Chapter 1

I walked into the big building that was the Palm Woods with my best friend, Serenity. We walked up to the front desk and saw a big fat man with a bag of popcorn sitting on his fat stomach. I rang the bell and said," Hi, I'm Abby."

He glanced up at me and said, "And I would care why?"

"Because I need my room keys, Mr.…. Bitters? I said but it sounded more like a question.

He sighed and looked up my name. Then he grabbed two key cards out of one of the drawers in the desk he was standing behind. He handed us the keys and said, " Here you go Ms. . . . . .. Steele. Let me show you around."

He came around to the front of the desk and led us out of the lobby. He led us to a big pool and started talking but I wasn't really listening. I was busy soaking in the sun, letting it caress my pale skin with its wonderful heat. I stood there in my black shorts, black My Chemical Romance t-shirt and black converse. There was a slight breeze and I felt the wind go through my short, layered, brown, blue streaked hair. I smiled into the sun and started looking around. I stopped when I saw four boys sitting on lounge chairs basking in the sun as well but there was one that caught my eye. He had black ray-bans covering his eyes and was wearing green swim trunks. I snapped out from admiring his pale and fit body because Serenity was pulling me over to the Palm Woods Park. Mr. Bitters kept talking again but I was thinking back to the guy at the pool.

After Mr. Bitters showed us around, we headed back to the hotel and headed to the second floor to our room. When we got to the second floor, we started looking for 2K. Once we found it, we unlocked the doors and put our stuff in the room as we started scouting out the rooms. I took the master bedroom since I was the one who got signed to Rocque Records and Serenity took the smaller room. I started unpacking my bags and making a lot of noise while doing so. I heard a knock on the door and yelled, " Serenity, could you get that, please!"

"Yeah, 'cause you know I'm so much closer to it, Abby!" she yelled back while walking over to the door.

I heard her open the door. I heard voices coming from the living room. I sighed and continued unpacking all my stuff. I finished after spending about twenty minutes on it but the room still wasn't the way I wanted it. The room still needed a splash of "color" and some posters of my favorite bands on them. I walked out of my room and into the living room. I stopped when I saw the boy from the pool sitting on our couch with what looked like his friends too. He looked up and saw me standing there. Then he stood up and said, "Hi, I'm Kendall. What's your name?"

I smiled politely at him and said, " My name is Abby. I am from Forks, Washington. Before you start cracking jokes about whether or not I have seen vampires or werewolves, I would like to say that I hate Twilight for ruing my town."

They all laughed at me and his friends then introduced themselves as well. The tall pretty looking one with medium brown hair and beautiful hazel eyes introduced himself as James. One of the shorter boys with black that was spiked in the front introduced himself as Logan. The shortest out of them with a helmet on his head introduced himself as Carlos. I looked at the four of them and said," Do you guys want anything?"

"No, we're good but um would you like to join us for dinner?" asked Kendall while looking at his black vans.

"We would love to but Abby here is a vegetarian, so I hope you're having something vegetarian but if not I could always bring some ramen with us and put some tofu in it for her," said Serenity while glaring at me because we can never go over to someone's house unless they are having something vegetarian.

I smiled at her and they said, " You're a vegetarian? What's it like not eating meat?"

"It's the same as eating meat but you can't get protein from only eating vegetables and tofu. So I eat some meat occasionally, like fish or chicken but I usually hate myself for a few days afterwards, " I said while the smile disappeared from my face and I looked down at my feet.

They all hugged me and said, " It's ok. There's food out there we don't like either, but it's different in your case."

I faked a smile and pretended that I was ok. They let go of me and I went back to my room to grab my guitar. When I got I went back into the living room, I grabbed a card key off of the coffee table and left to go to the Palm Woods Park. I heard Serenity yelling at me to come back but I ignored her and kept walking. When I made my way down to the lobby, I saw a little girl standing in front of the front desk, talking to Bitters. I walked past them and left the lobby. As soon as I got out to the pool area, I headed to the Palm Woods Park. Once I got to the beautiful park, I found a big tree and sat down underneath it. I took my guitar out of its case and started playing one of the songs that I wrote called The Only Exception. I started singing along with it and when I finished the song I heard clapping. When I looked up, I saw Kendall, Logan, James, Carlos and Serenity standing in front of me. I dropped my guitar and got up from the ground. Once I was off the ground, I took off running.

