Hey! Here's a new story of mine! It's another good one! …I hope! Luv yousss.

~PurpleSpring


Aerie's POV

"ARABELLA!" Mimi shouted, her voice reaching all the way up into my bedroom. I opened the trap door, and climbed down the cast iron stairs. I stared into my mother's chocolate brown eyes, as if staring her down. I hadn't inherited those eyes of hers—the ones that almost always looked sweet and caring—but now they just held contempt. I couldn't imagine what I'd done to deserve that look. "What?" I asked, a soothing note in my voice. I'd noticed that whenever my mother was worked up, it was best to act calm so she would settle down. She was quite like a child. I quickly sat down on the black, spiral, cast iron stairs, anticipating a long conversation ahead. Mimi rubbed her pale forehead, pushing back her dark brown hair. She seemed to be calming down. Mimi sighed. "Why did I receive a letter addressed to you from your father?" Mimi asked, her voice calmer, but also clearly upset. I took in a breath. My father? As in the one that was a mystery to me? My mother had always told me he was famous, but long gone. I possessed one measly picture of him, a picture that did no help because my mother said he'd changed much since the picture. Whether or not she meant physically, I didn't care. I just always assumed I'd never know him, never see him. My mouth hung open. "My father?!" I asked, and instantly stood up, and before my mom—oops, Mimi hated it when I called her mom—could stop me, I reached for the letter and took it right out of her hands. I looked at the typed up letter. It was a letter begging me to call me, as if he'd sent letters before. I looked up at my mom. "Did he send letters before?" Mimi shook her head. But somehow I didn't believe her. But if she'd been hiding it, she wouldn't have called me down. I looked at my mom.

"Why is he suddenly begging me to talk to him?" I asked, then Mimi sighed. Okay, here was what she was hiding. I braced myself.

Mimi looked down at her coffee and stepped into the kitchen, starting to make breakfast. "Your father is…Matthew Grey." I choked on the air I was breathing suddenly. Ohmigod, I was related to Shane Grey? I almost vomited a little in my mouth. I despised the band Connect Three, their voice quality was terrible, their songs stereotypical, and their instrumentals half-rate. So what, Shane was hot, it didn't take away from the fact that his music was terrible. I lived in New York, for Christ's sake! I knew good music. I'd seen Spring Awakening, In the Heights, RENT, Phantom of the Opera. Connect three didn't impress me. I looked at my mom.

"So how does this relate to me?" I asked, Mimi sighing at my obvious detest. She knew how I despised their second-rate boy band.

Mimi looked up from the frying pan where she was making pancakes in. "Your father is looking for new talent. I told him about your voice and your acting talent. He was interested. You know he has a good voice, and so do I if I say so myself, so he was interested. You probably inherited both of our talent, and with all of your experience, you're a good actress too." I gaped at my mother. My father wanted to use to me to make more money?

"So my father is looking for more money?" I asked, not surprised. He just wanted to use me as some sort of asset. My mother looked up at me.

"Aerie, you have a chance at something here. You could become famous, great! You could become what I wanted to be!" My mother exclaimed getting more and more excited, despite the sleepy look in her eyes. I pursed my lips, unhappy with my mom. I was sixteen, she was she was thirty-two. Guess what happened there. My mothers fame plans had been dashed with a teen pregnancy by a much older rock star. He was something around twenty-five. My mother was the classic groupie.

"Don't project your childhood dreams onto me," I said, unleashing my anger onto my mother. How could she want me to be her? Hell, I didn't want to be her.

"Arabella, you are going to do this. Anyway, I'm going to be leaving to France in a few days for a month, so at least try it okay?" I couldn't believe my mother was taking his side. My mother turned off the stove and walked over to me, and ran her long fingers through my dark coffee brown hair. The color was inherited from her, but the texture definitely wasn't. Mimi's dark hair was thick and full, while mine was straight and rather thin. The only reason it wasn't completely thin was because it was layered and went down to the middle of my back. Mimi was a quarter Mexican, so that's why her hair was so thick.

I sighed. "Fine mom, I'll go." I quickly released myself from her grasp, and ran up to my room. This would mean leaving my friends, my school, and even my part in the school musical behind. I was Ilse in the school's production of Spring Awakening. That's right, I was in Spring Awakening at school. I went to an artsy private school on the outskirts of Manhattan, and the normal PG rating that most schools endorsed were broken down at the school. Rumor was next year they were putting on Hair. I didn't want to miss that. I'd recently seen Jonathan Groff in hair, and since then, I've been absolutely in love with the show. Damnit, why couldn't I stay? But for some reason my mother wanted me to completely sell out and move over 3,000 miles away from all my friends.

I took my beat up pink Razr out of my Philip Lim double strap bag, sighing. My mother was an exec for Infinity records, which was how I got all my expensive gear and how I got into my private art school. She still wanted to be famous though. But all she was was someone who helped other people become famous. Aerie sighed and punched Kahra's number into her cell phone. Her mother still refused to buy her a new phone regardless of their money situation. And her mother also refused to get a new apartment that wasn't always so damn cold, even though they had the money for it. Even though Aerie couldn't imagine living anywhere else—

"Hey A!" Kahra exclaimed, her voice interrupting my internal tangent. Kahra had been my best friend since I entered the art school in sixth grade. She was basically like the quiet, blonde version of me. Also instead of being interested in acting, she was more into the behind the scenes part of theatre. She was also an amazing artist and photographer.

