The music poured out of her. Her fingers automatically switched from chord to chord. She started to fit words to the notes and the rhythm.

"Keep it down! Some of us are napping!" A loud voice bellowed from the next room.

"Oh sure. You say that, but you're silently facebooking all your friends to find a way out of Mom's work thing this evening," she shouted back. Silence followed. As usual. She used the small break to write down the chords and the lyrics.

Lily picked up her old, beaten up, acoustic guitar after the short break and let the music take over her mind and soul again.

"Keep. It. Down. You're giving me a headache!"

"You're just saying that so you can listen to your wretched Heavy Metal!" Nevertheless, Lily put down her guitar, so her brother would stop badgering her. She grabbed her noise cancelling headphones and plugged them into her iPod. She selected her favourite country band and fell asleep to their music.

---/|\---

She was jerked awake by her big brother. At twenty-two, Nathan was five years older than Lily, Nathan could have been living in his own flat with one of his friends or his (nonexistent) girlfriend. But instead, he enjoyed annoying Lily so much that he'd decided to stay with her and their parents. He jumped on her bed and started tickling her profusely.

"Nate... Nate. Nathan Darkston, I swear, if you don't-"

"Alright, alright. Mom just wanted me to tell you to get ready for the thing," he eased off with the tickling but refused to leave.

"Well, I'm not going to get changed with you in the room."

"I don't think you need to get changed. You look fine as you are."

"Oh, yeah. 'Cause I'm going to go to Mom's work thing, with influential people, in joggers and a vest top. Yeah, she'll be TOTALLY fine with that."

"Hey, I'm just saying, I ain't wearing no tux."

"Oh, yeah. 'Cause Mom's going to let you go to her work party, where there might just be a future daughter-in-law, in tatty pants and a stained t-shirt. Hey, look girls! It's Nathan Darkston, he's got the whole package: No looks, no clothes, no money!" She said, gesturing to his attire with a raised brow. He sighed heavily and left the room.

Lily donned the pre-selected outfit that her mom had chosen. It was a dark green dress with fabric flower embellishments around the waist. She wobbled around in the T-bar heels her mom had picked out. She gathered her soft, wavy brown hair into a loose up-do. She put a black blazer on over her sleeveless dress so she wouldn't get cold, and with that, Lily headed outside to where her mom's fancy black car was waiting.

---/|\---

"Whoa, Mom, what is this? Some U.S. State Dinner?" Lily said as she caught a glance out of the car window. The house was three floors at least, had massive doors and the architecture was so intricate Lily couldn't even look at it without feeling dizzy.

"What? No. It's just a... work thing."

"And who do you work for again? The President? The Queen of England?" She said as she gazed up at the palace-sized house. They kept edging up the unnecessarily long driveway. "Is this why you bought my dress for me?"

"Yes. I couldn't trust you to get something so sophisticated-"

"Thanks, Mom."

"These people are very influential. They might give me a raise, or even a promotion. Or Nathan a job," her mother said pointedly, glaring at Nathan who was sitting in the back with Lily.

Her father was deadly silent as they pulled up outside the oversized doors. The Darkston family exited the sleek black car and handed the keys over to the valet. Her father, Johnathon, offered her mother, Elizabeth, his arm. Nathan did the same but Lily refused multiple times.

"No, no. Just no. That would make it look like we're together, which is just... That would just be... Ew."

"Lily, darling. Behave," Elizabeth turned around and nodded her chin toward Nate's arm. Lily sighed, rolled her eyes and took it. "Now, do not embarrass yourselves, because, by extent, you will be embarrassing me. And speak proper English, not that slang that you use nowadays."

"Nathan, no drinking. And Lily, that should go without saying."

"Then why did you say it, Mom?" Elizabeth acted like she didn't hear Lily's retaliation.

---/|\---

As soon as Lily stepped through those grand doors she felt underdressed. There were women walking about in full-blown ball gowns and men in tailed tuxedos dancing with the well-dressed ladies. Occasionally there was the odd lady wandering about in a less 'disney princess' dress, but it didn't make Lily feel any better.

Almost immediately, Nathan left Lily and sauntered over to the drinks table.

"Hey, Nate, is there anything non-alcoholic?"

"Nope," he said, finding an empty glass and popping open a bottle of champagne.

"You heard what Mom said, right?"

"Yep. But rules are made to be broken," he looked so out of place in the large ballroom, leaning against the wall in his brand new jeans, t-shirt and suit jacket. Lily headed over to another drinks table and found a tumbler of sprite. She spotted an empty chaise longue in the corner where she could survey the dancing clearly but wouldn't be close enough to be asked to dance herself. She felt extraordinarily uncomfortable in the regal house, and wished she had her guitar there. At least to give her a tiny sense of familiarity, to give her fingers something to do, her mind something else to think about.

