EPILOGUE

Summer was back with a vengeance.

The cool weather had broken, and early Sunday morning it was already ten degrees hotter than Saturday's high. Isabel hardly felt the heat, however, as she climbed the hill. Max had lent her his car since he was spending the day with Jason, Liz, and her family before they all went back to Artesia together to speak with Jason's mom. Even though she knew the car could make it up the hill, she did not wish to disturb the quiet, tranquil setting and had left it behind at the bottom.

Brushing away a bead of perspiration, Isabel knelt on the ground with a bouquet of sunflowers laid out before her. She always found sunflowers to be the most interesting variety of flora. To look at them, they certainly weren't as pretty as roses, lilies, or even carnations, but their bright color and sturdy look always cheered her up when she was down, much in the way a particular friend used to have a similar effect on her.

She'd had a wonderful date with Jesse the night before,

once they'd managed to avoid running into Kyle and his dad as the pair were out to dinner together at the same place she had chosen to go. Jesse had been totally understanding of her blowing him off because of her fake illness, too. Just another lie in the dozens she had told to friends and loved ones. But, somehow, it felt wrong to be thinking of Jesse, considering where she was at the moment.

«This is a nice surprise," a voice came from behind her.

«What? After yesterday, you didn't expect to see me here?»

«Well, yeah, but it's still nice to see you.» His voice was drawing her in. «It would be nicer to be seen by you.»

«I can't," she said, her eyes firmly fixed to his tombstone.

His name… Alex Whitman. Born… 1983. Died… too young.

«I think I'm pretty good looking," he said, «all things considered.»

Isabel tried not to smile at the gallows humor. «You know what I mean. It hurts too much to look at you… after seeing how you died.»

«You'd rather remember me like that?» he asked. «Doubled over in pain? Begging for-"

«Stop!» she cried. «I don't want to remember it at all.»

«You have to," he said. «It's the price you pay for helping Kyle.»

«No good deed ever goes unpunished.»

«Isabel.» She could feel his breath on her shoulder even though it was not real. «Look at me.»

She finally turned to see Alex, or at least the image of Alex. He looked just as she remembered him, with the same goof-ball smile he always had plastered onto his face. She loved

that smile because she knew it had always gotten just a little brighter whenever he'd noticed she was in the room. This was not his first visit to her since his death, and she had hoped it would not be his last. She wasn't sure if he was a ghost, a dream, or something else entirely, but Isabel didn't care.

«I know it was hard to watch me die," Alex said. «Trust me, I was there.» Even in death, his pitiful attempts at humor would still elicit a sad smile from her. «But now, knowing you were there too… it makes my death a little less lonely. It took so long for us to really get together in life, and now I feel like we were also a little bit together in death. If anything, it makes us closer.»

«I miss you so much.» She had a tear in her eye.

«I'm never far," he said. «You know that.»

«I know," she replied. «And I'm glad.»

«Good, now stop being such a mope," he smiled. «This place is depressing enough as it is. Everyone's crying when they come here. And if they're not crying, they're really quiet, as if they would wake anyone. What I wouldn't give for The Whits to make an unscheduled appearance.»

«That reminds me," she said, smiling for the first time. «We did that talent night that you, Maria, and Liz had every year.» Isabel proceeded to tell him all about the evenings festivities. It didn't matter that he wasn't really standing in front of her, or that if he was actually a ghost, then he probably already knew everything she was saying. It just felt good for Isabel to be talking to him. In fact, she continued talking for a good half hour, updating Alex on almost every part of her life, although she left the whole Jesse thing out of it, not wanting to spoil the mood. By the time she had covered just about every subject, the sun had pumped up the temperature by a few more degrees, making it a little more uncomfortable.

A gentle breeze blew up the hill, cooling Isabel. She half suspected that Alex had arranged for the breeze to cool her. He had always been trying to take care of her in life, so it would stand to reason that he would continue to do so in death. Maybe he was going to become her own personal guardian angel. I could think of worse people to have watching over me, she thought.

«Thanks, Alex," she said, wrapping up their conversation. «It's good to have a friend to talk to.»

«You have plenty of friends," Alex reminded her.

«But none of them understands me like you did," she said, standing up and smoothing the wrinkles out of her sundress. «Like you do. None of them cares like you.»

A bluebird swooped out of the sky and landed on his tombstone. It perched itself along the edge as if wanting to be a spectator as the scene played itself out.

«I should get going," she said as she turned herself in the direction of Max's car, preparing for the long walk back down but not really wanting to go yet, for a number of reasons.

«Really?» he asked, feigning surprise. «Before you say what it is that you came here to say?»

«I just wanted to see you," she said, lying to both Alex and herself. «You know… after yesterday.»

«Who exactly do you think you're fooling?» he asked. «I know what's going on in your beautiful, yet pleasantly complicated head. There's something else. Something you want to say to me.»

She was almost too afraid to speak, but managed to get out a «Yes.»

«A suspicion," he prodded. «Something that you can't bring yourself to say out loud on your own.»

«It's probably nothing," she replied. «This crazy life. It makes me paranoid.»

«True.» He smiled again. «But you still have to say it. Just to hear the words spoken. Just so they can stop running over and over in your mind.»

She knew he was right. Whether the ghost of Alex was actually standing beside her didn't matter. The fact that it was probably just her overactive imagination was also unimportant. She had to speak the thought that had been nagging her since yesterday or else she would now be the one not getting any sleep.

Bracing herself for hearing her own words, Isabel finally spoke them aloud. «Kyle's mom left Roswell when he was six years old.»

«Go on.»

«She left around the same time we came out of the pods.»

And there they were.

Isabel knew that she could not pursue that line of thought with anyone else. At best, it would open up old wounds while at worst it could lead to even more tragic consequences. And if she had learned anything from her experience with Kyle, it was to not obsess about the past.

She stole one last look at her friend standing by his gravestone. His hands rested casually in his pockets. The smile on his face filled her with a level of peacefulness that she had not felt since before his death. She carried that image of Alex with her as she walked back down the hill, heading for home.