Camp Rock does not belong to me. :(

Mitchie Torres was packing for college, currently her room was a disaster. A war zone of clothes and old memorabilia that didn't make the cut littered the floor. One thing that was making the trip to college was a picture of her and a bunch of people from the first summer she attended at Camp Rock. A few pictures of Shane hadn't made the cut, and those were scattered on her floor, because they had fallen off the bed. She was choosing to leave her Camp Rock memorabilia behind because she was going to college. It wasn't like she was angry or upset about everything that happened. She just thought that Camp Rock and Shane Grey were in her past, and college was her present and future.

Mitchie hadn't intended to find the silver box under the bed; in fact she had quite forgotten it existed really. She had found it when a bottle of perfume had toppled after a gust of wind had blown through her open window. It was a cheap perfume; in a plastic container but she liked it and she bent down to retrieve it. It was then while blindly grasping for the round container that her hand grazed the corner of an object. Mitchie grabbed the object frowning in confusion and wondering briefly what it was, in a flash the memories flooded her mind and suddenly it was her own personal raincloud had come to rain on her day. It was the Shane Box, a decently sized silver jewelry box.

Mitchie opened the box and rifled through the photos on top of the pile. Underneath the photos was a tiny stuffed tiger key chain thing that he had won at an arcade, he won it because a tiger was Mitchie's favorite animal. The next thing she saw was the silver flower pendant on the silver chain, it was a cheap pendant that he had given her at a craft store. (She had been shopping for her cousin who loved making jewelry for people and she had been on a rather limited budget since she quit from the burger place.) It had meant a lot to her at the time that he gave it to her. There was the silver ring formed by peace signs. And then folded at the bottom were three letters that had been scribed by Jason when Shane sprained his wrist on a tour. The handwriting was strangely feminine looking and Mitchie rather thought it seemed indicative of Jason's neurotic personality, but the voice was unquestionably Shane's, and she thought it a funny combination of the two. Mitchie smiled at the memories then carefully put them all back in, this time including the pictures she had found in her desk that she had somehow missed when making the box and the Final Jam DVD jammed in.

After deciding that she was going on a small break from packing, she went downstairs to make herself dinner. On the way to the kitchen she found her mother sleeping on the couch surrounded by notebooks, cookbooks and several mugs of coffee (which obviously hadn't worked). Her mother ran a very successful catering business - Connie's Catering - she ran the business with Mitchie's aunt Sara, Sara was the organizational part and Connie was the face and star of the business. After all Connie did hold a degree from the Culinary Institute of America.

Mitchie knew her mother slept very little these days, so she tried to be very quiet while moving around her kitchen and making a grilled cheese and searching for the potato chips. She was in fact, very successful at being quiet, she was flipping her grilled cheese. When the back door opened, she knew it was her dad. And her father was yelling "Connie! Mitchie! You'll never guess who I saw at the store today!" in a very excited manner. At her name, Mitchie's hand slipped and she burned herself on the pan.

"SHIT!" she swore loudly and she was immediately reprimanded for the language. First, by her father, who still thought that Mitchie was as innocent as she was when she was a little girl. Then by her mother who was rubbing sleep from her eyes and giving a spiel on language.

"Mom, dad, seriously I'm off to college, I attended a public high school! I used to listen to rap, a 'shit' isn't the worst thing ever!" Mitchie declared.

Connie looked scandalized. "Mitchie, Shame for listening to rap." She scolded, jokingly. While her father just gave her a 'I thought you had good taste in music look'

Instead of this exchange making her cranky, like it normally would have, it made her feel sad. "I'm going to miss you guys so much!" Even though she was excited for going off to college she was going to miss her parents a ton. Mitchie had never really traveled anywhere without her parents, it was definitely going to be a big change. But she wasn't really moving that far, if you thought about it - only about an hour drive from her hometown.

"What have you packed?"

"Practically everything!" Mitchie gushed, she unfolds a piece of paper from her pocket, she looks at it. "I just need to pack a couple more things, and then I'm done."

Mitchie heads back upstairs, after finishing her grilled cheese, her mother accompanies her; and Connie watches her only daughter pack everything in her suitcase. When Mitchie runs downstairs to grab her iPod, Connie sees the Shane box. And the Final Jam DVD package sitting on top of the box. Connie has good intentions in her heart when she slips the DVD into Mitchie's DVD binder to bring to college; Connie knows her daughter doesn't want to forget everything about that summer, no matter what she says. The action has been completed when Mitchie reappears in her doorway, with her iPod and earbuds in hand.

Mitchie finished packing and then the three of them spent time moving Mitchie's luggage to the car so that the next morning they wouldn't be running around like headless chickens. (Though, even with the good planning of moving the stuff to the car the night before, they were still late leaving the house the next morning.) Both Connie and Mitchie had overslept, the two Torres women had ignored their alarms, and continued to sleep requiring Mr. Torres to wake them both up. After both were showered and had eaten some form of breakfast, the Torres were on the road!

While drinking coffee, she looked at the brochures and basic information that she had received. She was in Krauss 204, with one other girl - Valerie Anderson. They had emailed a couple of times over the summer and Mitchie was sure that they were going to get along. She also considered everything, she thought of her friend Sarah, the AP Chinese Mandarin student - who was spending the year in China through some crazy exchange program. Last time Mitchie had talked to her, (sometime in July, Sarah couldn't have been more excited.) Over the summer she had visited Camp Rock to see Caitlyn who was working there, in the kitchen surprisingly. She felt sad that she and Caitlyn had lost touch, they emailed once and a while, but it wasn't quite the same.

