A/N: Hey everyone! So, I'm riding on a bit of a high because The Secret Singer won one of the best summary awards for the young adult reads contest!!! That's a pretty awesome for me and great publicity for my book, so I'm extremely excited! Anyway, I hope you like this new chapter of Rekindling Us, and do tell me what you think!

Haley's POV

The director and casting crew for A Dancing Princess had set up shop in a vintage studio in Beachwood Canyon, LA. They'd decided that in order to help each auditioner assimilate the role of whomever they wanted to act as, they would create an ambience of the small town where the majority of the movie would take place.

Lights were placed in strategic points of the room, along with a backdrop of a suburban area. Two worn, steel benches were also placed on either side of the room to allow for the actors to sit together during the scene they wanted to use for their audition and interact with other characters so the casting crew could see chemistry flow within actor pairs as well.

Nervous energy bubbled within me as the other actors went before me. I sat in the waiting room adjacent to the auditioning room with a few others fiddling with my charm bracelet, while Lindsey sat on my right studying some physics notecards she'd brought in her purse and Maiko sat on my left snoring softly with her head on my lap.

I was chuckling as Maiko swatted the air in her sleep, when my name was finally called by a directing assistant. Swallowing my nerves as best I could, I walked inside the dimly lit room and walked in front of the crew. They were a panel of five people gathered around a rectangular, wood table with papers in front of them showcasing my headshots and resume. The woman in the middle smiled reassuringly.

"Hello Haley, it's wonderful to meet you! I'm Cecilia Stewart, and I'll be the director for this movie."

Only my years of acting nonchalant under pressure kept my jaw from hitting the ground when she pronounced who she was. I'd never met Cecilia before personally, but from what I'd heard, she was a hard-core director with a low tolerance for slackers and an ingenious mind that had spawned countless award-winning movies. I'd expected a middle-aged woman with the grouchy mood of a temperamental artist and a ghoulish appetite.

The woman in front of me was none of those things. She had a halo of golden blonde hair perfectly braided into a french braid, honey colored eyes, and a sunny smile displaying pearly white teeth. She also had a soft southern accent that spoke of class and breeding, and there was no way she was older than twenty-five. How did such a young, sweet woman make it in the world of hard-core, sexist men and make such a big name for herself without becoming a total grinch?

Cecilia Stewart had just become my new role model.

"Alright Haley, what we want you to do is read through this scene here." She explained, passing me a piece of paper. "This is the point where Scarlet has just realized she's fallen for Dillon, and she's kind of freaking out about it. You can start whenever you're ready."

I skimmed through the page quickly, noting a few cues that ask me to show a particular emotion or do a gesture. Then, after taking a deep breath, I started.

"I-I-I don't know what I'm going to do. This summer was just supposed to be about helping Music In Our Souls survive, and then go back home." I said​, pacing agitated back and forth. "Dillon isn't supposed to be anything other than a wonderful friend, and even if it kills me, I will keep him as one."

I turned toward the crew whom were watching me with rapt attention. Placing a frantic look in my eye, I kept going.

"Yes, that's it. I have to make sure Dillon remains only my friend. Our lives don't intersect in any way, and if I let this keep going it'll be a heartbreak neither of us will be able to recover from."

I let my eyes drop to the floor in practiced despair, and then I slumped to one of the benches for the end of the scene. I let a few moments pass of silence, and then finally looked up when I couldn't take the suspense anymore.

Cecilia sat in her chair staring silently at the table with her fingers tapping it softly, deep in thought. Then, suddenly, her head snapped up and she looked around sheepishly.

"Sorry everyone, I was just thinking about the mechanics of the scene. Haley you did a great job with the emotions and the facial expressions. I just knew you would kill this audition. But, I've had this niggling feeling all day about his scene. It doesn't fit Scarlet's character to be trying to solve this alone. I'm thinking we should bring Maiko and Lindsey and have them go back and forth with you on it. We can have them improv what they would say to you for now and then get something concrete written up later."

