After school, Chloe and Josh took a trip out to the nearby coffee shop. "You need some caffeine before you do all those chores." Josh grabbed her by the elbow and practically threw her into the passenger seat of his run-down car.

When they got there, they secured a little booth along the back wall of the restaurant. The warm smell of coffee grounds cleared Chloe's sinuses and relaxed her. That, combined with the smooth jazz playing on the speaker system and the dim chatter of the customers calmed her. If she ever had the time to get a job, the first place she would apply would be here.

Coffee shops brought in so many eclectic mixtures of people – older customers, young customers, creative souls, and everything in between. Not only were they an excellent place to people-watch and collect song ideas, but there was a certain lightness to the air that had the muscles in her shoulders relaxing. Even if they would only be there an hour, it would be an hour well spent.

Josh sipped at his drink. "What does the old man have you doing, Chlo?"

Chloe shrugged. "I won't know until I see the list at home."

"You sure you don't want me to sneak in and help?"

Chloe gently slid her cup back and forth between her hands. "Yeah. He already took away my phone. I can't imagine what he'd do if he found you at the house. I think he'd have a coronary."

"He's still going out of town this weekend, right?"

"Unfortunately." Every time Chloe's father went out for the weekend on business he instructed her to clean the house from top to bottom.

"Good. I'm coming over." Josh gave a wide grin.

Chloe couldn't see anything wrong with that idea. "As long as you don't get me busted."

"Thank Creator!" Josh exclaimed. "It only took two years."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "You've been to my house before."

"Uh, yeah," Josh said, "but not inside."

Josh continued to chatter excitedly about the house and all the things he'd get to see. "Your room has to be amazing. I've seen a picture of your living room and if it's anything like that...Oh Creator, what if I get lost? That place is freaking..."

Chloe's attention caught on a group of young girls near their booth. They were all giggling around a pink phone and almost bouncing in excitement.

The blonde one in the middle—whose ownership of the device was obvious—gasped at something she read on the screen. "Jenny, go get them to turn the TV to channel 2," she urged and pushed the girl next to her out of her chair.

How rude, Chloe thought, her attention still on the young teenagers.

Near the drink counter, a medium-sized flat-screen mounted to the wall played music that drifted through the room. The girl, Jenny, spoke in desperate half-whispers to the frighteningly balding manager. With a tiny frown, he picked up the remote and flipped to channel 2.

The sound of young girls screaming through the TV speakers had every head turning.

"How are you all doing today?" Prince Ethan asked loudly into the microphone. His signature metallic navy-blue guitar hung low over his neck.

The crowd voiced their happiness.

"That's good." Prince Ethan gave a heart-stopping smile. It curved at the edges—the kind of smile that made people think he was up to no good. He placed his fingers near the top of the fretboard and strummed a few quiet notes as he talked. Chloe enjoyed the soft, smooth melody. "So I had this idea the other day, and my friend Jason agreed with me. You guys know Jason Phillips, right?" The crowd roared. "Ah, so you do."

He stayed quiet for a moment, as if lost in his own creation, a tune rolling off his fingers. The drummer kicked up a soft, slow beat. Prince Ethan watched his fingers carefully, almost absentmindedly. He looked over the crowd again. "What was I talking about?" he asked, then laughed as the girls all screamed at him over and over.

"Oh, that's right!" He adjusted the microphone carefully. "So I was thinking...There are a lot of you out there, and I sometimes worry if you get sick of hearing me sing—"

The crowd yelled negatives.

"—so now I want to hear you all." He pointed his finger at the camera, his grey-blue eyes piercing through the screen. "We'll make it a little contest. Send me a video of yourself singing to my Musetunes page. The most creative or moving submission will get to sing a duet with me."

The audience freaked. Chloe watched as the camera did a slow pan over the people there. There were girls crying, jumping up and down, and some already texting their friends the news.

The drumbeat picked up speed. A tall blonde boy came out by the black amp and began to strum the bass. "Does that sound fair?" Prince Ethan shouted into the mic. "Good. Well then, let's get on with this!"

His fingers flew over the neck of the guitar. The intro to his new song, Gone, moved through the room.

Chloe stared, entranced, as he sang. His silky, smoky voice pulled at something inside her, as it probably did for most people. There was just something so smooth about it. So..real. She bit her lip. Why did he have to make everything look effortless?

His hair stuck slightly to his forehead from sweat. None of the girls cared. He was an idol to them. Even with obvious flaws, he remained perfect in their eyes. Chloe had no doubt that his posters and pictures were all over tons of girls' walls. And how could they not?

Chloe always felt a weird connection with the man, but she knew it was because she—as well as most of the rest of the kingdom—watched their prince change from boy to man. They grew alongside him, listening as his songs changed from the little kid, "girl, I want to hold your hand" to the more adult, "I should've told you I love you."

