If you didn't know, (I had posted a message on my profile), my laptop died and needed to be shipped back to Toshiba in order to be fixed. This chapter, or, chapter 7 was on it. I got my laptop back a few days ago, and I re-read chapter 7, and realized I hated it. So I rewrote it. Voila.

Review?

Sometimes life takes its hand and bitch slaps you right across the face. I find it sort of refreshing. It's like a wakeup call, screaming my name and telling me to stop being such an idiot. Do I ever really listen? No, I don't. But isn't it simply enough to know that what I'm doing is stupid and I should stop?

My room is a mess. I acknowledge that as I enter the room, my mind still reeling from the fireworks-inducing kiss that Sonny and I just shared, but any notion to clean the mess is nonexistent. I have a bigger mess to take care of, and it's called my life.

--

"Quiet on set!" Marshall is pacing back and forth, looking at the camera men with a fidgety look on his face and I know that he doesn't think that we'll be able to pull off this rehearsal in time for the live show. The day has been less than productive; the only thing I've done is screw up my lines, and the only thing Sonny has done is not show up. Grady is standing in front of me in a floral button up shirt and green shorts. On a normal day, this would make me laugh. Today is so not normal. I look back at Marshall. His eyes are nearly falling out of his skull. I can see his hand shaking, and his cell phone is held precariously between his thumb and index finger. He's waiting for Sonny's call. Isn't everyone? "Ok, ok, we can do this without Sonny."

"It's Sonny and Alex's skit," Nico says, taking a bite of an apple from the snack table.

"Then you get to wear a skirt,"

"Again?" Even I groan. Nico doesn't shave his legs- ever. "How come Zora can't do it? She's a girl, after all. I'm sick of wearing skirts."

"I'm sick of seeing him in skirts," Grady chimes in. He turns to me. "Alex, have you talked to Sonny? This isn't like her to just bail. Did you guys have a fight?"

"Not exactly," I bite my lip.

"Can't you guys just kiss and make up already?" I flinch. That's the least of what Sonny and I need to be doing right now. "This skit is awesome, and we can't do it without the other half." I look at Marshall, who is nearly in tears, and at Nico, still chomping on an apple, and at Grady, who looks like a complete idiot in that shirt, and I grab my bag from the floor.

"I'll find her," I grumble. My feet take me away, running towards my dressing room. Sonny isn't here, just as I suspected, but there is a note taped to my mirror. My hand trembles a bit as I rip the paper from the tape. All it says, is The Roof, scrawled in Sonny's neat, delicate handwriting. I'm suddenly regretting the decision to find her. I leave the room, take the stairs up, and exit the door that leads to the roof. It's a beautiful California day. I slip the hairband from my wrist into my hair and pull it back. There is one thing that bothers me about life, and that's wind. Wind was only put on this earth to mess up a girl's hair. The makeup and hair department won't like it when I come back down.

The roof is actually beautiful. It reminds me of sitting on the balcony at home. When I was six, and I remember this perfectly, there were summer nights in New York that were so hot that nothing could keep me in my bedroom. My blankets would burn my skin as if they were made of hot coals, each one with an individual temperature of over one hundred degrees. Back then, my room was filled with wondrous treasures that I collected over time; a sea shell from when we visited mom's cousin in Florida, a blue rock that I took when Dad took us site seeing in one of the Wizard portals, and a collection of bouncy balls that I had begun only to annoy my mother when she found them stuck down drains or when she caught me casting them across the room with my beginners wand for toddlers. But I would ignore all that, and without knocking anything off the shelf my parents didn't think I could reach, I would take the lid off of what my mom and dad thought was just a ceramic dog I made in kindergarten, and with my tiny little hand, grab as many bite-size candy bars as I could. It was my secret stash that I still have today.

My feet would slide across the floor, a pillow in one arm and the candy in the other hand, and out the door wall I would go. We had a cushioned lawn chair out on the balcony, and with my candy, I would lay out and star at the moon until I would fall asleep. In the morning, as soon as the sun would come out, Justin would wake me up and help me to my bedroom. I asked him once why he always did that, and he told me he didn't want me to get in trouble with mom and dad. It's funny how when you're little, things are different. Justin would hang me out to dry, today.

