Hey, guys, so I'm totally new to the Camp Rock fandom, but I thought I had a radical idea for a story so I thought I'd try it out. Send me so feedback, yo.
It had been like falling off of a cliff.
No worse. It had been like dying.
No, it had been worse. Way worse. It had been like... like accidentally flushing the guitar pick John Mayer had kissed and tossed to her at his concert down the toilet.
All in all, this sucked.
"Bu... but, Mrs. Stanley, th-there has to be some kind of mistake..." Mitchie Torres' mouth opened and closed in a lame attempt at creating a coherent statement. She sat in the guidance counselor's office, nervously twisting the frayed denim of her skirt around her fingers. "There has to be. I... I've been working towards this since I was thirteen years old. There has to be a mistake..."
Only twenty-three seconds before, old, crusty Mrs. Stanley had taken Mitchie Torres' heart and smashed it into a million pieces with her words: "I'm sorry, Ms. Torres, but I don't make mistakes," she had said curtly. "I've reviewed your transcript-your extra curriculars in particular, and I just can't imagine Berkley accepting you on the small amount of community service hours you've clocked."
Mitchie blinked a few times in a dazed state. Mrs. Stanley's wrinkly face hazed away into the pathetic image of Mitchie donning a green apron, taking orders at Dairy Queen for the rest of her existence.
"But Berkley is my entire life! I've dreamed of going there since I was a little girl! You can't tell me that they won't accept me because I...I haven't given enough back to the community? There has to be a mistake. I've clocked sixty hours since my freshman year, isn't that enough? This is my dream, Mrs. Stanley."
Mrs. Stanley shook her white-haired head in that old, grumpy way of hers. "A dream is merely pictures that play behind your eyes, Ms. Torres," she cut. "Hard work is blood, sweat, tears, and the satisfaction of a job well done."
Thanks, Confuscious, Mitchie wanted to scoff. But instead, she found herself sliding out of the uncomfortable plastic of her chair to her knees. She was reducing herself to a lowly nothing, dragging herself down to a position of humiliation. All in honor of music. Of her future. "But Mrs. Stanley," Mitchie pleaded. She caught the surprise ignited in Mrs. Stanley's eyes as she crawled behind her guidance counselor's desk. "Sixty hours?! Sixty hours isn't enough? You have to help me! There must be something we can do..."
"Ms. Torres!" Mrs. Stanley recoiled at Mitchie's desperation. Mitchie Torres, her smartest, female student who usually had the most poise was on her knees, grasping at the ankle-length skirt that had been in the Stanley family for centuries. "I can understand that you are upset, but for God's sake have some dignity!"
The guidance counselor's office was suddenly stiff with silence. Mitchie feebly pulled herself from the ground, defeat puddling in her eyes. "Sorry," she sighed. "I just... I really..."
The Berkley College of Music was a speeding car, advancing down the highway of her dreams and clearly out of sight. How long had Mitchie imagined kick-starting her singing career there? How many times had she promised her mom and dad a house in the Bahamas after she became famous? It all suddenly became incredibly insignificant.
"Of course, Ms. Torres," Mrs. Stanley suddenly piped up, "You could still send in your applications and your essay. There's always still a chance. However, you and I both know how selective Berkley can be. They would take a girl who has clocked sixty-one hours of community service before sixty."
Mitchie winced at the reality. She dusted off her skirt, circled around the desk, and gathered her backpack. "Thank you anyway, Mrs. Stanley." Mitchie swallowed back her disappointment and quickly brushed her brown bangs away from her eyes. "Have a nice summer."
Mrs. Stanley didn't say anything in response. She merely pushed her bifocals up to the bridge of her nose, patted her head to see that her hair was in its neat place, and looked back to the pile of transcripts on her desk.
All those transcripts with all the right grades and all the right hours, the malicious thought pinched the back of her brain as she swept out of the office and into the empty hallway. The dismissal bell for summer had rung a mere hour before. An hour before, she had been excited. Totally psyched to have completed her senior year. Pumped for her question-mark of a future. And an hour later, she was briskly walking to the entrance of her school, trapped under a black rain cloud.
