Mitchie's Prov
I woke up happy the next morning although the paparazzi turning up wasn't how I wanted the night to end, I still had a great night with Shane and after I got him to stop apologising he told me he had a good night too.
I stretched and pulled on my robe not bothering to tie it before I pulled my curtains opened to let the morning light in. The first flashes caught me off guard and made me scream as a pulled my robe closed around me.
I must have looked ridiculous as I stared open mouthed and wide eyed at the dozen paparazzi scattered about my front law. The flashes from their cameras kept coming along with their muffled shouts, my brain was shouting at me to move out of their way but my feet weren't responding. Why were they here? Why were they taking pictures of me, I wasn't famous?
"Mitchie!"
My mum's voice broke through my frozen state and I jumped out of the way and pushed the curtains closed.
"Mum, what's going on?" I asked confused. "Why are they in our garden?"
"Honey, I'm not sure...but it could be something to do with your new friend's maybe." I could tell she was uncomfortable given me her answer in case I took offence to it but in honesty I knew that's why they were here too.
"Great, I'm one of those people." I muttered.
"'Those people'?"
"Famous by association people." I frowned. "That's almost as bad as the people that sell stories about famous people…O.M.G that's what they'll want me to do, sell stories about my friends." I started rambling.
"Relax Mitchie; you don't have to do anything you don't want to." My mum said comfortingly before putting an arm around my shoulders and squeezing me gently. "You just ignore them, when they see they won't get anything out of you, they'll leave you alone vultures like that get bored easily." She smiled reassuringly.
I inhaled deeply to calm myself down as I took in her words, "Your right they can't make me do anything I don't want to." I smiled. "I better call Shane though let him know what's going on."
Unfortunately my mum was wrong about the paps getting bored easily as a week and a half later I was still waking up to find them on my lawn along with them following me everywhere if I left the house, not that I left often.
For the first couple of days they had been only interested about getting gossip about Shane from me, it then slowly progressed to gossip about our relationship then they became interested in me, they even rung my parents, Ella, Caitlyn, old teachers and "friends" I never knew I had to find out stuff about me.
I was reading a new story about Shane and I everyday in magazines and newspapers Caitlyn and Ella brought over to me – because I tried to leave the house as little as possible – some were totally innocent like them discussing our blossoming relationship and how Shane has changed for the better others however were not so innocent, for example one reporter wrote about Shane visiting my house and us being unsupervised they went on to guess what activities we were getting up to.
Shane had his publicist all over the ridiculous stories from day one, we met up with her every other day – at my house - and every other day she would try and persuade us to do an interview but Shane refused each time he said given one interview would make more want to interview me and he saw how stressed and panicky this attention made me already.
I had only left the house twice since the paps came into my life, the first I was with Shane and his bodyguard which wasn't bad, the second time though I was by myself and almost took a panic attack when a dozen middle aged men with cameras and tape recorders closed in on me, I felt trapped like I was running out of oxygen before Caitlyn and Ella pulled me free after that I choose not to leave the house. Shane, Caitlyn and Ella understood and came by everyday to keep me company, not that I was much fun I was in my own wee world most of the time worrying about the next story I was going to read, or what other people thought when they read them –what they thought of me when they read them – and peeping out the window every so often at the paps on my garden.
"Mitchie." Caitlyn said shaking my arm to get my attention.
"Sorry, what did you say?" I asked as I brought my head out from behind the curtains, the vultures were still on my lawn this morning.
"Ella thinks they'd go away if they seen you weren't gonna spill anything on Shane or your relationship."
"I haven't said anything so far, you think they would've reached that conclusion by now." I sighed.
"Yeah, but you've been saying nothing in here where they can't see you or hear you." Ella spoke from the sofa opposite us.
"What do you mean?" I asked confusedly.
"Let's go out, shop maybe?" She smiled.
"Ella, they'll follow us." I exclaimed, instantly passing on the idea of leaving my house.
"I know." She smiled. "And if they do… when they do." She changed the tense tactfully when she saw me pulling a face. "…you ignore them when the see they aren't getting anything out of you they'll get bored."
I felt my teeth bury into my bottom lip and my head shake slowly from side to side.
"C'mon Mitch, when your hiding in here your making them think your hiding something good so they aren't gonna leave you alone until you show them your not."
Ella's idea made sense and after I got dressed and we barged through the paparazzi – Caity and Ella flanking me so they couldn't corner me – shouting "no comment" we were on our way to the mall in Caitlyn's Beetle. After all what was more normal – therefore boring to the paps - for a teenage girl to do than hit the mall with her best friends.
Caitlyn decided that if the paps did follow us, the best way to bore them was to start on the bottom floor shops and work our way up ignoring them if they were in the shops –pretending we were too engrossed in shopping – and only given them the "no comment" answer when we were out of shops.
It was simple enough at the beginning we got around the bottom and first floors without seeing or being interrupted by any paps, but they found us when we were coming out of American Apparel.
The flashes were the first give away but instead of running away from the flashes we walked casually to the next shop ignoring them.