Sonny is sitting a little further out than where I am standing. Her back is to me, but I wonder if she heard the door close when I walked through. She's leaning against a small structure on the roof, I think it's a shed of some sort, and she's looking out onto L.A. This is a moment in my life I wish I could be invisible, or a fly on the wall, just to see the look on her face without her seeing me. My fingers lightly tape my wand that's in my pocket. It would be so easy, to just for a moment, cast an invisibility spell on myself. No one would know. Up here, the only one watching me is myself.

It startles me when I hear Sonny's voice, not speaking to me, but singing out into the wind. Her voice carries through the air, twirling and swirling with each new gust of wind that blows against our faces. It's not a sad song she sings, but not a happy one either. I've never heard it before. I press my body up against the opposite side of the shed and listen for a moment. This isn't the voice I heard when we were messing around in her room cleaning. That voice was good, this voice is sending chills up my spine. She stops, and I move back to the door, opening it just slightly and slamming it just loud enough for her to hear it. Sonny turns to me, smiles a little, and motions for me to come over and sit down.

"Hey," I mumble, taking a seat next to her. I sit as far to my right as I can. "We need to rehearse, you know. Marshall is having a meltdown in there," She's quiet. Her foot is moving around on the cement, making invisible scribbles that are washed away with the air. I kick my foot at a pebble that goes tumbling down the slanted part of the building.

"When I first came here, Tawni wanted nothing to do with me," she says. "The dressing room was cramped with her. It was like I wasn't even allowed to breathe the same air. I was suffocated." I pick up another pebble and run the pad of my finger over it. Bumpy, smooth, grainy, cold; all attributes of a single rock. "I found this place my third week here. It's beautiful, isn't it?" I nod.

"Sonny, they're really worried about you. We should go back-"

"I'm sorry, Alex."

"What?" Thump, thump, thump. That's what a normal heart should sound like. Right now, mine is thumpthumpthumpthump. There is barely a pause between the beats.

"For earlier, for what happened, it was my fault, and I'm sorry. It won't happen again." I want it to happen again. Wait, did I just think that? She looks at me and a lump grows in my throat. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, yeah. Right." I mumble. "Yeah, of course. It's no big deal." She starts walking away, back towards the door. I stare back out into the smoggy, hazed view of Hollywood buildings and run over to her to catch up, grabbing her hand and stopping her. "Why did you put that note on my mirror? To come up here?" She looks from my hand, to my face, and then back down to my hand. I let go and back up a few steps.

"Because…" she says slowly. "It's beautiful."

And she leaves me standing there. Again.

--

"Concentrate, Alex." My dad yells. I let out a frustrated groan and fling myself back onto the couch. This isn't working. This whole wizard stuff is so overrated. Dad walks over to me, grabs my hand, and pulls me back up. "You have exams in a week, young lady. Now come on, Lex. Just focus for a little bit."

"Fruxis Exchangus!" I yell, pointing my wand at Max. My entire body becomes rigid, and Max straightens up like a board. For a moment, everything is black. Then, as I regain my vision, my legs turn to jelly and I fall on the floor. "What was that?" I shout to my dad. He's laughing, clutching his sides, and leaning back into his reclining chair. I ignore Max lying on the ground and sucker punch my dad in the shoulder. "Dad, what just happened!"

"The spell just went wrong, that's all."

"And you're laughing about that… why?"

"Because seeing the look on your and Max's faces when your brains were moving around trying to escape was hilarious."

"Our brains? Dad, you said that spell was to exchange voices."

"I lied. I figured you wouldn't want Max to see what you were thinking,"

"Well, yeah." I say matter-of-factly, rubbing my temple. I suddenly have a very bad migraine. "I'm done for the day. Where's Harper? We need to go shopping. Zora's birthday is coming up and I bet I can find something cooler here in New York than I can in L.A. Everything there is so unoriginal, believe it or not. Harper!" Harper still lives with my family. Well, she is family. It isn't weird or abnormal. My parents love Harper, and sometimes I think they love having her a little more now that I'm not here. At least they still have a daughter around, right?

