I have the feeling that no one's going to like this chapter, but I promise, it's necessary tto get this story where it needs to go! Milo will be back to his regular, adorable self in the next chapter.
June
Lulu
"And where do you think you're going?" Nikolas asked me as I passed him in the hall. I had hoped he wouldn't notice that I was dressed up and going out. I turned slowly to face him.
"To dinner."
"With a certain mob enforcer?"
"First of all, Milo's a bodyguard. Secondly, Sonny's not a mobster."
Nikolas stayed strangely calm. "You really like him, don't you?"
I grinned. "Yeah."
He smiled. "I like to see you happy, Lulu. I just hope you're not throwing your life away on someone like him."
"He's a good guy."
"If you actually brought him over here to meet me like I keep asking, I might believe you."
"Soon. I'll do it soon."
"Okay. Have fun. Be home by midnight."
I rolled my eyes. I didn't know if he had always been this uptight, or if having Spencer brought out his paternal instincts. But to be honest, I kind of liked it. As far as overprotective fathers went, mine had kind of sucked. It was nice to see that someone cared this much.
"I will," I assured him, then turned back around to leave.
"Just make sure you know what you doing," he warned.
I turned again to face him. "If you referring to what I think you're referring to, don't worry, I learned my lesson last summer."
"That's not what I'm talking about." He motioned for me to follow him into the main room. I sighed and followed him. Milo had made dinner reservations and I was hungry. I flopped down on the sofa beside him.
"Please understand that the only person more uncomfortable with this than you is me, okay?"
Please no safe sex lecture, I begged silently. Oh God. . . did he think that I didn't use a condom with Dillon because I got pregnant? I scanned the room for a banana or any other sign that he might show me how I was supposed to use one.
Oh God. I should have just stayed with Tracy.
"I don't know if I'm the one who's supposed to talk to you about this, but with mom not being able to and your dad. . . well, being your dad, someone needs to. And Emily probably knows what she's talking about more than I do, but I don't want you to feel like I'm just brushing you off-"
"Nikolas, breathe."
"Obviously you know better than anyone what can happen if you have sex, so I'm not going to bother with it. But I want you to know what you're getting into with this guy. I don't want to see you get hurt."
"He's a good guy, Nikolas. He really is. Can you just trust me?"
"Okay." I thought he was finally finished so I got up. "Lulu?"
I didn't turn around this time. "Yeah?"
"I know this is probably the most uncomfortable conversation you've had in a long time, but I know you haven't always had someone to talk to when you needed them. So I want you to know that if you need someone to talk to again, I can be that person." He smiled. "You can go, I'm done lecturing. Living with women is making me soft."
I smiled and turned back and wrapped my arms around his neck. "Thank you, Nikolas."
It was a game.
A night not unlike any other, we had gone back to his apartment after dinner. He poured a couple of glasses of wine- not really my thing, but I appreciated the gesture- and put on music. We'd usually finish a glass or two each before he'd turn off the lights and leave us alone with the music in the background. Tonight, it was Jack Johnson.
And then the game would start. It was simple. A kiss or a stroke in the right place and we'd be set. We'd kiss until we couldn't catch our breaths, then move on to something else. His hands slid over me, smoothly, leaving trails of Goosebumps wherever they went. I especially enjoyed it when he was still in his work suit. The button down shirt made things more interesting. I tried every time to see how many I could get undone before we pulled away, or got interrupted, or I had to leave. We were stuck in this incredibly sensual tug-of-way between what should do and what we wanted to do. I was hooked.
Even though we hadn't been together that long, we'd seen each other every day from the very beginning and it felt like we were getting serious. Most nights, I could feel my mind go blank as soon as I stepped foot in his apartment, but tonight the conversation I'd had with Nikolas was weighing heavily on my mind. I had been so certain about how great Milo was until he had placed the doubt in my mind. Truth was, I didn't know him, not that well. And for the first time ever it was bothering me. I pulled back from him quickly.
"Why don't you have a girlfriend?" I asked him, sitting up and smoothing down my dress.
He sat up as well, but didn't bother to button his shirt. "What do you mean?"
"Before we started dating, why didn't you have a girlfriend?" I knew how neurotic I sounded, but I didn't care at this point.
"There just. . ." he started. "There was no one I was really interested in."
"But you're such a nice guy. And you're hot. I mean. . . you know what I mean. You could have had anyone."
He sighed. "I was in a relationship, if that's what you mean."
"I guess so."
"I had a girlfriend senior year in high school who I went to university with. Honestly, I can't remember if it was because of her I went to Columbia, or because of me that she did. And we were together for three years while we were there."
"What happened?"
"Nothing good." He picked up our empty glasses and brought them over to the kitchenette to refill them. He handed it back to me and I took a sip, waiting on an answer.
"I think by the end of first year we were only together because neither of us really knew how to function outside of a relationship. We were living together, and it was complicated."
"So why did you break up?"
"I found out she was cheating on me. She broke it off with the other guy, and we tried again. And a couple of months after that, she told me she was pregnant."
"You have a kid?"
He shook his head. "She didn't have it."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" I asked him, unsure whether I was hurt or angry that he hadn't.
"Because I was the one who pressured her to have an abortion."
I sat up straight with my jaw clenched. "So, when I was spilling my guts the other day about what I did. . . you didn't think it was worth mentioning?"
"It was a long time ago."
I felt tears starting to well up in my eyes. "I don't care about what you did! I care about the fact that you didn't tell me this!"
He gently touched my hand. I pulled it away. "No," I told him, getting up and picking up my purse from the floor. "I'll call you."
"Lulu. . ."
I had made my way over to the door, tears streaming down my face by this point. "Please just give me some space."
He didn't come after me. "If that's what you want. . ."
"It's what I want."
