"Stop it both of you." I declared as I began walking toward my room. "I decide who I love."
The only question was...who did I love? And how was I going to decide without hurting everyone else who was involved in all of this?
"THEN JUST DECIDE!" Max ordered.
"I can't. I need some time." I replied as rushed off and went into my room. That night I modified the sleeping arrangements. Maddie would be sleeping with me and Max and James would be in the other. I prayed that they wouldn't kill each other but I couldn't possibly share a room with either of them right now. I began to cry as Maddie walked in.
"I'm sorry that you're in the middle of this." I told her. "Maybe it should have been just you and me."
"How did this happen?" Maddie asked. I wished that I knew the answer to it. "I thought you didn't like James anymore."
"I didn't think that I did either." I responded through my tears. "I thought I was over him. I guess I never really got over him and dancing with him brought back everything that I thought was gone. Why did fate have to do this to me? To you?"
"Well I can't really tell you anything about fate." She stated. That didn't help at all. "But I do know that you need to follow your heart."
"But that's the thing. My heart isn't giving me an answer." I pointed out. Her advice wasn't very useful. "So I'm stuck with Mr. Right and Ms. Right and both of them seem like they could be right even though I know one of them is wrong. And I can't choose without hurting the other one. What the hell am I supposed to do about this? This has never happened to me before."
"Maybe you should clean up and sleep on it." Maddie suggested.
"How can you be so okay with this?" I asked with a puzzled expression on my face. "What if I choose James?"
"We can worry about what happens when it happens." She replied. "Right now you really look like you could use some sleep. And something to get that mascara off your face."
I went to the bathroom to wash my face off and came back dressed for bed.
"That's definitely an interesting thing to sleep in" She noted. It seemed like everything was surprised when they saw my getting ready for bed. I didn't see what the big deal was? Maybe it was because she now knew that I used to be a guy, but it still wasn't that big of a deal.
"Well Bailey convinced me to buy one and I just liked them." I explained.
"So how are Bailey and Cody anyway?" Maddie asked as I got into bed. The room had two beds even though we didn't plan on using the second one. I supposed that it was a good thing.
"Well I haven't seen Cody but Bailey seemed to be doing well. That baby weight is starting to come off." I remarked.
"So what's the baby's name anyway?" Maddie asked as she began to get changed as well. When she was done, she wore pink pajamas.
"Eileen." I answered as I looked at Maddie's clothing. "She's really cute. She looks a lot like Bailey. It sounds like she didn't get much from Cody at all. I guess that makes her pretty lucky."
Maddie rolled her eyes before she also got into the adjacent bed and we both fell asleep.
I started to dream. It wasn't as much of dreams as it seemed to be the good times with both of them. I had gone through a lot of similar situations with each of them. Both of them had supported me in my career and I could tell that both of them would continue to do so. I had danced with both of them…coincidentally I had danced with both of them in the same night on multiple occasions. I had even had really good sex with each of them. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to choose.
At about 5:00 in the morning, I was woken up to a knocking at the door. I walked to the door and opened it and saw James.
""Umm hi." He greeted me. Why did he think that he needed to do this so early? Granted, it was 8:00 AM where we lived, but that still wasn't an excuse. "Can we talk?"
"Why do we have to talk right now?" I asked. I was still pretty sleepy since I got to bed kind of late.
"Because it's a good time to." He remarked. "Do you think you can put on a robe and come out here."
"Why?" I asked before I remembered what I was wearing and how inappropriate it would be to wear in public. I took the robe from the bathroom and put it on and stepped out into the hallway. I probably should have also put on shoes, but I didn't think about that until I was out of the room.
"So what do you want to talk about?" I asked despite the fact that I already knew the answer.
"I think it should be pretty obvious." He declared. I didn't want to talk about that. There had to be something else we could talk about, anything else.
"There has to be something else that we can talk about. I know how's MIT?" I suggested, trying to avoid it before I had chosen my answer. It was kind of like I was taking the SAT and I didn't know the answer so I just skipped the question and moved onto the next one. Okay now that was one weird analogy. I had initially gotten a pretty score on SAT, but I didn't know what kind of score Zoey had gotten.
"It's a pretty good school." He replied. I couldn't help but wonder if my attempt to distract him was working. "The classes aren't easy but I didn't expect them to be."
"So I ever wanted to go to college would you recommend it?" I asked, still trying to stall.
"I'm pretty sure you would need to get a diploma first for them to accept you." He replied. I could probably a GED. I bet any college would love to have me. "And I don't know if it would be a good school for you. They don't really have much a music problem. So how long have you and Max been together anyway?"
That question was directly related to the emotional struggle I was having but I could help but wonder why he wanted to know.
"About 2 months. I didn't expect to become her girlfriend when I found her. I thought the kiss was going to be a one-time thing." I answered. "And I could always go back and get my diploma. I may not be a genius like you or Cody but I'm smart."