Harper comes into the lair. Her style hasn't changed since I left, either, no matter how much I sort of wish it had. She's wearing a dress made entirely from fruit loops.

"Feeling a little loopy today, Harper?" My dad jokes.

"As if that's different from any other day," I point out, falling backwards on the couch. Harper pushes my legs off the couch so she can sit down. "Hey!" I whine. "You know, my feet were there."

"Yeah, I know. I saw them."

"I'll leave you girls be," Dad says, grabbing Max by the shirt collar and picking him up off the floor. "Max, you can stand now. Your legs are fine. I need help in the sandwich shop."

"Are those real fruit loops?"

"Plastic."

"Darn it."

"Why?"

"Hungry."

"Pizza?"

"Tired of it."

"Hot dog vendor?"

"Requires walking."

"Pretzels?"

"Again, walking."

"Chinese food?"

"Too expensive."

"You know you live in a subway shop, right?"

"I don't want subs."

"Well what do you want?"

"Pizza."

"You're joking, right?"

--

Casey's Pizza is what every Alex Russo in the world dreams of; it's greasy, it's cheesy, and it's quite possibly the most heart clogging food you can find in New York City. I've never been able to eat a piece of pizza and even compare it to this place, and even thinking there is some Pizza restaurant out there that could compete blows my mind. It's a legacy, even if only in my little world.

Ironically, Harper and I met here. When I was seven years old, Justin, Max and I had gotten into an argument. I lunged for Justin, his lanky nine year old form crashing into our wooden floor, and Max jumped on my back. We were a Russo sandwich, complete with the mustard stain on Max's shirt from his lunch. During the struggle, my arm wedged between Justin's neck and my stomach, I kicked my leg upwards and slowly, as if the entire world was put into slow motion, the antique crystal vase that mom and dad had received as a wedding present from dad's cousin came crashing down. Tiny shards sliced through the air, ripping and tearing their way down to the floor to join us. I was paralyzed. Justin threaded his noodle arm through mine and lifted me up, all while struggling to put Max in his other arm. No one spoke. We didn't have to. We all knew the storm that was coming.

Justin tossed Max and I onto the sofa, and moved carefully around the broken vase. He slipped into sneakers and walked back where the mess was, carefully scooping up the tiny shards and whisking them into a make-shift bowl, which was only a kitchen towel cupped in his other hand. I remember looking into the dark blue towel, at the tiny pieces of what once was, and marveling at how something once so solid could turn into practically dust. Justin looked at me after he had shaken the towel out into the sink. Justin was nine then, and he was already saving me.

Long story short, mom came home. Justin had tried fixing the vase, but his spell was only powerful enough to fix half of it. She came in right as Justin and I were standing over the sink, staring into the half of the vase that was now back intact. She spoke quick, panicked Spanish that I didn't understand. I didn't know if I was in trouble or not. So, I did what any scared child would do; I ran.

The substation was littered with the afternoon rush. Dad didn't even notice as I pushed through the crowds of people waiting for a free table and out onto Waverly. My little legs pumped faster and faster, and then I stopped, so short of breath that I leaned over and sat down on the curb. Far away, I heard my name being called, mingling with the sounds of busy shoppers and hungry patrons from the restaurant behind me.

"Hi," a girl asked. She had red-brown hair, and in her hand on a plate, there were two pieces of pizza. I stood up. "I'm Harper. What's your name?"

"Alex," I said quietly. Did talking to strangers also include people my own age?

"Want some pizza?" That's all it took to spark our friendship. We sat on the curb, right outside Casey's, eating pizza. She asked me if I heard the people yelling my name, and I said yes. She asked if they were looking for me, and I said yes also. She asked me why, and I told her people were always looking for me, because I was famous, and they just wanted my autograph. She believed me. I look over at Harper now as we walk down Waverly towards Casey's, and as we sit down at the same curb, I smile. Maybe one day people really will be asking for my autograph.

