I Will Remember You-M/L, Teen, 1/1, 4/6/06

[ISLANDGIRL5]

Title: I Will Remember You
Author: Christian
Couple: M/L
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer. Nothing in this story is mine. We all know who owns them...Jason Katims and Melinda Metz.
Summary: Liz remembers.

As I write these words down, my hand is shaking and my heart is heavy. I see you so clearly in my head, and I know you must look radiant today. I know that your dress is snow white, simple yet elegant, plain, yet breathtaking. I know that your eyes are a sparkling gold, and that your gorgeous shining hair is pulled up. I know that your perfume is sweet and tantalizing, but soft and not too overpowering. And I know that somewhere beneath all that elegance, are your white sandals. I know that even today you’re too stubborn to wear high heels.

Richard Bach wrote "Can miles truly separate us from friends? If we want to be with someone we love, aren't we already there?" I know what he means. He means that it doesn’t matter how far apart we are, or how much space and air separates us. You’re my best friend, and nothing can separate us. I know you can’t measure the miles between here and heaven. But I can tell you this. It doesn’t matter how many miles there are. They aren’t enough to keep me from you. I know we promised each other that we’d be at the other one’s wedding. And this won’t be exactly like I promised, but I’m still there, Liz. I’m in the breeze that’s rippling through the trees outside. I’m the warmth in the sunshine shining in the windows. I’m always with you. That feeling you get when you think someone is watching you and you don’t see anyone there? That’s me. Always have to watch over my girl.

Live your dream today, Liz. Live our dream. To get married, to find someone to share life with. To have children. Make those things come true for me, and for you. Be happy because you deserve it. And find your forever after. Find mine. I told you I’d always be with you. I’m there. In your heart, Liz. And that’s how my dreams will come true. Through you. As you make your dreams come true, you can make all of my dreams, the ones I couldn’t live long enough to make a reality, come true as well. As long as you’re happy, know I am too.

And know, more than ever, that I miss you.

I’ll be gone from this world soon. And the one thing that hurts me worse than the cancer raging through my body, is that I will be leaving you behind. I wish it could be different, I wish that I wasn’t leaving so soon. But you and I both decided long ago, to accept our lives. So, don’t mourn for me anymore, Liz. I’m in a world without hate, and without pain, and without cancer. I just wish it didn’t have to be a world without you. But I’m glad that you’re not here. Because that means you’re still alive, and breathing, and healthy. It means you’re still dreaming.

I’m giving this note to my mom to give to you on your wedding day. I want you to know that I’m happy for you, and I wish you the best and most amazing things life has to offer. And remember, that wherever life takes you, you'll always be my best friend. And I will always love you.

Someday, Liz, someday, when you leave that world, and make it to this one, I’ll be waiting with open arms. And finally, just like we’ve always wanted, we can have our eternity together.

Love,
Max

I was a nervous wreck. I was standing in front of the mirror, in and empty brides room in the back of a standing room only full church. My hands were shaking, my heart was racing, and I’d already had a panic attack. I was seriously thinking that I was going to crawl out the window and pull a runaway bride, because talks from my grandmother, my mom, Mrs. Evans, and even Maria couldn’t calm my heart beat. It was then that my mother knocked softly on the door and pushed a dozen red roses and a simple white envelope into my hands. I knew that handwriting as well as I knew my own, and I opened the letter with my breath caught in my throat. When I’d read it, a silent tear slid down my cheek. Once again, he’d gotten through when no one else could. Max Evans had thrown me a life line and kept me from drowning.

I was calm the minute I laid eyes on his familiar writing. And when I was done with letter, I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt him all around me, and I was at peace. I whispered a heartfelt goodbye, and opened the door. As I walked down the aisle to the man I’d pledged my future to, fleeting images of a life of Max and Liz fluttered through my mind.

The day my doctor made me cry by fussing at me to be still and Max threw a plastic cup at him.

My first day of High school, when Max spit his milk out all over Pam Troy when Pauly Lancaster asked me out.

The day I fell from the tree and sprained my ankle, and Max carried me home in the rain.

The time Max got us lost on the way to pick up his parents from the airport and we were 2 and a half hours late, but couldn’t stop laughing when they tried to fuss at us.

The time that Isabel, Maria, Tess and I planned Max’s surprise party, and when he finally came in he stripped down to his boxers, before he turned on the light.

These are some of the memories I’ll treasure most. Snapshots of my life that I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I will never forget.

