On the day of the concert, the three girls that comprised JMJ walked backstage into the backstage area.

"I can't believe that this is happening." Jessica said before she noticed me. "Wait a minute, is that Zoey Martin?"

I walked over to them. "Hello Max." I said "We need to talk."

"Zoey? I didn't expect to see you here." Max said with surprise in her voice

I was taken by surprise by her accent. "Okay that was unexpected." I said.

"Well the label told me that to learn an accent. I've been using it for the past seven months, so I can't exactly turn it off." Max replied. "How did you find me?"

I turned to Jessica and Janice. "Do you think you two can give us some alone time?" I asked them.

"Maybe you should talk in one of the dressing rooms?" Janice suggested.

"That's a good idea." I said as I took Max to my dressing room and closed the door. The first thing that I did when we got there was hug her.

"So how did you find me?" Max repeated.

"I found your CD at Best Buy." I said as I picked up the CD off of my table and showed it to her. "One of the employees recommended to me when I went in looking for new music."

"I didn't know that it was even out in the States." Max said.

"Apparently it was imported." I said.

"I bought your CD too." Max said. "I really like the song Run Away."

"Max, I wrote that song about you." I said. "It represents how you ran away before we could even talk about anything.

"Oh." Max said with abated enthusiasm and increased nervousness.

"Why did you do it?" I asked. "Why did you run away? Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?"

"I wanted to start a new life for myself." Max lied. "I didn't want to be stuck in this debutante lifestyle."

"Why couldn't you have told me that?" I asked, raising my voice "Don't you think that I should have been able to know that you were going to make such a spontaneous decision?"

"I didn't want to tell you because I knew that you would try to talk me out of it." Max said. "I know that you reserve the right to be mad at me."

"Max, I'm not mad at you. I've never been mad at you. I've been depressed and disappointed but never mad. I don't think that I ever could be mad at you. I saved some emotions for my songwriting but that's about it" I said. "And yes I probably would have tried to stop you but when that didn't work, I would have wanted to come with."

"Would you have honestly left James to run away with me?" Max asked. "Would you have left Cody, Bailey, your parents, your friends to follow me on some crazy adventure?"

"I did all of that to find you. I went all around the country, hoping that you would be at one of my shows." I explained. "Do you know what the worst part about you leaving me was?"

"What?" Max asked.

"I didn't even know until a week after you left." I said as I began to cry. Luckily this time, I wasn't wearing mascara because I anticipated that I would be crying at some point.

"Well where did you think that I was for that whole week?" Max said as she noticed my tears. "Why are you crying?"

"Max, you have no idea how much I missed you." I said as I wiped my eyes "And as to where you were, I thought that you mono or pink eye or something, not that you had left the country. Since when do you sing anyway?"

"I've always been able to sing." Max replied. "I was originally going to be Jess and Jan's manager but the label wanted three girls and they convinced me to do it. I just didn't think that we would be as successful as we were. And it hurt me too to leave you. It was one of the hardest things that I have ever done."

"Then why did you do it?" I asked. "You didn't have to go anywhere to escape your parents' dream for you. You could have moved in with me like we talked about."

"No I couldn't have." Max remarked. "Ever since I broke up with Marcus I felt that I needed to get away from everyone."1

"Wait" I interrupted. "You broke up with Marcus?"

Max nodded. "On the night of my birthday." She said. "I left the next afternoon."

I shook my hands in front of my body. "That's the reason why left? A bad breakup?" I asked in exasperation.

"No it wasn't a bad breakup." Max said as she began to pace across the room. "I broke up with him because I couldn't stand the fact of being with somebody when I wanted to be with someone else. And the breakup had nothing to do with the reason that I left. Did you ever look back at what I did to you? I made you into something that you weren't. If I hadn't made you go to Jessica and Janice's debutante ball with me, you never would have wanted to have one of your own for your birthday. I was changing you and I didn't want you to anymore."

"Max change is good." I said. "You saw all that happened when I was changed into a girl. My parents are back together, I'm not a slacker anymore who probably would have gone nowhere in life, you and I became closer than we ever had been before, and I even had my first successful relationship ever. For all of this to happen, some things had to change. For anything good to happen, something always has to change. If everything and everyone stayed the same all of the time, it would be boring. And I liked having my debutante ball. All of the attention that I received felt really nice."

"Well maybe I need a change too." Max countered as she folded her arms across her chest.