"What are you smiling about?" Harper asks, taking a bite of her cheese and pineapple pizza.

"I love it there."

"You seem happy," she says.

"I am." I take a bite of my pizza. "Harper?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm in love." She drops her pizza on the plate, a little pool of grease gathering at the bottom where it's slanted on her lap. I wonder why I just said what I did, but I can't take it back. Her dress creaks as she turns to look at me, the plastic fruit loops scratching against each other.

"Alex, people in Hollywood are bad. They do drugs and stuff! Don't you read the tabloids?" Typical Harper. She would bring up tabloids. "Don't date another Dean, Alex. He was a bad boy."

"I'm not dating, or thinking about dating, another Dean." I pause. "It's more like a Dean…ette. Without the leather jacket or unhealthy obsession with cars. I doubt Sonny even knows a thingerdoodle from a whatchamacallit, whatever those car terms are that Dean would try and teach me."

"Sonny?!"

There are moments in life where you want everything to just stop. You want the wind to stop blowing, the sun to stop shining, and the grass to stop growing. Everything just has to stop. The only thing that's stopping now is my heart, and my breathing, and any notion that I'm alive. My entire body is rigid with fear. What is Harper thinking?

"I…" Pause. "I, well, yeah. Sonny." I mumble.

"Sonny."

"Yes, Sonny."

"Like, Sonny your co-star Sonny?"

"That's the only Sonny I know."

"Sonny."

"Didn't we already go through this?" I'm frustrated. I stand, walking over to the trash can and I toss my hardly eaten slice of pizza into the trash can. Suddenly I'm not very hungry. My feet start moving away from Casey's, away from Harper, and away from the problem. Sometimes I wish I could run fast, because if I ran fast enough, maybe I could run away from all my problems. They always seem to be faster than me. Harper grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop.

"Come on, we should talk."

"I don't want to talk,"

"Yes you do,"

"No I don't,"

"Yes you do," she says in that sarcastic, baby talk, whiney voice. I turn to look at her. She's doing the puppy-dog pout. Ugh. "So, Sonny, huh?"

"Yes, I think I like Sonny, a lot. We kissed, and now I can't stop thinking about her. It's driving me mad Harper, absolutely mad. And yesterday, when no one could find her, yeah, sure, I acted all cool and calm and easy-going regular every day Alex but inside I was flipping out! That shouldn't be me. I was never like that with Dean! And she's a girl, and I'm confused, and I'm scared, and please don't hate me." Breathe, Alex. Breathe.

"I don't hate you," Harper says soothingly. This is the calmest and most "normal" I've ever seen Harper. It's almost creepy. "In fact, good for you. At least it's not a creepy biker boy."

"Are you serious?" I feel like my cheeks are going to explode any second from smiling.

"Yeah, but as soon as she gets a motorcycle and dyes her hair multiple colors, that relationship isn't going to work for me anymore."

"Ha," I kick at a rock on the ground. "Nothing is going to come of it. We," I put up air quotes with my fingers. "talked, and she just started rambling about how she was sorry. Then she walked away. Nothing will come of it-" There is a huge explosion, and Harper and I go tumbling to the ground. We look over and in the distance we see Casey's in flames. My breathing is rough, and I can feel Harper shaking next to me. Screams fill my ears and I cringe, as if I was hearing nails on a chalkboard. Harper grabs my hand and squeezes it, finding any reassurance that we are here and alive. People run in our direction covering their mouths from the ash and smoke, their clothes littered in black and grey dusk. Some run around us, others trip over our trembling bodies. We were just there. We were sitting out on the curb.

Black clouds billow in the air, and as we lay there trying to regain any feeling of reality, I swear in the mix of ash, sparks, and flames, I see the sketchy outline of a name forming.

Alex Russo.

I was running away from something. Something has caught up.

--

Ooo, plots. ;D

Review please, and let me know what YOU think is going to happen.