Wherever You Go [Katy Perry Fan fiction]

Chapter Sixty-Nine

"So is she going to tell them?"
I sigh in frustration just thinking about it all, "well, yeah, I guess she has to. She can't hide something like this away from everybody, and even if she tried, it would all just come out eventually anyway. When exactly, I don't know."
Lou clutched my hand just that little bit tighter. Most likely sensing the hoarseness in my voice as I choked back the pain flushing through my body. He knew how hard it was for me to keep things like this from my family. God knows how hard it must be for my mother.
"It's finding the right time," he says.
"I don't think there's ever a right time to tell your family and people that you love that you have Cancer."
Lou's soft chocolate eyes meet mine as he nodded, "true." But it was after he had spoken that I noticed his eyes drop to the floor discreetly as though he had something on his mind. He had been strange all morning. Ever since he took a phone call after breakfast, it was as though he was just completely focused on something else. Like something was torturing him.
"Lou," I speak softly, until he lifts his gaze from the floor and turns to look at me. "What's bothering you? And don't say nothing because you've been acting weird all morning. Is this about what I said at the table last night? About me not going to London?"
"What? No. It's nothing like that. I got your back on your decision, Sammie. I completely understand why this isn't the right time."
I place a hand on his upper arm as we walk through the mall. We had done our best to be as low key as possible. That included hats, scarves, big coats, anything that made us less noticeable really, especially since my mom and dad were out with us as well which just made it so much harder to blend in. She could have every part of her face covered but somehow she would be noticed. She could be thirty seconds in a store and come out to it being absolutely swarming with paparazzi. How? I have no idea.
"So what is it then?" I question, to which he looks at me apologetically. He was chewing nervously on the inside of his lip, which worried me a hell of a lot. It took a lot to worry Louis. He was one of those laid back kinds of people when it came to panicking about things. I guess you could say I was the complete opposite. I would sit and stew on things, overthinking them in my mind until my imagination made everything seem ten times worse and put me in situations that hadn't even happened, resulting in me not even being able to sleep properly at night.
That had been happening a lot recently, actually.
"I had a phone call this morning," he breathes out.
"Right..."
He pushed a hand through his hair and closed his eyes tight. I was panicking already, because I could see how much he didn't want to tell me.
"I really didn't want to have to drop this on you now,"
"Lou," I say quietly, "whatever it is you can tell me."
"You two ready?"
I almost jump out of my skin, looking over my shoulder to see my parents stood arm in arm. I sighed discreetly in frustration, knowing that whatever Louis was just about to tell me, was now going to have to wait. I look up at him and mime, "this isn't finished."
He just nods, knowing that I would stick to my word, but the slight panic on his face was still very much there. Whatever it was was stewing in his mind, and definitely had been all morning, only leading to me now starting to worry myself because I knew how serious it must be.
"Yeah, we're ready," I finally respond to mom, noticing her stood staring at me with a questioning, raised eyebrows look.
The four of us walked through the mall, my arm linked with Lou's, mom's linked with dad's. Of course it didn't go without a few startled looks from passers by, as they second glanced at the raven haired woman beside me hidden behind a dark grey beanie and RayBans. Mom had learned to ignore it though. 'Years of practice' so she always says, but for me, it was still strange and fairly uncomfortable having strangers stare you out for an entire two minutes until they had walked past you, and even then, they still peered over there shoulders and whispered to their friends 'that's Katy Perry!'
"Buy anything nice Sammie?" Mom questions me, noticing me fidget like I do all the time when we're out in public and being watched and whispered about by strangers. One thing I absolutely hated was being centre of attention. I was one of those people that got paranoid far too easily.
"Uh, not really, well, not for me anyway. I got Keith and Mary a little something, but that's about it."
"Keith and Mary?" My dad's tone confused, but still he gives me a smirk. "That's very...formal for your grandparents, don't you think kiddo?"
"Dad, have you ever gone from calling your parents, mom and dad, to then your grandparents? It's uncomfortable. You should see the look in her eye when I call her Nan or Gran. It kills her every time."
My mom quickly turns to face me, a look of guilt written all over her face. I knew that she felt that even though she's my mom, that she had stolen me away from Mary. It was difficult for Mary, more than anyone, to get used to me and Katy being mother and daughter again after so many years of Mary raising me, loving me, treating me as her own. I knew that in her eyes, in her heart and in her mind, I was still her daughter. I don't think that could ever change for her.
"And we can't blame her for that." I quickly state.
"No, we can't, but she's had two years to get used to it now."
I look up at my mom and frown, "hey, you had fifteen years to get used to me calling you Katy instead of mom when we were growing up, yet every time I called Mary mom it was like a punch in the gut to you."
"That's different." She says quietly, but knowing full well that it wasn't at all.
"No it's not," I smirk, "and you know it."
"I am your mom though, Sammie. She isn't."
"For fifteen years she did everything for me that a mother would do. You can't just switch off your feelings, mom."
"Sammie is right," my dad agrees, but of course mom knows that I'm right. "Mary can't just go from having a daughter for fifteen years to then seeing and loving her differently because things changed between you and Sammie."
She chewed on the corner of her lip and looked down at me with narrowed eyes. "This is your fault. Everyone just loves you too god damn much."
I laugh at the same time as feigning offence, "hey, don't blame me!"
"I do get what you're saying, and I do understand... I've been in her position, the one looking in from the outside, not having the authority to call the shots anymore-"
"It's not nice," I whisper.
"No, it isn't."
I give her a small smile. Her blue eyes flash me a look, but I can see that our conversation had now made her see things from a whole new perspective. Mary's perspective. The same perspective that she had when she was a twenty year old girl with a baby she had broken-heartedly given her mom to raise.
"Hey guys," Louis speaks up, making me realise how quiet he had been. The three of us look at him in sync. He stares ahead with annoyance in his eyes, tightening his grip on me just a little. "Looks like we got friends waiting for us outside."
I follow his stare towards the huge beautiful glass doors at the exit of the mall. A crystal chandelier decorated in thousands of tiny fairy lights hangs just before them, but the sight is ruined entirely by a million flashes blinding us from the other side of the doors. Paparazzi.
"Shit," mom mutters under her breath, pulling down her beanie so it then covered her entire forehead, sitting just below her eyebrows, leaning closer to dad. "Everyone stay together." She looks at me and Louis. "Louis, do not let go of my daughter at any point."
"Not a chance of that, don't worry."