A/N: For you're reading pleasure, here it is again – previously in possession of over 600 reviews and 20,000 hits – The first Chapter of It's My Party.

Enjoy guys and gals

xo

Chapter 1 – Bottom Of The Ocean

She angrily rubbed the smeared make-up from her cheeks as she looked at her deathly pale in the looking glass wall in front of her. Her eyes weren't quite as blue as they had been a mere few hours ago. Her cheeks were no longer flushed with excitement and content. Her cheeks were still stained from the over-whelming emotion she'd felt less than an hour and a half ago, not quite pink and not quite red… not even white… It was a strange colour that streamed down her cheeks, mixed with the pink tinge from the effort it had taken to scrub her think mascara and eye liner from her cheeks, until it stained her face cloth almost midnight black.

She looked like the face of a doll… a broken little doll…

It made sense really… she looked happy on the outside, the same old happy look plastered across her face. On the outside, she was perfect, made of pale white porcelain skin and pink cheeks. She wore perfect clothes and had perfect make up. Everything was simply perfect. Her eyes glassy blue eyes almost stuck out of their sockets they were so blue. They were the only things that lead into the inside of her. They were the windows to the inside of her. If you looked into her eyes you could see the empty hollow that was the rest of her, the young girl trying to burst out from somewhere she didn't know, the true purpose and reason to live still trying to be figured out… all the mistakes being made on the way to breaking free from her porcelain shell.

Why did she have to look at him? Why did she have to even invite him? He was supposed to be on a world tour and Selena and Demi were coming which was bad enough, now it was going to be like backstage and the teen choice awards when the she'd caught the two oldest Jonas brothers and the Witches of Eastwick laughing about her in their VIP corner. She was really getting glad that she had Mandy these days… Mandy could always tell her that she was growing up, and soon they'd join her and stop being so pathetic.

But that didn't stop her looking at him. That stupid boy… that stupid song… those stupid beautiful eyes…

Why couldn't she stop looking into them and loosing herself?

For hours, she'd been fine. She'd been happy with him going around the park in his little group, going on the rides and acting like the douche bag that he was with his brothers.

He had been a complete tool towards her since they'd broken up before New Years Eve. Then New Years' eve rolls around and they're still freaking performing together like it's the good ole days. It was cold on that building in Times Square, but she was warm when she stood close to him. She'd warmed herself up for it the whole day, telling her that she'd just ignore him and it would all be over in a space of minutes. The air pressure at that height was bad enough she could hardly breath, trying to sing, she just sounded desperate. Later on, Mandy had called her and told her that he'd been looking at her trying to get her attention the whole time, she of course simply ignoring him. She chose to believe otherwise, especially considering the awkward hug that he gave her after their performance. He'd whispered in her ear the words "happy new year" and she hadn't been able to speak for minutes after hearing how caring and meaningful his words had been.

She'd always told him to be happy… it was all she wanted…

He really hadn't looked happy when she'd made herself look like a complete idiot earlier. Her tears, and her strained words, and the way that the crowd had turned their direction of their gazes into the same as hers, directly as him. His face was set like stone, his face cold and unsympathetic to the fact that she was singing her own song to him, rather than to her guests at her sweet sixteen, almost telling him that she still obviously loved him, but she wanted him to be happy, even if it wasn't with her. His arm had been on the back of the chair behind Selena as Joe and Kevin scoffed down hotdogs and large cokes, laughing and joking with everyone. She hadn't been able to not think about how much she missed him as he sat in front of her in such a way.

It was exactly like that time on tour when she'd been physically so emotionally touched by everything and everyone around her that there only seemed to be one thing left to do as she sung. It wasn't to dance around like a lunatic, or flirt with her band members or dancers… it wasn't even forgetting her stupid words. The words were the things that were touching her as they ran from her mouth like water. His hardened gaze was what was making it worse.

He looked angry that she was looking at him. He was absolutely livid that she could think to do such a thing, all she wanted to do was tell him that she couldn't help herself and it was the only way she would have ever have been able to not make herself look like an idiot and forget what she was doing. She was a performer, but when she looked into his eyes her porcelain shell was filled with warmth and blood. It was painfully over-whelming sometimes she forgot to breathe.