Max Evans was my best friend. The Dawson to my Joey. The Ethel to my Lucy. The Patrick to my Spongebob. Robin to my Batman. Thelma to my Louise.

We met in the hospital when I was 5 and he was 6. Children’s Cancer Ward. It was a tough place for a small child. It was big, and scary and terrified me to no ends. I hated the way it smelled. I hated the white walls. I hated the doctors. I hated the cold floors. I hated the silly paintings on the walls. I hated everything about that place.

Until the day I met Max Evans. Max Evans with his laughing butterscotch eyes and his crooked little grin.

He was sick too. Cancer. We were both going to be there for a few months at least. We both loved Chocolate and hated Lima Beans. We drank Sprite, not Coke, and watched He-Man, but not She-ra. We ate mustard, but not ketchup. We liked Blue, hated Green. Liked Pac-Man, but not Ms. Pac-Man.

The things we had in common just kept adding up. One day he asked me if we could be best friends. He’d never had a best friend. And I hadn’t either. So I agreed.

But Max and I weren’t best friends. We were so much more. So much deeper. When you’re 5 years old, and you think you’re dying, the only one who knows what you’re going through is someone who’s been there. Or in my case, someone who’s going through it with you. He knew what I was feeling. He was scared of the things I feared. He could taste the medicine that made me literally retch until my entire body was aching. He knew the pain I was feeling when the chemotherapy burned every nerve in my body. He knew the nauseous feeling I had every time the radiation made me sick. He just knew.

No one understood us like we did. I understood Max, and he understood me. No one else knew our secrets. Our lives. Not our friends. Not Max’s sister. Not our parents. Not our doctors.

We used to terrorize the doctors. The nurses loved us, but I’m sure the doctors hated having us there. We would switch our charts around when someone new came to do the rounds. Sometimes, we switched beds. We used to put toothpaste on the handles of all the drawers in the supply cabinets. We used to trick the new kids into getting us Sprite and Skittles in the middle of the night…after curfew.

But sometimes, we didn’t even need to be playing jokes. Or even talking. Sometimes, we’d just sit one of our beds, or in the floor in the recreation center. Sometimes all we did was sit, we didn’t need words. Just the knowledge that we had someone who knew, someone who supported us and loved us, and someone who was fighting the same fight was enough to get us through.

In that horrible, sanitized, stark and unfeeling place, Max and I formed a bond that was unbreakable. On the darkest days, when the pain was almost unbearable, and the sickness eating at our tiny bodies was wearing us down, we found a reason to smile. And ultimately, a reason to hope.

I have no doubt in my mind that the only reason Max and I were able to beat cancer was because of each other. I can’t imagine going through that ordeal without Max. I can pinpoint days when I just wanted to close my eyes and quit. When my body was hurting so much that I’d have gladly given in to the disease had it not been for Max urging me to be strong. Were it not for his determination to live, and to make me live, I would have surely given up.

Four years after we met, after years of being in and out, I was out of the hospital for good, my cancer in remission. I visited Max everyday, and sometimes, because they knew me, they’d let me stay overnight. I rented movies, and we watched our favorite TV shows. We ate our favorite foods and sang our favorite music. I was determined to help him get better the way he helped me, and I did. Six months later, Max was out for good after his cancer too went into remission.

But being out of the hospital didn’t change our friendship. It just made us normal. We didn’t have to play between hospital beds and IV stands. We didn’t spend our Saturdays in visiting rooms or our holidays with nurses and doctors. We were able to become normal kids. We went to the mall. We watched movies in a theater. We rode our bikes and terrorize neighborhood dogs instead of our doctors.

We weren’t two separate people, Max and I. We were two parts of the same whole. A package. A 2 for 1 deal. People didn’t ask where Max was without asking where I was too. They always knew we were together. I didn’t get invited to a party without Max being invited. People didn’t offer to let Max come over and hang out without offering me the chance to chill as well. It wasn’t just Max or just Liz. It was just always Max and Liz. Plain and simple. We came together, or not all.

We were going to be friends forever. We were going to live next door to each other. He was going to be the man of honor at my wedding, and I was going to be the best maid at his. We were going to let each others kids call us Aunt Liz and Uncle Max. We were going to take our significant others and our children and travel to Colorado someday to ski. We were going to wait until all of our kids were grown up and moved out, then Max and his wife would meet my husband and I in Bora Bora, and were going to go sailing in a glass bottomed boat so we could see the fish in their own tropical habitat.

