Life, Love, & Lies

Seven

"Are you okay LoLo?" She startles slightly as a warm hand is placed on her forearm.

"What? Oh ya, I'm fine." She smiles over at Milo who she is sitting beside on the plane.

"You seem distracted or nervous? Is it flying, does it make you nervous?"

"Not really, I guess it's just starting this whole job for real, I mean now we are on promo and then tour, if you guys hate my work now it's not good for any of us." She shrugs, coming up with a lie on the spot, knowing she can't tell him she's actually terrified of where their plane is headed, of being back in Manhattan in only a matter of hours.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that LoLo, we are big fans of your work thus far and I personally do not believe we could ever be thoroughly disappointed by you. You are too talented."

"I wish that would help as much as you want it to." She laughs.

"I could try and distract you if you'd like? I could tell you stories or something."

"I bet you have some amazing stories." She grins, nodding for him to start talking.

"You would think growing up in Berlin with a politician as a father that I would have some seriously crazy stories, but my life didn't really get exciting until I moved to New York when I was fifteen. Not to say living in Germany wasn't great, but it was typical there. I went to a special school for the children of important people, studied English and diplomacy as if I were to become a carbon copy of my own father. But even then my true passion was music, I learned more English listening to bands like The Beatles, Queen, ACDC, anything I could get my hands on. My parents didn't mind, they are amazing and truly only sent me to the fancy school for my protection. My dad had been in politics when the wall fell and the USSR was abolished. People in Germany were paranoid that the children of those involved in those things on the Western side may see the retaliation, though I know of nothing coming from it."

"Wow. And you said it was typical living in Berlin." She chuckles.

"For those I was friends with, and the circle of people my family was surrounded by it was." He shrugs, "When my dad got sent to New York I thought my world was opening up, and I wasn't wrong. There is a school in Manhattan specifically geared towards young musical talent, and I got in. I sent an audition from Germany as we were packing up our lives, knowing this school would be my way into the world I truly wanted to be a part of as an adult. But that school gave me so much more than just a leg up into the music industry. It gave me Matt for one, I mean kind of, I met him in Brooklyn over the summer before school started, we lived a few blocks from each other and I would walk to the same park he took his sisters to. But he also went to the music school and we became inseparable. I don't know what I would do if I didn't know Matthew Knight, he is my best friend and the amount of shit we have gotten each other into and out of in the last seven years is absolutely innumerable."

"I love that." She smiles brightly, remembering some of the shenanigans the three of them used to get into together, "I don't really have a best friend."

"That's kind of sad."

"Maybe my auntie, she's been through everything with me, and took me in when I was orphaned, I love her to death and talk to her about everything but it's not the same as having a best friend that is my own age."

"Matt and I had another best friend in high school, her name was Lyss. I met her before Matt did, my very first day at the school she was in my first class, and if you've ever seen Gossip Girl, well I was a bigger stand out than Dan Humphry. Everyone could tell I was the new guy, the foreign kid with a funny accent that no one could understand. But she leaned across the space between our desks after the teacher forced me to introduce myself and started talking to me in broken German. It definitely wasn't perfect, but it was obvious she was trying, and she was apologizing for the asshats as she called the rest of the kids in the class, and in the school. She was something else, she came from all the same money, the fancy penthouses, limit free credit cards, and all the expensive things, but she wasn't part of it. She understood what she had, but she also understood all the negatives of it and tried to keep herself from becoming entangled in all of that. She spent more time in Brooklyn every week than any one of those other asshat Manhattan kids have in their whole lives. She was soft spoken and kind, but a troublemaker all the same."

"Did you love her? You talk about her like she was your world."

"Not like that," Milo smiles, "She was my sister, my best friend, but never more than a platonic piece to my story. Matt on the other hand, he had a crush on her from the first time I introduced them at lunch that first day. It took them both a long time to see it, but eventually they realized what I had known for a long time, and I loved being witness to their relationships slow unfolding."

"So you said she was a troublemaker, what did she do?" LoLo asks, soaking in the warm feeling of hearing Milo talk about her so fondly still.

"What didn't she do is a better question." He laughs, "She lived in a penthouse on Park Avenue and 81st street, which in Manhattan speak is the epitome of the upper east side. Her dad was a doctor, mom was a socialite, and she was an only child. Her parents were out of town often, away on business or at functions away from the city. So when they were gone it was left to the housemaid and nanny to be in charge of the home and of Lyss. Her Nanny was German, and I knew all the tricks to bribe her. I would bring her candies and treats sent from home that weren't always legal in the US and she would more or less let us run our own lives. The three of us, at sixteen, would do the dumbest things. One time we walked to Central Park in the middle of the night just after school ended for the summer and placed five hundred small rubber ducks in the Bethesda Fountain. There was an investigation and some speculation of who did the prank, but no proof and no real leads, and it was a harmless crime, so it blew over. It was totally her idea, she was the queen of pranking, and obnoxiously small inconveniences. Misplacing her dad's wallet when she wanted attention from him, just to get him to ask her to help him find it was a regular. Disorganizing her mom's jewelry boxes and mixing up the names of obnoxious kids she associated with due to her parents just to piss them off were her favorites. She did it for fun and she did it for attention, she wasn't a neglected child, she could have pretty much anything she wanted, but her home and family was not one filled with affection, and she lacked that kind of attention that she needed. It led to us causing mischief just large enough to warrant her parents attention for a few moments or days. She was clever."

"You fell out with her? She's no longer friends with you and Matt I mean?"

"There was a scandal with her dad, a pretty big one actually, and her mom took her and ran. We never saw anything of her after that, and then her mom died and she must have got shipped off to some other family or somewhere we couldn't find her. She never came back. So I guess ya, we aren't friends with her anymore, but we have fond memories, and we both hope she's doing well for herself. For all we know she's in Paris, that was her dream. ...I kind of hope she made it to Paris. I give Matt a hard time about writing songs about her still, but it's not because I actually dislike her or talking about her, I just get really sad when he does, they make me miss her all over again. And it makes me worried that he will never truly get over her, that it will continue to affect the rest of his romantic relationships the way it has everyone he's had since her. I don't want him caught up on a ghost like that for the rest of his life, it isn't healthy."

"You're a good friend Milo."

"I try, you're a good listener LoLo, no one else ever asks me about me anymore just about the band."

"I like stories about regular life, it's refreshing to remember people are all just people at their center, below the surface that everyone can see." She shrugs, "The band is your surface, it's deeper too, but it is the surface that the world sees and wants."

"You know LoLo, you are truly nervous over nothing. I'll be keeping you on the team no matter what, I like you."

"Thanks." She blushes slightly, "And thanks for distracting me, I really appreciate it."

"No problem."

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~M =)