Life, Love, & Lies

Thirty-Five

Lolo felt incredibly overwhelmed as she packed for her trip home to Chicago in a few hours. It's her own fault, she was the one who had brought up her past with Milo that morning at breakfast. But she had been so curious and couldn't help herself at the moment; now though, the curiosity definitely feels like it is killing this cat. Haphazardly she throws clothing and personal items into her bag, deciding without much thought what she will be taking back to Chicago with her for the next month, versus what she will leave with the tour crew to meet her in Japan.

Her body feels far too warm and tight, her eyes seeming to swim with tears of frustration, exhaustion, and uncertainty. Her life at the moment didn't actually seem incredibly full of turmoil, and yet somehow she felt more unstable than she had in years. It seemed almost as if she had hit a climax, or more correctly the moment just before the climax. The point where everything seemed slightly too calm before her world would become an upheaval, and her life changes completely. She knows the feeling, she's been here before; only weeks prior to her dad's arrest, she was finally dating Matt, ballet was going better than she honestly could have imagined, her acceptance letter to the Paris Opera Ballet had come, and she had been happier then she'd ever known. And though her current levels of dopamine are not necessarily as high as they had been in the calm before that storm there was an eerie sense a similarity between that time in her life and now. That thought is terrifying, and she is afraid to see where the shoe will drop this time.

She is startled as a knock comes at her hotel room door, having not expected anyone after the show, knowing they all had to pack and prepare for their separate flights home either tonight or tomorrow morning. Wiping her face with the sleeves of the sweatshirt she had on, she tries to gain control over herself, hoping that whoever has come to see her won't ask about the blotchiness in her cheeks or the puffy bloodshot state of her eyes. Glancing through the people she finds herself surprisingly relieved to see Zach is the one waiting for her to answer. Slowly she creaks the door open, his eyes meeting hers and swiftly turning to be filled with concern. His arm immediately pushes the door open further so he can step through, shutting it with his foot as he pulls her deep into his chest.

"What happened, LoLo? What's wrong? And how can I help?" He mumbles as his shoulders and head curl down over her, seeming to fully incase her within his hold.

"Everything and nothing, and I'm exhausted, and I'm tired, and I don't know how to even explain it all to you." She whispers, her hands fisting the back of his T-shirt, pulling herself closer to him as her emotions wash over her again, tears leaking from her eyes as she admits it.

"Did someone say something to set you off?"

"Yeah, me." She chuckles half-heartedly, "Milo ran into me this morning while I was having breakfast at a café and asked if he could join me. I agreed and then I got too curious. Partly I was trying to be a friend and partly I really wanted an answer, but then when he did answer it hurt." She admits.

"What did you ask Milo?"

"How he is holding up with everything to do with Felicity, with all the chatter the fans are putting online and the questions the interviewers are constantly asking."

"LoLo, why? You had to have known that you were setting yourself up for something painful."

"I know, but he was having a vulnerable moment and we were talking about how much harder tour life is than you'd expect, and how we are both ready for some time off, and even reassuring each other that we loved our jobs and that this is exactly what we want to be doing. I couldn't help but see that he had more he needed to get off his chest and I knew what it was, so I asked... I hurt him so much and he didn't deserve that."

"No LoLo, you didn't hurt him. You didn't have a say, you were a minor literally ripped from your bed in the middle of the night by your mother and driven hundreds of miles to a safe house. All because your mom couldn't handle the bad publicity that was being created by your dad and his actions. And I'm not blaming her for wanting to get away from that, I can only imagine how much that would hurt and how hard it would be. But it's not your fault you had to leave without saying goodbye, without contact, without anything. Also it's not your fault that the lawyers took advantage of you and Anja and scared you into the contract of changing your identities and moving to Chicago. None of that is your fault, I really really need you to understand that. None of it is your fault and you are a victim of everything your parents did, all the choices they made that put you, as a minor, in the kind of situations where you had no choices in what your future would hold."