Five ✘ Lila • Survival

#14 Lila's Ordinary Day

"I missed that mustache of yours," Lila smiled, leaning against the bars of the station's holding cell. Five was in his disguise as Jerome, looking at her a little surprisely.

"Can you explain what happened and how you got here?"

Lila waved her hand at that, "I don't think that's worth mentioning..."

"Really? You were leaving me this morning to see your parents and kids and suddenly I get a call from the detective department tonight demanding I come here. Did I miss anything in between?"

"Maybe a little... but you're going to get me out of here, right? Pretty please..." she winked at him.

"Exactly what kind of trouble am I supposed to get you out of?"

"Oh, I just pissed off some policewoman... and maybe crashed her car a bit... almost nothing actually happened, she just misunderstood me!"

"I can vividly imagine..."

"It was all a misunderstanding, just this whole day has been - ah!"

"I'm listening..." he folded his arms.

--

Earlier that day:

Lila, Diego and her parents were sitting at the table. The twins were asleep after lunch and Grace was playing in the garden with Claire.

"Lila, you can't be serious!" Her mother exclaimed.

Lila told them of her decision with the divorce and also the plan that involved the children. She wanted to be fair to Diego and suggested alternating custody, but that would include the fact that the children would still live in their house and she and Diego would take turns. They would both work and it would involve the help of her family or possibly an au pair that they would jointly select. Unfortunately, this plan was not as well received as Lila had expected.

"So I'm supposed to look for an apartment on top of everything else while you're here? Do you think I have that much money to throw around?" Diego objected irritably.

"This is silly, Lila. Would you like to try some therapy? Surely it can all still be salvaged!" Her mother suggested.

"Is it because of that boy you hooked up with?" Her father asked.

After about half an hour of debate that went nowhere, Lila got up and went out into the garden to see her children. There, another round awaited her, because Allison was there too.

--

The girls were in the garden house nearby and you could hear them laughing.

"Allison, seriously... if you start that again, I'm really going to hit you."

"Okay, so explain your point of view. Don't you love Diego anymore? He's a good man, you have three kids together..."

"And why does someone keep telling me this? I know Diego's a good man. But we're just not going to be together anymore, what else is there to explain?"

"You seemed so in love and happy at the beginning..."

"Because we were attracted to each other, physically... sexually... longing for each other... but that doesn't mean that longing will turn into a lifelong love. When it comes to more substantial things, we definitely didn't get along that well... and besides... Diego never really saw me for who I really am..."

"And with Five, do you have what you need? I mean, he's so..." she had an almost disgusted expression.

"And that's exactly the problem, you don't know him properly! Probably none of you know him or me..." She got up from her chair and walked over to Grace and Claire, "girls, would you like some lemonade?"