Even his looks became more mature. Now his midnight black hair was longer on the top than the sides and set into a messy fashion, usually with gel. His navy shirt subtly introduced the muscles in his arms, his dark jeans fitting well on his hips.

Chloe, as well as many other girls in the kingdom, had been smitten from the get-go. The only difference was, Chloe was a realist. No matter how many daydreams and crazy ideas, she still knew it would never happen.

Phones all over the coffee shop buzzed with life, the news spreading fast.

Chloe turned back to Josh who was about to speak.

"No." She beat him to it.

"You didn't even let me say what I—"

"No."

"Chlo—"

"I'm not entering." Chloe took the last sip of her drink and stood up to go.

Josh followed her toward the front. "Oh, come on. It'll be fun!"

"No." She knew Josh wanted to go on about the subject, but he didn't.

Chloe crossed the café quickly and pushed out the door. It struck something hard and stopped. "Ow!"

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?" she asked as she bent over the girl who had fallen onto the sidewalk outside. The familiarity of the face shocked her. "Gina?"

Gina rubbed at her arm. "Wow Chloe, I didn't know you were that strong." She pulled headphones from her ear.

The contents of her purse lay scattered all over the ground. Chloe and Josh picked up lip glosses, mascara, compacts, pencils, and anything else that fell.

A dull humming of music played out of the speakers of a phone by the curb. Chloe grabbed it. "I'm so sorry, Gina. I wasn't watching—"

Gina waved her off as she stood. "Don't worry, you didn't do it on purpose." She shoved all her stuff back into her black purse.

Chloe looked down at the phone in her hand. There was something about the music...

"Oh my Creator." Josh plucked it from her hands and put it near his ear. A smirk grew over his face. "Who is this, Gina?" he asked innocently.

Gina stopped digging through her purse. "What?"

"Who is this?"

"Oh!" Her eyes lit up. "I was going to tell you the other day. I found this new singer called Anonymous? Maybe you've heard of her. I don't know her real name because she doesn't list it. And there's no profile picture either, but she's really good and—"

"I've got to go." Chloe interrupted and walked quickly back to Josh's car. She braced her forearms on the hood of the passenger side and rested her head on them.

Josh caught up about two minutes later. "Chlo, what—"

"Can you take me home?" she burst out. Her arms were shaking horribly. "This is bad," she told herself. "Bad, bad, bad..."

Josh unlocked the car for her and got into the driver's seat. He didn't start the vehicle.

Chloe tapped her foot impatiently. Her knuckles drummed on the passenger side window.

"That was sweet," Josh said into the silence.

Her mind whirled. Maybe if she cut out now, there'd be no way her father found out. Maybe if she deleted the account...

"I know what you're thinking."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do." He pulled her hand onto the armrest between them and held it between both of his. "He's not going to find out."

***

Later that night, Chloe waited until the house was quiet, then grabbed the purple bath towel she'd draped across her desk chair from her shower this morning and tucked it under the crack of her bedroom door. She locked the door, covered the vents, opened the tiny attic window, and snagged her leather song journal from her nightstand.

Her bedroom was far enough upstairs that she didn't have to worry about disturbing the rest of the household. But she still had to be careful about making too much noise. Her father was finely tuned into the happenings in his household – especially during the quiet of nighttime.

Chloe got on her knees and pulled up the skirt on her bed frame. There, tucked along the back wall, was an old, black electric keyboard. It was a hand-me-down from Josh that she'd gotten a few years ago. No more than 61 keys, it wasn't the world's greatest instrument, but even if only 2 keys worked, she'd take it.

She slid it out from under the bed and walked to the window to sit against the wall there. Science and physics weren't her forte, but she hoped that by sitting this far away, the music wouldn't travel through the walls or down the hall.

The red light on the keyboard lit up as she flicked it on and turned the volume to one notch. Her newest piece, still untitled, had a slow-building, sweeping melody. Her fingers flew over the keys, playing it in a few different ways. Hmm... she tried again. Still not right.

She tried the same melody at a lower range, surprised when it started to sound better. But there was still a section that felt clunky, right in the middle. She hummed the melody, over and over again.

Maybe it's jumping too fast, she thought, maybe it needs a careful climb, like a run.

Her fingers traced along the keys, starting low and working up. There. She grinned, adding chords behind the melody.

There was perhaps no better feeling than finally piecing together a song. Sometimes the melodies appeared out of thin air. Other times she had to work to pull them out.

Chloe quickly jotted down the notes next to the lyrics in her journal. This one was a ballad that started soft and built to a crescendo as she weaved the tale.

This song was about a woman lost at sea, searching for her love. She let the emotion guide the lyrics, and now carefully molded a tune to bring the right tone to it.

These were the moments she loved, these quiet spots of time where she was just Chloe, and the anxiety of her daily life wasn't suffocating her slowly. When it was nothing but her and the emotions. Just her and the music.

She worked deep into the night, letting the music take her to another far off land, one beyond a cerulean sea, where love was more than a story trapped in a melody.