I took a shower.

A hot shower.

The kind of shower that leaves your skin red and tingly and the bathroom completely filled with steam. Sometimes that's the only thing that helps. And then sometimes, it brings them all back. All the memories. Memories of her. The feel of her skin..her lips. The feel of the hot water, rushing over our bodies, as if we were under a waterfall. The feel of making love to her against the shower wall.

Different images come to me at different times. Sometimes I welcome them...other times I fight to hold back the tears as I recall her touch. Her lips. Her fingers. The feel of her hands gliding over every possible inch of my body. I fight to stand as every drip of water reminds me how she felt under my touch. The tears fall, each drowning in what used to be our "waterfall". That's what she used to call it.

Our secret waterfall.

The others never knew. If she mentioned it in front of them, they only thought it was some stupid inside joke. And it was an inside joke...but it wasn't as funny as we pretended it to be. It was serious. What we felt for each other was serious. Being together was hard. Being secretive from a group of already paranoid teenagers was hard. They never suspected us. Then again, how could they, when everything always took place at my house. After we graduated, she even moved in with me, to help me keep the house. To help pay the rent.

That's when things got better. Having her there with me at night, holding me close. Those were the moments that I lived for. Aside from Michael's apartment, where we previously held most of our meetings, mine seemed to be the new local hang out. It made it hard for us to share my room, when they were all crashing there, as often as possible. That made it more fun, though. More challenging. It just so happened that when Nasedo and I had moved in, I took the room with a bathroom that connected to a spare bedroom. So when she moved in, that's the one she took.

Once, when Max was sleeping over, he took the room directly across from mine. After he was presumably asleep, she crept into my room. We never could go long without touching each other. Things got carried away. I guess Max heard what was going on. It was easy to lie and say that I had been having a bad dream. I still thank a God that I don't really believe in, that he knocked that night. Sure, it would of been easier, to just be open with everyone. To let them know that there was something going on between us, and to let them know that we *did* have feelings for each other. Feelings stronger than we'd ever felt. There was just something about it being our secret, that made it so special. It was something that just she and I were privy to.

I think that Liz started to catch on one night. Everyone was over. Movie night..or whatever they wanted to call it. To me, it just meant that everyone was crashing at my place. It just meant that either Liz or Maria would stay with Isabel and the other would share *my* room, while Max and Michael took the couch and the other extra room. Where was I? Oh, Liz started to suspect us. Though, I don't really think that even *she* knew what she suspected. Just that something wasn't right. "Normal", or whatever. Isabel and I...we were smiling at each other a lot, I guess. I did that a lot though. It just seemed normal to smile at her. To look at her and think about everything that she stood for. About everything that drove me crazy about her.

Liz is nosy. She pretends not to be. Then again, maybe she didn't realize it then. She managed to corner me in the kitchen while everyone was piled in the living room. I hate how she goes about finding out what she wants to know. Starting out with small talk. "How's everything going?" Stuff like that. I know she wanted to ask. I know she wanted to be blunt for a change, and outright ask me if there was something between Isabel and I. But she didn't. What she did was worse. Liz asked me why I bothered ruining nearly a whole year, that she could have spent with Max, if it was never Max that I really wanted. I wanted to hit her then. I'd never wanted to do that, despite how I had acted. I probably would have, too, if I hadn't looked up only to see Isabel frozen in the doorway. She'd heard Liz. Unfortunately.

I didn't even bother with Liz. Instead, I took off after Isabel who was headed back into the small sea of our supposed friends. Instead of dragging her out of the room, I just took my respective seat next to her, where I had been earlier..and pulled a cover over the both of us, so that I could take her hand in mine.

After that, no one ever said anything. Though, now, thinking back...I almost wish they would have. Maybe then, we would have been forced to deal with the outside world. Not just ourselves. I think that's why she had this undeniable fascination with the shower. It was like a hiding place to her. A place that seemed to wash away anything and everything around her. A place where no one could bother her. Or us. But I never could deny her anything. So I didn't stop it. "I need a shower," she'd say, and I would follow her without hesitation.

I didn't know then, that taking those times for granted, was wrong. I miss them now. I miss the feel of the almost unbearably hot water, cascading over our bodies. I miss feeling her lips on my skin. On my breasts. My stomach. My thighs...and the sensitive flesh between them. I can still feel her tongue. The way she used it to touch me so intimately, in places that I'd never imagined being touched. I didn't know, then, how much I would miss being able to return the favors. I didn't know that there would be a day when I wouldn't be able to touch her anymore.

I try not to think about that now. I try not to think about the reason she's not here anymore. I try not to think about how quiet this house is. I try profusely to pretend that any moment now she's going to walk back through the front door and tell me that everything is okay. That she's not really gone. That I didn't really lose her. I keep expecting her to come home and tell me that it was all a joke. A cruel joke.

Everybody knew that Alex was jealous of my friendship with Isabel. I never thought that Liz would have confided in him. I never would have thought that she would tell him the truth about what really went on when they weren't here. I never would have thought that he would confront Isabel. That he would flip out the way that he did. Even Alex is gone now too. No one knows, to this day, what he was thinking when he stole his dad's gun. No one can figure out what possessed him to come to the Crashdown and pull it on her. Everyone found out then, about the two of us. About what had been going on. Everyone but Max and Michael. They weren't there when Alex was shouting his pain. Shouting his feelings of hatred towards Isabel and I, for making him crazy.