"I know what you're trying to do" He stated. Damn. I supposed he had figured me out. "You're trying to make me forget what I came to you for. You have to face the facts, Zoey. You have to choose one of us. You can't just love both of us. It doesn't work that way."
"Do you really want me to choose right now?" I asked, as I started to tear up.
"I know that you're not really crying." He replied before the tears started to flow. "Oh you are really crying."
"Yes I am. This is the hardest decision that I've had to make." I bawled as I took a seat on a bench. "I don't want to choose either because I know that one of you will get hurt and I've already hurt both of you enough. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt Max either. Now do you see why this is so difficult for me?"
James wiped a tear from my eye.
"I just want you to know that I can make you feel better." He said "All you have to do is sit still and let me kiss you."
He leaned in and so did I before I pulled back. I had something that I needed to ask him. It was possible that hearing the answer could influence my decision.
"James, why do you love me?" I asked. He froze. It seemed like I had caught him off-guard.
"What's not to love about you? You're smart, funny, beautiful and talented. Plus, there's the way that you care about others and don't let fame get to your head." James answered. "I heard about what you did in Berlin: where you decided that song to your tour bus driver. That was a really honest and sincere thing to do."
"But I broke your heart by leaving you to go on a tour of the country and I couldn't even break up with you face to face. Plus, there a lot of things that you don't know about me. That's the stuff that Max does know. Max and I have known each other for 6 years. I've known you for only one year and up until a few days ago, I hadn't seen you since last August." I explained. "And then there's the fact that if I choose you, Max will be all alone and I might lose my best friend a second time. If I choose her, you'll still be have Maddie."
"But I don't love Maddie." He replied. I could tell that she was not going to be thrilled to hear that. "I only love you."
"You seem to have bad luck with people named Zoey." I noted. Part of me wanted to meet this other Zoey. I couldn't help but wonder what she was like. Maybe it was just because I had never met anyone with my name before. "You want me to choose. Fine then I choose Max. You have a good thing going with Maddie. I've known Maddie just as long as I've known Max and I know that she is an amazing person and that you'd be lucky to have her. So go get her. You may not love her now but that doesn't mean that you'll never love her."
"Wow that had to be the best inspirational speech that I've ever heard." James stated as she faked clapping his hands. He wiped a tear out of his own eye. "I'm just upset that it isn't me. But I'm happy that you've made your decision, even if it didn't turn out the way that I hoped. I understand and respect your choice and while I thought that the right choice was me, I realize that you're right. I do have Maddie, but Max has no one."
"So, what should I do about Max?" I asked.
"Well, you need to tell her." He replied as he looked at the clock. "But probably not right now. Probably at a more desirable hour."
"Yeah I'm feeling kind of tired. That's kind of your fault." I told him with a laugh. "I still need some of my beauty sleep."
"I don't see how it would help." He remarked before I hit him in the arm. "Ow you didn't let me finish. I was going to say that you don't need it because you're already beautiful."
"Enough with the sweet talk, Romeo. I'm not the girlfriend that you have to fix things with. I'm going back to bed." I announced as I walked back to my room. I removed my robe, got back in bed and fell back to sleep.
I woke up again at a more much more reasonable time, 9:00. We were going to meet to explore the park at 10:00. I began thinking of ways to surprise Max with the news that I had chosen her. I wanted to think of a way that she would never expect to tell her that she's the one.
In the morning breakfast between us was silent. I didn't want to say anything just yet.
We explored the park, and I figured out that I kind of got Disneyland confused with Disney World. There was no Great Movie Ride or Animal Kingdom. Nevertheless, it was kind of fun. But it was kind of hard to have fun when all the time I was thinking about what I was going to, what I was going to say to Max. I felt really nervous for some reason. I already knew that she loved me, so I don't know why I did.
I finally decided that I was going to surprise her in her room that night. So, I told everyone that I was going to bed early and that they should enjoy the rest of the park.
Since I had keys to both rooms, I took the one to the room that Max was staying in and opened it. I began to set up even though I had no idea what I was doing. I just wanted to make her feel special. I grabbed my bag from the other room and looked for the right outfit to wear. I ended up going with a pink tank and black shorts.
Max walked back an hour later. She noticed that the door was open.
"James?" She asked as she walked into the room.
"Not James." I responded as she saw me in the middle of the room.
"What are you doing in here?" She asked.
"I decided that I liked this room better." I told her. I wondered if she understood what I was saying.
"So you're okay with being in a room when you're torn like this?" Max asked me in confusion. I supposed it was a little bit vague and it probably wasn't the best way to tell her.
"The room isn't the only thing that I decided that I like better." I remarked as I walked closer to Max. "You asked me to choose. Well here I am."
Then the two of us started to make out. I could tell that everything was going to turn out okay.
The End
So that was the last chapter but there's still an epilogue so stay tuned for that. Please don't forget to review.