Tess and Liz aren't exactly on the best of terms right now, mainly because Tess stole Max from her and she loves to rub it in. Now, Tess is my best friend, but what she is doing to Liz is completely unacceptable. It's true that Liz isn't my favorite person in the world, but I do like her and I respect her for keeping our secret after everything that has happened.

"Come on, Max!" I cringed as I heard Tess' voice. When Tess gets upset, her voice tends to rise an octave and it carries. I know the other people in the quad heard her, but they ignored her, something they had been doing a lot lately. Tess has this really annoying habit of trying to get attention, and she tends to get on everyone's bad side because of it. Not to sound conceited, but if I hadn't taken her under my wing when she first moved here, she would have been on the bottom of the social chain.

I jumped when I felt something on my neck, and I laughed as Michael kissed it. I turned to him and he smiled, moving a hand up to remove my sunglasses.

"Hey!" I protested laughing, trying to grab them back. He held them behind his back and held my arms with his free hand. "I can't see your eyes with them on." I looked at him and the intensity of his gaze made me a little uncomfortable, but I quickly got over it when he leaned over and covered my mouth with his.

We kissed for a little while; then I broke away when I heard fighting. I looked up just in time to see Maria and Liz stalk away from the table, leaving Max looking after them.

"Maybe we should go talk to them." I knew that Michael was trying to make everything okay between him and Maria, and that was okay with me. If it had been this time last year, I would have been jealous of all the attention Michael gives Maria, but I've grown up a lot since then. Michael nodded.

"You're right." He stood up and grabbed my hand, pulling me up. I picked up my purse and Michael put his arm around me as we followed Maria and Liz. When we got into the school, I could see that they were standing near the bathrooms. Liz looked over and I offered her a smile, but she just turned away and grabbed Maria's arm, leading her into the bathroom. I saw Michael's face fall, and I tried to ignore it, but I still felt a stab of jealousy.

"Maybe I should go talk to them." I didn't really want to, but I wanted to get away from Michael's crestfallen face. He nodded and from my peripheral vision I saw Max and Tess leave the school. I shook my head, silently disapproving. I made my way slowly into the bathroom and wasn't surprised at what I saw: Liz and Maria were sitting in a corner of the bathroom and Liz was clutching her cell phone. I tried to act nonchalant as I walked in.

"Hey guys. What's up?" Liz looked at me, all traces of anger gone from her eyes. I felt my heart drop to my chest. "What's wrong?"