Here's to Never Growing Up

Chapter 2

"Is that really why you've been acting distant?" Nico spoke up as he walked closer to his two band mates.

"Well...I-I-it's just that I have this hole in me and I think I need personal development before I can fall in love." Lola knew how to word things when the time suited her.

"What a bullshit excuse." Nico stormed off drum sticks still in hand.

Lola, despite herself, gazed wistfully after him, feeling her heart break at the absence of the safety net relationship.

"I messed up." Lola cursed herself.

"No, you'd have messed up if you'd have stayed with him when you don't even love him after you've been going out for two years."

Lola's head rested on Isla's shoulder as silent tears slid down her cheeks, running her thick eyeliner and mascara.

"It'll turn out all right in the end" Isla kissed the top of her head before getting up off the floor so she could go pee.

Lola wallowed in her own misery for another half hour until Jeffrey came to get her, informing her that dad was outside to pick them up.

+++

It was dark outside and the street lights flickered. People were still wandering away from the music hall even though performances had long ago finished. "Hey daddy." Lola faked a smile and clambered in the front seat. Lola was a daddy's girl, there was no doubt about it.

"Hey my lovely offsprings." Lola rolled her eyes, fastened her seat belt and her scruffy shoes rested on the dash of the car.

The drive home was short but Tom always felt safer driving them home after a concert, especially on a Saturday night. Lola always insisted that she and Jeffrey would be able to fight them off, Tom insisted it was 'just in case'.

"Destination reached." Tom said in a robotic voice, mimicking a satnav.

"Lame." Lola commented as she headed into her house.

As soon as she was in home, her shoes came off, her hair went into a ballet bun, she changed into pink pyjamas and her makeup was swiped cleanly off her face.

It wasn't until she was wrapped safely in her duvet that she felt that she could cry heart wrenching sobs. Her life felt as if it was going nowhere. Stuck in the same house with the same things. The same people, the same routines, the same subjects at school. The same horrid personalities and the same horrid school. Same. Same. Same.

Repetitive. Boring. Lola just needed to be saved.

+++

After Lola had cried herself to sleep that night, Tom and Nicole had talked quietly in their room about Lola and how they both had a feeling that something was wrong.

"She acts so different when she's not in home and it's worrying me Tom."

"It's worrying me too honey."

"Is there something you think we could do?" Nicole leant into her husband.

"I think this is something she needs to figure out on her own." The lights went out and everyone was soon asleep.

+++

The next day, Lola didn't feel like doing much so she stayed in her bed playing games on her phone until midday and then ran a bath.

She looked down at her body as she took off her clothes. Her hips stuck out too much and her arms were flabby.

Even though she knew her body image wasn't perfect, it was the only part of Lola that made her feel like Lola. Her personalities didn't seem to fit into her but she didn't want to change her to fit her personalities. She loved her body and she smiled proudly as she sunk into the boiling water.

Her phone beeped in the midst of washing her dip-dyed hair. Awkwardly, she reached over the side of the bath to check why her phone had made a noise.

It was Nico; where do we stand?

Idk, I think we should just b band mates, Lola replied.

Making the breakup official like that stung but Lola had excepted it now that the grief she had felt had vanished.