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Part 10
They were sitting on Max’s bed Indian style and facing each other.
‘Would you like to go first?’ Max asked her.
Liz nodded ‘I guess we’ve talked about this and we can continue to talk about this till we’re blue in the face but I need to understand’ she started. ‘Why her?’ she whispered.
Max reached out and took her hands before trying to reply. ‘I didn’t set out to do this to hurt you. I honestly had no idea who she was until after a month and truthfully by that stage the damage had been done’
‘You said that she chased after you. Why didn’t you tell me then?’ she asked.
‘Like you said we hardly ever saw each other and it was easier then facing you over what I had done’ he admitted.
‘so you knew who she was before you slept with her?’ she asked then.
Max nodded ‘I went to a party over at the Alpha frat house and she showed up some time through the night’
‘I remember that night’ she whispered. She had been leaving the apartment when Max got home, planning on pulling an all nighter with a few of the people from her Bio Lab. Max had begged her to loosen up for the night and go to the party with him, he had begged her to spend some time with him but she had refused.
‘So you were drunk?’ she asked trying her hardest not to cry again.
‘I had been drinking but I wouldn’t say I was drunk’ he replied.
‘Y-You didn’t bring her here did you?’
‘No of course not’ Max shook his head ‘it happened at the party’ he admitted.
‘S-So you used something right?’ she found herself asking. The questions were hard to ask the answers even harder to hear but something inside told her she needed to sit here and listen if she ever hoped to find closure.
‘Of course’ he assured her.
‘So you fucked her?’
‘El’ Max sighed. He couldn’t understand why she was putting herself through this.
‘I need to know, Max. I need to know everything’ she answered.
‘I’ve only even made love to one women, El and that’s you and believe me I know what the difference is now. What Serena and I did it was sex, a quick fuck on a dirty couch in a basement. At the time I never thought about anything but my own gratification and afterwards I puked my guts up all over her shoes’
Liz nodded. Hearing how impersonal the whole thing was made it a little easier to bear and after a few minutes of silence Liz was able to raise her head and face Max again.
‘thank you’ she said.
Max looked shocked ‘for what?’
‘I know you didn’t want to tell me that stuff but I needed to hear it, so thank you’ she explained.
‘Don’t thank me, El. We wouldn’t need to have this conversation if I wasn’t a total idiot. I fucked up big time.’ he shook his head.
Liz nodded her agreeance there was nothing else she could do. ‘Ok you next’ Liz said.
Taking a deep breath Max reached behind him and picked up the black box and put it in the middle of where they were sitting.
‘You want to talk about the ring?’ Liz asked confused.
‘Yes, I want to answer the questions you asked me before that I didn’t answer’ he told her.
‘Oh okay’ Liz replied a little surprised.
‘Can you pass me the receipt’ he asked her then.
With receipt in hand he started ‘I bought this ring with the intention of proposing to you about a week after Prom’ he told her laying the receipt down in front of her and pointing to the date.
‘Prom had been the best night of my life and it was the night that we finally stopped pretending that we weren’t both madly in love with each other. It was also the night I admitted to myself what I had known for quite a while and that’s, that I’d met my soul mate and my forever. I thought about nothing else for the whole week after. Being with you was so important to me so I went out and had this made for you’ he popped the lid on the box again then revealing the princess cut diamond ring on the white gold band.
‘It’s beautiful, perfect’ she told him. ‘W-What happened?’ it was in front of her in black and white so there was no denying that Max had bought the ring almost 4 years ago so she had to know what changed so much in a week that he would go from ready to proposing to postponing.
Max took another deep breath before answering, he closed his eyes before re-opening them doing his best to pull himself back together ‘I wanted to do everything right’ he explained ‘so one night when I knew you were at Maria’s having a girls night I went and saw your parents, mainly your dad’
‘Okay’ Liz nodded in confusion.
Max looked up then preparing himself for what he was about to do, he knew she would either believe him or not and he wasn’t sure which one he hoped for now. He knew that if she believed him that he didn’t want to be in the vicinity of Jeff Parker and Liz ever again because he knew how Liz felt about her parents interfering in her life. They had already had many major arguments over her choice to go to university in NY with Max rather than Harvard.
‘So I went to see your parents and I poured my heart out to them. I told them how much I loved you and how I wanted nothing more on earth than to spend my life making you happy. I promised them that we would be responsible and not rush into a wedding and that I would take care of you’
Liz allowed a small smile to form as she pictured the conversation in her mind, she couldn’t imagine her Max pouring his heart out to her protective father. In the past 4 years Max had done his best to avoid her family, over the years as her best friend he had spent a lot of time earning her father’s respect but when things changed between the two of them it also changed between him and her parents for some reason and Liz was never sure why.