"Hey K," We called ourselves by our initials, like the people you see in Gossip Girl and shit. It was just a thing we developed, because I'd never really liked the nicknames of Bella or Aerie. And Kahra couldn't really have many good nicknames. So I'd started calling Kahra K and she started calling me A. I took in a deep breath. "K, my moms making me move to L.A. to live with my father," I said, but it came out more like, "mymomsmakingmemovetolatowithmyfather." I could hear Kahra staring at the phone.

"What?!" She said, her normally quiet voice growing loud. Okay, loud for her, which was regular volume for me. I frowned at the phone. "You can't move to L.A. You hate non-white Christmases. You hate all the fakeness of L.A. You hate movie-stars!" Kahra "yelled" into the phone. It was all true. I wanted to be a Broadway star, not a movie star. But my mom was right; this was kind of a once-in-a-lifetime chance. I kinda wanted to go, but I didn't want to be selling out. Also I really wanted to meet my father.

"I'm sorry, I have to go. My mom wants me to meet my dad. And he wants to make me famous." I heard K suck air into her mouth and then choke on whatever food she was eating presently. She was extremely skinny, yet she managed to consume more food in a day than I consumed in a week. I smiled at her hacking; knowing that it was most likely our favorite off-brand of ChexMix. The stuff was a neon shade of orange, but extremely cheesy. And that's exactly why we liked it. It made me sad that we would no longer be able to have sleepovers every weekend, where we made cupcakes or cookies, watched a new list of movies we said we needed to see, and then passed out around 2 A.M. after many rounds of pop and candy.

"YOU'RE FATHER?! Who is he? What does he do? Why didn't I find about this earlier?" This is the first time I'd ever heard K sound so excited. I laughed at hearing her so upset. "Stop laughing!" She yelled, but then she began to giggle too.

"Yes, my father. He's Matthew Grey." Another huge inhale from Kahra, but I interrupted her before she could comment, "He's some sort of talent agent or something, and he wants another star and he thinks its me. And I just found out too so were sort of in the same position." I could hear K stuttering into the phone.

"You're related to Shane Grey?! You mean the worst singer ever?" Then Kahra went on to do an over-exaggerated version of a song of theirs. It was throaty and over-nasaly. I smiled at her imitation. It was true. Maybe when I met him I could give him singing lessons.

"Yeah, and also the 'bad boy' of the tween world." We both sniggered. He was a bad boy like I was a High School Musical fan. Translation: Not at all. I looked at the letter again. It had listed Matthew's number. I should probably call him. "Look K, I'll call you later. I'm going to call my father." We said our goodbyes and I dialed my father's number.

"Hello?" A teenage boy's voice answered the phone, and I looked weirdly at the phone. Which number had my father given me?

"Um, hi, is Matthew Grey there?"

"Uh no, he left his cell at home, who is this?" The boy asked again, and I couldn't help but think that I recognized his voice. I shook it off.

"This is his daughter, Arabella." A suddenly silence fell over the line. "Who am I talking to?"

"Shane Grey."

Oh fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I'd made a completely huge mistake. I shouldn't have—I didn't mean to…

"O—oh," I stuttered. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to—"

"His daughter? I have a sister?" Shane questioned me, and I felt my cheeks flush. If we'd been talking in person I think I would've fainted. This was such an awkward situation.

"Uhm, I'm sure your father will explain it…um, can I have his work number or somewhere else I could reach him?" I asked, my voice shaking. He gave me his fathers work number and I muttered a quick goodbye. I quickly dialed it, not wanting to even dwell on the conversation previous.

Matthew's secretary answered. "Hello, this is Matthew Grey' office can I help you?" She asked, her voice almost robotically perfect. I tried not to vomit. I bet she was some actress who was really bad and was never cast in anything, so she thought she'd be able to get somewhere by being a secretary and kissing major ass.

"This is Arabella, his daughter." Another silence. I heard her drop the phone and I heard the furious clacking of high heels against hardwood floor. Then I heard more shuffling and whispering, and finally the phone being raised and the happy voice of a man filtering through the phone.

"ARABELLA!" He exclaimed, his voice sunny and welcoming. I had seen a few pictures of him recently, and he had come a long way since his rockstar days. He was still slender and looked nimble, but now he was a well-groomed L.A. elitist. Which really wasn't saying much. "What's up?" I could even hear a tone of a surfer dude in his voice. Ick, he had changed. I really wanted to yell, 'SELL-OUT' as loud as I could.

"Hi Matthew—I mean dad, I mean, um hi!" I said, flustered. He laughed at my awkwardness. "Um, I'm willing to come to L.A. And I could be your next client…" I trailed off.

"That's great! I'll send a ticket to your mother."

And just like that, I was headed for L.A.