A/N: Hi everyone! So, this is my newest story, and I hope you all enjoy!

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I remember the moment I first fell in love with music.

I was 11 years old, walking down Ali'i Drive in Kona, watching as the tourists who flocked to the area whispered and laughed, buying overpriced, imported, Americanized versions of Hawaiian culture- something we had talked about earlier that day in Hawaiian History. I passed the store where they sold my favorite Gecko-egg-shaped gum, past the bay front restaurant, past the room with the giant plastic blue marlin.

I remember sitting in front of the café, guava juice in hand, as I watched the lone guitar player pluck and strum away, his fingers moving fluidly across the fretboard.

I sat there for what must have been 4 hours, till it started to get dark. Until my parents came back from wherever they had been and dragged me to the car… I stayed until he left, until his music stopped.

The funny thing was, mine didn't. That night, I rode back to my house in silence; the only sound on the hour-long ride was the hum of our old, beat up, beloved, 600-dollar-wreck of a car.

But that didn't matter. I had music in my head, notes running around like my 3-year-old sister at bath-time, melodies flying through my brain like soaring birds. I heard a snippet there, a chord here. My fingers itched to play, to give, to show my family what I could hear. And as the songs floated in the air in front of me, I smiled, thinking about what I would do when I got home.

As I got out of the car that night, I had a horrible epiphany.

I couldn't play. I had never touched an instrument in my life- let alone knew how to pull a full-fledged song out.

I realized that I had a terrible gift. I had been made a visionary, a dreamer—but I was unable to create, unable to mould it to my specifications, unable to turn those thoughts into realities.

I cried myself to sleep that night. My parents came in often, asking what was wrong with me, what had happened... but the sadness of it was too much to bear. It was an oppressive weight, pushing my back into the bed and sitting on my chest.

Ever since then, the music has been in me. It speaks in small spastic sentences, begging for a release from its ethereal prison. I have learned to play now, and my burden is not quite so great, but I still am not good enough to create what I wish, and it kills me everytime I pick up my guitar and can't do what I want.

My parents didn't understand how their studious, diligent, mathematical and academically driven daughter turned into a dreaming musician.

Not that it matters anyway- my father died in a car accident involving a drunk driver and a tree a few years ago, and Mom's never been the same since, pushing herself and exhausting herself with whatever work she can get.

We moved out a year ago- Mom had started to drink, and I told her it was the bottle, or me and Katherine.

She chose the bottle.

It is something I have learned to live with.

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I was five when I first began acting. My parents were the type that never really meant to have children in the first place- I had no siblings, and life in our giant modern glass-and-steel monstrosity of a house was lonely. They saw me as an inconvenience.

Apparently, when you live in LA, the best way to get rid of such an inconvenience is to put your kids in acting classes and sign them up for as many commercial deals as you can get your hands on.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't as if they didn't love me- they just weren't ready. They were used to traveling and doing whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, and as long as it didn't get back to Mom and Daddy, the consequences be damned. Honestly, they were just too self-centered to care about me.

I still remember my first audition. I was there with the housekeeper- apparently your only son's long-planned first audition was easily trumped by a last-minute hair appointment.

I was lucky- my neighbor, who apparently thought I was the cutest thing on earth, had made a few calls, and that commercial (for Blowpops- the one candy I hate the most, ironically) started off what would later be known as, "one of the most illustrious child acting careers of the 20th century."

I've been around actors my whole life- people who lie, cheat, and brag for a living. Not that I don't, of course- I was just lucky enough to get a rude awakening.

Five years ago, a friend of mine's series replaced him- said they were looking for a different kind of actor. Suddenly, he was out of a job- he had nowhere to go. He had spent his money on stupid things, just like everybody else, and last I heard, he was off working at some diner joint down in Los Feliz.

I don't want that to be me. I've been lucky so far, but luck runs out easy. So I've been saving my money, watching my attitude, taking work, and keeping myself out of trouble.

It's been working so far- I'm off to Hawaii in a couple of weeks to shoot a new movie while the buzz from my last one is still going strong.

Hopefully it'll help me- work always has. That's the great thing about acting- you can be whomever you want. You aren't limited to the confines of one personality, one way of thinking. I've always loved it, and that's why I truly don't want to end up like Jake, working at some dead-end job where all you see is Hollywood outside the window of a diner.

If I become less popular, I can't act ( My name won't bring in enough money)-- and I honestly don't know what I would do. I'm getting older now- I'm almost an adult, and Hollywood is a cruel mistress.

I just hope that this movie will work out. Because honestly, if it doesn't I am completely, totally, royally...

Screwed.

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Two different people. Two different lives.

She was cunning and passionate. He was sheltered and calculating.

He acted in movies for a living. She acted like she cared about the millions of tourists she served.

She was blue-collar by day, musician by night. He was an actor by day- and a person by night.

He stayed at hotels. She worked in them.

Funny how love doesn't seem to notice any of those things.

This is their story. The story of a modern love that gave a royal screw-you to the boundaries of society.

And where, might you ask, does this epic tale begin?

The only place it could, of course.

The Big Island of Hawaii.