During the few minutes Liz had for her break, she decided to find Maria so she could try to talk to her again. She found her in the break room. Her hand was clutched around her small bottle of cypress oil. Now Liz knew something was up. Sitting down next to her, Liz asked, "Maria, are you sure you're okay?" Maria looked at Liz and after a moment responded, "Yeah, I'm okay." "Well it doesn't seem like it." "We need more help out here!" another irritated waitress yelled from out in the restaurant. Maria stood up to walk out of the breakroom to get back to work. "Maria, I'm your best friend, if you need to talk, I'm here," Liz said as she grabbed Maria's forearm. Liz saw Maria wince and she looked down at her arm. It was covered with a few bruises. Liz looked back up at Maria as she let go of her arm. Maria pulled her sleeve back down. "Maria, how'd that happen?" Liz asked softly as she stood up next to her best friend. Maria shook her head and with wide eyes responded, "I don't know." "Come on, you can tell me," Liz pleaded. "Seriously Liz, I don't know!" Maria told her again. Liz and Maria shared a look. Liz didn't understand how in the world Maria 'didn't know.' Maria had to know what was happening to her and Liz wanted to know. Maria could tell Liz was pondering over what to do and say next. "Liz just trust me okay? If it gets really serious, we'll tell someone okay?" Liz frowned. "Maria, it already is serious. Why won't you tell me who is doing this to you?" "Because no one is doing this to me! Just trust me okay? Maybe I just ran into something and I don't remember or whatever. Please don't tell anyone." Liz just nodded. She didn't understand why Maria would be lying to her, she had always told her the truth in the past. But it just didn't make any sense that she didn't know. Liz wanted to go tell someone what was going on but she didn't want to betray Maria's trust. If it got worse though, Liz knew she would have to persuade Maria to tell someone. Otherwise she'd have to tell someone herself. She didn't know much information though; she wasn't even sure who would ever hurt Maria. Amy didn't seem like the type of person, besides the fact that she was out of town. Liz thought about Michael for a second but she felt guilty about it. Really though, she didn't think it could be him either. But Liz had no other suspects. Late that night, Liz lay in bed trying to sleep. She couldn't get to sleep though; she just kept replaying conversations from that day over and over in her mind. Her conversation with Maria and her conversation with Michael. Michael must have noticed that she was distracted because not long after she had talked to Maria, he had appeared beside her with a suspicious look on his face. He asked if had found out what was up with Maria but Liz had covered for her; she just told Michael that she hadn't had a chance to really talk to Maria again. He had told her that he had asked her about it too but that she had answered with the "yeah, I'm fine, I'm okay," that she had used on Liz earlier. Michael had returned to behind the counter but she noticed that he did look worried - a look Liz had never really seen on Michael's face before. He seemed to watch Maria carefully. Before falling to sleep, Liz hugged her covers and hoped with all her might that Maria would tell Michael. Liz didn't like the thought of bearing this secret alone with Maria. TBC

Part 2