The rest of the casting crew agreed with Cecilia's thoughts, so they called for Maiko and Lindsey to start the scene over again. The girls came in, and Cecilia gave them a bright smile.

"Hey guys, how are you?"

"I'm great thanks so much, and can I just say, it's such a huge honor to meet you Cecilia." Lindsey gushed.

Maiko gave the casting crew a simple head nod and greeted Cecilia with a "S'up."

"Alright girls," Cecilia exclaimed once the greetings were over. "What I want is for you two to show me what you would do within this scene. Basically, Scarlet has just realized she has feelings for Dillon. It's one of the anagnorisis moments for Scarlet. We wrote it as a simple monologue, but now we're seeing it might fit better to do an actual dialogue between characters. So, what I'd like you to do is really just improvise your way through this. Act like Haley is telling you she likes this guy, and she's worried because she doesn't want to lose his friendship and she knows nothing can come out of a relationship between them because her brother wouldn't approve. Really immerse yourself into these characters, and allow yourself to imagine consoling your friend. Oh, and Maiko you would be Ellie, and Lindsey you would be Cameron, or Cam/Cammie for short."

The girls nodded and headed over to the bench I was lounging on comfortably. They read over the scene for a minute, and then we start the scene back up, with Maiko starting off first this time.

"Scar, you wouldn't happen to like Dillon, right?"

"What, no, of course not!"

"Thou dost protest too much, my lady." Lindsey retorted with a smirk.

"No, Dillon is a great friend, but that's all he is to me."

"So, you're not wickedly attracted to him? Those gorgeous eyes don't make you melt? You don't light up when he's in the room?" Maiko asked in rapid fire procession. Lindsey kicked in immediately after.

"You don't look for him first when you enter a room? You don't try to spend as much time as possible near him? You don't get jealous when he so much as smiles at another girl?"

I looked at each of them back and forth, and then stood up to start pacing.

"Okay, fine, you're right I like him! But, I-I-I don't know what I'm going to do. This summer was just supposed to be about helping Music In Our Souls survive, and then go back home. Dillon isn't supposed to be anything other than a wonderful friend, and even if it kills me, I will keep him as one."

I pivoted back to stare at the girls and pointed a finger as if I'd just made a discovery.

"Yes, that's it. I have to make sure Dillon remains only my friend. Our lives don't intersect in any way, and if I let this keep going it'll be a heartbreak neither of us will be able to recover from."

Maiko looked at me with​ concern.

"Are you sure this is what you want to do, Scar?" I sat back on the bench in the middle of them and placed my chin on my hands with a forlorn expression.

"It's what I have to do. For everyone."

Silence descended on the studio for a few nerve-wracking moments, and then suddenly applause bounded up from the casting crew. The girls and I looked over in surprise to see a beaming Cecilia making her way around the table to us.

"Oh girls, that was magnificent! I just knew y'all would knock this o it of the park!"

"I agree completely, I think you girls are hired," said a man from behind her with salt and pepper hair and deep laugh lines. Cecilia pointed to him.

"This is Mathew Lambert, our Casting director. If he says you girls are hired, then you might as well pack your bags for the trip."

Lindsey squealed and hugged Maiko, whom immediately hugged her back and then turned to Mathew again.

"Where is this movie going to be shot? Ellen didn't really give us details besides that of the audition."

I was just as curious as Maiko, but that curiosity turned into crushing panic immediately after Mathew spoke.

"In a small, quiet town in San Diego called Del Cerro. You guys ever been there?"

Maiko and Lindsey turned to me in surprise. I was struggling to remember how to breathe after being told I was going to shoot a movie in the town I'd spent years avoiding. Panic gripped my insides tightly, and tension radiated from within my skull.

But, I smiled my brightest smile toward Mathew to make sure he wouldn't think I was a nut job that shouldn't play the lead in this movie, and gave myself an honorary Oscar award for my acting when I calmly responded, "yes, that's the town I grew up in."

