Life, Love, & Lies

Forty-Four

"Shit." LoLo breathes deeply as she enters Reese's apartment, not sure she did the right thing but also feeling extremely light after letting go of that particular secret.

"You good?" She jumps as Reese comes around the corner, her head buried in her purse.

"Ya, just a weird day." LoLo shrugs her off, stepping around her to head for her bedroom.

"Alright, well I'm headed out in just a minute, you're welcome to come with me, or text me if you want to meet up with us."

"Thanks!" LoLo yells behind her, already halfway down the hall, planning to crawl under the covers and hide from the world for at least the rest of the day. Changing into comfortable clothing she does just that, buried below the thick duvet and pillows when she hears her name being yelled.

"LoLo!" She peeks out from between the covers as the voice comes closer, her eyes meeting pale green ones she had not been expecting to see again for quite a while, the black hoodie still in his hand.

"Matt?" She sits up quickly.

"I need to know. As much as you can tell me." He looks nervous, his voice shaking as he enters the room, sitting on the end of her bed.

"I owe you that much. It's okay if you're angry, I wish I would have had the strength to do this years ago, I mean that, Matt." She nods, sitting herself up to face him.

"Are you being honest with me, LoLo? Are you really Felicity?" He asks with a large sigh, "I just can't actually wrap my head around that idea."

"To this day you don't take a car service in New York unless you have to because the first time I went to your family's apartment in Brooklyn I told you the subway is usually faster and I hated that my parents had my driver filling them in on every single place I would go." She smiles softly as she tells him. "The first time you came to a ballet I was in, you rented a tux because you were afraid you would look underdressed. You also found out that night that it was still a high school ballet recital, and a button up and slacks would have been more than enough." She chuckles at the memory. "I taught your sisters how to braid each other's hair, and Sarah got pissed when Hannah picked it up faster than she did, until she realized it meant Hannah could braid her hair as often as she wanted. You also picked up my tips and would braid my hair absentmindedly when you sat behind me in the math class we had together junior year."

"I remember that." He laughs, "I would braid the end of it and sometimes it would hold and you'd walk around for a while with part of a braid in the end of your hair."

"Ya, I loved when you would do that, especially when it would stay in for a bit. It probably looked stupid, but I liked that you absentmindedly played with my hair like that." She chuckles lightly, a tense but softer silence envelopes them for a moment.

"You had to have known it was Milo's and my band you would be working for when Reese offered you the job, so why did you take it?" He asks after a minute.

"Besides the part where I was trying to land a job like this?" She chuckles lightly, "It was because I was hoping for one or two outcomes. One, I walk in day one and you, or Milo, but I was banking on you, would recognize me and make me admit to being Lyss. It was terrifying, I don't know if I really wanted that outcome, but it was the outcome that let me continue to be a coward until forced otherwise. Or, and I was really hoping for this outcome but not banking on it either, that by seeing you and Milo again, especially in the setting of the band that I watched you two start, the part of my old world that I missed more than I care to admit; not that it's bad to admit, but it's hard to admit how much I missed it." She sighs, taking control of her rambling again, "I was hoping that being in that place, that I was homesick for, would give me the courage to finally do what I wanted to do since Christmas Eve of that year. By that I mean that I would finally be able to tell someone who I am, and that you two would help me heal all the parts of me that never got the chance to heal; maybe even without even knowing it, just by being close to me again. And then I could tell you and it would be over, or at least the part I cared about most would be over, I'd have my best friends back." She sighs, shifting slightly before continuing.