Running Away

*Flashback*

"You little whore! Get out of my house!” her dad yelled at her. She could tell that he’d been drinking, but she didn’t really care anymore.

“Fine! Give me ten minutes and I’ll be gone!” Kayla screamed back, pounding up the stairs to her room and slamming the door behind her.

This was it. She was getting out of this stupid place and she was going to make a name for herself. She grabbed everything that was important to her—her iPod, cell phone, sock full of money and lyrics notebook—and shoved everything into a backpack and a duffel bag that she found at the bottom of her closet. In barely five minutes, Kayla was finished, and carried her things to the front door.

“Bye dad! Don’t bother calling, I don’t want to hear from you ever again!” she shouted into the house that she knew she was leaving for the last time.

“You’d better not leave, bitch!” her dad thundered, lumbering out of the kitchen towards her.

“Or what? What are you going to threaten me with that you haven’t already done?” Kayla screamed, wrenching open the door and taking a step outside, into freedom.

“You little shit! Get your scrawny ass back in here or don’t bother coming home again, or you’ll be dead!”

“I wasn’t planning on coming back, dad. I’m done with your drunkenness and I’m not going to put up with the way you treat me anymore. I’m done. Have a nice life.,” Kayla said calmly and coldly. And then she walked away the way she should have years before.

*End Flashback*

Kayla struggled to contain herself as she walked out of Sid’s office. She fought against her smile in the elevator. As she reached the lobby, Kayla had to stop herself from skipping. By the time she got through the front door of Hollywood Studios and back out into the real world, she was starting to laugh.

This was the best day of her life. Who cared if she was going to be singing for Disney? At least she’d be singing for someone now. To her, the best part about the entire thing was that it took most people ages of trying to be recognized to be signed by a label as prestigious as Hollywood Records. It had only taken Kayla a month.

As a small celebration, Kayla took herself out to Starbucks (not the one where she worked)—something she hadn’t allowed herself to indulge in since she’d arrived in California. But this was too big a deal not to splurge on a nice mocha cappuccino. And besides, if she was on her way to fame, spending a few extra dollars on coffee wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

Kayla ordered her coffee and waited for the cashier to make t for her. As she waited, she watched the people in the small café. The door opened and three all-too-familiar faces walked inside. Not wanting anyone to recognize them, Kevin, Joe and Nick had all put on baseball caps and sunglasses. It really didn’t disguise them in Kayla’s opinion, but they didn’t seem to be mobbed with paparazzi the way Kayla would have expected them to be every time they left their home.

“That will be $7.36, miss,” the cashier informed Kayla. She turned back towards the counter fumbling with her wallet and mumbling apologetically.

“There you go,” a deep voice said beside her, handing the surprised guy behind the counter a ten dollar bill. “And I’d like two regular coffees and a decaf please,” he requested.

“Thanks,” Kayla said quietly, holding a ten of her own out to the boy she didn’t want to look at in her embarrassment.

Joe laughed and pushed the money gently back at Kayla. “No problem, it’s my treat.”

She looked up at him, about to argue but her cut her off.

“Look, my mom raised me to be a gentleman. Please don’t argue with me over it.”

Kayla sighed in defeat. “Thank you for the coffee,” she said, accepting the cup he held out to her. “I’ll see you around.”

“Wait! Come home with my brothers and I and have dinner with us. Our mom’s been looking for an excuse to use the dining room since we got back from tour, and we’d all like to know you better,” Joe offered.

By this point, they’d reached the exit where Kevin and Nick were waiting and they’d heard most of the conversation.

“And we can tell you everything you’ll need to know about working for Disney, since I’m sure you were freaking out too much about being signed to really hear what Sid was telling you,” Nick added.

“And that packet he gave you is completely useless,” Kevin told her, stopping her protest.

Kayla was shocked. Did the Jonas Brothers just invite her over to their house? Or was this the second time today that she was having a Jonas-related hallucination? But she was pretty sure they were real; Joe had paid for her coffee after all.

“Um, I don’t know,” Kayla replied. She wasn’t here to make friends. She didn’t want to make friends—all they ever did was hurt her. Besides, wasn’t it a little odd for three world-famous pop stars to be inviting a barely-signed newbie like her over for dinner? And how did they know that she’d been signed anyway, when Sid said he hadn’t met the decision until he met with her?

“I’ll see you guys at the label, Kayla informed them, trying to remain resolute in her decision not to let anyone get close to her, when she had three guys trying their hardest to be her friend. She didn’t want to get hurt again.

“Wait! Kayla, why?” Joe asked her, pulling her back gently as she started to walk away.

Kayla was about to give him some excuse about having to go home to walk her (nonexistent) dog or something equally stupid, but she made the mistake of looking into Joe’s dark brown eyes.

“Oh, what the hell. Let’s go.”

I tasted, tasted love so sweet
And all of it was lost on me
Buttons sold like property
Sugar on my tongue

I kept falling over
I kept looking backward
I went broke believing
That the simple should be hard

All we are we are
All we are we are
And every day is a start of something beautiful

I wasted, wasted love for you
Traded out for something new
Well, it's hard to change the way you lose
If you think you never won

'Cause all we are we are
All we are we are
And every day is a start of something beautiful

And in the end the words won't matter
'Cause in the end nothing stays the same
And in the end dreams just scatter and fall like rain

'Cause all we are we are
All we are we are
And every day is a start of something beautiful, something real

All we are we are
All we are we are
And every day is a start of something beautiful, beautiful