Thanks to maximumgirl, lucky alyssa, fictionreaderlover, and Tyler for the awesome reviews! So...I'm not sure yet whether I'll do alternating POVs each chapter or just mostly Max, but, for now, here's Fang...

Fang POV

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, throwing my mini-basketball into the hoop on my wall and waiting for it to bounce back to me, again and again and again. It was my routine when I didn't have anything to do. I could sit here for hours and just think.

Suddenly, the door burst open to reveal my mom, looking frazzled and harassed. "Nick!"

"What do you want, Marie?" I asked tiredly, closing my eyes and letting the basketball fall from my hands. It wasn't that I didn't like my mother. She's a good person, and she puts up with a lot of shit from my dad, so I should probably be kinder to her. I'm just not great at interacting with people in general; it has a tendency to tire me out, especially since I lost Her.

"Nick, your father is coming home tonight, in an hour, and you know he won't be happy if you're not presentable. Also, your manager is coming to talk about this month-long break while you go to this farm with the school."

That's right, my manager. I'm Nicholas Walker, international superstar singer. Big whoop. I love singing, really, I like the band, and the fame can be fun, but as I said, people tire me out, particularly slutty, screaming fan girls, which is why I try to be as normal as I can.

I go to 11th grade at a New York City private school and I'm going with my whole grade on this trip to a farm upstate for a month, starting tomorrow. Meaning that I won't be performing for that time, which, for Mardi, my "fun, flamboyant, and fabuloso" manager (his words, not mine), means that the world is coming to an end.

So with a groan and a nod to my mom, I roll off the bed and pull open my bureau to find something decent to wear tonight as my mom leaves, closing the door. I settle on straight black jeans and a black polo, not something I'd normally be caught dead in, but dinner with my dad is a special occasion, and at least it's black.

As I straighten up, though, I can't help but see The Picture, the only personal item in my drab, colorless room, and, as always, it sends me down memory lane. The photo shows me, dressed in blue jeans and a filthy black-white-and-gray plaid shirt (see, I don't ALWAYS wear ONLY black!) sitting on a dark bay horse behind a brunette who is beautiful even with glasses, braces, and mud coating her jeans and red t-shirt. My arms are wrapped around her waist, and her right hand is waving in the air, pretending to lasso cattle. Both of us have huge smiles on our faces. It's an expression I barely even remember how to make anymore.

The picture was taken when we were eleven, just a few months before everything began to fall apart. For seven years, after we met at the age of five, She was my best friend and by far the best thing in my life.

5 years old:

There was a park with a huge playground a few blocks from my house that all the neighborhood kids used to go to every day after school. Our neighborhood in Albany, New York (I didn't move to NYC until high school) was very wealthy and super-safe, so parents didn't bother to accompany their kids to the park. The playground was a lot of fun, except for The Rule.

Only kids over 8 could use the swings. It wasn't set up by the park or parents, but by the big kids, who intimidated the rest of us into following it.

A lot of kids used to get angry about it, and once, a six-year-old claimed a swing when no one was looking. When the big kids caught him, though, they beat him up and sent him running home in terror. After that, we understood the code: You didn't mess with the scary big kids, they were bullies.

Everyone knew the rule, everyone followed it; it was easier that way.

Everyone except Her.

By the age of five, I'd been coming for two years and had plenty of friends I played with, but one day, for some reason, when I showed up none of them were there. This was very rare and rather odd, but it was fine with me: I was naturally introverted, and liked having time to myself sometimes.

I crawled through a small bush outside the perimeter of the playground, knowing that it led to a small, dark clearing in the underbrush where I would go sometimes to be alone. I expected my secret hideout to be empty as it always was, but that was not what I found.

When I crawled in and stood up, I heard the crinkling of paper and looked down to see that I was standing on a big pile of papers. I looked around to find a beautiful brown-haired girl about my age glaring at me, hands on hips. Her cheeks were round and rosy, her lips pink and sweet, but the main fascination was the determination sparkling in her chocolate eyes, daring anyone to cross her.

I had never seen her before, which was extremely rare at this park: pretty much everyone in our neighborhood knew everyone else, and we all played here.

