I woke up in a soft feather bed. I immediately knew it wasn't mine, because I couldn't stretch out all the way without falling off the makeshift pile of boxes at home. On this bed I could roll around quite a few times before reaching the edge.

Where was I?

I sat up, a blue crocheted blanket falling off of me. There was a knock at the door and a maid entered.

"Good morning, Deary," she said brightly. "They're expecting you in the dining room."

I wanted to ask her who was expecting me, but she turned on her heel and left before I had time. So much for hospitality.

I quickly got up and followed after her, not knowing where in this strange house the dining room was.

When I entered the room five minutes later, my heart skipped a beat. Shane Greyson was seated at a long table with his mother and a man he seemed like a younger version of. He stood up when he saw me.

"There you are! I was just telling Father about you."

Shane's dad came over and shook my hand. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you."

I smiled nervously. "You too." I wanted to ask why the heck I was here but I decided to be polite. "Thank you for letting me stay. I'm sorry, I don't really remember what happened."

"You poor thing," Mrs. Greyson came over to us, too. "You fainted and wouldn't wake up. We thought it would be best to just keep you here."

"Oh," I had no idea what to make of this.

"I hope you're alright now," Shane said, his chocolate brown eyes fixing me with a piercing stare.

"I'm fine," I said. "But I should really be getting home now, my," I lied quicker than I could think, "my mom will be worried sick."

"Oh, I imagine," Mrs. Greyson said, shaking her head. "We should have called her. Oh, if anything like this were to happen to my Shaney..."

"I'll get a driver," Mr. Greyson pulled out his expensive smartphone.

"No! It's okay," I said quickly, "really, I don't live too far."

The bus stop's not too far, I thought.

After saying goodbye for the twentieth time, I made my way down the long drive leading to the main road. The house was right in town, but I felt like I was a million miles from civilization. My home was the exact opposite of the spacious Victorian mansion, but it was where I needed to be. It was the only place I felt comfortable.

Shane and his parents had been nice enough, but their lifestyle didn't suit me. They had tried to get me to stay for a breakfast of poached quail eggs, but something told me I was better off just eating Fruit Loops.

As I walked, I thought back to what Shane had told me as I was gathering my things.

"I know we've only known each other for one night, but I really like you. We have a real Cinderella story going on here."

"You have no idea," I had then told him, thinking that no one fit the rags to riches description better than I did.

He took my hand and whispered, "Please be my princess. There is no one quite like you in this entire world."

Just thinking about him now, my cheeks grew red and I wanted to jump for joy. I fought the urge to skip down the drive in case he was watching. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts I didn't catch the movement in the bushes.

That Monday something felt off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I could see it in the faces of the other passengers on the bus that spent the ride goggling at me more than usual.

The first one to say something when I got to the studio was, no surprise, Kendall.

"Wow," she said, not bothering to hide her disgust, "wow."

"Wow yourself," I muttered, pushing past her. I hadn't forgotten how she had ditched me.

The rest of my coworkers didn't talk to me, but I wasn't really expecting them to. The thing that really threw me off was that they refused to even look at me, and if they did, their gazes were full of anger and mistrust.

Have they found out about my past? my mind screamed all morning. What did they think now?

I finally got answers when I was called into Brenner's office at eleven o'clock. I had never seen him so angry.

"What--" he seethed, "--the--heck--were you thinking? Do you have any idea what you've done? The whole world knows! You've destroyed everything!"

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I didn't like him accusing me of destroying things. "And what does it matter?"

"What does it matter?" Brenner looked ready to explode, "What does it matter? It matters that my reputation is on the line! My reputation and the reputation of the entire company!"

"What are you talking about?"

His face was an awful shade of purple as he threw a magazine on the desk in front of me. I gasped when I saw my picture on the front.

"Teenage Troublemaker," read the headline, "Fourteen year old Rosie Smith took a walk on the wild side Saturday night."

I turned back to the picture, my mouth open. It was one of me and Shane dancing at the party, Shane's face conveniently blurred by the camera's bad quality. In the upper right corner was another picture of me leaving his house the day before.

My heart sank. This did look pretty bad.

Brenner ripped the magazine away. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I--I, uh--"

"I got here as soon as I could."

Unlike the others, seeing Sam Perkins walk through the door did nothing to put me at ease. He came and stood next to Brenner, peering at me in poorly concealed disappointment.

"What happened, Rosie?"

I felt annoyance growing inside me as I turned to face him. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" he took the paper from Brenner and examined the cover, "Rosie, this is very serious. You are way too young to even mess with boys, but to be caught at the house of one?"

