I had a bit of plan on what to say. I needed to ask some questions and I needed her to answer them. However, as soon as Max spoke, I was taken aback.
"Zoey? I didn't expect to see you here." Max replied. She seemed to be surprised as well, which was to be expected considering that I had ambushed her. I had only watched performances, not interviews. I was a bit confused as to why she had an accent.
"Okay that was unexpected." I admitted. That was another question that I needed to learn the answer to. "Why do you have an accent?"
"Well, the label told me that I had to learn an accent. I've been using it for the past seven months, so I can't exactly turn it off." Max replied. Wouldn't people be able to figure out that she wasn't British? Was she just lying to the media or something? "How did you find me?"
"Do you think you two can give us some alone time?" I asked Jessica and Janice.
"Maybe you should talk in one of the dressing rooms?" Janice suggested. You know that was probably a better idea than letting everyone else listen to what we were saying.
"That's a good idea." I agreed 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. I also kind of wanted to slap her for leaving me, but I was not going to do that.
"So how did you find me?" Max repeated. Did she not think that I was resourceful enough to figure it out?
"I found your CD at Best Buy." I explained 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 remarked. She was really getting into the accent because usually she would call it America.
"Apparently it was imported." I replied. You know I never asked why a Best Buy in Rhode Island had CDs that were imported from the UK, but since it helped me find Max, I didn't care.
"I bought your CD too." She responded. I probably should have asked if she was subscribed to my YouTube channel. It would make me angry if she knew that I was looking for and was just avoiding me, but I would still forgive her for that. "I really like the song 'Wish You Were Here'."
"Max, I wrote that song about you." I explained. She seemed a little surprised by that. "It represents how you ran away before we could even talk about anything."
"Oh." Max stated with abated enthusiasm and increased nervousness. I wondered if she thought that I was mad at her.
"Why did you do it?" I asked. I figured that it would be best to just get to the important part since we were past the small talk. "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 saw through the lie, but I would at least listen to what she had to say first. "I didn't want to be stuck in this debutante lifestyle."
"Why couldn't you have told me that?" I asked, raising my voice. Her reasoning didn't even make sense. "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." She responded. It didn't make why she would need to leave the country in order to do such a thing. "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 explained. All of that was true. Some of my songs were a little angry, but they weren't emotions towards her specifically. "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. Yes, I would have. That was what I just said. "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. I did realize that expecting her to come to one of my shows without telling me was a little bit naïve, but it sounded like a good idea at the time. "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 asked as I began to cry. Luckily this time, I wasn't wearing mascara because I anticipated that I would be crying at some point. I would have enough time to finish my makeup before my performance.
"Well, where did you think that I was for that whole week?" Max replied as she noticed my tears. "Why are you crying?"
"Max, you have no idea how much I missed you." I told her 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 wished that she would have told me that before. "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."
It did make sense that she would just want to be their manager. I was also surprised that she agreed when she didn't seem like she was very interested in singing at all.
"Then why did you do it?" I asked. She still hadn't answered that question, and she might have figured out that I had seen through her initial lie. "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."
"Wait" I interrupted. "You broke up with Marcus?"
"On the night of my birthday." She replied with a nod. "I left the next afternoon."
"That's the reason why left? A bad breakup?" I asked in exasperation. Part of me thought that wasn't even the reason and that didn't give her any reason to completely ghost me.
"No, it wasn't a bad breakup." Max replied as she began to pace across the room. That was something that I did know about her. She always did that when she was nervous. "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 pointed out. I liked having that party, even though it seemed kind of silly in hindsight. "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 needed 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 explained 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 declared before I took a seat on the couch. Yes, I had a couch in my dressing room.
"Wow I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that." Max admitted as she took a seat next to me. It felt good to be so close to her again. "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 year, then why didn't you?"
"I dropped out of school because I didn't want to spend my senior year without you." I told her. I thought she would have figured that out because I thought I made it obvious. "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 'Maps' and dedicated the song to you." I explained. It was the first time that that I wrote a song that meant something to me. Even the song I wrote about Trent didn't mean as much to me.
"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 stated. I didn't consider that. It was then everything made sense. I had figured out the real reason why she had left me, but I wanted her to say it.
"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 declared as she put her hand on my shoulder. I expected her to say it to me, but she said something else instead. "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." She replied 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 stated. I was not caught up on my British slang.
"Sorry it's a British term." She remarked. Yes, I knew that. I just didn't know what it meant. "I think fool would be something that you're more accustomed to."
"Wimp was the word that I used." I told her. "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. I still didn't think of him as good-looking because he was my brother. "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." She told me with a smile. "So, are you and James still together?"
"No, we're 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 Kendall Knight from Big Time Rush on it, about that moment. But he's doing alright, he's dating Maddie now." I explained. I was pretty sure that she wanted to know if I was single. I was still waiting for her to say it. "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 commented. I would have thought they would have a mansion somewhere.
"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 just needed her to say it.
"I already told you. I wanted to start a new life." She lied, nervously. She still wasn't a very good liar.
"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." She explained. Yeah, that wasn't surprising to me at all. "I was only with him because it was convenient for me."
"Why you were you using him?" I asked. I still needed to hear her say it.
"I needed to prevent some other feelings from getting in the way." She answered. Pretending to date a guy because she was in love with me didn't make a lot of sense. Did she think she would just stop being in love with me? "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 Max finally said it. And Zoey is also single now. So's what going to happen? Will they get together? Please don't forget to review.