One

Sometimes when things start going wrong in life you can huddle in a corner and wait for the storm to pass. Sometimes, however, it will find you wherever you go. Bryn found that one out the hard way.

She used to have the stereotypical high society life; fire red sports car to drive to school, mansion, all of the clothes and accessories she wanted, Daddy's Black American Express, everyone wanted to be her friend, the guy that every girl wanted. Now, however, she was the girl who was shunned. The girl who everyone suddenly feared.

Her boyfriend left her, her friends wanted nothing to do with her, her parents were ashamed of her. The credit card was revoked. She was forced to spend 200 hours volunteering in homeless shelters, and her life was full of lawyers trying to protect her from a crime that she didn't even remember committing.

At seventeen-years-old, Bryn Ryan was the prime suspect in the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl from the rival school across town. A girl that Bryn was known to hate; a girl that used to belong to the same social group as Bryn; a girl that used to be Bryn's best friend until Bryn messed with Amber's brother.

The problem was that Bryn didn't remember a single thing about that night. She didn't know how she ended up at the cleverly dubbed "watering hole", she didn't know how she ended up lying next to Amber's dead body, but she did know that she would never kill someone – especially when Amber had every right to hate Bryn and Bryn truly had no right to hate Amber – and she knew without a doubt that she was going to have to figure out all of the missing pieces on her own, as no one believed her when she said that she didn't do it.

That's what you get for being known to have a violent temper.

Everyone believes that you're capable of killing someone who pisses you off.

"Bryn."

"Bryn!"

Bryn shook the cobwebs out of her mind and glanced around the dining room. Noticing the dark glare that her mother was giving her, Bryn figured that she had been trying to talk to her for a while.

"Yes, Mother?"

"I asked you if you had spoken to Mr. Harris today about your case."

"No. I spoke to him yesterday and he informed me that the detectives are still looking for hard evidence that places me as a killer rather than someone who is a person of interest. It's still all heresy," Bryn said with a small sigh. Placing the fork that she had been playing with on her plate, Bryn titled her head back against the high-backed dining chair and closed her eyes. Sometimes it was harder to be a probable suspect than it was to be the known suspect. At least when there is hard evidence you know that they're not going to find someone else. In Bryn's case, she had to spend every day hoping that they found something, anything, that led them to a different suspect.

"Heresy is still damaging to our family reputation, Bryn," her father snapped as he let his eating utensils hit his plate with a clink. "You better work on remembering quickly, because you don't have much time left young lady."

"You think that I don't know that?" Bryn snapped, opening her blue eyes, rimmed with frustrated tears. Looking at both of her parents, Bryn was hit, not for the first time in the last couple of months since all of this went down, that she truly lived a loveless life. She had no friends who cared to stick around, her parents were disgusted by her, and her boyfriend who had claimed to love her (which she was now convinced he said only to get in her pants) acted like he was tainted because he had touched her.

Being rich, popular and pretty apparently never helped anyone during the bad times. That lesson is never taken to heart from all of the movies.

"You guys seem to forget that this is my life that is in disarray. You guys seem to forget that it is me personally who is being watched every single time I exit the house. I am the person who is stuck with the knowledge that I was used and I don't even know how. I am the person who is being framed for someone else's sick and twisted mind. You think that I don't try to remember what went on that night, EVERY. SINGLE. SECOND. OF. MY. DAY?! That is all I think about. So don't tell me that I need to think about it even more. It's not possible," she finished in a soft whisper as she shoved away from the table and walked out of the formal dining room.

Bryn didn't make it further than the staircase before the tears started falling from her eyes. Swiping at them angrily, Bryn placed a hand on the banister, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was tired of crying. It was doing no good. What she needed to do was figure out why she couldn't remember that night. What happened? What was Amber even doing at the Watering Hole? It wasn't her normal hangout, yet both she and her brother were there. Doing what, exactly…?

Frowning, Bryn walked up the stairs, her strides echoing in the hardwood floors. The sound was lost to her as her mind tried to figure out the one missing piece to the puzzle. She just knew that if she could figure out what Amber was doing there she could take herself out of the equation for the police. Question is how does a teenager who is being carefully watched by law enforcement investigate a crime that people believed she committed?

Walking into her room, Bryn slammed her door shut, not paying any attention to the pictures that rattled on the walls. She headed straight for the closet, where shoe boxes full of pictures lay.

Maybe she could look through some of the pictures of her and Amber and the answer will be there. It was somewhere to start at least.

"Bryn Ryans, the court finds you guilty of the involuntary murder of Amber Jenkins."

Three Years Later

Bryn Ryan walked out of the holding gate at California Institute for Women and smiled. Three years having her every move regulated and watched and she was free. She never had to share another shower; she never had to wash another bathroom with a toothbrush, she never had to wear orange again, and she never had to live through another cellblock fight.

She was now twenty-one-years old, she managed to get her bachelors via online classes, and her trust fund from her grandparents, which was more than enough to live multiple lifetimes in style with, was officially hers to do what she wanted with. She didn't have to go home to her parents, whom she had not seen since the day she was sentenced. She could go wherever she wanted, as long as it was within a distance that she could report to her parole officer.

She was free again. She was going to clear her name once and for all. Find the person who really committed the crime and make them pay.

However, first thing first; she needed to find a place to stay, she needed clothes that didn't scream that she was just released from prison and she needed a nice, fat, juicy hamburger and milk shake.

Seeing the cab that she had requested earlier in the day, Bryn walked to the sidewalk and waited for it to come to a complete stop.

She was going to go shopping for the first time in years; she was going to have her hair done, get a manicure and create a persona that no one would expect to be a convicted murder. She was going to become someone that no one would have ever expected her to be. She was going to become an architect with her Grandfather's company.

Bryn was going to show everyone that she was innocent. She just had to remember to take one step at a time. That's the hard part. Bryn was known for rushing into things head first, full speed ahead.