Rebecca Amulet was a sweet hearted, beautiful, talented girl. Rebecca Amulet was smart, short, and stylish. Rebecca Amulet was skinny; healthy; funny. Rebecca Amulet was my best friend.

We had been best friends since before preschool because of the daycare we both went to. We met in the toy room. She was sitting in the middle of the room building with blocks and singing. I went over and sat next to her.

"Wow!" I whispered. She had made a little town with the blocks. She turned her head, her long wavy blond hair tucked neatly behind her ears, and smiled at me with wide brown eyes.

"Want to help?" She asked me. She had the prettiest voice I had ever heard. I nodded shyly. She clearly wasn't as shy as I was.

From that day on we were best friends. From that day on she was my idol.

Of course, she was younger than me, which made me very jealous of her. When we were little I used to start fights with her all the time until one day in 7th grade I accidentally made her cry.

"I'm sorry that you hate that I can sing, Maddi," She said to my outburst one day, shaking with tears, "If I could cut out my vocal chords for you I would."

This shocked me. I immediately apologized and hugged her. We never fought again.

By the time we hit high school we were inseparable. You wouldn't see her without me or me without her. I followed her in a can-I-get-your-autograph kind of way, since she was my idol. She wanted to become a famous singer when we graduated. Not just a famous singer, though. She wanted to become the most famous singer in our entire world's history.

Our world was a small one with many rules. One was very important to know if you wanted to fulfill your dreams. It wasn't a rule someone had set, it was just one that we had observed as our world grew.

How well you succeed in your life long dreams depends on how true you are to yourself, how well you treat others, and how hard you continue to try to get to where you want to be, or maintain where you are.

We all understood this rule at one point in our lives, if not our whole lives. So many people went downhill when they forgot. Whether it was because they were depressed thinking they would never reach their goal, or because they just didn't trust others, people just forgot this rule over time and had no idea why they were failing.

Rebecca and I talked about this constantly. It was something she wanted to keep on her mind so she would never forget it like the others did. She was the sweetest girl and everyone looked up to her.

On our graduation day, she learned that the song she submitted to a contest had won and she would be able to make a CD with the songs she had for free. The song was all over the radio. We were both really excited.

My dream was to become her manager so I could be best friends with her even after high school. Neither of us went to college. She made her CD and we both became great friends with Derek, "the piano guy" that was hired to play music for her. He had just graduated college.

We just called him the piano guy because that's what he was playing when we met him. He usually played guitar for her, though some of her songs did need a piano. The rest of the band didn't have much interest in becoming good friends with the three of us.

It was great; the three of us were best friends all working on our dreams. One day Rebecca ran up to me excited and told me that Derek had asked her out. We were so happy so we went celebrating.

On Rebecca's 19th birthday a huge group of people, including Derek and me, and a bunch of people from the recording studio, threw her a surprise party.

After she entered the room, her face lit up with joy. I knew that she had secretly always wanted a surprise party, but it wasn't my idea to throw it. It was Derek's.

She opened the presents we got for her, happy even at the weird ones. After she was finished, she thanked us sincerely.

"We're not done yet," Derek said, grinning at her. He went down on one knee and we all gasped as he took out a box. "Will you marry me?"

Rebecca was married at age 20. I was so happy for her. We soon realized that she was going to go on tour around the world. It wasn't surprising since she had five CDs out – all of them on the top 10 list, but we were surprised anyway, because, as Rebecca told me, it's always fun to feel surprised.

"Aren't you excited!" she asked me on the plane.

"Of course!" I said, grinning at her. She was still the sweetest girl I knew.

"Oh, Maddi, I decided something," she told me.

"What?"

"I want a nickname... could you start calling me Becky?" She asked with a grin on her face.

"Oh, sure," I replied, looking uneasy. She had said years before that she never wanted a nickname. She told me that she wouldn't feel like herself if she had a nickname, since everyone always called her Rebecca.

Becky's tour was amazing, but it slowly changed her. It hurt to see this. Derek noticed it also and we started talking.

"What's the matter?" Becky asked me one day.

"Do you remember when we were kids? When we used to talk about the rules?" I asked her this, looking at her face. Her expression turned skeptical.

"That was when we were kids, Madison." I froze. She had never called me that. "You need to grow up, that's not going to happen to me. I'm the best vocalist in our world right now. I'll reach my goal soon, you know."

"Y-yeah..." I replied, my eyes on the floor. She stormed off.

Her last concert on tour was soon, and I confronted her again.

"I think you should really think about it, Rebecca," I told her.

"It's Becky," she corrected, "and you're being stupid. I at least have a dream that I'm reaching."

"But you won't reach it if you continue! You're not your old self anymore; you're not your true self!"

"Maybe not, but it's more fun this way," she muttered.

"Becky, I think you'll reach your goal, I do, but after that... after that, I think you'll fall."

"Hey, as long as I reach it," she said sarcastically, "Don't you see that that isn't enough? I'm going to reach my goal and keep it! No stupid "rule" is going to keep me from it. Stop being like that, Madison." She stormed off again. She was caught up in the glory, and very full of herself.

I know that later Derek talked to her, and that's what caused her to stop talking to us for a while. I wondered if sometimes she was lonely not talking to her husband and her best friend. I wondered if the old Rebecca was just trapped inside her, screaming to come out. It was ruining her.

Her last concert came and I sat in the front row as always. She was singing beautifully as always. The crowd was in awe as always. She had reached her goal.

Then it crashed. Her voice broke, it seemed. She wasn't hitting any of the right notes. Then she forgot all the words, and she froze on stage staring right into my eyes with her old eyes.

The next day, Derek and I decided to confront Becky to help her. We wanted her to be back to the way she was when she had graduated High School: the sweet girl that everyone loved and looked up to. We knew it was in her, she just lost it. We knocked on her apartment door. (She had been staying there since her fight with Derek.) She opened it.

We stared at Becky in horror. She was as pale as a corpse and horribly skinny. It had only been a day since the last time we saw her!

"Becky, you look horrible!" Derek said, putting his hands on her shoulders. She shrugged him off.

"Yeah, well," Becky muttered, turning away. She started walking, but suddenly stopped.

"Becky?" She collapsed to the floor and we immediately rushed over.

"Becky, Becky!" I screamed, trying to wake her. She opened her eyes. She looked blocked from us.

"I'm sorry, but I told you this would happen," I whispered to my best friend, "I told you... I told you!"

"Madison, it's alright," Derek put his arm on my shoulders to calm me down.

"Maddi," Becky groaned. I stared at her in total shock. "Maddi..." she whispered.

That's when we realized that she was dying right in front of us.

"I didn't know it would—kill you! I would have done more, I would have, really!" I screamed, scared.

"Calm down, screaming won't help her. Becky, what do you want us to do?" Derek held her hand, his own shaking and his eyes looking into hers fearfully. She then said her last words.

"Heh…You can have my vocal chords now…I won't have much use for them anymore…I'm sorry Maddi…I should have listened to you…"