“But you’re Star Beck.” Ben states the obvious. “Everywhere you go, people will recognize you.”

“Unless I don’t look like me,” I say, gathering steam. “Unless I look and act totally different.”

“How are you going to do that?” Ben asks skeptically. He eyes my long red curls. “You’re kind of distinctive-looking.”

I already have an answer. “I could change my look. I could change my name. After all, I’m an actress, aren’t I? I could act differently, talk differently.”

“I don’t know . . .,” Ben says skeptically. He studies me for a minute. “It might work if people didn’t know you were missing. But as soon as word gets out that Star Beck has run away or whatever, someone will recognize you for sure.”

“Do you really think my mother would tell the media that I’m gone?” I ask, arching an eyebrow at him. A look of realization crosses his face as I continue. “No,” I answer my own question wearily. “Because then she’d have to admit that we got into a fight, and she wants the world to see her as the perfect mother.” I shake my head at the irony of it all. “She’ll cover for me just to save face. So no one—except maybe a few people Mom hires—will even know they’re supposed to be looking for me.”

I’ll have to go now. Tonight. It will be much easier to disappear from a hotel than from our compound back in L.A. And Mom is so shaken up over our conversation that she won’t have considered yet that I might have run away.

Ben nods slowly. “But how long do you think you can pull it off?”

“Just long enough for me to catch my breath,” I say, trying to imagine a day with no paparazzi. “And hopefully long enough for me to find my dad.”

“I don’t know, Star. It sounds kinda crazy.” Ben looks me in the eye. “Are you sure about this?”

“More than I’ve ever been about anything else in my life,” I say. And I am.

Chapter 6

I wanna step back,
Impact,
Change my world.
I wanna do it all,
See it all,
I’m not a little girl.

—“IF I FALL,” STAR BECK
ALBUM: THIS LIFE

Chapter 6

What does it take to change your look? Not as much as you’d think. I once had to dress up as both an “evil” and a “good” version of myself on Secrets of My Teenage Life. My stylist and I had a blast. When I had looked in the mirror at a blond, pigtailed “good” girl in a Catholic-school uniform and a halo, I barely recognized myself. I was even less recognizable in my dark-haired “evil” version, dressed in black from head to toe and covered in goth makeup.