I was running as fast as I could go all the way back to the hotel. As soon as I got to the room I reached for my key card but couldn't find it. When I realized it was gone I ran up to the roof. As soon as I got there, I sat down on the edge of the roof, thinking about my mother, who had probably just realized that I was gone. Somehow my thoughts made their way to my abusive father and how he was probably hitting my mother because I was gone.

I had packed up everything in my room because I couldn't deal with him anymore. I didn't even tell my mother where I was going because I knew that she would tell my dad while he was beating her. When I got the record deal that's when I had decided to come out here and forget my past. I was finally free and didn't have to worry about coming home everyday only to get the shit beat out of me. I was actually able to relax here and not have to worry about a thing. I heard the door to the roof open and knew it had to be Serenity but I was so deep in thought I couldn't move.

Her face was in front of my face and she was trying to get me to snap out of my thoughts. It was then that she realized how to get me to snap out of my trance. She looked at the door and said, "Hey, Kendall."

I jumped, turned around and almost fell off of the roof. Luckily for me Serenity caught me by my shirt and pulled me back up. I smiled at her and heard my phone start ringing. I pulled it out of my left front pocket. I looked at the caller ID and immediately tossed the phone to Serenity. She looked at the screen and hesitantly answered it.

As soon as she picked up the phone I could here my father's voice booming through the speakers. He yelled, " Abby where the hell are you?"

Serenity replied with, " Hi, Mr. Steele. Abby went to the bathroom. She took a book with her, so she should be a while."

I almost busted up laughing but didn't want to blow our cover. I then heard my dad yell, " Where are, you kids!"

"We are at the library. We have a huge project due in a few days so we thought we would start it now," she said in her innocent voice.

I smiled as he calmly said, " Well, you kids have fun and when you're done tell Abby to come back home."

"Will do, sir. Bye!" said Serenity sweetly through the phone.

I smiled she was always good at calming my father down. The door to the balcony burst open again and the boys appeared behind it. I smiled at the four of them and said, "Nice of you to drop by, but how did you even know where we were?"

"Oh that's easy we saw your feet dangling over the side of the building. Kendall, being the heroic guy he is said, that we should check it out because you could be in danger, " said Logan while glancing over at Kendall.

Kendall looked down at his shoes with a nervous smile on his face. I smiled and said, "Thanks for caring but we're fine."

I soon felt my face go back to its emotionless state like it is most of the time. I am afraid to show my emotions and let people know how I feel about them. I then grabbed my guitar and key card from Kendall and walked back to my room. When I got back to the apartment, I went to my room and put my stuff in my room. About ten minutes after I got back to the room, Serenity walked in and started making dinner for the two of us. I sighed and got up to go to my room. She looked at me and said, "Where d you think you're going?"

"To bed?" I said but it came out as more of question rather than a statement.

She shook her head at me and said, "No you're not you are going to eat dinner with me, Missy."

I glared at her with my emotionless blue eyes and said, " Fine."

When she finished dinner she set the table for two and put two plates on the table. She then put a bowl filled with tofu noodles in the middle of the table. We both sat down and started eating in complete silence like we usually do. I soon finished and got up from my seat. I walked into the kitchen and rinsed off my plate. When I finished rinsing my plate, I put it in the dishwasher and then left for my room. Before I entered my room, I turned to Serenity and said, "Goodnight."

She nodded her head because she had a mouth full of tofu pasta. I walked into my room and closed the door. I got dressed in a tank top and short black pajama shorts. Then I put my iPod in the iHome. I then crawled in my bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was long gone in my sweet dream world.