There were a lot of things I loved about that country lane; the way it curved naturally around the willow tree, the wood fences along either side of it and how it seemed as if it never ended. When I was a little girl, I truthfully believed that the lane just continued on forever. Now, at sixteen, I was more than familiar with the lie of 'forever'.
The word never had much meaning to me until Nick Grey told it to me just about everyday. If he didn't say it to me, he wrote it in permanent Sharpie on my hand, on the whites of my Converse sneakers or perhaps he would text it to me along with a line from some cheesy Shakespear poem. It wasn't until those lovely days of simplicity came to an abrupt end that the true meaning of 'forever' actually had an effect on me. I had looked it up in the dictionary. Obviously, I did know what the sense of the word was. I just wanted to compare reasonings, so I looked it up and was surprised I hadn't received an ultimately scientific response. "For-ev-er (noun/adverb)" it had read, "a seemingly endless period of time".
In that moment, I changed. Some would say for the best, others would say for the worst, but all agreed I wasn't the same I had been for years. While the rest of America had very detailed conversations on the sudden difference in me, I, on the other hand, could care less. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing was the same anymore. Nobody who had been in my life before was there anymore. Nobody wanted to even know me. Those were the least of me concerns, however. Learning that a word that had been so close to my heart for so long was generally nothing more than a freaking metaphor crushed me. I decided I needed to edit what I believed in a little bit more often after that. My new motto for life: I don't Believe in Forever.
Spending the first three weeks off I'd had in more than three years teaching my musical knowledge to a whole bunch of teenagers at a famous school in the middle of nowhere New York was far from how I had expected to spend the beginning of summer. When my manager had told me Disney had a "pleasant surprise" for me, I expected it to be me getting sent off to some tropical island to relax and regain my sanity. No. Of course not. Disney's got me signed up to teach some losers how to be a musician for three weeks. Not that I even really liked tropical islands at all, I would have preferred it much more than spending my summer in New York.
Evianna, my manager, had other ideas. She thought it would be fantastic if I had a chance to spend some time with other teenagers and experience a "real job" for the first time, supposing that being a musician isn't a "real job".
So, I packed a small suitcase, threw on some gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt, and hoped for the best. See, this is how a child-star-on-probation regains the respect she deserves from the people in charge of her. Of course, this wasn't the jail kind of probation. It was the kind that meant, one-more-mistake-and-your-outta-here sort of probation. Apparently, I was the diva of Hollywood. Hollywood has no sympathy for divas. It's times like these that divas have to do everything it takes to get rid of their diva-status, hold their heads up high and act like they aren't a diva, even if they are. Even people like me, who don't give a damn what others think, have to go through the process of diva rehab and get better. So if taking a plane a thousand miles from my beautiful country lane was what it took, that was what it took.
My arrival at this musical school had lots of people in shock, including myself. While most of the other kids were in shock at the sight of Miley Stewart, Musical Legend, I was in shock at the sight of Nick and Joe Grey standing amongst the kids, their expressions equally as shocked as mine.
Evianna responded the my being shocked by giggling a little, placing a reassuring hand on my bony shoulder, and saying, "surprise! Disney though it would also be great if you and the boys got to spend some quality time together!" her happiness unmistakable.
Nick stood there, right there in front of me, brown locks, brown eyes, hard muscles and that adorable brown freckle right above his upper lip that I had kissed so many times (A/N: yes, I do know that this freckle does not exist). Nobody spoke. Not even Joe, who never let a moment pass without some sort of lame joke. Not even the kids, of which there must have been at least fifty between the ages of seven and fifteen. I didn't know whether to say something, say nothing, run, scream, shout, hide, say hello or to just start crying. But as I made the first eye-contact I had had with him in the past eight months, to just start crying seemed like the appropriate way to go.
