Life, Love, & Lies

Sixteen

"Knock knock." LoLo looks up from the book in her hands, smiling tentatively at Zach who stands in the doorway to the small office-like space she had escaped to after soundcheck.

"Hey." She offers softly as she puts her bookmark between the pages to hold her place.

"I know Matt and Milo have been in some seriously bad moods for the last three days, but you have been hiding far too far away from everyone." Zach welcomes himself into the room without asking, sitting on the edge of the empty desk shoved against one wall, facing LoLo as she sits on the floor against the wall across from him.

"How did you even find me?"

"I checked a lot of doors." He chuckles.

"Why are you hiding from us LoLo? Ever since that interview in Atlanta you have stayed as far away as possible from the band except when photographing us."

"I don't want to be in anyone's way, especially while Matt and Milo are dealing with all of this." She shrugs, shifting slightly.

"That's not a lie, but I feel like it isn't the whole truth either. Do you want to elaborate, or should I start guessing."

"It really is that, I just don't want to be an issue. I'm fine being on my own, I am alone a lot and have been for years. Books are my friends." She shrugs.

"Alright, well I hope you know your presence has been missed in the green room. Reese, Chaz, and I would like it if you came back around a little more. Even Milo has wondered where you've been."

"But not Matt?" She nods, having truly chosen to stay away due to the fact that Matt had confessed she reminded him of Lyss, of herself, but he didn't know that. She knew following the very public reveal of the photo from high school he would be even more mentally inept, the thoughts of their past even more present than following the letter she had posted. And worse, now the world, and especially the band's fans, would be discussing and doing deep dives to try and find any kind of information on the photo and the relationship between their beloved band member(s) and the daughter of the most notorious and evil modern serial killer.

"No. But he doesn't say much of anything really, just grunts or glares. That photo coming out like that messed him up big time."

"Guess we know why he got so pissed about Reese bringing up the Abernathy true crime stuff in New York." She rests her head back against the wall, "How did they get that picture anyway? Did anyone ever figure that out?"

"Apparently someone who went to high school with them sent it in from the yearbook, somehow the photo ended up in a collage of the senior class, despite her having been taken out of school before the first semester was even over."

"Wow. You didn't know before the photo, right?"

"No, Milo and Matt have always been super hush hush about that part of their lives. Matt's ballerina, his muse, his old girlfriend, that's all we ever got, we never got the story as to why it ended, or how it ended."

"Until the photo?"

"Ya. After Matt stormed out of that interview, and Milo found him and calmed him down a little bit, they came back to the hotel and Milo told us the basic story."

"Meaning Matt was dating her and Milo was their third wheel? I got that much from the photo alone."

"Basically." He laughs.

"I've been hiding, because," She pauses, sighing slightly, "because in Miami, Matt caught me in a bad moment; we got into a discussion and he ended up admitting he was keeping basically all distance from me because I reminded him of the girl he got the ballerina tattoo for. He said, my looks kind of, but also and more importantly, or torturously, my demeanor. The way I talk, my laugh he said was the worst. I don't know, I just don't want to make anything worse for him." She confesses.