Beating cancer had taught us both to appreciate even the little things in life. We had experienced something most kids never have to go through. And for that horrible experience, we came out of it with a friendship that rivaled all else, and an unimaginable appreciation and gratitude for every day we were blessed with.

We had plans. We’d planned our lives. Each other’s lives. Our children’s lives. Not one aspect of my planned life didn’t include Max Evans. And whoever I’d marry would have to accept that. And whoever Max married would have to expect that I would always be in his life.

I would close my eyes and picture my future, and Max Evans was always there. Being god father to my children. Helping the man I married build the new nursery. Watching my kids as they graduated from high school.

People always thought we were weird. That if we were so close and so attached, that we should take our friendship further. But our friendship was further. What Max and I had went beyond anything we could have ever had in a love type relationship. When you go through things that Max and I went through, you learn the person’s souls. Max and I had so much more than we could have ever gotten out of a relationship that had gone past platonic. A relationship and all the complications that come along with it would have ruined what we had. And neither one of us was willing to risk that. I loved Max. Max loved me. But were weren’t in love.

Max and I were always going to be together. That’s how we planned it. Together as in we would always have our special bond, and would be able to tell our children, and each other’s children about the little boy and little girl that met in a cold hospital room. But when I was 17 years old, I learned that things don’t always turn out the way you want them to. Things don’t always go as planned.

Because on the night of my senior prom, I got the worst phone call of my entire life.

5 hours later, Max Evans died in my arms.

~*~

“Come quick, Liz,” Isabel said. “Something’s wrong.”

I hadn’t even made it out the door yet, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t even change clothes.

I wasn’t exactly your normal hospital visitor. I knew the doctors, they knew me. After all, I’d been visiting them once a month since I had gotten out of the hospital. So when I got there, my prom dress on, and my makeup done, no one stopped to look. They knew why I was here. They knew where I was going.

He looked so frail. So small, so…fragile. His skin wasn’t it’s normal healthy golden color. It was pale and clammy. He was sleeping, knocked out by the medications they had given him. But I kicked off my shoes, pulled down the rail on his bed, and climbed in next to him. I could have sworn I heard him sigh, and almost immediately, his heart rate slowed and his breathing calmed down.

He knew I was there. He hadn’t seen me, and I hadn’t spoken a word.

But just like always, Max knew.

His cancer had come back. He’d been in the hospital for two weeks, taking chemotherapy and a new miracle medication. I visited him every day, and the doctors had let me stay the entire weekend. He was weak, and tired, but he was okay. He laughed, he made jokes, he played video games with the younger boys, and had tea parties with the younger girls.

He was supposed to get better, but it wasn’t until I looked in his eyes that night I knew that he wouldn’t.

I fell asleep with my head on his shoulder, and when I woke up, he was staring at me, his eyes wide and distressed.

I saw the fear at the unknown. I saw the sadness at what he knew was coming. I saw the regret at what he knew he was going to miss out on.

But in one moment, one beautiful glorious moment, he smiled at me, and I saw that he was at peace with what was about to happen. His eyes sparkled with that familiar gleam, and I’m thankful to God that he allowed to see that crooked grin one more time.

He couldn’t talk, because he didn’t have the energy. He managed to lift a hand to wipe an unshed tear from my eye, and he tangled it in my hair as I lay down on his chest.

Two hours later, he took a deep breath, and he was gone.

Max Evans, my Max, the other half of Max and Liz was gone. At the young age of nineteen.

I didn’t cry.

I went to his funeral. I spoke at the service, and talked about how much Max meant to me. I talked about our time in the hospital together, and about all the things we used to do. I talked about growing up with him.

But I didn’t cry.

I went to his house, and spent the entire day curled up in a ball on his bed, surrounded by pictures and memories of a life I helped live.

But I didn’t cry.

I dropped out of school just before graduation. I couldn’t go back to a place that reminded me of Max’s better days. Everywhere I looked, I saw Max. So I moved out got an apartment, and left anything and everything of Max at home.

Still, though, I didn’t cry.

I turned to alcohol, and by the time I was 20, I was an alcoholic. I’d destroyed any resemblance of a friendship I’d had with anyone other than Max, and had pushed my family so far away that I started to believe I was alone in the world.

When Isabel married a man she met in college, I was too hung over to go to the wedding. When my brother, Michael married his high school sweetheart, I was so drunk when I got to the church, that my father made me leave. When my first niece was born, I didn’t go to the hospital because Jim Beam had more appeal to me.

