I was awoken by the sound of my phone going off. I noticed that Bailey managed to sleep through it. I didn't even see who it was, but I was wondering why they were calling so early.

"Hello?" I answered with a yawn. I needed to ask why they were calling so early.

"I just got an idea." Max told me. Did she need to call me so early in the morning to tell me? "I need you to help plan me a party."

"Party? I thought your party wasn't until tomorrow." I replied. That was when her birthday was after all.

"I want to have a private party to celebrate my last day as a minor. Just you and me, and Marcus and James, and Sara and Cody and Bailey…" She listed.

"Cody and Bailey can't leave the suite." I reminded her.

"Then we'll have in your suite." She offered. "Your parents can be there too. I wasn't gonna bring wine or anything. Come on I've never been so excited to have a party before."

Yeah, I don't think that I'd ever seen so excited for anything. I didn't know better, I would think she was under some sort of mind control or something.

"So how is this gonna work?" I asked with another yawn. I needed coffee. "Am I going to meet you at your place or are you coming here?"

"Neither. We're going to meet at IHOP. We can discuss this over breakfast." She explained. IHOP was a place with coffee. "And we can get some coffee into your system so you're actually useful. I can't wait till you get there. This is going to be so much fun."

So we both went to IHOP and ordered our food and some coffee. I started to feel a little bit better but we probably still didn't need to do it so early.

"So what do you wanna do?" I asked.

"Well I wanna get a cake since there won't be any tomorrow. I also want presents. I want a normal birthday party." She explained. That meant that I would have to find her a great gift in only a few hours.

"Well I'm gonna have to go shopping for presents later without then." I told her. I wished that I had an idea what to get her. It's actually really hard to get something for someone that you know so well. The other thing was that she basically had all of the money in the world, so most things she wanted, she could buy herself.

"That will work perfectly. You can do that while I'm getting the cake." Max replied as she took a bite of her pancakes.

"You know you seem less peppy after having your coffee." I remarked. That was not what coffee was supposed to do.

"Well the excitement is starting to die down." She told me. "I also want to see a movie."

So later that day, we went to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice before we each went on our own separate shopping trips.

I kind of wished that I had someone to come with me to help shop for me, but the two people that I would take with me were both grounded. I could take James, but I wasn't sure on how useful he would be for getting something for her. It would also be kind of weird to get her something before her birthday. I did have one idea because it was something that I could buy now, but I was pretty sure that would be too weird.

It was then something dawned on me. Just because they couldn't be physically at the mall didn't mean that they couldn't help me. I took out my phone and called Cody's phone number.

"Why are you calling me?" He asked.

"It's because I need your help. I'm at the mall. I need to get Max a gift for her birthday party." I explained.

"I thought they weren't having gifts." He stated.

"We're actually having another party tonight in the suite since you and Bailey are kind of stuck there and there will be gifts." I told him.

"Well don't you know what she likes more than anything?" He asked. I knew one thing that she really liked was hearing me sing, but I didn't have time to make her a CD or anything. It was then that I noticed a store. That would work. I went inside and got something from there.

That evening, I was waiting for her to arrive. We also found the problem with planning a party with no warning. James wasn't able to be there because he had to work. He would be off for the ball, but he couldn't get tonight off. There was a knock at the door and Mom answered it.

"Hey the birthday girl's here." She greeted Max, who also had Sara with her.

"Well technically my birthday's not till tomorrow." Max pointed out. "This is my cousin Sara."

"Hi." Sara said.

"I'm Carey." Mom introduced. "My husband Kurt is around here somewhere."

The two of them walked in and they found Dad.

"Weren't you in a movie with Anne Heche?" Sara asked. That was a weird thing to remember him for.

"Yes I was." Dad replied. "I'm also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."

Aside from James, everyone that we invited was there. We only invited a few people because tomorrow's party was going to be huge. One of the first things that we did was eat cake. Max had gotten her favorite kind of cake favorite kind of cake made: chocolate with strawberry frosting. She said that it was the equivalent of heaven on frosting.

I had actually gotten Max multiple things, but one of them was basically on behalf of Cody and Bailey. That was a music producing program. What I got her was actually something more simple. I got her a bear from Build-A-Bear. More importantly, it was a panda, which was Max's favorite animal.

"I can't believe you got this for me." Max replied. She had a few tears in her eyes.

At that point, I felt like I needed to get everyone's attention.

"Hello everyone." I greeted them. "I think we should make a toast. To Max, enjoy your last few hours of childhood. At midnight you will be an adult and then life will come at you at full stride and thanks for being my best friend."

We all then drank our juice glasses. A little bit later, Sara and Marcus had both left.

"So am I staying over tonight?" I asked. I was expecting to, which meant I was surprised by what she said.

"Actually no, my mom thinks tomorrow should be some sort of family bonding thing: just me, her, and Sara." She explained.

"Okay that's cool." I replied. I was a little disappointed because I had really enjoyed our previous two times together.

"You're going to have to make sure that you look good on your own." She quipped.

"I think I can do that." I countered. I was pretty sure that I got the idea. I would just wear my hair down. "So do you wanna check out what's on TV?"

"There usually isn't anything on during the summer." Max replied as we went to my room and turned on the TV. We watched a little bit of Jersey Shore.

"Is it just me or is this show complete trash?" I questioned. I didn't understand who could possibly enjoy something like that.

"It's not just you. I want to be offended by it and I don't even have any Italian in me." She remarked as I giggled a little. "Let's see if we can find something else. Hey Camp Rock is on. You really do look like Tess."

