"It was the summer before freshman year, and Sophia and I had taken a long vacation to visit our cousins out in Los Angeles. You, know the ones we see every four years or so. It was just us out there with our cousins and their parents, so we were pretty much on our own for the whole summer without our parents telling us what to do, where to go, or when to be home. It was a blast and I don't think I ever really expected anything serious to come from the summer; it was just a fun time to be on my own with my sister and cousins.

"I met Lincoln Carter on the street, actually. He was walking past me on the sidewalk with a whole horde of fangirls following him around, being kept at bay by his security that followed him everywhere. He was just starting to rise to fame at this point, so I can only imagine how much worse it got as he continued after I left. When he passed by me, I laughed and said "Ever get tired of it?" to which he looked at me, kind of shocked. Here I was, a girl who was clearly in his age demographic for fans, and I wasn't showing any kind of interest in him, mainly because I had already passed by at least a dozen other, more important celebrities that day and I was starting to not be fazed by it."

"Starting to not be fazed by it? How could you not be fazed by seeing a dozen celebrities all around you?" Emma exclaimed.

"Emma, please. I need to just get through this story as quickly as possible."

"Right, sorry." She blushed as Patrick hit her arm. "Continue."

"Well, he looked at me like I was from another planet, right? So I was kind of feeling myself at that point; I had just talked to a hot-shot celebrity like we were best friends, right? I had also bought this new red lipstick and was flaunting it like nobody's business, so when I saw his shocked face, I just winked at him. I winked at Lincoln Carter. I didn't think much of it, other than the fact that I was so incredibly proud of my confidence. So I kept walking, Lincoln Carter far from my mind, and then I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned around and I it was him; no bodyguards, no fangirls, just him and his big smile. He asked what my name was, and I just kind of said the first name that popped into my head: Sophia. I was supposed to be meeting her at a coffee shop anyways, and I figured that I would never see this guy again, so who cared?

"He introduced himself, and we kind of just started talking...a lot. We became really close, and we became close fast. Just so you know, Emma, he eventually asked me for my last name, so I told him Flores. By that time I was too far in to let him know any real facts about me, so I just said your last name instead."

Emma shrugged.

"I don't care. Lincoln Carter knows my last name now." She laughed. "Just a quick question: what other "real facts" did you omit from your conversations with him?"

"A lot." I replied. "To him, I was Sophia Flores, 18-year-old aspiring singer who was in Los Angeles to pursue her singing career. Sophia Flores, you see, was an only child, with a father who had abandoned her and a mother who had never let her out of the house in her youth. I was hoping he would feel bad for this "broken girl", and evidently he did, because in the two months that we dated, he tried his hardest to get me singing gigs in L.A., but to no avail. I never showed up for anything he booked me for, and I always made up some excuse about missing the limo or forgetting to set my alarm. I had him wrapped around my finger, guys. I didn't mean to, but it just happened; he was a 16-year-old kid who thought he had made it with this older woman who was actually a year younger than him.

"At first, it was just a game to me. I know that's a terrible thing to say and that it's a terrible mindset to have when you're dating someone, but it was so much fun. I got to be someone I wasn't, and for a whole summer. I was hundreds of miles away from my home here in Houston, what would I have to be scared of? We hit it off immediately, probably because I wasn't one of the girls following him around and drooling over him constantly. It was one of the best summers I had ever had; I was the "mystery girl" of a hot celebrity that tabloids were whispering about, I was pretending to be three years older than I was and people were actually buying it, and I was in the middle of Los Angeles. What could have been better?"

"So where was Sophia when you were doing all this? Weren't you supposed to be with her and your cousins?" Patrick asked.

"Yeah, I was. I made up so many excuses; I said I was sick and I snuck out to hang with Lincoln, I said that I was meeting up with a friend who was on vacation here, I said I was sleeping over with a girl I had met in the coffee shop the other night...they bought everything. They weren't my own parents, they didn't care as much about what I was doing. So we became closer and closer, all the while with me thinking of it as a game; how far can I get this guy to fall for me before I up and leave him? How far can I get with this lie?

"Then it went sour. I started to like him. A lot. It was uncontrollable and I felt myself growing closer and closer to him and I was absolutely terrified. How would you feel if you had lied to this guy, this amazing guy who was every girl in America's celebrity crush, and tricked him into liking you...only to find that you actually cared about him? To realize that you actually liked him, maybe even loved him, and that you couldn't do anything about it because you had lied through your teeth about every aspect of your life."

