Nearly Famous – Episode 7

Owen had left suddenly at the Christmas ball without saying anything to anyone. After he had left, everybody was trying to contact him with no luck. Eventually, the texts, emails, and phone calls slowed down until they made a final stop.

It had now been a year since they had last seen Owen. Lila, Kate, and Jo were all walking back to Kate's room. They were discussing their current school assignments and gossiping about why some of the other students didn't make it into second year. They entered Kate's room and saw a guy with silky, brown hair and wearing a leather jacket looking at one of Kate's old CDs. He was facing the wall with his back turned to them.

"Excuse me? This is my room. Who are you?" Kate said in a slightly startled voice.

The guy turned around, revealing his big, beautiful, blue eyes and his perfectly parted hair. He grinned slightly and with a small laugh replied, "Don't tell me you forgot me already!"

A silence fell upon the room as everyone processed this sudden appearance. Kate and Jo instantly ran over to hug Owen, who was overthrown by an unexpected amount of weight thrown on him. He laughed. Then they laughed. Then Owen noticed Lila still standing in the doorway looking down at the floor as if he wasn't even there. She slowly looked up and met his eyes. Right when he thought she was about to join in on the hug, she simply turned around and left the room and walked back down the hallway the way she had came.

Owen suddenly pushed Kate and Jo off of him and said, "What's wrong with Lila?"

Kate rolled her eyes and said to herself with a slight sarcastic laugh, "Of course!" She thought to herself 'It doesn't matter if it's one year or five years, it's always going to be about Lila'.

"I don't know man, you really pissed her off leaving like that. She still hasn't worked out all her feelings about that night yet." Jo said trying to fill in the blanks for Owen.

"She's still not sure whether to be angry, sad, thankful, or pleased that you left like that. She just decided to stop talking about it all together. It seems to have really screwed with her head. You messed her up bad and now she's just trying to make it through the death of her mom." Kate added.

"Wait… what about her mom? She died! How?" Owen replied startled.

"Drug overdose." Continued Jo.

"Oh God. Lila must be a wreck!" Owen said taking a seat to process the current news, "Is she ok?" he thought for a second, then continued, "Of course she's not!" Then he bolted out the door and down the hall.

"Good to see you too!" Kate yelled after him.