"Get off our pwans." She ordered in a whisper, but her voice had so much authority (especially for a kindergartener) that I found myself automatically stepping off the papers. I looked around and as my eyes got accustomed to the darkness of the shrubbery, I saw five or six other pairs of eyes staring at us from the edges of the clearing.

Ignoring me now, the girl picked up the papers I had stepped on, their "plans," which appeared to contain a bunch of squiggly, indecipherable arrows, wiped the mud off carefully, and then waved them in front of the other pairs of eyes.

"OK, troops!" She announced, "Ready? Remember the stages: Attack, Sabotage, Intidimidiate-intidi-intimidi-I mean, scare him, then VICTOOOOORY! Let's go!" I suddenly found myself scrambling out of the way and landing on my butt as a stampede of kids charged past me, following her out of the clearing back to the playground. I jumped up, dusted myself off, and followed them, curious.

When my eyes got acclimated to the bright light again, I saw the girl herself standing at the front of the pack of kids which contained, to my surprise, a bunch of the kids I normally played with, facing the swing containing the biggest of the big kids, a nasty guy named Bruce who was easily twice our age.

The girl watched him intently as he continued to swing, ignoring them, nodding her head to the rhythm of the swing. Suddenly, she whistled and ran forward, accompanied by a boy and girl who looked just like her, but younger.

As Bruce reached the very bottom of his swing, the three kids grabbed his legs and dragged him down until his swing reached a full stop.

"What the-" he started, flailing his limbs out to try to knock the kids off his legs, but the little gang was one step ahead of him. Without anyone noticing, two of the other kids in the little group had snuck up behind him, and they now pulled the swing back and sent his body slamming to the ground with a thud, knocking the wind out of him.

The other kids rushed forward now, each grabbing one of his limbs and pushing them down. Max let go of his leg and walked over to stare down at his face. The playground had gone completely silent as every kid watched the scene unfold.

The older kids had all stopped swinging, and were staring at the scene open-mouthed, but had not moved an inch to help Bruce; they were completely unprepared to deal with a mutiny of this kind and had no idea what to do.

The silence and absence of motion made it easy for everyone to hear the girl's words.

"You are a meanie-head," She informed Bruce, who had stopped struggling against the 5 kids holding him down and was now just staring at her, mouth agape. "Everybody should be allowed to use the thwings. Just because you're bigger doesn't mean you're better. I think," her mouth curved up in an adorable smirk, "that we've proved that. This is our thwing now." Then, looking up, she grinned for real at her little troop and said, "Take him away!"

With a huge "Heave Ho!" The kids each lifted their part of his body and dragged him about ten feet away from the swing. They dumped his body on the ground and walked back to the girl as Bruce just lay there, shell-shocked. I expected the girl, their leader, to jump onto the swing: After all, she'd planned and orchestrated the coup; she'd worked hard enough to deserve to reap the rewards. But she didn't.

Instead, she waited until they had all reassembled around the swing and then turned towards the entire playground and yelled out to all of the kids, "OK, get in line, from youngest to oldest. This is our thwing now."

That's what we did. It was incredible. Every 7-year-old or younger kid on that playground, literally every single one, lined up according to their age to get on the one swing that was "ours" now. There was no shoving, no older kids trying to get rid of the younger kids, every child seemed awed into submission by the powerful, magnetic force of the girl's personality. And every single kid got their fair turn, protected by her little gang.

Though the younger kids had only claimed one of 6 swings, there was no doubt whatsoever that the power had shifted. This mysterious girl, whoever she was, had completely altered the ancient, unbreakable rules, in just one day.

I had no idea then, but that was the day I fell in love with her.

She, unfortunately, did not feel the same way.

When it was almost my turn to get on the swing, I found myself next to her as she leaned against a post. She was tired, because she'd been the one helping the little kids onto the swings, pushing them when they didn't know how to pump, and dusting them off when they fell out, even though some were as big as or bigger than her, but we were finally to the kids who could swing on their own. I took this opportunity to tap her on the shoulder, and she turned to face me, eyebrows raised.

"I like you," I said, grinning, but instead of responding, she pouted her bottom lip thoughtfully. "You're supposed to say it back." I told her bluntly, "That's the rule."

"So you agree wif Mommy." She finally said.

"What?"

