the NOT

chapter one.

Katy - 5 years earlier

"I don't know if this is such a good idea," I told Nathan hesitantly. We were lying down together, spread eagled, just the four of us... me, the aforementioned Nathan, Owen, and Tristan, more specifically my best friends and home school buddies. We were in our favorite spot, a clearing in the forest behind our neighboring houses.

When I was first born, my mother used to take me on walks on the path leading to this clearing the woods behind my house. No matter the weather (which was usually sunny, since we lived in Southern Cali), every day she would take me along that path and lay down with me in the soft, smooth grass of the clearing. After I met the boys, we would do the same thing at least once a week. It was our time to relax, plan, and just be ourselves. In fact, they were the only friends I had, so I would cherish this time we spent together.

"Come on, Katy," Nathan said, suddenly sitting up. He pulled his laptop into his hands with a pleading look on his face. "You're our only hope." Oh, god. There he goes with the cheesy Star Wars lines. They always get me.

"You can't resist our sexiness," Tristan added, laughing along with Nathan. I blinked slowly, my eyes growing wide, and started to laugh along with them.

"Okay, okay, you got me there," I said, wiping away happy tears from my eyes. "I'll do it! I'll get you a YouTube channel." Owen, the only one not to join in during our laugh fest, suddenly got a huge smile on his face. He grabbed the computer from Nathan and set it in my lap, blue eyes boring straight into my soul.

"You said you would make it. So make it," Owen said, his curly dark hair slowly falling into his eyes. I have to admit, I have some good looking friends, but the nice thing about our friendship is that we look past our faces and into our hearts. That was a bit deeper than I expected, and I chuckled to myself, putting my hand over my mouth.

The 'hearts, not faces' thing came about when I first met my friends when I was younger. Owen's mother had just gotten into a car accident, and had sustained a few injuries. I remember he was walking along the same path I took so many walks on when I was younger, and I sort of followed him. I'm not a stalker, don't worry. The entire reason I followed him was because he looked so sad. When he stared at the same beautiful trees I looked at every day with happiness and love, he instead stared at them like the silent trees were making him hurt. I didn't, and I still don't, like seeing people hurt. When he finally reached the clearing and just sort of collapsed on the ground, I came into the light and slowly lied down next to him.

'Hi, my name is Katy,' I said to him. 'If you want, you can talk to me. My mama says not to push anyone into saying anything, so you don't have to say anything if you don't wanna,' I told him. Owen then looked up at me with tears in his eyes and told me about everything- his alcoholic father, his hurt mother, and I vowed to never, EVER let the looks of these boys ruin my friendship with them. I don't want the faces of one of these boys ruin what is really there: a good friendship and a loving heart.

Owen and my friendship then led onto me meeting the rest of the boys, which he homeschooled with. I eventually joined their group after leaving my school which I had grown to hate. All of that was only 3 years ago; now we're still best friends.

"What, Katy?" Tristan asked me, bringing me back to the present. "You were really spacing out there. Aren't you supposed to be making our channel?" He pointed to himself, and then all the boys.

"Okay, okay. I'm doing it," I responded, clicking on the 'create account' button on Google+ sign in. "What do you want your email to be?" I asked Tristan, the leader of the group, almost YouTube stars.

"Try 'thenot@gmail.com.' It probably won't work because there are too many dang people on Google+ but we should try it anyway," he said. Just as he predicted, it was not available, but the next option was 'thenottm@gmail.com,' and that seemed to work just fine.

The boys crowded around me as I finished making the password. "Katy, just click the 'create' button," Nathan said, clearly getting aggravated by my annoying slow typing skills.

"Okay! Okay! Here we go," I said, clicking the button to create the account, and watching as the boys saw their channel pull up on screen. After a few clicks around, the boys figured out a channel name. As I typed it in, I hoped it would just be a thing to occupy them for a day.

I typed their name into their Google+ page and watched as their dreams, unrealized by me, came to life.

'the NOT.'

Katy – 5 years later

Crap, crap, crap, I mentally hit my head for the hundredth time. Where did my dad park the dang car again? Why can't I remember these sorts of things? I asked myself. I hurried through the crowds of the concert, hoping the only people I do not want to see would find me here. My newly acquired big brown glasses were slipping and sliding off of my nose as I sweated. I really did not care. I was about to have a stupid panic attack because I couldn't find where my dad parked the stupid car!

My patterned sundress flew around me and my brown sandals were making way too loud slappy noises as I ran around the lot, looking for my dad's car. All I remembered was that it was big, black, and parked behind a big red tour bus. I almost ran into another car. It was nighttime and really hard to see outside.

Suddenly, I reached the edge of the lot. Right in the corner was a big red tour bus, with a big black SUV just like my dad's. I sighed and started to talk to myself.

"Are you sure this is your car, Katy? Cause if it isn't, then you're in big trouble. But if it is, you're in big trouble anyways because your dad is supposed to be meeting you inside to"-I paused and flicked a piece of my dirty blonde hair out of my face-"take pictures of the band he's working for and he worries to much and it'll all be okay..." in the process of my whispered rant, I touched the car and the alarm didn't go off. I specifically remembered that my dad's car alarm did not go off anymore. I sighed.

Let's take a chance, I told myself, and opened the passenger door, just to see a beautiful, blonde haired, blue eyed boy staring back at me.

"Katy?"