***

Rain was dropping in blankets of water upon the window of the luxurious restaurant I sat in. Alex had decided to go all out on this date in celebration for my newest, and biggest, role. If he only knew that the only reason I wasn't dropping it was, because the entire movie was the best thing I could hope for as a teenage actress trying to stay at the top of her game.

I'd always known that eventually something would bring me back to Del Cerro, and I'd have to confront the ghosts of the past. I just hadn't expected it to be so soon.

"Corazon, I had a meal specially ordered from to celebrate, since the chef owes my father a favor." Alex said exuberantly as the waiter came and set down covered plates.

The waiter uncovered them with a flourish, and Alex beamed at the creepy looking fish swimming in what looked like a vat of oil and cream.

"This is chef Mateo's special menu only pan seared Red Snapper with and orange juice reduction cream sauce, paired with a garlic and herb Orzo rice pilaf and a fresh garden salad. Please enjoy."

The waiter left after delivering his speech in the most monotonous voice I'd heard in my life, and I went back to looking at the food anxiously. Alex smiled.

"Don't worry, Corazon, it's fantastic. I had a taste testing beforehand, and I can assure you it's a wonderful dish."

I'm sure it is, I think to myself. To someone who actually likes fish and hasn't told you before, repeatedly, that they don't enjoy eating it.

In order to not ruin the evening, though, I made myself swallow my comments back and not say anything. Alex had always been a bit oblivious; it came from being the only child of two famous celebrities whom doted on him at every turn. He was still a really sweet guy, and he always tried his best to make me happy and celebrate each of my successes in the only way he knew how. By having an exaggeratedly fancy dinner and getting über expensive presents for everything.

I put my acting skills to really good use throughout the dinner, making myself eat the seafood and smile in gratitude toward Alex periodically during the meal. I was grateful to have a boyfriend whom tried so hard to please me. I just wish he would put that same energy into listening to me and asking me what I actually wanted.

By the time he dropped me off at home after the meal, I was exhausted of acting, and my cheeks hurt from smiling to hide the hurt in my heart from the fact that he couldn't even remember what my dislikes were. He kissed me with a long and sensous kiss, reminding me that we'd have to see each other through Skype for the next two months until he could get away from the press junkets and interviews to promote his latest movie and come to visit me at the set of A Dancing Princess.

We gave each other one last goodbye hug, and then I entered my apartment. Maiko and Lindsey lay on the couch arguing about who the killer was in some new gory film they were watching, but immediately stopped when I opened the door. Maiko lifted an eyebrow at my exhausted state.

"You sure don't look like you just came from an exciting date. What happened? I thought this was supposed to be an über romantic date to celebrate your date, and that you'd come back all sappy and lovey dovey." I flopped myself onto the couch and sighed extensively, and then I recounted the whole story for them.

"Wait," Lindsey said with narrowed eyes after I'd finished my story. "So you've told him before that you don't like fish and yet he celebrated your new role with a fancy fish dish? What the heck? Why didn't he just take you out for your favorite, pizza? Or better yet, why didn't you say anything?"

"Because, I didn't want to ruin the evening that he obviously spent a lot of time preparing. Was he a bit clueless about me to do that? Yes, but this is the world he was born into. It's what he knows. The fact that he called in a favor to a big name chef and asked for a special order dish at all shows he cares." Maiko snorted.

"I don't care how gorgeous he is, or how much trouble he went through to have this date happen. The guy couldn't remember a simple fact about you. That, to me, means you two aren't compatible."

"I don't think he's that bad," I defended.

"Hale bell, you two aren't even close to being similar. There's so much different between you two, and it shows every time you do something together and you end up giving more than you receive. This relationship is not healthy."

Lindsey nodded to agree with Maiko's mini speech, but I shook my head at both of them. Deep down, I knew they were both right, but I didn't want to admit it. If I stayed with a guy I knew would never become something serious, then I would never risk falling in love and getting my heart broken again.

Besides, there were many things worse than dating Alexander Ramirez, the prince of Hollywood.

