First off, apologies for so long a gap between updates; college is busy and it only gets worse the closer you get to graduation. Second, I apologize for any grammar mistakes or if the quality is not very good (I sort of rushed to get this done today). Please read and review.

Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious

(Previously)

'The best thing I could do would be disappear or drop off the face of the earth.' Trina thought. As she bent to pick up more paper, Trina stopped. That same thought started to repeat in her head.

And that's when the planning all started.

After two and a half months of extreme caution and careful planning, Trina would finally be able to put her plan into action tomorrow once everyone was gone. Once her family had left the house and she was sure they wouldn't be back anytime soon, Trina would also be leaving. She didn't know for how long; it could be a few weeks, months, years, maybe even forever. All that was for certain was that she'd be leaving L.A. tomorrow.

Of course there were lots of precautions Trina had to take before she could leave. First of all, just running away without any sense of direction or idea of what to do was stupid. She'd only ever left L.A. on family vacations and she didn't plan on going to any of those locations. Plus, no matter how good her grades had been, there was little she could do with just a high school education. So her best option was just to do as she would be doing if she was still oblivious to what everyone truly thought of her: go to college.

As much as it pained her that she wouldn't be able to go to USC like she'd wanted to for so many years, Trina knew if she wanted to make everyone happy, she'd have to look elsewhere, more than likely out of state. The best idea would be to do as her father said and move as far away as she could, but after looking at tuition costs as well as considering what living expenses would be like, Trina knew she'd only be able to get a few states away from California.

So she'd been faced with the task of looking for other colleges within one or two states of California, only this time she didn't have any help. For a while she thought of applying to somewhere in Nevada, but the only school she could find that she liked was University of Las Vegas. It was a good school and she thought that it would be amazing to live in that city, but she had to decide against it. As tempting as it was, the area was too expensive, it was one of the most likely places people would look for her, and most importantly, it would be a constant reminder of what Trina was trying to get away from.

Even though she'd no longer be in Hollywood's backyard, she'd still be surrounded by people trying to make it big in show business, singing, and fancy lifestyles. Four years at Hollywood Arts had proved to Trina that she was a failure at that and she was desperate to get away from everything that served as a reminder.

After a few more days of browsing colleges on the Web, Trina finally decided to apply at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff. She was no more familiar with it than any of the other places she'd recently looked at, nor was it as far away as her family might want her to go. Still, it was close to 7 hours away, she had no family in Arizona, and it was a good school that had several programs to help her figure out what the heck she would do with her life.

Once Trina had found where she wanted to apply, she sent in application letter and student transcript to see if she would be accepted. Even though most information concerning college acceptance came by mail or phone, Trina had to be extra careful so no one would find out what she was up to. To do so, she set up an email account that was separate from the one her parents knew she had and requested that everything regarding NAU be sent to that. The following weeks were torture with her waiting for some idea of whether she got in or not. During that time, she got other acceptance letters: USC, UCLA, etc.; her family paid little mind to each of these.

Trina herself only felt excited for a few moments when she saw them, reminding herself none of them were what she was actually waiting for. The weeks of waiting finally paid off though. One day she checked her email and saw a message from NAU. She didn't open it at first, debating for hours about whether to bother checking it or not. Finally, she worked up enough nerve to open the email. As soon as she saw the first few words "We are pleased to inform you," Trina didn't have to read anything else.

But figuring out where to go was only half the plan. The next factor was figuring out how to make sure that no one could find her once she was gone. As anxious as they'd be for her to leave, Trina couldn't help but feel that if it got out that the daughter of a senior officer, now detective, of the LAPD ran away, it might damage her dad's career or make her family look bad, so her family might look for her if not for anything but to save their own image. She knew if she wasn't careful, they'd have any easy time too.

Luckily, Trina was aware of all the likely ways that they could try and trace her movements thanks to listening to her dad's stories about all the ways they traced criminals down. She'd have to give up a lot to ensure her getaway.

First of all, she had to make sure that no one would guess what she was planning. Unfortunately, that meant she had to keep up the annoying persona that everyone associated with her. She was able to cut back some though; she pretty much gave up signing up for anything at school and retreated into the ranks of the "shruggers." She even started acting different at home: she rarely asked her parents for anything anymore, she didn't bother Tori or her friends whenever they were over to the point that she basically just stayed up in her room. There were some days where it seemed people noticed Trina was backing off some and they didn't brush her off the second she showed up. Trina enjoyed the days like that, almost to the point that she considered abandoning her plans, but she never did. No matter what, at the end of the day everyone just told her to go away or fled at the sight of her, so she just figured it was pointless for her to hope for anything to be different.

Next, she had to make sure no one could figure out where she was going; some of that was easy enough. No one knew she'd applied to NAU and she made sure to erase the history on her computer after every time she looked up anything having to do with it. Unfortunately, save for her driver's license for ID's sake, she wouldn't be able to bring anything that could be tied to her. That meant no cell phone, no car, or credit or debit card to carry with her. The last was the biggest concern for her.

Trina couldn't deny that she'd mostly relied on her parents' money and credit to pay for practically all her stuff. Originally they had told her and Tori to not worry about getting jobs in high school or college and to just focus on keeping their grades up. In the end this had helped some because the scholarships Trina earned would more than pay for classes and books with some left over, but she wouldn't see any of that until just before classes started. She'd needed money now just to get to Flagstaff and lodging fees until she found a place to live in the area.

Her late paternal grandfather had been an accountant and had bought her and Tori $1000 each in savings bonds before he passed away so she'd secretly cashed those in. Trina also had had at least $2000 more in her savings account and a couple hundred in her checking account, both of which her parents had put in there. Ever since Trina had gotten the acceptance letter from NAU she'd been withdrawing money from each account. As of three days ago, both accounts were empty. Even with that, Trina was still looking for ways she could earn more money.

The answer finally came in an email she received from an acting website she'd subscribed to years ago. When Trina still thought she could make it as a singer or actress, she signed up to received notices from a site that casting directors, recording artists, and talent scouts posted whatever projects they were working on and what type of people they needed to audition. Even though she wanted nothing more to do with acting, there was one offer from a show called Divertisimo where the director was offering $100 per session. For that, Trina was willing to at least try; she later learned why they offered so much.

As it turned out, Divertisimo was a kid's show featuring the director's spoiled kid and one of their a friends, both of which got to annoy whoever the new person they hired; since Trina was the only one who showed up, she got the part. At first, Trina considered turning down the entire thing; even if she didn't care about acting anymore, she'd be unimaginably humiliated if anyone she knew saw the show. Fortunately, even though they were filming each session, the show had not been approved for official broadcasting yet so they were just getting the premise of the show down before the pilot of the show finally aired on the Spanish Language Channel.

To try and make sure no one she knew saw it, Trina started telling everyone about how the new show she was in, how it was "really sophisticated" and featured "top-notch acting." She figured if people knew she was a part of it, then no one would bother trying to find it and would just pass it up if they did.

On the night the pilot was finally airing live, Trina was sure she'd convinced everyone to not watch the show, but somehow, Tori and Jade had seen her on TV and couldn't resist the opportunity to make fun of her about it. Luckily the director had seen the two girls and asked if they would want to be on the show too; since they'd been forced by Sikowitz to say yes to everything this week, Jade and Tori found themselves suffering the same ordeal as Trina that night, preventing them from telling anyone. In the end, Divertisimo got extremely low viewership on its first official broadcast, so the show wasn't picked up and no one would see the three teen girls dressed like cheeses. Still, Trina had made $600 for her efforts.

So now, after months of planning and preparations Trina was ready. Once her parents and sister left tomorrow and she was sure they'd reached their destinations, she'd be off to Flagstaff, Arizona…a place she'd never been to before…to attend college…that started in almost three months.

Trina always sighed when she remembered those thoughts. So her plans were kinda rough and no matter how much effort she put into them, there was so much that could still go wrong, but it was better than any of the alternatives. If she didn't leave when her family would be away from home for a long enough time then there was a greater chance that they could find her once she left. If that happened, she knew they'd all complain about having to put up with her for the summer and for her not moving far enough away. And if she had applied to colleges far away, she might never see her family again once she left. At least with her current course of action it was her choice to leave.

Trina knew that, like with any missing person, there would still be some commotion when people realized she wasn't coming home, but it wouldn't last. People would pay no real mind to an 18 year old that had left home and her family would likely think, "It's been so much more peaceful around here now that Trina's gone," and then drop the whole thing.

'It's for the best,' she'd told herself over and over; even now she was repeating the phrase in her mind as she was trying to fall asleep, both anticipating and dreading tomorrow.

Well, there it is; again I apologize for the quality (I think I might have overdone some things or been too repetitive). I'm hoping to have the next 2 (at least 1) chapters up later this week because I'm pretty sure they won't be too long.