Chapter Twenty - Five

Elisabeth and Nick ran downstairs, almost tripping over each other to see Brandie and Ms. Geller standing at the door. Elisabeth stood there, hearing her mother yell at her sister, and backed up a little, hiding behind Nick, taking shelter.

“Elisabeth! Did you know about this?” Ms. Geller asked as Elisabeth peeked over Nick’s shoulder at her mother, “This,” she said, pointing to Brandie, “This excuse that used to be my daughter!”

“Mom, God!” Brandie yelled as she walked back over to the sofa, and got up under the blanket and layed down. Elisabeth and Nick stood there, saying nothing until Ms. Geller looked at them, “You two are in your underwear.”

Elisabeth and Nick looked down at themselves. Nick was in his boxer briefs and Elisabeth was in her bra and panties.

“Oh I’m sure you’ve seen more than underwear,” Ms. Geller said as she shut the door, walking over to the sofa and looked down at Brandie, “Did you come here to hide out so I wouldn’t find out? Do you think I’m that stupid? Nick, go put some clothes on,” she said, not even looking up at him.

“No problem.” Nick said as he ran upstairs, tripping over his feet again. Brandie, Elisabeth, and Ms. Geller looked over at the stairs, “I’m fine!”

“Mom,” Elisabeth said, walking over and taking the blanket from Brandie, and wrapped it around her, “I wasn’t hiding her out on purpose and I didn’t know okay. She showed up yesterday and I was just as in shock as you are and I told her she could stay here tonight, I mean last night and then she was leaving to go back to school. I don’t know anything, but I know I don’t want to put up with this shit today because I can’t handle anymore family drama okay?”

“Okay,” Ms. Geller said as she looked at Brandie, “Get up, we are going home. You are not going back to school.” Brandie looked at her in shock.

“Mom -”

“Go get dressed!”

“Fine,” Brandie said as she looked at Elisabeth and stood up from the sofa, walking around it and going into the guest room. Elisabeth stood there, wrapping the blanket around her more and just looked at her mother who was furious.

“It’s so sad that I worry about you, and I should have been worried about her all along,” Ms. Geller said as she looked over at the stairs and back at Elisabeth, “Did you and Nick -”

No, she was not asking this.

“- sleep -”

“Mom, don’t go there and yes, we slept together, but we have not had sexual intercourse,” Elisabeth said as she looked back over at the stairs, “I’m the good daughter. Remember that.”

“I’ll try,” Ms. Geller said as she took her gloves off of her hands and looked around, “I knew something was suspicious when I went to the dorms and they said she had moved out. She’s not very smart.”

“I heard that mom,” Brandie said as she walked out of the guest bedroom, buttoning up her jacket, “Obviously I’m not as smart as your getting knocked up by my ex husband!”

“What?” Ms. Geller said as she looked at Elisabeth. Nick had began walking downstairs and stopped, going back up to her bedroom, “Elisabeth -”

“She accidentally over heard Nick and I talking in my bedroom,” Elisabeth said as she looked down, “I didn’t tell her on purpose.” She was telling the truth, she didn’t tell her on purpose.

“Brandie, let’s go home. Now.” Ms. Geller said as Brandie walked over to the door, waving goodbye to Elisabeth who waved in return, “And Elisabeth, get some clothes on before you run downstairs.”

“Yeah I know,” Elisabeth said as she rolled her eyes. It wasn’t like she ran downstairs half naked on purpose.

“Goodbye Nickolas!”

Bye Bye!

“Bye sweetie,” Ms. Geller said as she kissed Elisabeth on the cheek. Elisabeth told her goodbye and watched as her mother walked over to the door, and walked out, shutting the door behind her. She stood there, sighing and closing her eyes in return as Nick walked downstairs, peeking over at her.

“I want to go back to sleep,” Elisabeth said as Nick finished walking downstairs, and walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her, “At least she’s gone,”

“And we’re alone again,” Nick said as Elisabeth smiled at him, “Come on, let’s go back to sleep for a little while.” Elisabeth smiled as he wrapped his arm around her body and they started to walk back over to the stairs, so that they could maybe get a few more hours of sleep before starting the day.

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No more drama.

That’s the smartest thing that Mary J. Blige has ever said in her life. I seriously do not like drama of any kind in my life. I like to be simple. I like everything to just stay peachy if you know what I mean. I don’t like controversy and I don’t like everybody knowing every detail of my life. I don’t like fights and I don’t like it when I’m in the middle of someone else’s mess.

So that leads me to be thankful that my sister is gone and my mother knows she’s knocked up and they are now outta here. Thank you sweet Jesus.

Now, it’s just me and Nick again, and well that makes me nervous. I know I’m wearing down and all of my old little feelings are coming back for him and he’s going to get what he wants. Just I’m scared of it and I’m trying to push it back as long as I can. Plus, I want to see if this little ‘popularity’ that I’m starting to have is because of me or because of me knowing him.

I have to find this out first.

