How would he react when he found out? Max had always been compulsive about keeping their secret… he didn't want anyone else to get close enough to him, Michael, or Isabel to find out that they were aliens. Too many people knew already.
What would he do if he thought Isabel's new romance was putting them all in danger? Isabel knew the answer to that: He would make her end it. She couldn't let Max discover her feelings for Jesse. She couldn't trust Max. She took the phone from him. 'Hello?'
'Hey, beautiful.' Jesse's warm, loving voice filled her ears. 'How's my girl?'
Her eyes still on Max, Isabel took a deep breath. 'I'm not interested,' she said. Then she hung up on her boyfriend before he could say another word.
