Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author's Note: Yes, I am currently obsessed with Channy right now, although I'm not positive why. I just can't wait until the second season!

Summary: Jackie Monroe has never met her father, growing up with her movie star mother, Sonny Munroe. She has always wanted to know her father, and little does she know that one trip to the attic will reveal all that has been lost in the form of a mysterious diary.

The Story Left Untold
by PiperPaigePhoebe01

Chapter One

I have never known my father.

If I didn't know better, I would have said that I didn't even have a father, but every little girl has a father. Although my mother never talked to me about him—never even allowed me to see a picture of him—I knew certain details about the man that I had pieced together from the few sentences Aunt Tawni and Uncle Nico had told me. I used those details to form a picture of him in my mind, and I embraced that image above all else. That shadowy figure of my past—ma père, as the French say—was the most precious figure of my childhood, even above my own mother.

These are the only facts I had gathered about him:

He had been my mother's age when they met.

They had met during my mother's first year at the comedy show, So Random, and my mother had hated him practically on first sight.

Yet they had fallen in love.

At this point, I had always grown enamored by the story.

"How did they fall in love?" I asked. "Where did they met exactly? Why did she hate him?"

"That's a story for another time," Tawni said, patting my shoulder and then linking her arm through mine. "Now, let's go to Bergdorf's. You need a new dress for Portlyn's ball tonight."

I sighed whenever Tawni said this, and excused myself to go talk to Uncle Nico. He was always open to my questions, ready to ruffle my long dark hair and tease me about the latest events going on in my life. He wanted to make me happy, and I knew he would give me whatever I wanted.

So I asked him.

"Who is my father?"

He said the normal stuff: your mother met him years ago, they hated each other, blah, blah, blah. Whenever I held my breath, then let it out in a question—no, I meant: what is his name?—he looked as if he wanted to tell me, but then he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, but if you want to hear more about your father, you're gonna have to ask your mother, squirt," Nico said, ruffling my hair. "Now, go on. Aunt Tawni wants to take you shopping, and you know that you don't want to keep her waiting."

I didn't have a choice. I was forced to wander through the rows of clothes in Bergdorf's, Bendel's, all of the most fashionable stores on Manhattan's upper east side. Tawni pressed numerous dresses into my arms as I walked behind her, listening halfheartedly as she prattled on and on about the latest fashions, and how the people at Pendell Prep would be so shocked when I walked into the ballroom that night.

All I thought about was my father and my mother.

What was so mysterious? Why wouldn't my mother even talk about my father? Why couldn't I even find a snippet about the actor that had met my mother that one day? I had entered my mother's television show into the Google search engine, but nothing came up about the man my mother had been involved in when she was just a little older than I was now. Why? Why didn't I know who he was?

In every other aspect of my life, my mother was not secretive. Instead, she acted like my best friend most of the time—or at least those times when I was good and did what I was told. She told me everything, about her latest movie, about her move to Manhattan after she had gotten picked up to play the lead in the major hit of the year 2010, Just Like Her, and how she had enrolled me in Pendell's because she wanted me to have that perfectly glamorous life that she had never had but always wanted.

She was my best friend.

And yet she didn't tell me about my father.

The question of who he was haunted me for weeks, past the ball Portlyn threw together, past my first day as a sophomore at Pendell's, past the homecoming dance, and past the premiere of my mother's newest movie. I couldn't get him out of my mind.

I imagined him as a handsome man, full of life. He had my piercing blue eyes, the gentle slope of my mouth, the way my hair almost shimmered with blonde highlights in the sun. He had my laugh, which bubbled out of me and almost seemed condescending—almost. He had that way about him, that confidence that made me walk with a strut in my Christian Louboutin heels.

The image wavered and disappeared as my mother stood in my doorway a month after Portlyn's ball, her arms crossed over her chest.

"I heard about the party," my mother said shortly.

I looked up from my laptop to stare at my mother. I crossed my arms over my own chest and felt the presence of my father grow stronger—because, without him, I would have looked exactly like my mother in this moment, eyebrow quirked upward, arms crossed in the same way, as we faced off against each other for what had to be the millionth time.