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Elisabeth sat there in the mall, a few hours later, doodling on a piece of paper that she had been writing something on. Her? Writing a song? Well she did that every so often, but nothing ever came from it. In fact, she had written several songs, but was always too shy to ever show anybody because she knew she didn’t have that much talent.

She had asked Nick to let her go to the mall for a little alone time and then she would see him when she came home that night. He agreed to it even though he didn’t want to, and told her he had some plans of his own today. She wondered what those plans could be but decided to not even ask because frankly, she didn’t think she needed to know.

There was really no telling what he was doing when it came to him.

She took a sip of her Sprite, and looked over to her right to see a young girl walk by. She was probably around fifteen or sixteen years old, and kept looking over at Elisabeth, who was getting nervous. Maybe she should just head to the office and get ready for work. She nodded her head to herself a little, reaching over to fold the piece of paper she was doodling up, and placed it in her messenger bag when she looked up at the girl was standing at her table.

“Hi, are you Elisabeth from CMT?” the girl asked as Elisabeth sat there, scared as hell, and didn’t know what to say, “I mean you look like her and I was just wondering,”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Elisabeth said as she took a deep breath and shook the girl’s hand. She didn’t know if she should just run now while it was still safe or sit there and talk to the girl. She knew she couldn’t be mean so she decided to just zip her bag back up and looked back at her, “What’s your name?”

“Leah,” the girl said as she sat down for a minute, “I’m from North Carolina and I’m here to see the CMT Awards this week. My dad got me tickets for my birthday,” Elisabeth nodded her head smiling and looked around again. This was pretty innocent so far.

“Oh, how old are you?”

“I’m going to be 13 tomorrow,”

Elisabeth smiled again, wondering to herself when the hell did twelve year olds look this grown up. She didn’t look like this when she was twelve. She hardly had any breast when she was twelve and this girl -”

“So can I ask you a question?” Leah asked as Elisabeth came out of her thoughts, and looked back at her, nodding her head, “Like I’m a really big fan you know. I watch the show all of the time. My friend who is a Backstreet Boys fan, which I’m not because I hate boy bands, said that you were in Justin Timberlake’s video or something,”

“Nick Carter,” Elisabeth said as she looked down, “Justin is in ‘N Sync.”

“Oh, I don’t know them that good,” Leah said, “But I told her you weren’t until she showed me the video online and it looked like you. Do you know him?”

“Yeah, I know him,” Elisabeth said as she took a deep breath, wondering why the hell she was saying this, “I met him when I worked for MTV during college in New York. I worked there and interned there before I moved to Nashville and began working for CMT. I don’t like that music very much, but he’s a friend of mine.”

“How does Joe Don kiss?” Leah asked as Elisabeth started to laugh, “Because he is so hot and when he kissed you the other day I screamed. I love Rascal Flatts so, so much.” Elisabeth kept laughing and took another sip of her Sprite, trying not to spit it out of her nose from laughing.

“He’s okay.” Elisabeth said as she started to laugh, when a woman started yelling Leah’s name from a few feet away, “I take it that’s your mom?”

“Yeah,” Leah said as she stood up from her chair and started to hug Elisabeth, who hugged her back and looked around confused, “You’re so cool.”

“Thanks,” Elisabeth said as she started to laugh a little, “Have fun at the awards.”

“I will, bye.” Leah said as she walked back over to where her mother was, waving at Elisabeth. Elisabeth waved back, telling her goodbye and drunk some more of her Sprite, looking around with a confused look on her face. She decided she needed to get to work now before anybody else came up to her.

She stood up, putting her bag’s strap over her shoulder and took her drink, walking away from the table and towards the doors, to the parking lot. She took another sip, looking around again, hoping that her coming to the mall and watching people wasn’t going to be affected by this, but somewhere deep inside she had a pretty good feeling that it was. She just hoped that it didn’t.

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Elisabeth walked down the hallway at her office, after greeting the main receptionist. The lady was always too happy and Elisabeth often wondered what type of drugs she was on. Not that she was actually taking drugs, but she was just always so happy.

“Elisabeth!” Andrew yelled as Elisabeth turned around, looking at him walking out of his office, “Come here,” She sighed, walking back down the hallway, closer to where he was, standing in his doorway, “Remember the Rolling Stone article I told you about yesterday? The guy is going to be here soon to interview you and do a little photo shoot,”

“Photo shoot?” Elisabeth asked as she looked down at her watch, and back up at Andrew.

“Yes, just a few photos,” Andrew said, “He’s going to come to your office when he gets here, so good luck.”

“Thanks,” Elisabeth said as she turned around, walking back down the hallway, with a confused look on her face. Today was just confusing as hell. First her mother showing up, and taking her sister away, and don’t forget the little ‘fan’ encounter she had at the mall. Now someone from Rolling Stone is coming to interview her and do a little photo shoot.

She reached down, opening the door to her office. She moved her hand over to turn the light on and then stood there in shock, putting that same hand over her mouth in shock at what she saw in the room.