I was at home, waiting for the twins to show up. How long could cheer practice take, I mean, honestly? It shouldn't be that long. I was jolted out of my thoughts by the sound of the door slamming shut and Ella and Angel's voices.

"Ella," Angel whispered furiously, "Just let it be!"

"No!" Ella said, not trying to conceal her voice in the slightest, "I will not, Ariel! I am so mad at her - just plain fuming! Ariel. Maximum is not cool. Especially not right now. She treated us so... ugh! so, so, just so like we're crap! And we did so much for her. We did her nails, her make up. we did her stinkin' hair, Ariel! We gave her an extreme make over and made her breathtakingly gorgeous and what does she do to us? Fucking act like that! I will not just let that be, Ariel. I am not gonna let this go. She hasn't even bothered to -"

"ELLA MARTINEZ!" Angel screamed at the top of her lungs.

See, the twins and I had different last names because we had different dads. Mine left me as an infant, and theirs disappeared one day without a trace one day when he went to work and didn't come home. Mom had been trying to call the office where he worked so much that when she finally got through and they told her he had been laid back for almost three weeks now, she had cried a river.

Angel said, obviously trying hard to keep calm and contain herself, "Do not call me that name. It is not Ariel, Ella. I am Angel. Remember that. A-N-G-E-L, Angel. And Max is still our sister. She has a right to her own opinion doesn't she? I mean, we can't force her into something she doesn't want, right? It's not fair to her. I already know how she feels about it. Well, actually you and Nudge know it too. Practically anyone who was in hearing range of us had heard her so even they would know she didn't want it. We already forced her with the new look. Now we're asking to change her name? How can we be so mean, Ella? She's our flesh and blood. She's our older sister. She's Max. And it'll take more than this to change her."

After a while, when I had thought they had said all they were going to and were going to just go to bed, I heard Ella say in a much softer tone of voice, "Angel... how is it that you are so understanding of people? I can't barely ever contain myself. I'm like Max in that department. But you. You're so calm. So collected. And you really do seem to care about people even when they hurt you badly. How, Angel ,just how do you do it? How do you be so... angelic?"

I knew Angel was smiling sadly, because of how her voice was when she said this back to her twin, "I just imagine if I was the other person. If I was in their situation instead of my own predicament. I don't like it. I think of how I want to act towards them. Then I think about what they'd done. Then I think about it from their point of view, as best as I can. And I dunno, Ella. I just can't bear to think we could hurt someone like that. How would you feel? I mean, honestly, Ella, how? I know I would hate myself for it. Curse myself over and over."

Ella said to her, "Me too. I get it. But I still can't help but feel like it's her fault. Like she did something wrong to us, Angel."

"That's because she did. But we were actually the ones to cause it, Ella. We made her snap at us. We knew how she was feeling about Fang and Lissa and we used it to our own advantage. But she, somewhere in her, figured it out. She may not have believed it herself. But we had used her weak point when she was at her lowest. And we used it more than anyone should ever."

After a minute, I heard Ella say, "We're terrible sisters, you know that Ange?"

I heard Angel give a soft breathy laugh and knew that she was crying a little. I could practically see the tear drop down her face. Over her cheek to the floor. A sign of weakness she holds in strong. She was my sister. She wouldn't show the pain either. And now I felt terrible. Because I knew all in all I had to be the one to cause her to do such a sad thing as cry. She told Ella, "Yeah, Ell, I do." and how did I feel after that? Like crap. Like I couldn't be a more awful big sister to my sweet little Angel and Ella. They had looked up to me when we were kids. I had often ignored them to hang out with Fang. I was a mean older sister back then, and even now. Look at what I've done, and you'll see a family's broken world.

And I caused it.

I fell asleep, crying silently to myself. So when my alarm blared, I got up immediately and went into my bathroom, scrubbing my face raw so no one would see any red in my eyes or any pudginess in my cheeks or anything abnormal in the least.

I got changed into something different. I knew I had to do something about the girls. They deserve much better than they have, but I can give them what they want. Maybe it'd help them in a way. Maybe not. But I had to apologize. And the first step? Do what Angel had said last night, look at it from the other person's point of view.

I wore a pink skirt that stopped just above my knee, a pale yellow long-sleeved v-neck shirt with 'Love' written in it in green, a pink headband was in my hair, and I wore black Mary-Janes on my feet. I took a deep breath and went downstairs to the kitchen.

"Good morning, mom, good morning, Angel, good morning Ella," I greeted softly as I came into the room.

They all stopped what they were doing to stare and gawk at me.

"What?" I asked, feeling uncomfortable in their intense gaze.

"You're just," Mom struggled with words and just blinked. Then she went back, not finishing her sentence, to washing dishes, presumably hers as Angel and Ella both still had their plates in front of them and another plate was in my usual seat.

"I, um," I looked nervously from Ella to Angel and back again. Then I just said it, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you guys like that. I wanted to say I was sorry because I know you guys don't deserve it. I was just very, well, I just didn't want to. But I will. I mean, you guys are so amazing and have done so much for me and I was just so like that to you guys when I should have been like a nicer kind of Max and not yell at you or be so cold and I know that now because I thought long and hard about it and I -"

"Max!" Ella cried, holding her hands to her ears, "Please stop. You're turning into Nudge."

Angel and I laughed at that.

Angel smiled at me, "Well I forgive you Max. I get it, I do. So don't beat yourself up over it, okay?"

"Thanks, Angel," I said, looking at her gratefully. I allowed the ends of my lips to rise slightly, but they wouldn't go more than that. I still had to know if Ella forgave me as well, and I also had to apologize to Nudge still yet.

Ella sighed as if reading my mind, and said, "I do too. I forgive you, Max."

"Thank you guys," I smiled softly at them.

"We're sisters!" Angel beamed.

"Of course we forgive you!" Ella finished, smiling.

We ate breakfast together, laughing and joking like sisters should.

But then came time for school.

Time to apologize to Nudge.