"Max, there was nothing about your life that needed to be changed. You were in a pretty good place. You had just turned eighteen and could finally be free of your parents and on top of that, you were about to inherit 13 million dollars. You had a bunch of friends that loved you no matter you did." I said before taking a moment to breathe. "Do you know what the main reason I wanted to wait till I graduated before I started my singing career?"

"Why?" Max asked.

"I didn't want to do what you did. I didn't want to leave you James, Cody, Bailey, my parents, or any of my other friends just yet and when I did, I wanted you to be my manager so you could have come with me. That's how much our friendship meant to me, I wasn't going to leave unless you were coming with." I said as I took a seat on the couch.

"Wow I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that." Max said as she took a seat next to me. "I guess I was a little selfish and I didn't think about how anyone else would respond to what I did. If you wanted to finish your senior then why didn't you?"

"I dropped out of school because I didn't want to spend my senior year without you." I said. "And I couldn't wait a whole year to see you again. I didn't want to wait at all. I certainly didn't want to wait seven months like I have. Max at the end of every show, I sang Gotta Find You and dedicated the song to you." I explained. "You were the voice I heard inside my head. You are the reason that I'm one of the biggest stars in the world right now."

"Well you're not the only one who got some music about what happened. I actually wrote my first song and our first single Disappear about leaving you." Max answered.

"I thought that that was about Marcus." I said.

"Zoey, Marcus could never mean as much to me as you do. Marcus is a just a guy that I dated for a few months. You were my best friend for over five years. You were so many firsts to me: my first crush, my first kiss, my first date. I don't think anyone could ever mean as much to me as you do." Max said as she put her hand on my shoulder. "So did anything else happen after I left?"

"Bailey had her baby." I announced. "Her name is Eileen. I was there in the delivery room because Cody ending up fainting."

"That sounds something that Cody would do." Max said with a laugh. "He really can be such a bloke at times despite the fact that he is really intelligent."

"I have no idea what that I means." I said with a confused look on my face.

"Sorry it's a British term." Max said. "I think fool would be something that you're more accustomed to."

"Wimp was the word that I used." I said. "Anyway she is really beautiful. I think she got all of her looks from Bailey."

"Cody's not that bad looking." Max pointed out.

"Okay maybe if he wore different clothes and had a less goofy hairstyle, he would actually look decent." I admitted. "But I always was the better looking one of the two of us."

"I think that I'm going to have to agree with you on that." I said. "So are you and James still together?"

"No I'm not. The tour was the one thing that our love couldn't survive. I guess Cody and Bailey were an exception and not something that worked in most long distance relationships. We didn't even have a normal long distance relationship, the distance kept getting longer. We finally both logged onto Skype one night and did what we needed to. I wrote Can't Be There to Kiss You, the duet with Owl City on it, about that moment. But he's doing alright, he's dating Maddie now." I said. "So what's it like being in a group with Jessica and Janice?"

"Being in a group with them isn't that hard. We all wrote some songs that are on the album. Living with them was a little challenging at first. We own a loft in Manchester." Max answered.

"Hmm I thought they didn't like living in a loft." I said.

"No they didn't like living in a loft with fifteen other girls and a menopausal woman." Max replied. "One big pajama party was a word one of the girls used to describe it. They forgot to mention the part that there was only one bathroom."

"So what's the real reason that you left?" I asked.

"I already told you. I wanted to start a new life." She lied, nervously

"Max, I can tell that you were lying, and I can tell that you're lying now. I know that that's not the reason so why don't you tell me the truth." I responded as I got up off of the couch. I took a hairbrush off of my dresser and began to run it through my hair. I was still going to be performing even though I was performing last.

"Okay I broke up with Marcus because I didn't love him. I was always using him and not for his money since I didn't even charge make him pay me to be his manager." Max explained. "I was only with him because it was convenient for me."

"Why you were you using him?" I asked.

"I needed to prevent some other things from getting in the way." Max answered. "It's a very complex situation so let me put it in the way that would easiest for you to understand. Basically while you were busy falling in love with James, I was falling in love with you."

So there was a lot of dialogue and not very many characters in this chapter. The only ones who get any lines other than Zoey are the twins and they only get one each. Even though Zoey knew that Max was lying, she still listened to what she had to say like a good friend would. Now the important question is how will Zoey respond to Max's confession? I also went more into detail about breakup between James and Zoey. I think Maddie would be good match for him since she seems to like smart guys.