"Why does everyone keep telling me that? That's like saying Cody looks like Zac Efron." I responded. I didn't know why I had to look like someone. Couldn't I just look like me?

"Just take a close look." She replied. I decided to humor her even though I really didn't see the resemblance.

"Okay maybe a little but only if you look like Caitlyn." I agreed. "So, I need to ask you something?"

"What is it?" She asked.

"Did you ever tell your parents that you didn't want to have a debutante ball?" I questioned.

"It wouldn't have made a difference because they would have just said that I was going to have one." She replied. I needed to make sure that I did this right.

"So that's a no then?" I questioned.

"Why does it matter?" She retorted.

"It's because you seem to hate your parents when all that they do is love you." I pointed out.

"I don't hate my parents." She argued.

"Really, because all you ever tell me about them is how you don't want to do what they say." I stated.

"It's because they don't understand me." She declared.

"How can they understand you if you don't talk to them about what you like?" I challenged.

"Don't act like you know what's best for me. I'm going to go home." She announced.

Yeah, that definitely didn't go how I planned it. I didn't want us to have a fight but we did anyway. I sighed. I wasn't even sure which one of us was right.

I talked to Bailey about it and she told me that I should probably apologize to her. The biggest issue with that was that it was probably too late to do it tonight and I probably wouldn't be able to do so until tomorrow.

I went to her house because she didn't say that she wanted to uninvite me. I really hoped that she wouldn't uninvite me because of a stupid fight. Maybe I was a little out of line trying to talk about her family situation when I really didn't know anything about it. She was one of the strongest people that I knew but apparently when it came to her parents, she was apparently afraid to speak up for herself. I tried to mingle a little but it was weird because I didn't really know anyone. At that point, one of the butlers spoke up.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Maxine Baker, escorted by Marcus Little." He said. I was pretty sure that Max wanted to roll her eyes at this introduction.

Max's POV

I wanted to roll my eyes at this introduction. I looked around and saw that Zoey was still there. I almost expected her not to come. I had been mad at her last night and she was totally wrong. It wasn't like I could talk to my parents now since the party was already happening.

"So how is this now that it's happening?" Marcus asked me.

"It doesn't completely suck." I answered. It completely sucked but I wanted to at least pretend like I was enjoying it. "It's still something that I never wanted to do."

"So has anyone called about touring by any chance?" He questioned.

"Now's not exactly the best time to be discussing business but actually there were calls from Chris Brown and Usher." I explained. I hadn't declined the call from Chris Brown. I would let him choose, but if it was up to me, I would have hung up on his manager.

"Which one do you think I should take?" Marcus asked as we continued to slowly dance together.

"Well probably Usher because touring with Chris Brown doesn't exactly sound like a good career move." I answered as the music stopped. Marcus did not need to associate himself with abusers.

I soon began to dance with my father which probably didn't look anywhere near as good as Zoey did with Kurt. I did catch a glimpse of Zoey and pretended to smile for her which she easily caught and probably laughed on the inside about. Afterwards I was free to mingle and do whatever else was appropriate. And that was actually a very small list since there were a number of things that I wanted to do but would not be able to.

"So how do you feel now that you're eighteen?" Zoey asked me. Maybe it would be best to just forget last night.

"This was not how I expected my birthday to go. But this is nice, I guess." I answered.

"So do you still want to move in with me? Cody and Bailey will be leaving in about a month." She asked.

"I don't know. I think that I might get my own suite." I replied.

"Max about last night…" She started.

"Zoey, please don't. We both said some things that we shouldn't have last night but I don't want to keep fighting with you." I told her.

"So we waited until you're eighteen and nothing happened between us." Zoey remarked. "Now we're both in relationships and I don't know about you but I don't exactly want out of mine."

Those words cut like a knife. I was basically singing "Every Has Its Thorn" in my head. Part of me wondered what would have happened if I had just accepted Zoey on prom night. Now it looked like I would never be with her because she was probably going to marry James someday.

After the party was over, Marcus and I went to my room. He began to strip off his tuxedo, starting with the blazer before he began to unbutton the buttons of his tuxedo shirt, which I have never exactly been a fan of. What the hell was I doing? There was no way I could do this.

"Marcus stop!" I told him. "I can't do this."

"Okay we can wait for another time to do this." He declared as he began to rebutton. "I'll just head to the guest room."

"Actually I think you should go." I replied. This was going to be hard. I think Marcus really did like me, maybe even love me, but I didn't love him.

"I don't understand." He responded as he grabbed his sport coat.

"When I said that I can't do this, I meant this relationship." I explained. "I don't think that it would be fair to keep you hanging on when I don't I love you."

"But I need you." He pointed out.

"No you don't. I happen to be friends with Usher's manager and I could probably get him to pick you up as a client." I replied.

"I really don't understand why you're saying this now." Marcus declared as he started to cry a little. Why did he have to cry? That would make this even harder. "What did I do wrong?"

"Marcus you didn't do anything wrong." I stated as I took the iPod he gave me off the nightstand and handed it back to him.

"Then why are you breaking up with me?" He asked me.

"It's because I've been doing something wrong." I responded as I tried not to cry from what I was doing to him. "This whole time that we've been dating, I've been using you. I've been trying to displace some feelings that I shouldn't have of another person toward you. But the truth is…I'm in love with someone else." I answered.

So Max and Zoey had their first fight and Max also realized that she's in love with Zoey, so she broke up with Marcus. Please don't forget to review.