"Do you care if I cut this up?" Maria picked up a magazine from Liz's dresser.

As soon as they got back from the movies they had dissected the whole Isabel-Nikolas-Alex situation. Then they had dissected the movie. Now Liz was working on her college applications and Maria was working on her nails. Maria loved the way she and Liz could just sit in the same room together, each doing their own thing, sometimes talking, sometimes not. You had to be really good friends with someone before it felt this comfortable to basically ignore them for long stretches of time.

"Sure. Should I ask why?" Liz asked. She stuck some stamps on the application package she was sending to UCLA.

"I saw this girl at the mall who had little words glued on each of her nails. I wanted to try it," Maria answered.

Liz powered up her computer and opened her chart of college applications. She typed dates in the application-mailed column for UCLA and Brown.

"So what words should I use?" Maria asked.

"You could spell out a ransom note," Liz suggested. "Don't kidnappers always use letters torn out of newspapers and stuff so the police can't identify them by their handwriting?"

Maria threw a pillow at her. "Very funny. I was thinking more like some kind of subliminal message."

"Oh, like, 'I'm easy' and your phone number?" Liz teased.

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Let me know what weekend you'll be playing Vegas," Maria said.

Liz grabbed another magazine and flopped down on the bed next to Maria. "Maybe I'll do a subliminal message, too. Something that will get Max to give up this just friends deal."

"I'm surprised he hasn't cracked by now," Maria said. "If you could see the way he looks at you when he knows you're not watching… whoa."

Liz shook her head. "We're doing it again. We're talking about Max. I promised you I was going to give you a break."

"Talk about him as much as you want," Maria said. "I'll be sending you a bill." She snagged a pair of cuticle scissors off Liz's dresser and cut out the word love.

"We need to get you a guy so you'll have someone to complain about, too," Liz said. "I think Kyle Valenti is available."

"Kyle 'the octopus' Valenti?" Maria wrinkled up her nose. "You know, it's not the worst idea. I could go out with him and use my feminine allure to get all kinds of secret info on Sheriff Valenti."

Liz's expression turned all serious. "Promise me you would never do anything like that. Its way, way too dangerous."

"I promise. I promise the best friend promise," Maria said. The best friend promise was something Liz and Maria had made up in the fifth grade. Maria still had the list of horrible things that would happen to anyone who broke the "Superserious Absolutely Unbreakable Best Friend Promise."

"Good." Liz flipped a page in her magazine.

"Anyway, watching you and Max and Alex hasn't exactly made me wish I could fall for someone. It's not like I need more pain in my life. I mean, my mom is already going out on dates in my clothes."

"Alex did look pretty devastated when Isabel took off with Nikolas," Liz said.

"I'm surprised you noticed. You looked pretty deep in one of your where-oh-where-can-my-little-Max-be funks," Maria said.

"I noticed. Poor guy." Liz shot a glance at Maria. "I used to think maybe you and Alex…" She let her sentence trail off.

"Yeah, when he first moved to Roswell last year, I had a couple of moments where I thought maybe. But no. I mean, he's totally cute, and he's really funny. But he just doesn't do it for me, you know? He doesn't…" Maria shrugged.

"He doesn't make your heart go pitty-pat?" Liz suggested.

"Exactly."

The melancholy sounds of a Doors song started thrumming through the house. Liz could feel the floor vibrating with the beat. "I guess my parents are back," she said.

Maria frowned. "Is your dad okay?"

Maria had known Liz since the second grade. She had broken the code a long time ago. When Liz's papa was in a good mood, he listened to the Grateful Dead. The Dead was at the absolute top of his musical mood scale. The Doors were at the absolute bottom. And right now he was listening to The Doors.

"Rosa's birthday is tomorrow," Liz explained.

"Oh," Maria mumbled. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I should have remembered. Are you okay?"

Liz nodded. Her late sister's birthday didn't hit her the way it did her parents. Not because she didn't love Rosa. When she was a little girl, she adored Rosa and was always trying to get her attention. Classic big sister/little sister stuff.

It was just that she didn't think about Rosa more around her birthday. She thought about her the same amount as usual, which was a lot. Like every day.

There was this little voice in Liz's head that always whispered, "Don't turn out like Rosa." Sometimes the voice sounded like her mama, sometimes like her aunt Elena, sometimes like her abuelita, sometimes like one of her uncles or cousins. But most of the time it sounded like her papa.

And Liz worked very hard to make sure no one, not her papa or anyone else, had to be afraid she was going to overdose the way Rosa had when she was in high school. Liz was a straight-A student, and she'd probably end up class valedictorian. She put in a lot of hours at the cafe and saved most of the money she earned. She always remembered all her relatives' birthdays. She always called her parents when she was going to be late. She always remembered to floss even when she was really tired.

Liz glanced over at her computer. At the list of all the schools she'd applied to. Sometimes she couldn't wait to graduate and get out of town. To live in a place where no one knew anything about Rosa and no one ever worried that Liz was going to turn out just like her.

"Hey, you got so quiet. I'm sorry," Maria said. "I didn't mean to make you start thinking about sad stuff."

"You didn't. It's okay." Liz twisted her hair into a knot on the top of her head. "So what about Michael?" she asked. She wanted a big subject change immediatamente.

Maria's head jerked up. "Michael?"

"Yeah. We were done talking about your love life," Liz said.

"You mean lack of," Maria interrupted.

"And we already covered mine and Max's and Isabel's and Alex's," Liz continued. "That leaves Michael's. Do you think there's anybody he likes at school?"

Maria cut the word pain out of her magazine and carefully trimmed it. "Not that I know of," she answered. "Do you think Michael could even, I mean, would he want to, you know, go out with a human?"

"I guess he did used to keep away from humans," Liz said. "But that was before he really got to know the wonderful us."

"I wonder if 'the wonderful us' will convince Nikolas that humans are people, too," Maria commented.

"I'm not sure. I don't think Michael ever thought of us as insects," Liz answered. She shook her head, and her long, dark hair fell back down around her shoulders. "I've got a really bad feeling about Nikolas. I know Max is worried about him, too."

"What do you think Nikolas and Isabel are doing right now?" Maria asked. She painted her thumbnail with clear polish and carefully placed a scrap of paper on top.

"Whatever they're doing, I hope they're not using their power," Liz said. "I'm not ready to do a face-off with Valenti again."

"Do you think we should tell Max that Isabel took off with Nikolas?" Maria asked.

Liz thought about it. It would give her an excuse to call Max, hear his voice, torture herself a little. But there was nothing he could really do. There was nothing any of them could do if Nikolas and Isabel decided to go wild with their power.

"No," she said. "I mean, it's not like they're going to do anything illegal."