But when I was 21 years old, three years after Max died, I heard a knock on my door, and an Evans changed my life once again.

It was Isabel. She hadn’t come to see me in two years. She’d long since stopped trying to help me. But this time she needed my help. She was pregnant. A boy. His name was going to be Max. But she wanted me…needed me, the one person that knew Max better than anyone else, to teach her son what a wonderful person his namesake was. Her parents were working in Europe, and would come home to see the baby. But they wouldn’t be able to help her teach her son what an amazing person his uncle had been.

She cried, and told me that she couldn’t remember his voice, and had forgotten what his laugh sounded like. Through her tears, she told me that she’d forgotten how his cologne smelled, and try as hard as she could, she couldn’t remember how it felt to have her little brother wrap his arms around her. She told me that it wasn’t Max’s choice to die, and that if he were here, he’d have kept his promises to me, and to her, to be there for us when we needed him most. It was just that, at the time that we needed him most, it was because he wasn’t able to be there.

She wiped her tears when I didn’t respond, and she reached into her purse and handed me a picture before she left.

It was Max and I, and I knew it was on the night of my eighteenth birthday, just a couple months before he went back in the hospital. We had on silly birthday hats, and the most amazing smiles I’ve ever seen. He had his arms around my neck, and I could see our friends laughing in the background.

The inscription on the back said “My Liz…the one person I know will never let me down.”

And for the first time since he died in my arms, I cried over Max Evans’ death. I realized that Max thought I would never let him down. And if I stayed on that one way road to destruction I was heading for, I would have let him down.

I made myself comfortable on the mattress I called my bed, and let the tears flow. I cried for everything Max didn’t get to do. I cried for the things I never got to say to him. I cried for all his dreams that went unfulfilled, all his plans that never became a reality. I cried for the loss of someone so young and so amazing. I cried for the loss of a friendship, a bond more pure and more amazing than anything I’d ever witnessed. And I cried too, for Max and Liz, for the awesome twosome that would forever be just one. I cried until I had no more tears left, and until my throat was hoarse from sobbing.

Then I packed up everything I owned into a suitcase, left the key in the landlord’s mailbox and checked myself into a rehab clinic.

Those two months in rehab were the most trying times in my life. As part of my therapy, I was forced to talk about what had pushed me to drinking.

Every thing I had felt in the past three years surfaced. The anger, the frustration, the desolation, the hurt.

But it was worth it. Two months after I checked in, I went back home to mend the relationships I had broken. It wasn’t easy. I’d hurt people, and wreaked havoc in their lives. They had loved Max too. And when he had been taken from us all, I’d been too selfish and self-wallowing to share in their grief. We hollered, we fought, we cried. But in the end, we ended up loving each other and forgiving all the wrong doings of the past.

When Maxwell Parker Whitman was born, I was the only person besides his mommy and daddy in the room. And the first thing I did was show him a picture of his Uncle Max.

Three years later, I met Kyle Valenti. He was my friend first, and I told him all about my soul mate, my best friend, my Max. I showed him pictures, and told him stories. And he still stuck around. It was an inevitable thing, me falling for Kyle. He was so much like Max, quiet and broody, yet fun-loving and easy to get along with. He was big and tough, but gentle and easy on the inside. He swept me off my feet.

Kyle knows that regardless of how much of myself I give to him, that there will always be a place in my heart reserved for the boy who became my best friend when I was five years old. He’s not threatened by that. He’s happy for me, that I had the chance to find someone like Max, that I connected so completely with. On the day he proposed, he gave me a present. A picture of Max and I that I had never seen before.

We were young, I was probably seven or eight. We had on regular clothes, but our hospital bracelets were firmly around our wrists. We had our arms around each other, almost identical toothless grins aimed at the camera. I could see the innocence of childhood shining in our eyes, and joy of being with each other, despite the circumstances, radiating from our faces.

Kyle told me that he would never ask me to give Max up. He knew that I loved Max, but he knew that my love for Max went above and beyond anything that would have ever led to more than being friends. He would never ask me to give that up, or forget about. Instead, he just wanted to have his share of me as well. And he told me that he wished he could have met Max. He thinks they would have gotten along.

I went to Max’s grave yesterday. I left a wedding invitation, and the picture of us that Isabel had given me before I cleaned up. I also left him a bag of Skittles. I could almost hear him laughing as I placed them on tope of his grave marker.

I know he’s gone, but somehow, across all the distance and galaxies between us, I know he’s happy for me.