Mitchie also reflected on how people never really meant "We'll stay in touch, and be closer than ever!" well, maybe they did at first but then this, that and the other thing would happen, and it would fade away as a nice memory. Same with old boyfriends. Mitchie had sincerely hoped against all rational hope that Shane could have been her friend. But Shane had outright refused the offer, preferring to sever contact from Mitchie and Camp Rock. If she thought about it in depth, it still hurt that Shane couldn't even try, was it so against his pride and ego to be friends with a girl who dumped him? Instead, he had moved on full speed ahead to several bimbo girls. And she only knew this because of the constant tabloid updates on: "Shane Grey: Rebel Without A Cause"

Mitchie had had one other boyfriend since Shane, and his name was Alex, he was kind and sweet. They had adored each other, but when it came down to it, they didn't love each other. They had gone to prom together, and they had almost had sex but then they had mutually decided they weren't ready for that commitment and had broken up amicably. They talked frequently, still.

Somewhere between her sentimentality and thinking about Alex, Mitchie had fallen asleep. The stopping of the car jerked her awake unpleasantly, after climbing out of the car and adjusting her sunglasses she looked around at the campus. This was a new place; no one here knew that she, Mitchie Torres had dated Shane Grey. She considered reinventing herself, but she had already tried that with less desirable results. Mitchie and her father dragged her stuff to Krauss 204, while her mother hovered and worried that her husband was going to injure his back.

The rooms were pretty basic, everything was in pairs: beds, closets, desks, chairs. Mitchie tossed her stuff on the bed under the window. Connie had opened up Mitchie's suitcase and pulled out the bedspread and other bedding accessories. Mother and daughter were setting up the bed. After they were finished setting up Mitchie's bed, Mr. and Mrs. Torres hugged their daughter goodbye, Mitchie and her parents tried not to cry, but eventually they went off. Mitchie sat on her bed, thinking, she thinks there might be mandatory freshman orientation stuff, she grabs her purse where she has put all of that information and searches through it, freshman activities do not begin until 3. She has plenty of time, it is 9:30am.

There is not much to do, she concludes. She gets up and decides to take a long walk through the campus. Mitchie sees a lot of parents, but even more students that are overjoyed to be at college. When she makes it back up to her room, she is surprised to find that it has another occupant, lying on the bed reading a tabloid. The stranger was a petite blonde girl with purple streaks in her hair. She looked up, and after placing the magazine aside she leapt up and introduced herself in a rush as Valeria Renee Anderson, she however said that she preferred 'Renee.' "You must be Micheline." Renee extended her hand out to Mitchie who shook it unenthusiastically.

"Actually, I go by Mitchie, since elementary school when kids asked if my dad was the tire man, I shortened it." Mitchie said, "Sorry I babble when I'm nervous." Mitchie apologized, slightly laughing; Renee smiled and joined in tentatively.

"Mitchie, eh? You excited to be here?"

"Yeah, I am."

The two girls stood in silence for a few seconds, "what's your favorite band?" Renee asked Mitchie, casually.

"I have no idea, I like almost anything, except for metal, really" she paused "and most rap, you?"

"Nice, same my weakness is Connect 3, it's lame I know." Renee said looking ashamed.

"Are you a die-hard fan?" Mitchie asked, a feeling of dread was spreading through her.

"Yeah, partly. Would love to meet them. Been to a couple concerts. I suppose" Renee said, nonchalantly. Mitchie had been dreading this; could she put up her Camp Rock picture now? You know, Mitchie thought - fuck it. Pretending that her mother was the president of Hot Tunes China had backfired horribly, so why would Mitchie Torres, normal girl succeed any better?

Her new roomie had turned to hang up a poster and her back was turned toward Mitchie.

"Hey Renee, I have to tell you something." She says cautiously.

"Yes?" Her roomie replied, glancing at her briefly then returning to the poster which wouldn't hang straight.

"I have kind of a random confession to make. I know Connect 3, I used to date Shane." Renee flipped around to look at Mitchie, her mouth dropped open. "I'm occasionally still in contact with Jason and I introduced Nate to my friend Sarah, and I think they are still dating." Renee was staring at Mitchie.

"Seriously?" Renee was astounded at the announcement, but recovered fairly quickly. "Dude! I knew I recognized you! You're THE Mitchie Torres! From the tabloids" Mitchie sighed involuntarily, when she had been in the tabloids it had been a pretty miserable part of her life. Shane and her had argued a fair amount and had pretended to have "true love" because Shane had been promoting a new Connect 3 album at that point.

"Are you a tabloid fan?" Mitchie asked, nervously. She was unsure of how this would work in their relationship, and close quarters. Ever since she had been media-bait, she was vigorously against reading them.

"Yes! I am addicted, it's a slight problem. I have the newest actually, picked it up this morning -" Renee brandishes a shiny new magazine to Mitchie. She stared at the article and felt the blood run cold in her chest. She looked at the cover of the newest People magazine. "Tess Tyler Spills ALL!!" Her chest constricted uncomfortably, what could this mean? Did it literally mean what it said?

I feel like this is a millionth version of this chapter. I swear. But you know, to the author a work is never perfect :)

11/13/09