She noticed her mom standing with a grey-speckled man (presumably her boss), chatting calmly (about work, no doubt) while touching his arm (and lingering) inappropriately. A champagne glass rested in her delicately manicured hand as she giggled at something the man had said. A bubble of anger almost broke Lily's collected surface. She knew her parents weren't getting on but she didn't realise it was that bad. Harder than ever, Lily wished she had her guitar, so she had some way to let the anger out.

She scanned the room for anyone that she might vaguely know.

Finally Lily recognised someone from her Math class, Jacob? He was talking with his parents about ten feet away.

"Jacob Salsman, right?" Lily interrupted as she approached them cautiously. He turned around, clearly surprised and nodded at her question.

"Uh... Um... A little help?"

"Lily Darkston. From Math," she said, half introducing herself to his parents and half re-introducing herself to him. His parents started edging away from the group, looking at Jacob quizzically. He nodded at them, his black hair bobbing up and down in front of his dark green eyes. His parents swiftly moved away.

"I kind of only know you as... um... The Smart One."

"Nice flirting, dude," Nathan had strolled over to join the conversation. Jacob flushed deeply and managed to stammer out,

"I was not... That wasn't meant to be... But I can't..." Both Lily and Nate dissolved into fits of hysteric laughter. They collapsed onto each other and then onto the chaise longue.

"Sorry, it's just, Nate says that to any guy who says anything even remotely nice about me," Lily gasped out between laughing. As Nate started to calm down, the pair caught sight of their mom glaring at them from across the room. They fell into a deadly silence.

"What is with you guys? You're normal one minute, in hysterics the next, then the next you're acting like you've seen a ghost."

The pair didn't reply, they just kept staring blankly at their mom. Suddenly Lily came to her senses,

"Um. Don't worry. Hey! Why don't we go explore the gardens? Nate, we can be as weird as we want without a certain parental getting us down."

"I don't know," Nathan said, still a little dazed but slowly the world was coming into focus, "I think I might try to chat up some of these pretty little ladies."

"I don't think they'd appreciate you calling them little but whatever. I like seeing you humiliated," Lily said and Jacob nodded in agreement. Nevertheless, Nate stood up slowly and headed towards a table of girls that looked to be around his age. The two seventeen year olds left walked out of the oversized doors.

---/|\---

The garden was almost as exquisite as the house. Only almost because it didn't have the finest finger foods imaginable. Lily hadn't been able to take her tumbler out of the ballroom, so her hands felt lazy, bored even.

"I wonder if they have a garden maze..." Lily said, gazing in awe at the beautifully cut shrubs and the flowers that almost shone even in the dark of the late evening. Jacob grabbed her empty hand and dragged her round a corner of the house.

A mass of straight cut hedges obscured Lily's vision and she inhaled sharply. The maze seemed to silently wait for her, for someone, to discover and unravel them, to find their secret.

"Go on then, you wanted a maze, right?" Jacob said, suddenly unsure of what Lily had ever wanted, suddenly aware of how they were still holding hands, suddenly aware of the fact he'd only known her name for a quarter of an hour.

"Yeah, sure. But... How'd you know this was here?"

"Well, I'm a friend of Dylan and Josh, you know. The guys that live here." Of course she knew Dylan. Dylan Evans, her high school crush since Freshman year, one year older than her, had luscious brown-blond hair, entrancing green eyes and a chiselled jaw line. Even though he was handsome in almost every way, he'd never had a girlfriend for more than a few months. Lily had always thought that she had a chance because she'd felt a spark of chemistry on the one occasion that they'd ever interacted. Right now she doubted that he'd even remember her if she brought the Incident up.

"Ok," she said, the confused look sliding off her face and being replaced by a look of pure joy.

Lily found the single entrance to the maze and Jacob's hand dropped from hers as she ran off into the maze, shouting in delight.

Jacob stayed, knowing that once he got in there, memories would rush back and he wouldn't give her a chance to get to the centre first.

"Reminiscing?" A deep voice interrupted the silence, "Remember that time we blindfolded Josh in the middle, and he couldn't find his way out?"

"Uh huh. 'I know this place like the back of my hand. I could find my way out blindfolded.' How wrong can you be?" The two guys chuckled. Another shriek of delight erupted from the maze,

"Hey! Jacob, I found the Middle!"

"What the hell? She's been in there for two minutes. That makes no sense," Jacob said, his brows furrowing and knitting themselves together. Dylan's expression matched his,

"I recognise that voice..."