She was desperate to get over him, but she was barely on the home-stretch of turning sixteen at this early birthday party. She took things to hard, and she still reacted to the most serious things in a light and airy fashion that it was scary. She liked shopping and didn't care if she went over her limit when she was in a bad mood. She ran on hormones and full-blown crazy emotion. She still got afraid at the dark sometimes. She called her dad in emergencies when she couldn't cope. She still held onto a broken heart because sometimes she felt it was the only thing she had that was real.

She hated that when she was reminded of him, she got the box from beneath her bed and toyed with the items until her pillow was soaked with her own reminiscent tears. She hated that he listened to what his brother's said and didn't stick up for her. She detested the fact that she couldn't even watch TV anymore without hearing his name placed along side her own in heartless banter.

Her first attempt to get over him was burying herself in her blanket and taking a few days off to get over him. Anytime she was alone or with her mom or Mandy… she cried until she knew she couldn't breathe anymore if she wanted to.

Her second attempt was some stupid pictures she took to try and accidentally email or put somewhere only he would know to make him feel angry. She wanted him to tell her that she shouldn't be doing what she was doing. She wanted him to save her from what she was feeling. She should have known better than to have left them there on her email, toying with sending them or deleting them… now she couldn't get away from a magazine or website without seeing them.

Her next attempt was even worse. Tom… that boy was repulsive, yet she still let him convince her to take all those pictures with him. He was sleazy and slimy and she didn't even remember where abouts Mandy said she knew him from. He was one hundred percent pure leach material. All he wanted was a new gangsta boy fame from the branches of a naïve little girl who had only wanted a boy to like her. He had been the wrong boy. Now the right boy didn't want her because he thought she was a slut, like the rest of the world.

Her final attempt to get over him and drown herself in revenge blew-up in her face when all she felt was guilt for making him sound so terrible in that magazine. She hadn't lied, she'd just blown it out of proportion like teenagers do. She would have never ever said any of those things if he hadn't of ignored her for the last goodness knows how many months.

Truth was, he was quite the loveliest boy she'd ever met…

She doubted that she'd ever speak to him again.

She'd been singing her song, to him, as much as she didn't want to. He'd looked at her, given her a look possessed by the devil and turned from her so that the guests could stop staring at him seeing if it was him she was looking at. He'd yanked on his jacket and hadn't looked back. He'd stormed from that party quicker than his legs could carry him, straight past the security guards and the other guests. What seemed like a million paparazzi asked him why he was leaving so early. His response was already pasted over Google news and every gossip site in all history. His words had cut through her…

"I have something more important that I need to do…"

Something more important could have meant anything. He could have forgotten his medication, or there could have been a family emergency. He might have had an important meeting with someone of great importance. He could have missed a phone call with his much loved grand-mother… she didn't know. All she knew was that, she'd watched him take his medication. His parents were at her party to keep her own parents company and they all looked fine, just like his brothers. He didn't have an important meeting. Joe and Kevin had talked about there three days of no work, meetings or anything when they had all arrived at the party. He hadn't missed a phone call with his grand-mother, because his phone was still sat in front of his mother at her table, where she had been keeping it safe for him while he was riding the water rides hours before.

The only other thing that he could have been running to was Demi and Selena, and from their seats next to Joe and Kevin, they looked just as bemused as she did.

She'd ran off the stage and directly collapsed into the arms of her best friend and mother, as they tried to stop her from running as quickly as she could out of the park and to the place where she had grown to hide on her hard days – her bedroom. Mandy's arms were wrapped around her shoulders, drawing her into the crook of her neck and holding her tightly into her body as she shook with tears. Tish, in her traditional mother-style, wrapped her arms around her baby girl's ribs and stomach and had brought her into her own chest to support her. Her hands covered her face as her father stepped out on stage and took over the microphone, grabbing a nearby guitar, before he began singing Achy Breaky Heart to a very impressed crowd. He was doing what he did best, and looking out for her, making sure she wasn't scared.

