"Zack, we have to do our assignment," Cody Martin said to his twin brother in an annoyed voice. In typical Zack style, Zack was putting off their homework assignment. Only this time it was not for his usual reason.

"I'm busy," Zack yelled out of his room. He had locked the door because he didn't want Cody or his mother, or anyone else for that matter, coming in. Zack wasn't a loner at all, but it was a moment where he just didn't want to talk about what was going on. It had taken him forever to realize his mistakes, and now it was too late.

"What's going on?" Zack heard his mother, Carey, ask Cody.

Zack's broken heart fell. Now he would surely be forced to leave his bedroom and talk about what was going on. He didn't want his mother or brother to see him this way: depressed, messed-up, dirty, and tear-stained. He hadn't cleaned himself or left the suite in days. He was too upset about the mistakes of the past. Zack liked to feel manly, and he didn't want to be out in the lobby crying in front of everyone, especially those people who had loved her so much before she had gone off to boarding school.

"Open up that door right now," Carey commanded, and Zack knew he had no choice but to leave the room and talk to her, to tell her about everything. It wasn't that bad, really, but it seemed like a nightmare to Zack.

"Hi, mom," he said in an almost dead voice. But then again, he was practically dying on the inside. He didn't know if he could make it another week.

"Sweetie, what's the matter?" Carey asked in that typical mom-loves-you sort of way that Zack had always hated. But for the first time in months, he just threw his arms around her and hugged her with all his might. It felt good to finally have some comfort.

"I can't do this anymore," he sobbed into his mother's open arms. "I can't let this go. I know I have to, but I can't."

"Honey, I don't know what you're talking about," Carey said, clearly confused by her son's emotional breakdown. It was usually Cody crying in her arms.

"It doesn't matter!" Zack said tearfully. "None of it matters! I lost my chance; I lost the opportunity to say it, to say how I really felt!"

"But, Zack, Maddie's right downstairs at the candy counter," Cody said, also very confused.

"This isn't about Maddie!" Zack yelled. "It was never about Maddie!"

And suddenly the other two Martins knew exactly who Zack was talking about. It was all so clear now, but it still made no sense.

"I love her," Zack continued. "I know it's wrong and that I shouldn't, but I do. It's all I can think about. I miss her more than I ever thought I could. When she said she was going, I thought there must be some way. A way she would stay with me here! But no, she really left. And now she's gone; out of my life forever. And I don't know how to live without her."

It sounded like a corny monologue in a sappy love story, but it wasn't. It was real, and those were real tears of love and agony and pain and joy, joy of the memories that were all Zack had to live by.

"You'll find someone new," Cody ventured, trying to help.

"She's all I ever wanted," Zack said sadly, sitting down on the couch. "London Tipton is the only girl I will ever feel a thing for. And now she's gone forever. I lost my chance to tell her the truth."

But that was where Zack was wrong.