I was reading an article in "Cosmo Girl" the other day--the day Kyle asked me to the Prom, in fact--and it was all about how memory is attached to your olfactory glands. To your sense of smell. Like you could smell gasoline and remember some hunky guy who pumped your gas last week.

That example is so stupid. So shallow. So typical of human media. They couldn't possibly understand the truth tangled up in the giggles and make-up tips.

The first time my love kissed me, it tasted like the perfume of roses. A scent I will never forget. Rich, sweet, dizzying...

An earth smell...but a home flavor.

And Max will always be home to me.

This past year, when I had to accept that he didn't want me, that we would never be, I felt like I'd been evicted. Forcefully kicked out of the only place I knew as shelter, as comfort. Nasedo may have taught me the names, the faces, but my blood has always known the feelings. My blood has always known where I belonged, who I belonged with.

Jim and Kyle Valenti made a place for me...and, for the first time, I have a real family. A surrogate father. A surrogate brother--it was such a relief when I didn't have to let him down easy in the Eraser Room. I would never want to hurt him. Or Jim. I love them. I never thought I could love anything human.

But it's not the same as being surrounded by dozens of long-stemmed roses. His arms. His chest against my back as he cuddled close to me in the middle of the night. Or the simple way he reached across and touched my cheek at that party. When I looked into his eyes and knew he was mine...even before our lips met. It sounds lame, contrived, when I put the images into English. But they did meet. And they held. And they stayed.

Through two lifetimes.

Because I tasted rose and home and love again.

Tonight.

Oh...I know I've kissed him before. In the rain that first week I got here...in my dreams...but it was different. There was always fear. Resistance. Anger. Suspicion. It never felt like the first time...or the times after.

But this time there was only right.

And sadness.

Because he's the one who's been evicted now. From everything he thought was normal...everything he thought he would always have. His dreams. His hopes. The picture of true love he's carried around since childhood. She threw him out on the curb with all his things, with the pieces of his heart. Again. And this time he let me help him up.

He let me pick the pieces up.

He let me brush the tears from his face with my lips and taste the hollows that anguish has put there. Salt and roses. Always roses. Deep, blood red. Like the stains on a human marriage bed.

I lied to him when I told him I only remember brief touches and brief images clearly...when I said the rest is blurry. Because there are entire days and nights...weeks...burned into my memory. And nothing could take them away. Just like nothing--and no one--could, truly, take *him* away.

I remember how he looked that night at the party. Not as he looks now, of course, but still inherently Max-within-Zan. Still long-limbed. Handsome. Regal. Laughing with Larek over some shared joke. Royal parties were much more opulent, much more ceremonial, than your average high school prom. But the crowd and the noise and the show didn't matter. Our parents and the agreements made didn't matter. I remember looking at him and thinking "Yes...this is the one for me. This is my mate, my husband, my love. Forever." And when he kissed me, that promise was sealed.

Forever. And now.

"It's all right," I whisper against his mouth. "It's okay. I'm here."

"I know," he gasps, forehead touching mine, lightly, as his eyes go all dark with wonder. "I *know*, Tess..."

Here in this darkened hallway, with the strains of the last dance drifting around us, he lets me welcome him home.

He lets me stop and smell the roses.