A/N: This is my first completely original fiction, please let em know what you think. Also this chapter was kind of inspiried by "Watch Over Me" by Hanson. You should check it out sometime! Anyway, read and enjoy.

Chapter 1

She stood in front of the mirror staring at her reflection. It was flawless as it always was when she finished her morning routine. This was the face the world saw, the face that commanded respect, the face that took charge at work, the face that hid the crumbled mess she really was. Every day she got up, she washed off the uneasiness night always brought, and put on this face.

She took a deep breath and saw, in her eyes, a flash of the brokenness she hid inside. How had life— She banished the question half-finished. She couldn’t afford to examine her soul before work.

Sweeping from the room she brushed her hair behind her left ear and grabbed her light coat and keys before rushing out the door. She quickly took the stairs down three floors to where her car waited in the complex’s garage. With every step she reminded herself who she was and the power she held. She had an image to protect and it was nearly all she had these days.

The morning went much the same as always. Her coffee was half-finished before she had ordered it and it was half-drank by time she parked at the office building. It would be finished before she reached the 34th floor. She nodded to the people on this floor who acknowledged her, but (truth be told) she did not know most of them. There was a time she had known them, but it that time had long passed.

“Good morning Miss Graham,” her assistant greeted.

She inwardly winced and said, “Good morning Elizabeth. What do we have planned for today?”

“There’s a meeting with President Travis at 9:30 and a couple of memos are on your desk.”

“Thank you Elizabeth. I shall be in my office until the meeting. Please call me fifteen minutes before it.”

“Yes Miss Graham,” Elizabeth responded as her boss rushed past into her corner office.

Allison let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as the door shut and she switched on her coffee maker. Her coat slipped from her arms and she let it fall onto the hook hanging from the closed door. The smell of hazelnut began to fill her office as she sat behind her desk and pick up the aforementioned memos. Although her eyes scanned each page, she barely absorbed the information; someone in accounting had had a baby and the office email would be down. Surely the third had said something, but she didn’t have the slightest clue as to what.

She dropped all of the papers into the wastebasket as she stood up to fetch herself a cup of coffee. Allison spent her days with an ever present cup of caffeine in her hand or, at the very least, within reach. To her coworkers she merely appeared overly ambitious, but she knew her job provided her with a constant state of boredom and coffee was simply the mechanism that reminded her of where she was. She retook her place behind, what she was sure was her desk-shaped coffin.

Beeping filled the large room and the man at the head of the table scowled. “I’m very sorry sir.” Allison silenced her phone without picking it up. “My mother’s been in the hospital,” she lied quickly. Truth was she hadn’t even spoken to her mother in the past six months. Her phone had beeped to signal the end of her day, but this day wasn’t over. At 2:00 her boss’ boss had called a meeting that she was required to attend. The flavored coffee she lived on had run out over an hour ago and she had already filled her coffee mug twice. Now that her phone had gone off while the big boss was speaking she was sure to get an email from her boss about proper meeting etiquette if she dared a third refill.

Thankfully the big boss seemed to take pity on her and the meeting was adjourned only several minutes later. Allison gathered the papers that had been handed to her throughout the meeting and walked back to her office. Elizabeth was still sitting attentively at her desk ready for any last minute tasks her boss may need completed.

Allison checked her watch as if she had no idea of the time. “You can go Elizabeth. If I need anything done I’ll leave it on your desk for the morning.”

“Yes Miss Graham. Have a good evening.”

“See you tomorrow.” Allison stepped back into her office and let out another breath. Damn professionalism, she thought. It was the “miss” that got her every time.

Walking over to her desk she shut off her computer, threw away two more memos before she shut off the coffee maker and slipped on her jacket. She did her best not to jog as she left the building. She was never quite sure of her desire to leave as nothing more waited for her outside these walls.

A second stop to her morning coffee shop yielded a salad of romaine lettuce topped with four cherry tomatoes, three slices of cucumber, three baby carrots, one sliced chicken breast and precisely sixteen croutons. Once home she warmed a can of tomato soup she flavored with cumin and sat down to dinner.

This was the life of Miss Allison Graham. That is, until Collin.