(A/N) Thank you to Banana babe903, zoezora, and SDKLSDGH for the reviews! Virtual hugs for you! (: Your feedback are definitely appreciated and make me write faster, hehe. Anyway, I apologize in advance if this chapter is boring, but it had to be done. It's kind of like the filler chapter that explains Tawni's secret and why she is the way she is.

But no worries! In reward for bearing with this explanatory chapter, there's some Chad/Tawni action coming up, as well as Sonny/Chad of course. Also, I'll post the next chapter tomorrow to make up for this. Haha.

On to the chapter! (:

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(From last chapter):

Because there was something Tawni had never told anyone. Something none of her current acquaintances knew about her.

That is, Tawni Hart was perfectly aware that she wasn't the best-at-everything, loved-by-everyone starlet she constantly acted as. Oh yeah, she knew. She'd always known that. In fact, she'd spent the first twelve years of her life as a very different Tawni – a Tawni actually much like Sonny Munroe. Optimistic. Cheerful.

A dreamer.

Unrealistic. Tawni couldn't help thinking now, bitterly. I used to be such a foolish child, trapped in my self-made idealistic dream. Luckily, I eventually opened my eyes.

One day, as she'd looked around at her friends and acquaintances, she had seen each of them excelling at a specific something she could never have.

Each time Tawni had her eye on a cute boy, she would eventually hear whispers through the halls that said boy was falling for slender, exotic Caroline Tanner. Or bubbly, spontaneous Tinsley Lovett. Or athletic, glossy Katelyn Johnson. Blah, blah, blah. And so on. It happened every time. With every boy. Tawni never won. It hurt just as much every time.

And each time Tawni studied her hardest or tried her best, it'd always be Stacey Ko who got the part in the toothpaste commercial. Nicole Berry who got the cheer captain position. Jolie Carter who won 'Class Friendliest.' Tawni had always given 10% more than everyone else, yet seemed to get nothing in return.

With a sinking heart, the young Tawni came to realize that perhaps she wasn't a protagonist in life's movie.

Perhaps she was an extra.

Because extras didn't have to win. By the end of the movie, their conflicts needed no resolutions. Their goals needed no achievement. The loose ends of their plotline didn't have to be all neatly tied up before the credits rolled. Extras just… didn't matter.

Once Tawni realized this, her usual warm demeanor began to melt away. In its place began to form a cool, icy shell of her former self. Forget caring about other people, she thought. Forget compassion. Being nice. They'll never appreciate it anyway.

And once she realized that she would never be the star in life's movie, she decided to take matters into her own hands. If life wasn't going to make her a star, then by God, she was going to become one the only way she could – by acting like one.

Even if she knew that she wasn't.

When she was 13, she'd left her Hollywood middle school and lame child TV show acting jobs behind to start at So Random!. Where she could finally be a star, if only a literal one. And then today Marshall had dropped that bomb on her – that this Sonny Munroe girl from Wisconsin was joining the cast. Tawni didn't need her. She didn't need anyone threatening her only chance to be something. So Random! was the only thing Tawni had, and no one was going to take that away from her.

And at So Random! and Studio 2, no one knew who she used to be.

No one, that is, except Chad Dylan Cooper.

This exception wasn't by choice, by any means; in fact, Tawni had rather he didn't know. He was a liability. Unfortunately, she had known Chad since she was 6, when they both starred on the short-lived children's show The Goody Gang. Thus, he got to experience "old Tawni," the wide-eyed naïve one who would regale him with tales of perfect princesses, teach him about chivalry, and argue with vehement support for the idea of happily-ever-afters.

Tawni was embarrassed that someone from her past knew of her secret, and, at the same time, annoyed that she couldn't have started over with a clean slate. She often comforted herself with the fact that Chad probably assumed that she actually became the diva she pretended to be; assumed that perhaps she had legitimately gained that confidence over the years and that her new cool exterior was just a gradual result of the casualties of a showbiz life.

So Chad couldn't know the truth.

Tawni wouldn't let him. She needed to bury the only link between her past and present.

Chad couldn't know that deep down, Tawni was moreso an insecure and hurt little girl, embittered by life's beatings and forced to put on a strong face, than a confident, cutthroat star.

He had unknowingly gotten it right when he said that he'd "never seen anyone act more like a self-absorbed and self-aware star" than Tawni did. The key word was 'act.' Tawni hadn't been herself in a long time.

For as long as she could remember, Tawni Hart had been an actress.

In more ways than one.

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(A/N) How was it? I hope you liked it! Again, sorry for the short filler-type chapter. It kills me to post chapters like this, but I'll make it up to you! Please feel free to leave me some inspiration with a review/question/comment/anything! Thanks for reading, and I'll update very soon. (: