A/N: If you liked the ending of the last chapter, don't bother reading this these next two. It's for those of you who thought the last ending was too sad. I want to dedicate this to SadSmiles because they left a really nice review but wanted a happy ending. =)
Most everyone is running around the camp, saying goodbye to everyone and trying to get everything packed at the last minute. I'm just sitting on an old bench that looks over the glossy morning lake. The sooner I leave this camp, the sooner I have nowhere else to go. And then I'll really be alone.
Mom and dad never wanted anything to do with me after Connect 3 got signed to a record label. All of my friends disgust me for being a lying, cheating animal. I no longer have a career in the only thing I've ever known how to do.
I yank the handle of the heavy bags out the door so I'm ready to go when my ride gets here. I've gotten used to seeing all the people out of the corner of my eye exchanging whispers and sending hateful glares my way.
Once every one of my things are in front of the wooden deckhouse, I sit on one of my suitcases and wait for my mom's limo to drive up.
Waiting and thinking, I see more gossip out of the corner of my eye. Maybe I can't actually hear what everyone is murmuring into their friends' ears but they might as well be screaming the insensitive words into the Beach Jam microphone.
Soon there's almost nobody left. All the buses left and there are just a couple of kids waiting for their late parents to arrive. I still haven't moved from the bench.
My uncle Brown walks up behind me. "You all packed?" He asks me.
"My stuff is sitting in my cabin ready to go."
He walks around the back of the seat and sits next to me. "Are you going back home?" He says the question with sympathy because he knows that home is probably the last place I want to go, and he's right.
"I don't know if my parents will let me back in... especially not if they paid attention to all the hearsay."
"You and I both know my brother and I have our disagreements about the music industry," he says in his recognizable English accent. "But your parents love you, you know that."
I am lucky to have such loving parents. It's just so hard to tell when all you hear from them is that I'm too young to be working like this and how I'm just contributing to the flaws of pop culture by being a part of Hollywood land.
The ride home was very long and silent. The entire time, Shane was running through my mind the way a movie does that focuses on the same situation as the viewer. I pictured his smile. I thought about his kiss. I replayed every word he's said to me over and over again in my head. Most of all, I wondered if we would be together if it weren't for Mitchie.
I imagined him coming back to Camp Rock at the beginning of the summer and seeing only my face in the sea of people. He would grab me by the arm as I walk by and pull over to a private corner just so he could say hello. We would talk and laugh with each other and eventually he would shyly admit to having a small crush on me before he left for LA. Then I'd tell him I felt the same way and slowly but surely, throughout the summer, we'd form a romantic relationship.
But that would never happen, Mitchie or no Mitchie.
Mom's driver helps me carry my bags as I get out of the gaudy stretch limo and start walking towards the front door of the big cream colored house. I come in and mom's on the phone with her manager sorting through papers and planning some sort of huge event.
I just go straight to my room.
Once I finally leave camp by myself, I drive home by myself, check into a hotel by myself, eat dinner by myself and go sleep and 6:30 by myself.
When I arrived at this hotel, the girl at the front desk was very nice and told me she was a big fan. But when I glimpsed over at her talking to the other check in person, I saw them snickering about something and glancing over at my presence a couple of times.
As I lay in bed with my blinds closed because the sun is still up, I play that moment over in my mind a few times and listen to the sound of a mysterious pecking sound outside the window. The only things I can think of are negative. I see that girl standing by the cabin door and catching my unfaithfulness, I see Mitchie hurriedly walking away from me after I told her that all the camp rumors were true. And most of all, I see Tess' sunny blond hair swaying back and forth as she ambled into the darkness that last night I saw her at Camp Rock.
My mom walked passed my open door and stopped when she saw me sitting in my bedroom. "You're home!" She said, surprised by my presence-even if I have been home for almost three hours already.
"Yeah, you were busy when I got here so I just came in and started unpacking."
She walks in my room and sits next to me on my bed. "So, how was camp?" She asks. "You didn't return any of my phone calls."
I shrugged off her question and gave her a measly, 'it was fine' and told her I was really busy. Part of me secretly wanted her to ask about the rumors she heard, but she didn't. She's ignored every rumor about me, even though most of them are true.
Walking down the open streets is like trying to make my way through a free museum on a day in California record heat, but with cameras. The forty-some year out adults in their ketchup stained shirts and baseball caps tumble over each other and trying to take pictures of me as they shout out stupid questions that any person with any common since could assume I'm not going to answer. Two days ago, this would have been flattering. Annoying, but flattering.
But all these paparazzi and magazine editors don't care about Shane Gray. They don't care about my music, my former band mates or myself. They only care about the long line-up of selfish mistakes I've made.
Same with all the talk shows, I've been getting more offers then ever just because they want to ask me about what a terrible person I am. I've turned down every one of them.
I'm going to a talk show with mom this weekend.
There was one show I've decided to go on. I just had a strange feeling about it.