I was still crying by the time I had made my way over to the docks. I had called for a launch, but it took a little while for them to come. I was trying to calm myself down before I went home. I figured that I was overreacting, and I'd be fine as soon as I got some sleep.
"Well, well, well, who do we have here?" I looked up to find Kyle Ratcliffe, one of the assholes I had gone to high school with. He was one of those kids who thought the rules didn't apply to him because his parents had money. On the plus side, he had stirred up all sorts of trouble for Maxie a year or two back. I ignored him, but he kept coming towards me. "Lulu Spencer."
"Go away, Kyle," I muttered. I wiped my eyes and continued to ignore him.
"You know, I actually saw you the other day, but I didn't want to interrupt. You were with your friend in the park. If I had known he was going to share his stash with you, I might have given him a deal."
I whipped my head around. "What?"
"You and that computer geek. You were smoking up. I would have given him a deal if I knew that he was going to share."
"You know Spinelli?"
"I sold it to Spinelli."
"You do realize my brother's a police officer, right? That I could call him up and have you arrested."
"You're not going to do that," he told me with a smile. "Because we both know that'll just get you into a hell of a lot more trouble than me."
"Whatever."
"You look like you could use a little something right now."
"Not interested."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a baggie with three or four little blue pills. "Here. Try them. On me."
I knew better, but I was intrigued. "What is it?"
"Valium. Don't worry, it's pure. It's the same thing mothers all across America are popping every day." He saw the apprehension in my face. "It's safe."
"What does it do?"
"Just calms you down. And you look like you need to chill."
I looked at him, then at the tiny bag he had extended towards me. I slowly took it from him.
"They don't last long, so if you need something more than that, come see me."
"I have no intention of ever seeing you again." The launch had pulled up in front of me, and I was waiting for an excuse to get away from him. I got in and close the door quickly behind me.
And when I was sure there was no way he could see me, I took one of the pills.
"How was dinner?" Nikolas asked me, coming into the TV room where I was sprawled out.
"Crappy," I muttered. I was lying on the ground, propped up against a bunch of his throw pillows against the sofa. He came and took a seat beside me and grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl in front of me.
"What are you watching?"
"I don't know. Something with Patrick Dempsey." At this point, I didn't really care. The pills Kyle had given me were doing exactly as he said, and I was relaxed to a point where it didn't really matter. I was ready to go to bed.
Regardless, Nikolas stayed with me and watched the rest of the movie (Which we eventually managed to figure out was Sweet Home Alabama), and by the end of it, I was ready to call Milo. I decided against it, got into bed, took a second one of the pills, and curled up to go to sleep.
I put on that Jack Johnson CD before I went to sleep though.
September
Emily
After a twelve hour shift, I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for the next week. Two separate but equally serious multi-car accidents had come in and kept me in the ER all night. The sun was finally rising, but I closed the drapes and got into bed without changing out of my scrubs. I heard Nikolas come into the room from the shower, but didn't get up to meet him.
"You know," he told me softly, leaning over and kissing the nape of my neck. "You're supposed to take those off before you go to sleep."
I smiled. "You're just trying to find an excuse to watch me change."
"Very true." He leaned over again and kissed me. I could still taste his toothpaste. "How's Lulu?"
And I was up.
"What do you mean? She's upstairs, I don't really see her."
He had gone over to his dresser and started to change. "I thought you might have checked on her. Patrick's been going whenever he works."
"Nikolas, I'm just not. . . not yet."
He came back over to the bed, his shirt yet to be buttoned. I moved over to give him room to sit. "Are you doing okay with this?"
"I guess I just didn't realize how much it still bothers me. I know it was a long time ago but when I saw her come in. . . I nearly killed myself when I was using drugs. Not on purpose, but. . . it stirred a lot up when she came in."
He brought his hand to stroke my hair. "She needs you, you know."
"I'm the last person she needs."
"I can offer to be there for her as much I want, she's not going to let me. You know what it's like not to have your mom around when you're going through this."
"I can't be her surrogate mother."
"I'm sure she'd settle on being your surrogate little sister."
I took a deep breath. "Are you doing okay?"
He shrugged. "She's my little sister. I'm supposed to take care of here."
"You couldn't have stopped her."
"Maybe." He leaned down and kissed my forehead. "Get some sleep."
Lulu
"You wanted to see me?" Lainey asked from the doorway to my room.
It was one in the afternoon, but I was still too tired to get out of bed. A nurse had been coming in every twenty minutes to try and drag me out. "I want to go home."
She nodded. "Why?"
"I don't belong here. I just want to go home and sleep. In my own bed. Can't you let me out?"
"Well, you're here for four weeks of detox. You've only been here one."
"I can't sleep in the hospital"
She shook her head. "You'll have the same problem if you go home. It's the withdrawal that's keeping you from sleeping."
"Can't you give me something to help with that?"
"I don't want to give you anything until your seizures resolve themselves."
"So I'm stuck here feeling like this?"
"Basically. Why did you say that you don't belong here?"
"I'm not like everyone else in that group. I mean, I've never fit in anywhere before, but I don't even fit in with the addicts! I hate it here! I just want to go home."
She allowed me to calm down before she said anything. She wasn't condescending in her tone, and she actually seemed to take me seriously. "How about this? I only came in to get a couple of files, but I'll be in on Monday. I'll write orders for you not to be woken up the next two mornings and you can see if that helps. Then we'll talk about it Monday afternoon."
"Really?"
"Really."
She was trying. I had to give her points for that. I reluctantly agreed, and she made the notes in my chart. After she left, I turned off my lights again and tried to go back to sleep.
But it was futile. I sat in bed, staring at the ceiling for hours, just trying to make sense of what had happened to my life.
And after the hours had passed, I still couldn't make sense of any of it.