It had been like dying.
--
Inhale... she drank in the smell of her pillow- Garnier Fructis and fabric softener. When she was younger, her dad would fall into bed with her in the morning and claim that he could know all that she dreamed about by sniffing the top of her head. She would giggle as he dug his nose into her hairline and predict her dreams of NSYNC and Cinderella. And music and Berkley...
Exhale... she emitted huffs of negativity. How was she not dead yet? She had been facedown in her pillow for what had seemed like hours, the reality of her future slipping out of her fingertips a little bit more with each breath.
Suddenly, a soft knock came at her bedroom door. A faint squeak sounded as it opened. "Mitch?..." Mrs. Torres invited herself into the room. Her daughter lay unmoving on her bed, her face buried in a pillow. "Mitchie, are you in the mood for dinner?"
Nothing. Mrs. Torres watched Mitchie's shoulders rise and fall with the steady beat of her breath. Her glossy brown hair was splayed on her pillow. Mitchie Torres didn't look like she was in the mood for anything. "Mitchie..." Mrs. Torres cooed and perched herself on the edge of her daughter's bed. "There's no harm in still sending in your application. The worse they can do is say no, and if they do, there are always other colleges-"
With that, Mitchie's head snapped up. "Other colleges?" She whispered, her chocolate eyes crinkling at their edges in offence. "Have I ever shown interest in other colleges? Mom, Berkley was supposed to be the beginning of the rest of my life!"
"It still is, Mitchie," Mrs. Torres assured her. "I mean, what are a few community service hours? And you have to admit, you are rather good at making a big deal out of little things-"
"Mom!"
"I'm just saying!" Mitchie's mother stifled her laugh and stroked her daughter's head. "I'm just saying... send in your application. And if you're that worried, maybe you can squeeze in a few more community service hours before the fall."
Mitchie pulled herself into sitting position. "Yeah, but how?" she asked. "I got all of my volunteer locations from the school's resource officer. He's gone for the summer."
"How about you think about that stuff later?" Mrs. Torres mouth cracked into a sympathetic smile. "It's the first day of summer! Come eat dinner. I made your favorite, and maybe we can pop in a movie afterwards."
As lame as Mitchie thought it would be to watch a movie with her mom, (and it would probably end up being The Little Mermaid knowing her mother) she agreed anyway, knowing she made her mother feel important. "Okay," Mitchie caved. Her mother pressed a lipsticked kiss to her forehead.
"Oh, and before I forget," Mrs. Torres pulled a folded envelope out of the pocket of her trousers. "This came in the mail for you today."
Mitchie took the white envelope in her hands and recognized the playful handwriting immediately. Excitement flushed into ther stomach as she opened the letter from Caitlyn, the only person from Camp Rock she was still in contact with. They had been pen palling religiously for the past three years, filling each other in on things like relationships, performance opportunities, and plans for the future. It was refreshing to hear from her, like a new beginning to such a terrible day:
Dearest Mitch,
By the time you get this letter, I will probably still be running through my neighborhood in my pajamas in maniacal excitement. Would you like to know why?
BECAUSE I WAS ACCEPTED TO BERKLEY.
Isn't this radical? We're going to go to school together! No more snail mail and iChats! No more three-hour IM conversations! We're going to college together, girl!
I know by now, you too, are running through your neighborhood in only your pajamas in maniacal excitement, but slow down for about three seconds. I've got a few more things I've been dying to share with you.
One, I've enclosed some of my pictures from prom. The guy I'm with is Braden. Remember that story I told you about the duct tape and the swimming pool? THAT'S THE GUY. He turned out to be quite the prom date, surprisingly enough. I know you're wondering, what on earth happened to Michael?
And that, my friend, will have to be explained in another letter.
Two, I got a blast-from-the-past in the mail today.
It was a letter from Camp Rock. They want to know if I'll come back as a counselor...
Mhm.
I'm leaving it there.
REVIEW for the next chapter! I've got some crazy awesome ideas for this story and I would LOVELOVELOVE you if you told me what you thought of this chapter. So REVIEW!
please?