"I wanna go home…"

Mandy lifted her head to meet Tish's gaze and they shared an alarmed look at each other. She'd been looking forward to this party since she'd found out about it. She'd picked every single VIP guest with a fine tooth comb. She'd wanted everything to go smoothly, at whatever cost. This party wasn't just to celebrate her; it was to celebrate all those kids she was raising money to help. She didn't want to let them down…

"Miley, baby… you can't go…" Tish whispered in her ear, stroking her hair from her face to look at her chubby tear-stained cheeks, "You've got another hour before the night's over… you have the fireworks and the goodbye… then we're all staying at the Disney Resort hotel…"

Miley shook her head, "You guys stay… I just really want to go home…"

She looked up with empty seriousness in her eyes. The dullness alarmed her mother, who stared into their nothingness for what seemed like minutes. Those sparkles had been dying out a lot over the last year. She had prayed the day when they were complete extinguished would never come. She had never wanted it to happen at her sweet sixteen. It should have been on of the happiest days of her life.

Tish coughed to clear her throat and stop the own shower of tears she refused to let fall from her own eyes out of sympathy. She was the mother in this equation and she wouldn't let her weakness be shown to the little one that needed her most.

"Ok, baby girl…" her mother nodded, "I'll take you home when the night's over… I'll get a car and we'll sneak in the back way so no one notices. We'll eat some ice cream and we'll plan a better party for the real day, okay?"

Miley shook her head, slumping down onto a nearby amp covering her eyes again, "Just tonight mom… for the only night in the past three years in my life…" her lip quivered at the thought of three years somehow absent-mindedly going missing in the blink of an eye, "can I go home to an empty house and a silent room and sit in quiet and try and figure out what the heck I am turning into…"

One minute she had been a twelve year-old who had wanted to act… the next she was a sixteen year-old at Disneyworld crying her eyes out because she simply didn't feel normal anymore. Those two minutes had gone so slowly, she could barely remember what it felt like to be that little girl from Tennessee who was going to go to prom and cheerleading camp. It was all paparazzi and awards shows in her life and it wasn't as exciting after the first time.

Tish hadn't realised how much the once smiley Miley had grown up. What happened to that little girl who sang Tomorrow at the top of her lungs at her grand-parents house? What happened to the little girl who used to ride horses and sit in the middle of fields like there was nothing strange about it.

She had to give her little girl this one little thing… for her birthday…

"Ok, baby…"

She stood up and hugged her mother, one hand wrapped around her mother's waist as the other remained over her extinguished eyes. She shook again as she cried. It was all too much for her now.

"I'll drive her," Mandy whispered rubbing Miley's bare arm, "I've got to be at the airport for my night flight to Miami anyway… the beach girls have a performance tomorrow afternoon…"

Tish nodded, and gradually together, they got Miley ready for the next hour of her life.

She had sat in the chair her mother placed her in for the entire hour as she watched the entire invited musical guests on stage. She was supposed to give a speech soon and thank everyone for coming. She was so glad that she'd planned and written it before arriving at the park. Speeches made her nervous and when she was nervous she got anxious and sometimes cried. Before giving her speech, she was meant to sing again, only this time her father was going to be with her to help her and give her support.

It went fine, not as well as she'd hoped, but she was an actress. She could act like everything was okay and not give a person a second thought about whether she was okay or not one minute, and be a complete mess the next when little or few were looking. She gave her speech and sung her song as well as she could, smiling as wide and happy as she could. Fireworks went off as she said goodbye and ended her speech. They all sat in awe at them.

Miley felt calm at their rhythmical sounds and closed her eyes, her hands in the palms of her parents. She sighed and felt a loss of hope in the pit of her stomach. There was something to be concerned about. There were reasons to be scared. She shouldn't feel like this and she didn't know why… If she could only find her calm and her resolve in an array of explosions and fireworks.

A/N: I'm gonna try upload a chapter or two a night, depending on how well this is being receiving again. I won't update as often if no one wants to read it again.

Love B xo