This idea came to me yesterday. Bear with me. It's different. No, I don't own Instant Star.

I can't stop her.

I watch her try to put together the complicated pieces of her life, with no help from anyone else, and she does it in vain.

She is Gretel, lost in the vast woods of the music industry. Liam nipping at her heels, eating the bread crumbs she tosses behind her, her only source of finding a way out of the tangled web of lies and corruption. He pushes her further into the dark unknown, urging her to take the bait and walk into Darius's tempting gingerbread house. She's not as naive as Gretel. She sees what Darius can do, and how he deceives people. She just chooses to ignore it, turn up her nose at the sneakiness dancing before her eyes, putting her thoughts on the back burner for a while, digging them up only when necessary.

Her thoughts are needed now.

I can't help her through it. I wish I was the one appointed to guide her through it, but I'm not. If I try to help her, I'll end up starting a fight that will make her spiteful and do exactly what I was trying to prevent her from doing. So all I can do is watch her unknowingly throw her life away.

Her parents don't help at all. Her father's too busy jumping in bed with his woman of the week that he doesn't even notice if there's something wrong. She has to spell it out for him if she wants his advice. Her mother's been out of it lately. Dating the divorce lawyer, going out on the town with her equally eccentric daughter and picking up random guys she meets when she's half tipsy in a bar, that sort of thing. Not exactly typical ways of setting an example for her.

But she's headstrong. I keep telling myself that she'll find a way out, that she'll unhook her lip from the fishing pole that Darius is reeling her in with. But just because I tell myself that, doesn't mean it's going to happen. If wishes and thoughts came true, her age would shoot up to become equal with her wisdom and maturity, and I would be free to pursue her without a care in the world. All my illicit fantasies would come to life. But that can wait a few years.

This has to stop now.

I know better. I've had experience with the deceitful Darius that can change his mind in a split second without anyone raising a mere finger to stop him. My BoyzAttack days are over. He can't make me do commercials for Taco Bell anymore. Back then I was young, stupid, and brainwashed. My eyes were glued to the prospect of fame and fortune, and if that meant doing the meringue in front of a green screen in a sombrero, it was fine with me. As long as my name was out in the open. But nowadays, I could care less about fame. I'm doing perfectly well behind the scenes, and I intend to keep it that way. I am strictly freelance, and can leave in a second without saying sayonara and find a job the very next day. But I don't. Why, you ask?

Her.

I am the only pillar in her vast colosseum that is left standing, and she needs me to help keep her up. If I leave her now, her beautiful, majestic fortress will come crumpling down. Even when she thinks she hates me, even when she puts every fiber of her being into making an effort to hate me, she wouldn't be able to survive with the scavengers left in the music industry without me there to keep her head on straight, and she knows it. I may seem cocky and arrogant, but if you were to test out my formula, you will see that it's true. But what she doesn't know is that her situation is a mirror image of mine. She's my only pillar left to lean on. She's my only shoulder to cry on. She's the only person I know that can carry the weight of the world on her shoulders and then pile some of my troubles on top of it. She's everything to me.

But she can't know that.

I have to maintain my stoic facade and help her through her issues before I deal with mine. She always comes first in my world. I need to help her discover a balance in her life before she does anything else. Once she finds the center of the teeter-totter we call life, we can move on to a different, more complicated set of difficulties we have yet to overcome.

But that task is becoming increasingly harder.

She doesn't know how much she affects me. She doesn't know that every flip of her golden hair, every majestic note that comes out of her cherry red lips that also elicit fiery words, every step she takes and every breath she consumes drives me crazy. Every time she laughs, Every time she flashes me her million dollar smile, I just want to grab her and kiss her like there's no tomorrow. I would never want to let go. But I have to keep reminding myself that she's sixteen. She illegal. No matter how mature she may act, age is not just a number anymore. I can't, I won't, let the media taint our delicate relationship with lies of molestation. It'll have to wait.

But her career can't wait.

She doesn't know that we're both walking on eggshells here. One wrong step from either of us can get our asses kicked to the curb. I wouldn't have to blink before I landed another position at another record company, but she's a different story. I have to be careful for both of us so she won't be out of a job. I have to play kissy face to the one man I most despise so we can plant our roots into the floors of G Major and not worry about deforestation.

I know that our jobs are in jeopardy. I know that we have to work together to avoid the grenades the newly managed G Major is dropping. I know that I have feelings for the one girl I can't have, and I know that I have to prevent myself from doing anything stupid that will affect both our lives and jobs.

But in life, sometimes knowing isn't enough.

What do you think? R&R please.

XO, Petra