"Look, it wasn't like that," I glared at him, "I got ill at the party--"

"Then why didn't you go home?" Brenner was red as a tomato. "Instead of sticking around and ruining everything I've worked for?"

Perkins held up a hand to silence his friend. "Rosie, something needs to be done about this. It's not okay to get involved with boys at your age, or at any other age really."

"It's in your contract," Brenner muttered behind him.

"Seriously?" I could feel a headache coming on from trying to keep my rage in check. "You're trying to bust me for something that didn't even happen?"

"Rosie--"

"No! I'm not going to sit here and be treated like a child over something as stupid as this! And no!" I exclaimed, interrupting Brenner, who had started to say something about disrespectful children, "I am not going to give you respect when you treat me this way! I didn't do anything wrong!"

At that, I jumped up out of my chair and stormed off.

I had been trying to avoid that area all afternoon, but eventually, my angry pacing lead me back outside Brenner's office. I had been planning on just rushing by and carrying on with my pouting somewhere else, but their voices caught my attention.

"She has to learn!" Brenner was saying, "That girl will destroy everything we've worked for."

I snorted. That Brenner, selfless as always.

"Surely it's not as bad as you make it seem," Perkins replied.

"Are you kidding? Whole shows have been shut down because one kid got into trouble."

"Yeah," Perkins reasoned, "but those were like, criminal offenses."

Brenner rounded on him. "Maybe it was just fooling around this time, but what about next time? Kids can cause a lot of problems if they aren't kept in check."

"She just needs someone to look after her," Perkins said, thinking aloud, "someone to be a sort of mentor. Someone Rosie can turn to rather than bad habits. Someone like--"

Unluckily for me, it was Emily who had the misfortune of walking by at that moment. Perkins's lips curled into a strange smile. 

"Her."

"Davis!" Brenner barked, "Get in here."

Emily's eyes widened like a deer in headlights. "I actually was going...um, okay."

She stepped cautiously into the office, looking around at the two men.

Perkins smiled kindly at her. "How are you, Emily?"

"Fine," she was still gazing around as if waiting for a trap to spring. I didn't blame her.

He then cleared his throat. "Did you hear what happened this weekend?"

"Oh, yeah," Emily took a seat in the chair Perkins offered to her, the chair I had sat in earlier, "isn't it crazy? They finally captured that murderer who had--"

"Not that," Perkins seemed to be fighting to keep his annoyance in check. If Emily noticed she gave no indication.

Brenner rolled his eyes and shoved the magazine toward her. Emily stared at the cover a moment before gasping.

"Oh no! Is she alright?"

Perkins took it back from her. "Rosie's fine--this time, but we're very worried."

"Oh, I imagine," I could tell that Emily genuinely was very worried, much more than Perkins. "What are you going to do?"

"Well," he replied, "that's what we brought you here for. Rosie is troubled. She comes from a difficult background where, unfortunately, behavior like this is the only way to get ahead."

Anger bubbled up inside me at those words and I wanted to run in there and knock some sense into him.

"She doesn't know any better," he continued. "She needs someone to be a buddy to her. To show her how upstanding citizens live."

"Oh," Emily clearly wasn't following.

Perkins sighed. "Rosie needs an example, Emily, understand? You've heard that actions speak louder than words?"

"I suppose so."

"Well," Brenner cut in, tired of the nowhere they were getting to, "then get it through your crippled brain what we're asking you to do!"

"Mr. Brenner, please," Perkins then turned back to a trembling Emily, who still wasn't used to people yelling at her despite living a life full of screw ups. "Emily, you are a wonderful person. You're always so kind to everyone, and you never do anything wrong, right?"

"Yeah?" Her "crippled brain" was tired of processing this nonsense.

"Then we are on the same page. You will go talk to Rosie."

"Okay," she said, "wait, what?"

"Emily, there is no one in this company more capable of handling a situation like this. You are very wise with words. You'll find a way to tell her what she needs to hear."

I snorted. If she was going to tell me the same thing she was currently telling Perkins, a series of "ums" and "ohs" strung together in the most inarticulate way possible, I didn't think it was going to accomplish much.

"You can do it, Emily," Perkins said, patting her shoulder. "We believe in you!"

"Just don't screw it up," Brenner told her, as tired of this as I was.

Emily was then thrown out of the office faster than she could process what he had said. She looked so pitiful standing there for three minutes, trying to piece together the jumbled mess that she had just been blasted with.

"I have to, um," she told herself, "Rosie. Talk to Rosie about...boys and...talk...boys are bad. Boys have cooties. Will she buy that?"

I watched her walk down the hall, still rehearsing what she was going to tell me.