I walked to my room to change and go to sleep after my brief argument with Maiko and Lindsey. I knew they meant well, but I didn't want to think about my relationship, or really, lack thereof. Alex and I had always been great on paper, but in real life? Not so much.

Once upon a time though, this never would have been me. I would never have settled for anything less than my perfect match in a relationship. But, my heart had been crushed, and I refused to go through it again.

Just as I was going to settle into bed, my fingers itched to look at the box. Usually, I could ignore it and move on, but with the recent news that I would go back to my hometown for a long period of time, my mind couldn't deny itself the opportunity to got through its memories of the past.

Turning on the lights in my spacious room, I padded my way to the walk-in closet and moved a pile of shoe boxes from the bottom. I looked around for around for the two floorboards darker and looser than the rest, and took them off to find the box.

It wasn't a particularly exceptional box, just a soft, worn teal painted plywood box. The paint was rusted from years of use, and the bottom right had a rustic engraving made from the hands of a ten year old boy with a penchant for making me swoon-worthy birthday gifts. I ran my hand over it, feeling the familiar ache of a thousand yesterdays.

S.S. & H.J

I opened the lock slowly and then the lid, getting a glare from the light behind me on the slightly cracked mirror inside. Letters, pictures, and other memorabilia were all stacked within its medium compartment. I picked through them slowly, placing the letters next to me.

First came the porcelain ballerina with a broken arm from my eighth birthday, then the Scooby-Doo movie tickets he treated me to on my ninth birthday. On my tenth birthday, he decided to give me this box and the rhinestone encrusted, flower hair-clip. Then came my eleventh birthday, with the Hawaiian themed surprise party he coordinated and the beautiful, pure silver ring he had given me with a shining pink, rose crystal on the top. Next came the tear drop earrings with sapphires winking at the end for my twelfth birthday, and then the card I got at the end of my thirteenth birthday that I put aside with the letters.

The last memory left was always the one that gutted me the most.

It was a crinkled and weathered photo of us on my fourteenth birthday, the last birthday we'd celebrated together. Sam's arms were wound loosely around my torso from behind and we were both beaming at the camera. Happy. Carefree. Best friends forever.

But, then, why did forever never last as long as we wanted it to?

It hurt so much to see this picture in particular, because it was the last time we were this close. After that party came the rest of Freshman year and the chaos that came with it that tore us apart and had me running for L.A. He tried his best to contact me in the aftermath, hence the many unopened letters kept in the box, but it was too late by then. He'd crushed our relationship to pieces and no amount of reparations would bring it back to its former glory.

My trip down memory lane had gutted me just as much as it always did. I sighed tiredly, knowing from experience that I wouldn't be able to sleep all that well tonight.

I put everything back in the box and fixed the closet back up, but for some reason I couldn't make myself let go of the photo. Grabbing hold of it tightly in my left hand, I used my right to trace it softly. Everything stood out to me: the dirty blonde hair curling on the edges of his old baseball cap that I knew to be soft as silk, the strain of his t-shirt against his newly developed muscles from training for baseball, and the flirty red dress I'd worn that hit me mid-thigh and that I'd worn to look pretty for him.

Not that it had helped me any. He'd still seen me as a best friend and nothing more. And when Sophia came along, I was left behind like yesterday's trash.

"Enough!" I told myself forcefully as I got into bed. "You don't even know if you'll see him. He could end up never crossing paths with you if you're selective about where you go. It doesn't do any good to dwell on what ifs."

And so, after my little pep talk, I let go of my fears for the night and went to sleep, dreaming of movie sets, dancing, and a boy with sapphire eyes.

***
A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I updated, but my AP English Language teacher is driving me nuts with her work load, and school in general is killing me because I'm working my butt off to make sure I have enough stuff to make me stand out to colleges next year. But anyway, did you guys like the chapter? I thought I'd make up for the long wait with an extra long one.

And now for your question: what do you think happened between Haley and Sam?

Thanks so much for reading, please vote and comment to tell me what you think!!