‘Okay’ Liz prompted him to continued oblivious to what his next words would be.
‘Then I asked them for permission and they said no’ he whispered.
‘W-What?’ Liz asked not sure if what she had heard from his mouth was correct.
‘They said no’ Max repeated a little louder.
‘W-Why?’ she asked still apparently in shock.
Max sighed. He had relived this conversation with her parents a thousand times in his head since it had happened but he had hoped he would never have to share it with Liz.
‘They said that they thought we were too young and irresponsible to be even thinking about something so ridiculous and that at our age we didn’t understand what love was. Your mother predicted that in a few months we would have grown apart after discovering the university life.
Your father told me that marriage would ruin all your hopes and dreams and that in 10 years time if were weren’t already divorced that we would be close to it and that you’d hate me eventually because you would regret the life you had when you realized what you had to give up to have it’
‘Oh god’ Liz cried realization dawning.
Flashback to a week earlier
‘Sure El they love each other and they’re happy but you and I we don’t do things halfway. If we’d continued to be together after Prom it wouldn’t have ended at us coming to New York and living together. Eventually that wouldn’t have been enough for us and in the end I would have ruined your life’ he cried.
‘What?’ Liz asked shocked ‘How could you think you would ever ruin my life?’
‘I would have because whether is was after Prom or even a year later eventually I would have asked you to be mine forever, I would have asked you to marry me because nothing else would do. Sure we would have kidded ourselves saying that we were going to wait until after graduation but I know we wouldn’t have and in the end we would have been married before we graduated. Then before we know it you would have been pregnant Liz and then all your dreams about working as a microbiologist would go out the window and you’d accept a job close to where I worked instead of the one you really wanted. Then after the baby was born you wouldn’t go back to work and over the next 5 years or so we probably would have had a couple more kids. You would have decided to pursue your own career again until the kids went to school, only then you would probably find that your 10 year old degree means nothing because you have no lab experience and that’s when you start to regret Liz. You start to regret me and our children and out life because you gave up all your dreams and I don’t even want you to regret anything we do.’[i/]
Clarity was a welcome and unwelcome thing sometimes and for Liz Parker she wasn’t quite sure which one it was. On one hand she had just found out that the love of her life truly did love her back and wanted to marry her. She was his forever and that none of it had been a lie.
But on the other hand she had just realized that her parents had played a major role in the mess that was her life right now. Because of them her and Max were facing a situation she wasn’t sure that they could survive. They had practically brainwashed Max that he was going to be the one ruining her life if he proposed to her where in reality they had ruined her life by keeping him away from her.
‘I should have told you’ Max’s whispers broke her thoughts then.
‘Y-Yes, yes you should have’ she agreed.
***
Back in Maria’s apartment her and Isabel were enjoying the ice cream that she had bought for her and Liz.
‘How do you suppose it’s going?’ Isabel asked.
‘Well she didn’t come back so that’s a good sign’ Maria sighed.
‘Do you think they’ll get past this?’ she asked then.
Maria paused for a moment her spoon in mid air ‘Truthfully? I don’t know. I’ve never seen Liz like this’ she told her.
‘Yeah but I got the impression from Max that there is more going on than even Liz knows’ Isabel admitted then.
‘Like what?’ Maria asked.
Isabel hesitated for a few minutes not sure if she should tell her. ‘When I found him tonight he was sitting in his room with an engagement ring’ she told her.
‘What!’ Maria gasped ‘who for?’
‘Liz of course’ Isabel told her rolling his eyes ‘The only reason he hooked up with this Serena chick was because she reminded him of Liz and he thought he could have the things with her he didn’t think he could have with Liz’
‘How do you know this?’ Maria asked.
Isabel shrugged eating another mouthful of ice cream ‘It’s obvious, I’ve just put all the information together’ she told her. ‘Besides if anyone knows Max as well as Liz does it’s me and I know how long my brother has been in love with her. It’s why I could never understand why he started all this postponing forever shit in the first place’ she sighed.
‘So what’s with the ring?’ Maria asked.
‘He bought if after Prom’ Isabel told her.
‘What!’
‘I know I said the same thing’ Isabel laughed.
‘Man, I don’t know what to think now’ Maria said.
‘Liz is a smart girl, Maria. She wont let a guy let Max go’ Isabel assured her.
‘That’s the problem, Iz. I’m not sure that Liz is seeing that right now’ Maria said sadly.
TBC...... see you in a few days