"My mommy says to compwiment people if they compwiment you. But my daddy says to always tell the truth." She paused a moment longer, considering, then said, "Daddy's way is more fun. You stepped on my plans: You're a butt."

And with that, she marched away, collected the little boy and girl who had helped her tackle Bruce earlier, and left the park, pausing only to stick her tongue out over her shoulder at me. She left me shell-shocked and hurt, but desperately, inexplicably wanting to see her again.

Her name was Max, as I soon found out from John. She didn't live in the neighborhood; she had collected her siblings, (the two younger kids who had helped her take down Bruce) putting the boy on his tricycle and the girl in her bike's basket, and biked to the park, without her parents' permission or knowledge. At 5 YEARS OLD!

Every day after that, I would rush to the park as soon as my school ended to search for her, but she was never there. As I looked, I wrote a speech in my head that I would use to convince her to give being friends with me a shot and practiced it under my breath for hours. I stayed longer than I normally would too, sometimes until it got dark enough that my mom came out to look for me. I wasn't the only one, either. Every kid under 7, especially those from her little troop, seemed desperate for her to appear again. After a while, though, we were all starting to lose hope, especially because we knew that she didn't live on our side of town, and hadn't had her parents' permission to be here.

I had started to give up a week after the day she had permanently rearranged the power structure of the park (yes, permanently; even without her there, that swing had still stayed "ours". Never underestimate the power of calling someone a meanie-head - wit at its finest). But as I was finally, at long last, trudging away from the little hideout in the shrubbery where I had been waiting for her to appear for a week, ready to give up and go play soccer with my old friends, I saw something that emptied every thought of Max from my head.

I came out the back of the patch of bushes because it left me closer to the soccer field, but it also took me within ten feet of the road. As I looked up, I saw a tiny boy, younger even than me, on a tricycle, riding alone in the middle of the road, maybe five feet back from where I was. He had a very focused look on his face, and was just as unaware of the giant SUV coming from behind him as the driver was of him.

Terror sent adrenaline flooding through my veins, and I found myself sprinting into the road, faster than I had ever run before. I didn't register the screams of the SUV's 16-year-old student driver as she fumbled for the brake or the yells of my playmates who had seen me shooting into the road like a man possessed. I had eyes only for the tiny tricycling kid as I tackled him, sending us both flying backward off the trike, towards the SUV. I don't know how I knew that we would fit underneath the car, but I was right. I slammed the now screaming kid to the ground as the SUV rolled over us, crashing into the trike and, finally, skidded to a halt twenty feet down the road. The girl slammed the car door open and practically tumbled out of the car, mascara dripping down her face as she sobbed uncontrollably, expecting to see the mangled bodies of two dead toddlers.

Instead, she found me and the little boy sitting in the road, holding onto each other, shaking with the kind of hysterical laughter that can only be brought on by a brush with death.

"Are-are-are you-are you hurt?" She stammered through disbelieving sobs. We just grinned at her and shook our heads. It wasn't strictly true, I would discover later that I had broken my arm, and the kid's leg was pretty scraped up, but at that moment, we could feel nothing but adrenaline and relief.

A few seconds later, as our little tableau sat still, no one certain of what to do next, a blue-pink-and-brown blur shot towards us and tackled the little boy in a hug.

"Ari, you dumbo, you know we can't go fast when I'm carrying Ella, you could've gotten really hurt! You can't go faster than me, idiot!" The girl, his sister, I presumed, finally pulled away from him, sobbing, and smoothed down his hair, adding as an afterthought, "Are you okay?"

He nodded, then pointed to me and said, "He saved me." The girl turned towards me then, and my eyes widened. It was Her. Max. Before I could launch into the speech I'd been practicing all week, she whispered, "I know. I saw." Then her arms were around my neck and she was mumbling "thank you, thank you," over and over again. Hesitantly, I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her back.

Finally, she pulled away and dried her eyes, then looked back up at me, took a deep breath and said, "I'm sorry I called you a butt. You saved Ari; I like you. A lot." I got the sense apologizing wasn't something that came naturally to her, so she must have really meant it.

I grinned toothily at her, then grabbed her hands and said, "It's OK. I like you too."

