He hadn't called her in forever. He decided that maybe today would be his lucky day, and she would pick up.

He went to his address book, and scrolled down to Z for Zoey. He pressed the call button. The phone rang a few times, and then….someone picked up.

"Hello?" she said.

"Hey, Zoe…it's Chase."

"Oh. Hey," she said without any emotion.

"How are you?"

"Good, good," she said, now sounding bored.

"Are you ok?" he said, sounding a little worried.

"Yeah…why?"

"Well, you never answer your calls anymore, and you sound….kind of like not all of you is there right now."

"Well, I'm here. Maybe just a bit tired. I mean, it's hard to be the president of Brooks and Reese, after all. I have lots of other people I have to deal with, and it can't always be about you.

Her words stung, "Oh, I see. Well, it's not always about me. It'd just be nice if you could check up on your boyfriend a little more often. Work isn't your whole life, you know."

She sighed, and there was a few moments of silence, "I know, Chase, I know. Work is not my life. I do other things beside work."

He snorted, "Yeah, right! Since when? Ever since you left PCA, it's been all about college, then after that, about the fancy designer store that you and Logan dreamed of coming to life."

She sighed again, sounding quite annoyed, "Chase, seriously! I don't have time for this!"

"Come on! You need a little vacation! Why don't you fly up to New York for a week and come see me? I bet Lola would also be pretty happy to see you. And you don't have to pay a dime! I'll take care of all the costs!"

"Chase…I'm sorry, I just…can't."

"Oh," he croaked.

"Look, Chase…canwebreakup?" she said, fast, nervous of what was to come.

"W-what? Sorry, I couldn't hear you. What was that again, Zoe?"

"Umm…well, I kind of want to break up."

"W-what? Break up with me?!" he said, hardly believing it.

"Yeah," she said softly, "I'm really sorry, Chase. You have no idea how hard this is. But I've been thinking about it for awhile now, and I think it's for the best. We're on other sides of the country. I thought we could make this long-distance thing work, but we just can't."

"B-but, we did before! Remember when we switched places? I was in England, and you back at PCA?"

"Yeah, we couldn't make it work then either. Our relationship was put on hold until you came back."

"Zoey! Y-y-you can't do this! We've known each other since 8th grade! You can't just throw all that away. I'll do anything! I'll move back to California for you, if that's what it takes!"

"I wouldn't throw anything away. I still love you, and I always will. But I just don't love you the same anymore, Chase. We're not the same since we left PCA. No matter how hard we try, we just won't be. You're still always gonna be my best friend," he heard her sniffling in the background, and a few choked sobs. Zoey had never cried like this in front of him. She was always strong, and thought of a solution to her problems, rather than sit and mope about it.

"But we can try and be those same people again! We can make this better…" he trailed off.

"I love you, Chase, you know that. I-I-I'm sorry. We can make this better if we really tried, but I'm tired of trying. Goodbye, Chase."

Click! She hung up, and he was left speechless and frozen.

First chapter up! R&R! Will get into the wonderful thing that is Chola in the next chapter!