I Find Myself in You

“Seriously, do you not thinkabout what your actions could do Lainey,” Flannery scolded me as she had been doing since she got here to the Jonas’s 20 minutes ago. She was pacing back and forth. Joe was sitting on one side of me, and Nick on the other. Kevin was on another couch, staring dumbfounded at Flannery. That made me want to laugh. None of the boys could obviously believe that Flannery, little sweet looking Flannery, had enough gall and power in her to go at me for this long. Demi sat on the other chair, staring at me with an apologetic expression.

“Flan, I was just—“

“No you weren’t just,” she cut me off. “Lainey, I don’t get you,” she sighed. “You’ve been in this business long enough to know your actions always have consequences. Someone is always watching. You know this.”

“Yes, and I also know I’m a seventeen year old,” I said quietly. “I make mistakes. I do stupid things. Sometimes people make stupid mistakes.”

“You’re in the public eye all the time Lain,” she exasperated. “You can’t afford to make those mistakes like everyone else. You’re not like everyone else.”

“Maybe I should be,” I grumbled.

“Like those boring people,” Joe gasped dramatically. “No!”

I laughed while Flannery glared at him. “You wanted this life, remember Lainey? This is what you signed up for. This is the price you have to pay for living your dream.”

“Maybe my dream has changed,” I shot back. “Maybe I don’t freaking want to be ‘Lainey Peters’ anymore. Maybe I just want to be me, just plain old, sneaking into bedrooms and having fun Lainey, the girl from New Jersey.”

“What,” Demi gasped.

“You don’t even know what you want,” Flannery said, ignoring Demi. “This week you want to be some random nobody. And then when you get it, you’ll want to be an astronaut or something. You know what I think?”

“What do you think Flan,” I sighed, knowing she’d tell me anyway.

“I think this has nothing to do with wanting the normal life, or being the girl from New Jersey. I think this is because of Jesse.”

“Flannery, don’t,” I warned her.

“Think about it,” she said. “Jesse became your whole world. You centered yourself fully around him. Everything you did had something with him. Then, you find out he hangs out with Miley, your best friend, but also a girl completely opposite of you, and you want to change yourself. You want to become the ‘old Lainey’. The one he fell in love with originally.”

I stare at my sister, as dumbfounded as Kevin had been. Was she serious? I was not changing myself so that Jesse loved me again. That was ridiculous. This whole thing was ridiculous.

“You know I’m right Lain,” Flannery said quietly. “Just admit it. Maybe then we can move past this.”

“You’re wrong,” I said firmly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t,” Flannery laughed. “Lainey, you’re my sister. I’m bound to know you a little better than you think.”

“You don’t,” I said again. “You’re wrong.”

“Lainey,” Joe piped up quietly. “That all kind of does make sense. I mean, it would explain a lot.”

I turned on him, my face livid. He backtracked quickly. “That’s right, take her side. Because you know he loves me, right Joe? Because you know me at all.”

I got up and stormed out, ignoring their calls for me to come back. I slammed the door behind me, storming towards the street. I didn’t have to deal with this crap.

I heard the door open and close behind me. “Lainey, wait.”

I turned around and saw Demi running towards me. “Wait up,” she called.

“Hey Demi,” I said.

“Lainey, I am so sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have brought up the tabloid.”

I smiled at her. “It wasn’t your fault. Flannery still saw it.”

“Your sister is scary,” Demi shuddered.

I laughed. “Flannery can be quite – enthusiastic.”

We stood there for a second in silence. Demi looked at me. “Were you serious before,” she asked quietly.

“About what,” I asked.

“You really don’t want to do this anymore,” she asked.

I sighed. “I – don’t know. I mean, I love it, I do. But what’s the point?”

“What do you mean,” she asked.

“I mean, no matter what I do,” I sighed. “You heard Flannery. Everything I do isn’t me. So what’s the point in trying? I say I’m trying to climb out of this fake whole, but really, anything I do is just making me drown in it even more.” I thought about that for a second. “Okay that sounded really cliché,” I said. “But it’s still true. I want to sing still, and I want to act. But I still want to be me. And being in this business, doing everything I’m doing, I’m losing that.”

Demi was quiet for a moment. “You know, when a few years ago, I heard this interview you did. And in it, you said a true musician put their feelings into their song. They put who they were in the songs they wrote.”

“I said a lot of things,” I said quietly.

“You made me want to write,” she said quietly. “You made me want to be a better singer, a better songwriter, a better artist. I would listen to your songs for hours on end and I truly felt like I knew you because I could hear you through the words in your songs.”

“You never even met me.”

“I know,” she said. “But I see you now, and I know your heart was in those songs. So it doesn’t matter that this is the first time I’ve ever met you. I’ve known you for 3 years now. And I like who I know.”

I sighed. “I’m not that person anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” she said firmly. “I think you just need to stop thinking you’ve gone through this tremendous transformation. And that’s when I think you’ll feel like you again.”

“Okay, okay, you can stop going all fortune cookie on me,” I grumbled. “How do I do that?”

She grinned. “You write music.”

I looked at her skeptically. I liked this girl already, but was she insane?

She laughed at my expression. “Think about it. You wrote what you knew right?”

“Right.”

“So write what you know now, and you’ll see it’s the same or even better as it’s always been,” she said confidently.

I looked at her. “How old are you?”

She laughed. “Sixteen.”

“Damn, you seem older,” I sighed. “Okay Demi. I’ll give it a try.”

“Yes,” she exclaimed, hugging me. I froze. This girl was slightly too hyper for me. “Okay, so call me if you need any help, or if you want to talk, or hang out, or whatever. I know the guys are cool, but you need girl time too, you know? And by girl time I mean not with your scary sister time. And oh man! I still cannot believe I’m talking to Lainey freaking Peters.”

I laughed. “Hey Demi, if we’re going to hang out, you’re going to have to chill just a bit.”

She put her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop. I’m just really excited. This is going to be amazing. We can be best friends, and –“

“Okay, let’s leave the popstar alone, huh Dem,” Joe said from the door. He stood at the doorstep, his hands in his pockets. Concern was written all over his face. “Hi,” he said.

“Hey,” I grumbled.

“Still mad,” he asked.

I smirked. “Not if you buy me ice cream.”

His face lit up. “Deal.”