"Here I go again
I promised myself I wouldn't think of you today
It's been seven months and counting
You've moved on
I still feel exactly the same
It's just the that everywhere I go all the buildings know your name
Like photographs and memories of love
Steel and granite reminders
The city calls your name and I can't move on...

"Ever since you've been gone
The lights go out the same
The only difference is
You call another name
To your love
To your lover now
To your love
The lover after me...

"Am I all alone in the universe?
There's no love on these streets
I have given mine away to a world that didn't want it anyway
So this is my new freedom
It's funny
I don't remember being chained
But nothing seems to make sense anymore
Without you I'm always twenty minutes late...

"Ever since you've been gone
The lights go out the same
The only difference is
You call another name
To your love
To your lover now
To your love
The lover after me...

"And time goes by so slowly
The nights are cold and lonely
I shouldn't be holding on
But I'm still holding on for you...

"Here I go again
I promised myself I wouldn't think of you today
But I'm standing at your doorway
I'm calling out your name because I can't move on...

"Ever since you've been gone
The lights go out the same
The only difference is
You call another name
To your love
To your lover now
To your love
The lover after me..."

Michael's hand pushed the door slowly, opening up to the same apartment he'd left that morning. Again the hope that was always there when he entered, hoping she'd come home, back to him, vanished.

They had talked on the phone, but both agreed it was too hard. Maria was convicted to staying away, and he knew he couldn't, so they cut the ties. He heard about what she'd been doing, things she'd said to Liz, but generally his life was empty of her. At least empty of the real Maria. He imagined her all the time, the replies she'd have to one of the insults he thought of at three in the morning, her laugh that carried across a crowded room and let him know she was there. But none of these things were the real her. And they hardly made up for her absence.

He knew that the others worried for him. He couldn't blame them, he wasn't looking after himself, but couldn't see the point. It just meant more effort, something he couldn't spare. Most of his effort went into just having a day without thinking of her. Eating properly hardly came in as a poor second.

Liz had spent hours at the apartment, simply sitting with him, holding his hand while reading one of her biology texts. She knew how he hated the silence, how hard it was to fight it alone. She cooked for him when he couldn't cook for himself, and in her own way sheltered him with her care. Maria had pushed him into the world with her love, made him face it head on. Liz nudged and enticed him, trying to help him stand back up where Maria had left him. And he loved her for it.

Max came over, and they talked like they used to, about the planets and astronomy. Michael revealed that he missed his painting, and his four friends pitched in to buy a new easel and oils. Before he knew it, there was something to take his mind off her, something that he could completely immerse himself in and just forget.

Liz had turned up just after he came in and had picked up the brush. She saw one of his works in progress, and almost cried.

"You painted her." Michael looked at her quizzically, then took a step backwards. He had painted Maria, an abstract Maria, but Maria nonetheless. "It's...beautiful. Completely." Michael didn't even remember trying to paint her, or concentrating on making it look like her. It had just happened.

"She's beautiful." Liz placed a hand on his shoulder, supporting him in her gentle way.

"Michael...please. Let her go. It's been ages." He nodded, knowing exactly how long it had been since she'd walked. Seven months and counting. Six months since he'd last heard from her. "She's...seeing someone."

Michael felt his legs buckle, but caught a hold of the easel in front of him. His Maria was with someone else? It couldn't be. They were meant to be. No. Liz had it wrong. Maria? With some...other guy? Another guy that wouldn't know she liked to be tickled in the morning when she was still half asleep. Another guy that didn't know she loved peanut-butter sandwiches loaded up with so much peanut-butter it was oozing out the sides. Another guy...that didn't know her. Not the way he did.

"Michael? Are you ok?" He nodded, and made his way to the bathroom. Looking into the mirror, seeing the same man he saw every morning and night, he wondered what the other guy looked like. Was he tall? Strong? Could he carry Maria piggy-back around the apartment in 3 minutes 20 seconds? God, it hurt so much. She was with someone else.

"Michael?" Liz's voice called at the door.

"I'm fine. I think I'll have a shower and then hit the sack. Thanks Liz."

"Are you sure? I could stay...I'll call Max...we'll make an evening of it." Just what he needed, Michael thought. A night of fun and games avoiding the subject of her completely, while Max and Liz stare lovingly into each others eyes.

"I'll be fine. I'm real tired." He knew he sounded unconvincing, but he prayed that she'd go. He couldn't handle it right then. He needed to think, to be alone. To see the complete mess he'd managed to make of his life.

"Ok then. Michael?"

"Yeah Liz..."

"We all love you."

"I know." He could hear her footsteps retreating out the door, and down the hall. A small sigh of relief escaped his lips, before glancing back at the mirror.

"You are a mess Michael Guerin. A complete mess." He left the confines of the bathroom, happy only to have not lost his lunch over the latest news. Pulling up the old lounger in front of the television, he let the blue flickering images wash over him, the droning voices merging together in the back of his consciousness.

He didn't know how to deal with it. He wanted to break everything, smash the whole apartment up. The problem was, everything in the room was either purchased by, or belonged to Maria DeLuca, the girl of his dreams. And if he broke them, then he'd have nothing left of her.

