Author: Eden
Email: emashoffmann@tpg.com.au
Title: I Know Him By Heart
Installment: 1/1
Classification: Other
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not miiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnneeee!!!!!!
Spoilers: None whatsoever.
Summary: A 7th-grade game of truth or dare forces Isabel to reveal a secret crush.
Author's Notes: None whatsoever. Wait, maybe one. Jack, you rule! Keep those faxes going, we want Roswell to stay on the air.

"OK, Isabel, your turn. Truth or Dare?" Maggie asked.

13-year-old Isabel Evans looked around nervously for a few moments, obviously deciding what to answer. "Um, truth?" she finally answered.

"Good choice!" Added Grace, who was enjoying watching her friends squirm very much.

The five seventh-graders, Isabel, Grace, Maggie, Georgina and Hallie, were having a slumber party in Isabel's room. So far tonight they had braided each other's hair, painted their nails and watched a stupid scary movie. Now came the always embarrassing part of the night. Truth or Dare.

"Truth....now what can I ask you...." Maggie contemplated questions in her head. "I know! Something simple, but interesting. Who do you like?"

Isabel stared at her. "Who do I like?"

"Yeah," Maggie smirked. "What guy at school do you like."

The other girls groaned. "Maggie, that's a dumb question. You have to make it more interesting." Georgina told her.

"Fine, I will." Maggie snipped back, obviously annoyed that her perfect-ness had been questioned. "Ok, this is more interesting to us. Describe to us, your perfect guy. And I mean EVERY detail." A chorus of 'ewwwww' followed from the other girls as they realized what Maggie was insinuating.

Isabel blushed, obviously embarrassed. She didn't know where to start. "Um, my perfect guy.... well, um. He'd have to be at least as tall as me, maybe taller." She began. "He'd have brown hair and eyes. Deep brown eyes, ones you could get lost in." She paused for a moment. "He'd have to be sweet, and I mean genuinely sweet. Not phony like the stupid jocks at school."

"Hey!" Maggie interjected. "Don't know the jocks, Kyle Valenti is the hottest thing in the 7th-grade!"

Isabel stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Do you want me to keep going?"

"Yeah, fine. Whatever." Maggie retorted in her best Clueless impersonation.

"Thank you. Anyway, he'd have to be sweet. And not afraid to get mushy, I hate boys who pretend to be all tough. He'd have to be like me a little, like the sane things I do. He'd be talented, artistic. Maybe musical." She trailed off. "I think that's it."

"No, what about the rest?" Maggie teased. "C'mon, would he have to be.... equipped."

More 'ewwwwww''s from the girls. "Maggie, we don't want to know, it's not funny." Hallie said. "Isabel's turn is over."

"Fine, whatever. You guys are such wusses." Maggie told them in a biting tone.

"I'd rather be a wuss than a weirdo!" Hallie replied, bopping Maggie on the head with her teddy bear.

"I am not a weirdo!" Maggie cried, hitting her back with a pillow.

"Pillow fight!!" someone cried and for several moments general anarchy reigned in the small bedroom. Isabel was glad to have the focus taken off of her as she whacked her friends half-heartedly with her fluffy pillow. So intent were they all on getting in as many hits as possible, they didn't hear the door open.

"Girls, girls!" Diane Evans called. "GIRLS!!" They all stopped dead in their tracks and turned in the direction of the doorway. "Thank you. I'm glad you're all having fun, but I don't think we need to wake up the whole neighborhood. I think it's time you all got settled in to sleep."

A chorus of groans met her suggestion, but Isabel agreed with her. "It's not that bad, I'm tired anyway."

"She just wants to go to sleep so she can dream of her perfect boy." Maggie taunted.

"Shut up Maggie." Chorused Isabel, Hallie and Georgina, much to her surprise. Maggie had no reply for that.

Mrs. Evans waited until they all got settled down into their beds on the floor before turning off the light.

Despite their protests, the other four girls fell to sleep rather quickly. Isabel, however, lay awake for a while. She sometimes wondered why she was even friends with girls like Maggie, they were so mean! But, friends were what normal girls had, and she wanted nothing more than to be seen as a normal. Someone who was not exceptionally special or different.

Isabel turned over and yawned. She was beginning to feel sleepy. She wondered if he'd be there to meet her tonight, in their special place. She hoped so. All that talk earlier of her perfect boy made her anxious to see him. Not the really real him, but the dream him. The him she loved. She yawned again and closed her droopy eyes, thinking as always of his face as she drifted off to sleep....

Isabel found herself, as usual, on the road out of Roswell. This was where she always started their meetings for some reason. She began to walk forward and to her left, taking what she know knew as the short path to her final destination.

There's a secret path I follow
To a place no one can find
Where I meet my perfect someone
I've kept hidden in my mind

She began to walk faster as the formation came into sight. He was no where to be seen outside, he must have already gone in. Isabel walked over to the right of the rock, and placed her hand in the placed she knew from experience it had to go. She knew he was in there, something inside her told that. She couldn't wait to see him.

Where my heart makes my decisions
And my dream becomes a vision
And the love I feel
Makes him real someday

Just as she'd hoped, he was inside the cave already. "Hey brat." She said with a smile in her tone. He turned to face her.

"I didn't think you'd be here tonight." He said, approaching her. "I came here on my own, just to do some thinking." They sat down together on a rock shelf that jutted out from the wall. "How'd your silly girl party go?" he asked.

Isabel laughed. "It was ok. Maggie is a bitch though, she was so mean tonight."

Michael raised an eyebrow. "What'd she do?"

Isabel hung her head slightly, embarrassed. "Nothing really, just embarrassed me a little."

"Oh really? Did you blush?" Isabel's cheeks turned crimson. "Well, I don't believe it, Ice Princess Isabel Evans actually blushed."

"Shut up you Neanderthal!" she cried, hitting him softly on the arm. "You know I only blush around you, because you tease me so much."

"Oh I'm sorry Princess, I promise to be on my best behavior from now on." Michael stood up and pulled her up with him. They moved up to the top part of the cave and sat upon the ledge there, looking out onto the stars in the night sky. Isabel curled up under hi arm as they lay there in silence.

"You know what? I prefer watching the stars here with you than I do watching them anywhere else with anyone else." Michael said quietly.

Isabel smiled. "I think that too. No one else understands me like you do. Max is too overprotective; the kids at school don't get our specialness. Only you understand that."

"Same for me." Michael replied with a smile. "There's something else I know about you that no one else does." he said with an evil grin.

"What?" asked Isabel, nervously.

"Where you're ticklish!" he cried as he attacked her with his hands. Isabel wiggled around in a combination of laughter and pain, crying out for him to stop.

"Don't! Michael, please, I can't breathe!" she yelled. Finally, the torture stopped and they both stopped to catch their breath. They lay back down again to watch the stars in silence.

"Michael?" Isabel asked after a few minutes.

"Yes?" he replied.

"I love you." She said with adolescent affection.

"I love you too Is." He replied in the same tone.

They lay there for awhile longer, just watching the sky in silence. Isabel knew that when she saw him at school, or at her house with Max, that he would act like he always did. Like a mean, snotty boy. But here, in their own secret place, Michael was and always would be her best friend. Her first love. The real world be damned.

'Cause I know he's out there somewhere
Just beyond my reach
Though I've never really touched him
Or ever heard him speak
Though we've never been together
We've never been apart
No we've never met
Haven't found him yet
But I know him by heart

The End