A CERTAIN ROMANCE ━━ robert keating

oo. prologue

00. PROLOGUE
the taste of freedom

( disclaimer: mentions of abuse, eating disorders, and others.
please do not read if any of the mentioned before could harm you ‼️ )

★

real life
august, 2021

LOLA FLOWERS has never had a moment for herself. Always doing something to please someone else. Always making herself busy so she wouldn't be able to overthink everything in her life—or even just to think itself. Since a very young age, Lola had settled to herself the goal of making her mother proud. She got the best grades at school, all by spending the entire day studying and never having time for making friends. Going through several diets and rigid workouts, so she would remain thin and beautiful (so her mother said). She have been facing herself in the mirror at least five minutes every morning since she was six—naked, in her underwear, fully clothed, from afar and from very close in a zoomed mirror to check on her pores. It was psychotic.

Becoming a model had always been her mothers dream. Sadly she never got the chance. Getting pregnant at twenty two destroyed her every opportunity of getting notice in the industry. And so now, of course, she blamed Lola for all the bad things in her life—even the once she had no chance to be slightly involved. And Lola, like the good daughter she was, accepted the blame, apologized, and tried even harder on being a better daughter.

And how her mother never could become a successful model, she forced Lola to be what she had always wanted. But Lola never took it as labor, she felt already obligated enough on making her mother happy, so since the very beginning she was glad to have something her mother could love her for. At first she loved it, Lola thought modeling was helping her get closer to her mom. She accompanied her to every photoshoot and every casting. It was the first time Lola had share a serious amount of time with her mom.

But what Lola thought will be final bond creator, became the final destroyer. After four years of being her mother's string puppet, the now seventeen year old started to realize how abusing the relationship with her mom was. She would never allow her to leave the house, not even for a walk, unless it was for running or going to the gym (which both activities were detailedly controlled by her mother). She was putting her through health problems and eating disorders by never letting her eat anything outside the diet, not even a piece of cake on her birthday.

Lola started to grow very tired of it all. Her mental health and her confidence were down to the floor. She was robbed of her childhood and teenage hood. And she knew that if she allowed her to keep controlling her, the next thing she will get completely robbed was her life. She still had a piece of her that hasn't been entirely consumed yet, and she used it to scape that life.

When she finally turned eighteen on july 19th in 2021, she went to the bank and took out all the money she had done thanks to modeling. Money she didn't have free possession of before since she was a minor. That was one of the first big betrayals she did to her mom (one less hurtful, but for Lola felt as freeing as this one, was the time she walked the way she wanted in a runaway, not listening to her mother's instructions on what to do with the dress and how to move her body. The media called her iconic for it and ever since she got the freedom to walk runaways the way she wanted). Her mother always believed Lola would grow older and share the money with her. But it was her money, her effort, her mother never went through diet and torture for it, Lola did, and now she could enjoy it.

She bought the first ticket she saw from Bristol, England to New York City, US. The flight had to make a connection in Dublin, Ireland. And to contrary as she was feeling that day, the connection got delayed for almost eighteen hours. And it was then when she did her second big betrayal to her mother. She fell for a boy.