"Mitchie, are you out looking for a new outfit to impress Shane?" One of them shouted.
I simply smiled and shook my head before pushing the door of the shop opened and walking in.
"Well done, Mitch." Caitlyn beamed as she pulled me towards the cosmetic counter with her. "If you keep doing that they'll get bored soon."
"Hopefully." I smiled as I started looking at the different shades of lip-gloss. "Where did Ella disappear to?"
"I'm here." Ella answered making us turn around to face her. "Look what I found." She smiled excitedly holding up three disposable cameras.
She didn't need to explain her plan, because when I looked at Caitlyn we were both wearing the same grin as Ella.
We unwrapped the disposable cameras after paying for them then stuffed them in our pockets before going back out of the shop. We were swarmed right away by paps but we continued on to a shop by the exit to the car park. The paps held off two foot back from the shop entrance expecting us to go in but we didn't instead of reaching for the door handle we spun around and pulled out the cameras and began taken pictures of the paps. It was funny to see how dazed and confused they got before we took off to the car park in a fit of giggles and got into Caitlyn's car to go home.
We were still laughing as we pulled up into my drive way, my lawn was clear of paps for the first time in weeks so we could walk up my drive and through the front door.
"Did you girls have a good time?" My mum smiled.
"Oh yeah." I smiled before busting into another fit of giggles as I turned on the T.V.
"Did the paps find…"
"Shane Grey's boo, Mitchie Torres was spotted doing a bit of shopping today." The host of Hot Tunes interrupted my mum's question
"Ha, that was fast." Caitlyn muttered as pictures of Caitlyn, Ella and myself flashed across the screen. "You must be getting famous-er." She giggled as she said the final word.
"And it seems young Mitchie has a sense of humour as she decided to take pictures of the paps with her friends." The host smiled as a picture of the three of us popped onto the screen with our disposal cameras.
"I'm glad to see you girls gave those vultures a taste of the own medicine." My mum giggled as she left the room.
"It was a funny idea." I smiled at Ella.
"I know, I'm a genius." She laughed picking up the remote from beside me and started flicking through the channels.
Ring! Ring!
I smiled as I looked at the caller I.D. before I answered my cell.
"Hi, Shane. Did you catch us on…"
"What were you thinking?" His scolding interrupted me.
"It was a joke." His attitude had me defending myself immediately.
"Well it wasn't very funny." His tone was a cross between disapproving, annoyed and challenging all at once and it made me annoyed with him.
"I don't know why you're making a big deal out of this; I've seen celebrities take pictures of the paps before." I snapped into the phone. My tone got Caitlyn and Ella's attention immediately but I ignored their questioning stares and walked out into the hallway I didn't need an audience for this. "Would you rather have me stuck in the house hiding from them?" I challenged, no-one had ever got away with talking to me like this before and it wasn't happening now.
"Yes." He answered quickly but he was back tracking just as quick. "I mean of course not Mitchie but really did you have to pull that stupid prank."
"They seemed to enjoy it."
"Mitch, this is a business, it has to be taken seriously. It reflects badly on the band and me when you do things like that." He answered condescendingly.
"Oh I'm sorry, I thought this was a relationship not a business, silly me."
"You know I didn't mean it like that."
"What way did you mean it?"
He was quiet on the other end of the phone, I knew he didn't have an answer for me when I asked and now he did too.
"You're asking me to be perfect when I'm with you, so I don't make a fool out of you or the band." I answered for him. "But Shane I've news for you we're all human, no-one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes and I'm not about to make you a promise that I'm not going to make more mistakes because it would be one I couldn't keep."
"That's not what I'm asking you to do." He mumbled.
"Yes, you are you just don't realise it." I was confused by how rational I was being now when just a second ago I was ready to have a full blown argument with him; maybe I was having a moment of clarity. "I think we were so consumed with teenage drama at the start of us, that we forgot about the other drama you being famous was gonna bring." It was true I was so blinded by my affection for him until the paps showed up I had nearly forgot he was famous.
"What are you saying?" He asked nervously.
"I'm thinking this might not be the right time for us to be us. I don't want to be the girl that jeopardises your career but I don't want to be the secret girlfriend either, I don't want to hide from the paps and say I'm not with you when I am. I want to be the girl your not ashamed of, the girl you talk about without cringing over the stupid things I might've done."
"I'm not ashamed of you." He clarified.
"Not now, but what happens later on when I make a mistake worst than taken joke pictures of the paps?" I didn't give him time to answer. "We get into a bigger argument than this break up and never talk to each other again. At least this way we have some chance of saving our friendship."
"I'm not following you." He answered confusedly.
I felt the tears coming and sobs beginning to build in my chest but I fought them back so I could continue, "I think we should break up, it's not the right time for us."
"Mitchie." His protest was weak because of the way his voice broke.
"I'm sorry, Shane. I just can't be walking on ice when I'm with you it would end far worst than this if I did." The first of the tears began to spill over I had to wrap this up quick, if I didn't want to show him how much this was killing me to do. "I'll always be your friend, I promise." I finished before hanging up.