Michael's eyes searched the room feverishly, hungry for destruction. When he spied the canvas, rich with blues and gold's, all the colors of Maria, he stood immediately, stalked towards it. He could see what Liz liked about it, the structure, and the clean lines, all with a sense of love and awe. Exactly how he felt about her. It had never belonged to her, and yet symbolized all he felt for her, all that hurt for her in him.

With one swift movement he'd thrown it on the floor, the wood supports at the back of the canvas snapping easily. The thin surface was soon rupturing with bubbles of melting paint, the smell of fire in the air.

Michael could hear something in the background, something or someone yelling, but he dismissed it as the TV As the painting burst into flames, he felt arms around him, pulling him out of the way of the inferno. There was an extinguisher, and smoke and then it was all over. The painting of her lay on the floor, little more than a pile of ash and smelly blue bubbles.

He looked to where the extinguisher lay on the floor, and saw Alex, coughing through the smoky haze.

"You ok Michael?" Michael said nothing, just looked at his friend battling an asthma attack. "Mike?" Alex made his way across the room, still aware of the prickly heat in the air, the energy crackling all around them. He reached the spaced out man, someone he had thought he knew, and pulled him to the nearest window.

As Michael took his first breath of fresh air, he awoke from his stupor. He could have died in that room, and Alex had saved him. Maria was gone. There was no more Maria. She had another guy, and he was just gonna have to deal. No more fires, no more blue and gold bubbles on the floor. Everything ran together in his head, he felt like he'd lost control of logical thought patterns.

"Michael? What happened in there? Liz called me...Michael?" The wiry mans eyebrows were furrowed, his hand on the taller ones shoulder, trying to help him focus.

"Can I sit down?" Michael asked in a small, defeated voice, and Alex steered him towards the bedroom, where thankfully little smoke had invaded. Opening all the windows, and then sitting down next to him, Alex wished Isabel had come like she'd offered. She always knew what to say to Michael, but Alex always felt tongue tied. At least it didn't seem like Michael was in the mood for a sparring partner.

"Are you gonna tell me what that was about Mike?" Alex had successfully convinced Michael that he should be allowed to call him Mike due to the fact that he was engaged to his practically-sister-person. Michael had grudgingly agreed, but they both knew that their nicknames for each other just proved that their relationship had strengthened over the years.

"I don't know what that was about. I don't." He sat with his head in his hands, like he was trying desperately to grasp control of the situation. "Not a fucking clue Whitman."

"I'm guessing the painting was of Ria." Michael flinched at the use of their nickname for her. He nodded anyway. "And you're pissed because she's dating again, whereas you haven't even thrown away the leftovers from the night before she left. Am I getting anywhere?" Michael shrugged, and then nodded once more. It was the truth. But it wasn't like he'd just left the chicken in the refrigerator-he'd frozen it. "So you decided to have a bonfire, in your apartment, in her honor? Mike...it sounds whacked, ok? Whacked. You have to let go of her man."

"No, I don't have to. It may be the most mentally healthy thing for me to do...but I don't have to. She was the best thing I've ever had in my life. I fucked that up...now I have to deal with that. But I most certainly don't have to let her go." Never raising his voice, Michael said it calmly and rationally, looking right at Alex.

"Yeah, you do Mike. Because what if next time I'm not here to put the fire out? What if you decide to go at another painting with a kitchen knife and end up slicing your wrists open?"

"You think this was a suicide attempt Alex? You think I'd do that to you guys?"

"What am I supposed to think? I care about you...but you can't see past Maria, and you're gonna have to. At some point, you have to. Or you'll lose perspective." He put his arm around the shoulders of the man, usually so much bigger than himself, pulled him into his own shoulder. "You have to let go, or you'll drown Michael. None of us want that to happen to you."

The man, who had never looked more like a boy than at that moment, ran a hand through his trademark hair. Trust Alex to put it like that. Now he felt guilty for everyone, but the only way he could get out of it was to act normal. And normal was so hard to pull off without her. He could feel tears coming, and his throat closed off in panic. He was not going to cry in front of Whitman. Never. He stood up and crossed to the window.

Alex had never been so surprised in his life. The boy he'd spent much of his teenage life in awe of, was crying in front of him. They weren't just normal tears either, great wracking sobs were reverberating through him, and Alex wasn't quite sure what to do.

"I just...don't know...how to live...without her anymore. She...was everything...my everything."

"I know man. Michael, I know that. You think it isn't killing us to see you like this? But it's her choice, and we can't make her do anything." The tears seemed to have abated slightly, leaving both of them feeling somewhat awkward.

"I guess I have to...you know...get over it. For you guys." Alex shook his head.

"No Mike...you need to do it for you."

"I think I'll be ok now Whitman." The smaller man nodded and surveyed the room for anything else flammable. "I'm not going to set anything else on fire, I promise." Alex chuckled despite himself.

"Well, if you're sure. You know, we could've used you when me and my dad used to go camping...we never could start a fire to toast marshmallows over."

"Hardy har. Go now before I fry your hair off Whitman." Michael turned from the window and caught his friends eye. He was still worried, but a lot less. "Go on...I've worn myself out. Tell Is I'm ok too...and Liz. Please?" Alex wasn't sure if it was a plea not to tell, or simply to miss out pieces of the story. Either way, he knew that he would. He waved and exited, the smell of melted paint still in the air. God, for all of their sakes he hoped Michael could get through this. All alone in the universe.

Continued next page...

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