[completed] "I'm good at pretending I'm okay. I'm good at sealing it up and making it seem like it's okay. But inside, I'm an mentos in a Coke bottle."
°°°°°
Johnny Orlando is - or was - a 18 year old military Colonel, known for his extraordinary br...
"Laur, have you seen your CoverGirl article yet? You look so amazing!" Kenzie squeals, and pulls something out of her backpack.
"I mean," she corrects herself, "You always look amazing.
I laugh, and then look at what she's showing me.
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"You're so cutee!" Kenzie wraps me in another big hug.
"Thanks, Kenz." I squeeze her tightly.
Then I take a sip of my coffee, and pull out my laptop. "We need to get back to our schoolwork though, really."
Kenzie makes a face. "Who's school? I've never met her." Then she sighs. "Fineee. What time is the TV interview we have later?"
"Uhh, I don't know. It's gonna be here on set, right?"
"Yeah, probably. It's a set tour or something and then they're going to ask us some questions. Typical interview." Kenzie leans back and pulls out her phone. "By the way, you said your brother got discharged, right?"
I bite my lip. I miss my brother a lot. "Yeah. He got injured. Why?"
Casually, Kenzie keeps scrolling through her phone. "Uhh, well, I've never met him before, so if he's coming home soon, then when can I meet him?"
"He said he's staying there a bit longer because he wants to help his regiment before he leaves." I sigh loudly in exasperation. "I wish he would just come home already. Doesn't he miss me?"
"I'm sure he does, Laur. You talk to him all the time. I mean, whenever you can..." Kenzie finally puts down her phone to start her schoolwork.
We do online school to keep up with our crazy acting and modeling schedule. I'm 15 and Kenzie's 16, so we both have a ways to go before we're finally finished with high school.
"Mackenzie? Lauren?" Our stage manager, Trisha calls into our trailer. "You both need to be at hair and makeup in 10 minutes, you know that, right?"
"Oh. Yeah, of course." Trisha gives us a funny look and Kenzie and I look at each other and then burst out giggling.
On our show, we're two girls who happen to have super powers. We find out we actually were adopted, so we go on a hunt to try to find our parents. Then, we find out that we're not even sisters. It's a crazy show, because one episode you'll be laughing and the next crying. I guess that's what makes fans crazy about it.
Me and Kenzie have been in our own separate movies or other projects, so I guess you could say we're pretty accomplished.
As we're in getting our hair and makeup done for shooting, I show Lauren an article I found on TigerBeat.
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"This article is so adorable!" I show it to makeup artist too.
"You guys ARE bff goals, though." She chuckles and applies some eyeshadow to my eyelid.
"By the way, I heard your brother's coming home soon, right?"
I shake my head. "No, he said he's staying a little longer. Maybe in a month?"
She seems surprised at this.
"But I thought...o-oh, n-ever mind." She shakes her head awkwardly. "Sorry, I think I was confusing it with...never mind."
Slightly suspicious and confused, I give her a funny look, and then open up my phone to text Johnny.
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brotha 👌
are you sure you wanna stay there for a couple more months? I miss you :(
I miss you too!! It'll be fast, I promise
ok :/ love you ❤️
Love you too Laur
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I hope he comes home soon.
"Why did your brother want to be in the army?" Kenzie asks, sitting up straighter as her stylist curls her hair.
Pausing to think for a second, I reply, "He's always been very passionate about freedom and helping people."
She smiles. "That's admirable."
"He is."
johnny's pov
After the helicopter landed, I transferred to an airplane, which flew me into LA.
My parents picked me up. My mom sunk into my arms, wordless with tears, and even I had tears in my eyes.
"I missed you, mom."
She smiled and hugged me tighter. Dad shook my hand, and then gave me a big man hug. Then they told me the plan. We were going to drive over to where Lauren was shooting, and they would hide me during Lauren's interview. It would be like those stereotypical Soldier Coming Home videos on YouTube, except my parents were positive this would go super viral because of Lauren.
I'm sitting in the car driving to where Lauren is shooting. Occasionally, a shiver of nervousness will go through me. I hope it suprises Lauren and goes as planned. I wonder if Lauren will look or act differently from when I saw her last. I mean, she's a Hollywood actress now, world famous, so I wonder how much she's changed.
"How does it feel to be back?" Dad asks, turning around in his seat to face me.
Looking out the window at the big buildings flashing past me, I reply slowly, "Different. It's good to be back, but...I feel like I don't belong here."
"Oh."
"No, don't get me wrong, I'm so glad to be back. But I never expected I would be here."
Dad nods thoughtfully. "Right. Ok. Do you know what you're going to do here?"
"No clue." I sigh.
From the driver's seat, Mom says, "You'll figure something out. You always do."
"Anyways, we're here!" Dad says, as we pull into a parking lot.
Mom hands the attendant a slip to show identification, and he lets us in.
Once we're parked, my heart is beating super fast. I bought Lauren an army bear and some flowers as a gift, because the news station want me to give her something when I see her.
Inside, one of the TV anchors tells me what's going to happen and show me where to hide.
So I sit inside the little room they show me alone, nervously playing with the teddy bear in my hand. My hands are so hot I feel like I'm going to kill the flowers, so I put them gently down. I can't wait to suprise her.