"You could have just come clean. It didn't have to be all terrible." Emma remarked casually, twirling her straw between her fingers.

"I could have, but I was too scared. What if he blew up? What if he told the tabloids all about me and ruined any form of a reputation I had for good? What if he decided I wasn't good enough for him since I had lied? I couldn't handle it. I didn't know what to do.

"He had a show in Houston coming up on his tour, the day after a romantic picnic date he took me on where I started to panic about my growing feelings for him. He invited me to come with him, and I figured, that was a great opportunity for me to tell him the truth. I could even introduce him to my family in Houston and everything could be wonderful. I accepted his offer to go to Houston and I returned back to my cousins' house that night in a great mood, planning out exactly how I would tell him who I really was. But as I laid in bed that night, I started to panic again, and the thousands of questions I listed before just popped back up, over and over and over again. I realized that I couldn't go with him to Houston. I had to stand him up for his tour and hide away with my cousins for the rest of the summer. It was two weeks before I was supposed to be back home anyways, so it wasn't like it would be forever.

"He texted me exactly twelve times that morning, and called me twice. I have his last voicemail memorized: "Something must have come up with you, because I know you wouldn't abandon me on purpose. I'll see you when I get back home from Houston. I love you.""

Emma's eyes almost bulged out of her head, while Patrick rolled his.

"He said "I love you" after two months? What kind of spell did you put on him?" Emma exclaimed.

"Please, he said it over the phone, it wasn't a big deal. Now shut up, I'm almost done."

"Emma never shuts up." Patrick muttered as I continued.

"Needless to say, he never saw me again after that. I hid out at my cousins' for the next two weeks, even though he returned to Los Angeles three days later. I didn't answer any of his calls or texts, and I got a new phone anyways when I got home and my number changed. I cried constantly when I got home; I had just thrown away something that could have been special, because I lied about literally everything in my life. I locked myself in my room, told my parents that I had a splitting headache for two weeks straight, and just cried. I didn't tell a soul about Lincoln, and I didn't tell a soul about my heartbreak.

"He seemed even more devastated than I was. I kept the news running on my bedroom TV, which probably wasn't smart, since I ended up crying even more when I watched it. He cancelled three shows on his tour, citing "personal struggles", which the news was kind enough to announce caused many of his fans to demand refunds and curse his name. It almost cost him the entire tour, and I think the only reason he got back out there was because his management forced him to. He was a wreck, messing up the words and melodies at the next two shows he appeared at, and missing another one altogether in Miami.

"He started tweeting constantly, asking around to find Sophia Flores. I ended up blocking him on Twitter because I didn't want to see all the girls making fake accounts under the name Sophia Flores and tweeting at him, promising to be his dream girl. He didn't respond to any of them, and eventually he deactivated his Twitter and Instagram. I followed everything he did for months afterwards, before I decided to forget about him altogether. How could I go about the rest of my life only thinking about a failed relationship? I had to stop being heartbroken, so I forced myself to be. Three years later, and here we are. He's my next-door neighbor."

"Holy crap, Liv. How in the world did you keep that from us for so long?"

"I didn't want to talk about it, so I didn't."

"I'm sorry that happened to you." Emma took my hand. "But don't you think you should at least see if you and Lincoln can be civil now? It's been three years, maybe he doesn't even recognize you anymore."

"That would be a dream come true." I laughed. "I don't know. I don't want to try and find out, and have him remember everything and hate me and break down crying or yelling or something like that."

"Well, if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that you weren't the only one hurt, and you aren't the only one who has an obligation to fix things." Emma stood as the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. "I gotta bolt to my Human Geography class, I'll see you two later."

"Bye, Emma." Patrick and I responded at the same time. I gathered up my things and walked to the doors with Patrick. "Do you think I'm being stupid for not talking to him?"

Patrick shook his head.

"Nope. You're just living in a world where you don't know how much you've hurt someone, instead of talking to them and finding out the truth. It's not a terrible thing. It's what most people are comfortable with anyways."

We walked in silence for a while. As we did, I felt the same thoughts from three years ago return: if I came clean to Lincoln Carter, my life would be over. Better safe than sorry...even if safe meant hiding in my bedroom for the rest of my life.

A/N: Happy Friday update! Hope you guys enjoyed! Remember to check out Chapter 28 of Dear Sydney as well, a lot happened!

Also, updates will be on hold until August 15th!

-Katherine