"So?" I asked, leaning back in my chair. "What does it matter?"

"It matters because you were supposed to spend last night rearranging the attic," my mother said. "You offered to do that for your chore, remember?"

"I remember."

My mother waited for me to say something else, but when I turned back to my laptop with a sigh, she spoke up. "Then why didn't you do it?"

"I wanted to go to the party instead," I said. I swiveled my chair around. "Face it, Mom. Who would rather clean a dirty, dingy attic when they could go to the biggest party of the year instead? March Banks put it together. She's the Queen Bee, Mom, and anyone who even wants to be someone had to go."

"So you'd rather disobey your mother," she said.

"You didn't say I had to clean the attic last night," I said. "You only suggested it."

"Well, now I'm only suggesting that you march you and your smart comments up to the attic and start cleaning," my mother said, her eyes hardening. "I'm only suggesting that if you don't, you won't be able to go to March Bank's party next week or my latest movie premiere. You understand?"

"Mom."

"I said: Do you understand?"

I sighed. There was no use arguing with my mother now. There was no way she was going to allow me to get my way. She might be my best friend most of the time, but when I did something that she did not approve of, she was practically my worst enemy.

That didn't mean, of course, that I couldn't be a smartass.

"Yes, Mother." I stood up. "If you insist, then I will clean the attic. Out of the goodness of my heart."

My mom ignored my tone of voice.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said sarcastically as soon as her back was turned. She paused mid-step, then continued at her normal pace.

I sighed. Even though I really didn't want to clean the attic—it was crowded and musty in there, full of my mom's old Wisconsin stuff that I really didn't feel like shifting through—I knew that I had no choice. My mother would make me if I didn't go up and do it sort of out of my own free will today. She had offered to do it, but I had, in a fit of kindness, said I would do it a week ago, and I couldn't exactly go back on my promise now.

So I grabbed my hoodie from the back of my chair and headed to the attic that always seemed to be ten degrees chillier than the rest of the house. The stairs creaked uncomfortably as I made my way up there, and as I clambered onto the dusty wooden floor, I sneezed.

This was going to be a blast.

I sighed as I made my way to the far corner of the room. There was no doubting it: I was the only girl at Pendell's that actually had chores, and they were the worst form of torture ever devised.

1 TEXT MESSAGE from Lilian Edwards.

I hesitated, looking around at the boxes spread out before me. Lilian Edwards was such a texting fiend; if I got into a flurry with her, I would only surface twenty minutes later—and that was on a day when she was a little tired. If she had just gotten up—which was completely possible—she could go for hours.

I had already been cleaning the attic for about two hours so far. Some progress had been made with the far corner, which now gleamed pristinely, the boxes stacked neatly. I decided that I could do with a break, and besides, I hadn't talked to Lilian for a while.

Hey, just got out of bed. What's goin' on? I read.

Nothing. Mom making me clean attic.

Ugh. And u r doin it?

Don't have a choice.

Well, r u comin to the party 2night?

Where?

I flipped my phone shut before Lilian could respond, putting it beside me on the floor. I sat down cross-legged, pulling the nearest box close to me. Wisconsin 1997-1999, it said in my mother's messy handwriting from when she was a teenager. The box practically fell apart as I opened it, revealing some of my mother's old books, a few pictures of her arm around Lulu, her best friend, and a newspaper from the time she won the singing competition in school.

Even then, she was successful—smart and bright, her brown hair tied back in a ponytail, her bucktoothed smile bright and cheerful against the backdrop of the golden stage.

My phone pinged.

John's place. 9 o'clock. Be there or else.

I frowned. Is it really important?

Yes. Even bigger than March's party.

Was such a thing even possible? My frown deepened as I remembered my mother's face when she found out I had gone to a party. I didn't even want to think about what she would say if she found out that there had been alcohol there—not that I drank any, of course—but if she found out I was going to John Alto's place, the self-proclaimed manwhore of the school, she would never let me go.