He pulled the trigger. Whether he had intended to, or not, I don't know. But he did. I didn't know how to save her. It wasn't a power that I had learned to use yet. I tried. Believe me, when I say that I tried. But it wasn't any use. By the time that Liz had called the paramedics and the time they finally got there...she was gone. She was gone before the thought of calling even crossed their minds. So was Alex, though, not literally. He pulled the gun on himself, but it didn't kill him. Unfortunately for him. I know that he didn't really mean to hurt her. To take her away from me. But he did. He did and now he has to live with that...wherever they put him.

Healing is Max's specialty.

I know now, that even if he had been there, it wouldn't have made much difference. I held her there, on the floor as she bled to death, rocking her as though she were a baby. In a way she was. She was *my* baby. My Isabel. I don't regret lying to her in that brief moment, telling her that she was going to be okay, even though we both knew that she wasn't. I don't regret it, because the truth was, everything between us, until that very moment, had been a lie anyway. That was yesterday though, and today is a new day.

We buried Isabel this morning.

I want to lie, still, and continue to sugarcoat the truth by saying that we buried her in a really nice place. But I can't bring myself to say it. Why *do* people say that anyway? There's never anything nice about burying someone in the cold dirt of a cruel earth that knows nothing about being born and dying. A cruel earth that is about nothing but taking and taking, until it's taken everything you've got. And at this very moment, I can't do anything but curse that same God that I still don't believe in, for taking her away from me.

She was my life, my heart and my soul. My Isabel.

I fought to stand as we watched them lower her into the ground. The people said that it wasn't custom for us to do so, but they didn't stop us. They said that somehow it makes it harder for people to let go of their loved ones. I don't know how that could be true. There is nothing more real than watching the person you love, with every fiber of your being, be put into the ground. And over something so petty. Over someone who didn't know how to handle not having what they wanted so badly.

I suppose that someone told Max and Michael the reason for all of this. The reason that Alex lost it. It seemed to be the furthest thing from their minds as they stood there supporting me, knowing that I couldn't stand on my own. I know it was hard for them to watch them take her away for good. That final goodbye is always the hardest. For me, it felt as though I was watching myself being lowered into that dark hole.

Everyone is here now. In my house. Trampling all over everything that she's touched. I can only think about how they think they're helping, by being here, when they're really not. When all they're really doing is taking more of her away from me.

Max, he doesn't know that the door he's leaning against is the door that Isabel pinned me to, just before we left the other day, heading to the Crashdown. He doesn't know that the door he's leaning against is where we stood kissing, for more than ten minutes, unable to tear ourselves away from each other long enough to leave.

Michael. He doesn't know that the couch he's sitting on is the couch where we last made love. That it's the last place I'll remember being with her. He doesn't know that I feel like I'll never be able to sit there again, without remembering the last place she touched me before we fell asleep there.

Liz, she doesn't know that the chair she's sitting in is the last place where I curled up in Isabel's lap to watch tv. Or that it's the last place where we watched our favorite movie together. In the kitchen, Maria doesn't know that the table she's sitting at with the Sheriff is the last place Isabel and I sat reading the paper.

None of them know anything. They don't know what they're doing by merely being here, and I can't seem to take it anymore, so I excuse myself. Max asks me if I'm okay, even though he knows that I'm not, when I say that I am. So he walks me upstairs, helping me into bed. For some reason, he doesn't leave, but instead, takes a seat next to the bed. I found that I had curled myself into the fetal position under my covers, hoping that I wouldn't cry.

Not there. Not then.

But I did. And I felt Max reach up to stroke my hair, kiss my forehead and tell me that everything was going to be okay. He knows that things will never be the same...but says that eventually, they'll be okay. Something in me knows that he's right. But I don't want him to be. I don't want to know that she's gone. That she's never coming back. I don't want to come to terms with the fact that someone took her away from me so easily. Then again, I guess no one could blame me for that. Who really wants to believe that the person they love is really gone?

I felt like a child again without her here. Like I was lost. So I slept. I slept for what seemed like forever and a day. And when I woke up, she was still gone. But Max wasn't. He had moved to a chair and fallen asleep. I don't know what he thought he was doing by staying here. Helping I guess. It was of little comfort. But it was something I guess. Some small contribution, for not being there to save her. So now he was going to feel like it was his duty to watch over me, now that Isabel was gone.

I got up, intending to do what, I don't know. When Max woke up I was merely wandering around my bedroom, touching things that Isabel had touched, smelling her scent on the other pillow in my bed. Holding things that she'd held. He watched me for a while before standing up to put his arms around me. I know that he wanted to tell me again, that things would be alright...but this time he didn't. I broke down then, crumbling in his arms, unable to bear the weight of standing. He folded me into his arms, understanding my pain. Understanding that I needed that moment, to let out everything that I had been holding in. He held me until he couldn't stand anymore either, going down to the floor with me, rocking me in his arms.

I don't know how long this went on. Days maybe. A repetitive process of sleeping and crying in his arms like a baby. Only stopping long enough for me to shower and for him to go home long enough to check in with his mom and dad, to make sure that they, too, were doing okay. I don't remember eating much either. He tells me that I've lost too much weight and that I don't look healthy anymore. But that doesn't really matter now, anyway. I'm just a shell of the person I used to be when she was here.

People say that the pain gets less with each day that goes by. Those people lie. Those people lie to make themselves feel better about forgetting. Not that they forget because they want to. But because they need to, to be able to go on with their lives.

Me. I don't want to go on with my life. I just want back what was taken from me.

My Isabel.