Eventually, we sorted out that I had a broken arm and Ari was pretty scraped-up, so the utterly bemused teenage driver took Max, Ari, Ella (their other sister) and me to the hospital. Max stayed with me and Ari the entire time we were getting checked on, and Max and I talked nonstop for about four hours. By the end of that time, we were devoted best friends; a bond that would be the strongest one in my life for 7 years.

Tearing myself out of the flow of memories, I looked away from the Picture and got dressed, then went downstairs to where the maids had already set the drawing room table for three. My mother stood by the door to the drawing room, dolled up in a fancy cocktail dress, and she gestured nervously for me to sit down at the table, which I did. A few awkward, silent minutes later, the doorbell rang. My father had a key to his own house, of course, but he liked pomp. I heard the pulling back of the lock and the mumbling of the maid (a new girl hired only last week) taking his coat.

I bit the inside of my lip, hoping this new maid wasn't a squealer. No dice. A moment later, my mom flinched as we heard the smack of my married, middle-aged father slapping the 20-year-old maid's ass and then the maid's flirty, girlish squeak.

After a few seconds, my father stepped into the room. He wrapped my mother in an embrace, kissing her and grabbing her ass at the same time. From her contented sigh and the smile on her face when he released her and sat down at the head of the table, I knew she had completely forgotten his disgusting behavior in the hall. As always.

Finally, he appeared to notice my presence, gave me a once-over, and then, apparently finding nothing too dissatisfactory, clicked his fingers to summon the first course. Throughout the meal, my father monologued about the only topic ever of interest to him: himself. The block-buster movies he'd produced in Hollywood since we'd last seen him 3 months ago, the famous actors and politicians he'd met, how much more macho he was than them. At long last, when dinner ended, he dismissed my mother with a wave.

"Piggy," he said, using his "pet name" for her (if it counts as a pet name when it doubles as a way for him to tell her she's getting fat), "Out. Nicholas and I need some man time."

My mom scurried out of the room quickly, and my father turned to me. "So, Nicky-boy," he drawled, "I hear you've got yourself a chick."

"Yeah," I monotoned.

"Well, thank god, boy, I was beginning to worry you were experimenting with this girly-man homo shit."

"No." I said quietly, because although I knew it would make him proud if I went along with his homophobia, I couldn't quite bring myself to say something that appalling and bigoted out loud.

He grumbled slightly and then continued, "But remember, there's a lot of asses in the stable, if you get my drift. Don't get hung up on one chick. You stick with one for too long, she gets clingy and pissy. Why, when I was your age, I had more girlfriends in one week than you've had in your whole life, boy!" He laughed uproariously, and I managed a weak chuckle, but then he continued in a more serious vein, "This girl you've got, though, who is it?"

"Lissa."

"Last name, boy, you think I give a damn about your fuck-buddy's first name?"

"Uh, Harold."

"Manhattan or Brooklyn?"

"I dunno."

"Well, boy, you'd better find out! There's a bigshot Harold in the United States Congress and your old man would like it if you could, uh, cozy up," he snickered, "with any daughter of his, but the Brooklyn Harolds, why, I'd be surprised if they've got more than a couple million in the bank. The man don't even drive a sports car. Imagine that, son!" He chortled in disbelief, and then stood up.

"Well, I've gotta get back to your mother." He grinned leeringly, and I had no doubt that my mother would not be the only woman he would "get back" to tonight. "One last thing before I go, though: I don't mind if you do toy around with her, as a fling, even if she is a Brooklyn Harold, just as long as you never, ever get it on again with that disgusting urchin…Max, was it? You're too good for filth like that, son, even if the babe was easy on the eyes." He clapped me on the back, hard, and strode out of the room, leaving me frozen in disgust and pain, wanting to hit him and hit myself and cry all at once.

But I didn't of course, because I'm Nicholas Jones, emotionless rock. I got up, changed into more comfortable clothes, and met with my manager, who agreed eventually that I could go on the farm trip as long as I started a world tour the week after getting back. I went to bed, then, knowing who I'd be dreaming of that night. If I got any sleep at all, that is. For barely being five foot tall, the new maid sure did know how to make noise during sex with my father.

So...Fang has Daddy issues, Daddy has commitment issues, and we got a little bit of baby Fax! Like it? Hate it? Please review and let me know!