Maybe I would have to turn this down.

Great. IDK if I can go.

I threw my phone down beside me. Standing up, I dragged the box over to the others, stacking it neatly beside the box for 1996. Then I sat down beside my phone, dragging the next box to me. This was from 2000, and I could see our resemblance growing more pronounced. I was just turning through a series of photographs from second grade when Lilian responded.

But you have to go. Anyone who's anyone is going.

Sorry. Mom issues.

My mother would never let me go, and I knew that there was no way I would disobey her. I would just have to grin and bear it, and maybe my social life wouldn't be completely shot to hell and I'd manage to salvage it somehow in the now less than three years I had left of school.

The other box went on top of the previous, and the routine continued. I ignored the beeping from my phone, as I really did not want to hear about how Lilian thought I was a chicken for not going against my mother. I didn't want to hear about her musings about when I was finally going to start to live a little, take some risks, because I was not in the mood.

When I reached for the box that was supposed to say 2009, I let my mouth fall open in a gasp at the words I read. Instead of my mother's handwriting spelling out 2009 in crisp, neat letters, I read Chad Dylan Cooper written sloppily in cursive. A little heart had been written beside the name, then hurriedly crossed out. Below it, the words Do not open, under ANY circumstances were written in dark marker, then underlined boldly. Stars were placed around the entire statement, and a huge black circle surrounded the whole mass.

I kept my hands on the top of the box for what felt like an eternity.

Chad Dylan Cooper.

That name.

It seemed familiar, like I had seen it once before, but where? I couldn't remember. All I knew was that I wanted to know more about him, and why he merited the warning written across his box. Why had my mother packed all his things away? She had pushed him into a box, shoved him out of her mind and into the dusty old attic, placing him among all her childhood memories like too many old singing trophies, and I had never even heard her speak of him.

Could it be—?

I didn't let myself get my hopes up. Instead, I pulled the box closer to me. My hands lingered over the flaps for a moment before I gathered my courage, shoved all my hopes into the back of my mind, and swiftly opened the mysterious box.

At the top, I saw two cases of DVDs. One was for the fifth season of my mom's show, So Random, and the other was for the fifth season of Mackenzie Falls. As I stared into the face of the man on the front of the latter case, I felt my heart skip a beat.

It was almost as though I was looking into a mirror.

I saw, reflected from that case, my own eyes with that deep shade of blue. His mouth curved into a smirk in the same way that my own did when I was angry or upset. His arms were crossed over his chest, his posture relaxed, matching my own natural stance. His hair was sleek and glossy, just like my own, and I could see the same blond highlights in his hair that were in my own whenever I walked into the sun.

The hope returned in full force.

Was it possible? Did I really find my father?

I set the two cases beside me carefully, staring at Chad Dylan Cooper's face a moment longer than necessary. I turned back to the box, pulling out a smaller shoebox. Deciding I would open that one later, I put that beside the DVDs, then reached in again. This time, my fingers hit something leathery that seemed to be clasped tightly. I pulled it out, setting it in my lap carefully.

My breath hitched in my throat as I read the gilt letters.

Sonny Munroe.

2009 – 2010.

I never knew my mother kept a diary.

This was it.

I had found the crème de la crème, as the French say. (French was really beginning to grow on me.) For the first time, I held in my hands my mother's words, written as she had felt them in the year 2009, when she had first joined So Random.

2009 was also the year she met the man who would later become my father.

Maybe there wasn't a coincidence between my mother meeting my father and Chad Dylan Cooper in the same year. Maybe there was a reason her journal from her year at So Random was tucked into the box with his name on it.

Maybe—maybe I would just have to read and find out.

My fingers fumbled against the clasp holding the diary shut. It took me what felt like ages to get the damn thing open, but once I did, my eyes skimmed across the opening page.

This journal is the property of Sonny Munroe.

If found, please return to Sonny at Studio 3, dressing room first on the left.

Please do not go beyond this page and return immediately.

I ignored the warning and turned the page.

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please review? Thank you!