She's Got a War in Her Mind

I’ve been working with the same people for almost five years now. Five years with the same people that I’ve come to love more than my job as an actress. They’d become the replacement to my real family, the blood that I’d so desperately tried to push out of my veins as a teenager, the family that I tried so hard to deny the existence of. The family that I never really had.
I didn’t grow up happy. I would be lying if I said I did. I had everything I could possibly want and need. Everything except for one thing; love. My parents, they were in love when they were younger. My Dad was a Doctor, my Mom a lawyer. Then Dad just left. I wasn’t sure why, I was only five or six when he’d bailed on us, but I knew that he was gone.
I was from a small town almost smack dab in the middle of Texas called Moran. Moran was quite literally a small town, blink when you were driving past it and you could end up in a completely different place. The population there was 214 people, and gossip was better than anything on the television. Something happened in town? Your landline would ring within ten minutes of it happening and people would talk about it until something else came up.
Divorce was frowned upon in Moran, as expected. As soon as Dad was gone, people were more than ready to start pointing fingers. Their fingers were pointing at my Mother, though. My mother and myself. We were worthless. We got looks. Stares. And that’s when my Mother lost it. She sent me to babysitters and buried herself into even the most extreme cases she could find, and when I was old enough to take care of myself, without a babysitter, she’d come home, pour herself a whiskey on the rocks, and spread out her papers on the table.
“Luce? It’s time to go. We’ve got a panel, remember?” Norman asked, waving his hand in front of my face, snapping me out of my thoughts. “You okay, babe? Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah…” I let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just…thinking, I guess.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive.” I promised him, taking the hand he was holding out for me.
Yeah. Yeah I am dating Norman Reedus. I’ve been dating him for a while now. Almost two years. He was amazing, obviously, but anyone can see that, so it’s nothing that any of you would be surprised about I should think. Regardless, I’m telling you, hands down, best boyfriend I’ve ever had.
We walked hand in hand down to the room the panel was being held in. It wasn’t much. Just Andrew, Chandler, Norman, Michael, and myself. Pretty small, but there were a lot of people here. “Norman Reedus!” I heard Chris Hardwick yell into the microphone as Norman trained the camera of his phone on the two of us, leaning down to give me a quick peck, grinning at the camera and running out to the crowd, accepting their screams and adding fuel to the fire by running up and down the row of people in the front to high five them.
“And Lucia Belle Lugosi!” I put on a smile, pushing the door open and staring at the group of people there, waving to all of them and blowing kisses, giggling when I almost tripped over my heels. Norman met me at the top of the stairs, taking my hand and helping me up gently before we all took our seats and the questions got rolling.
“My question is for Chandler and Lucia; I was just wondering what it’s like to play siblings on the show, and if you two act like siblings.”
“Well. I don’t have a sister, but I’ve heard they’re annoying and persistent, which basically sums up Luce exactly…” I clamped my hand over Chandler’s mouth and let out a laugh.
“Ah, kids. They don’t know what they’re talking about.” The crowd laughed at us as Chandler licked the palm of my hand causing me to jump back. “Did you just lick my hand?” I asked in awe, my eyes narrowing at him. He only nodded, the corner of his lips twitching. I went to lunge at him but he stood up, running out into the crowd with me chasing after him, all of the fans screaming as the two of us ran between the aisles, me yelling that I was going to kill him for making me run in heels while Norman, Michael and Andrew laughed from the stage, Michael and Norman filming on their phones. “Chandler! Get back here!” I yelled at him as he ran back up to the stage.
“Andy! Save me!” He yelled, jumping onto Andrew’s lap as Norman helped me onto the stage again, picking up the back of my dress and fixing it so I wouldn’t fall over it.
“I hate you.” I scowled at him, both of us slightly panting from all of the running.
“You know, I might have been okay with this when you were ten, but you’re almost fifteen now, so get off of me.” Andy told Chandler, pushing him off his lap playfully. Chandler was laughing and sat back down in his chair, letting me sit next to him as Norman threw his arm over the back of my chair and chuckled, brushing a piece of hair that had fallen out of my face.
“To answer your question; Yeah, I think if you work with the same people long enough they do become part of your family, and that’s almost to be expected because you spend almost every day with them when we film. There needs to be a certain kind of chemistry that you have with people in order for your role to be convincing, and growing up without a brother or a Dad made me just as easy to sucker in as the rest of you. Andrew taught me what a real Dad was like and Chandler showed me that even if he is an annoying little son of a bitch, he grows on you. I love the both of them.” The crowd let out a little ‘Aw’ as Andy got up and hugged my shoulders, Chandler leaning over to kiss my cheek as Andrew kissed my head, making the crowd react even more.
“Who’s your favorite Dixon?” Someone had asked me, making Norman and Michael look at me.
“Uh…Jeremiah Dixon.”
“Who the hell is that?” Michael asked, leaning back in his chair to look at me.
“One of the guys that created the Mason - Dixon line.” I laughed. Norman shook his head.
“It’s obviously me.” He told our audience.
“Nope, it’s me.” Michael contradicted from the other end of the table.
“It’s obviously Jeremiah Dixon because she took the time to figure out who he was.” Chandler scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re both wrong.”
The entire panel went really well from then on, some of the questions a little weird, some that included a lot of thinking, or more meaningful answers than the rest of them did. When we stood up to let everyone take their pictures of us Chandler made funny faces and gave me bunny ears while Norman stuck up his middle finger, making me to the same.
Once Norman and I were back in our hotel room he laid down to take a nap while I filmed one of my videos for my YouTube channel. “Ciao!” I greeted my camera. “It’s the middle of the day, I just finished a panel and I was all nice looking and there’s a huge window in front of me so I thought I’d film my monthly favorites, because coincidentally, I have all of them with me.” I was almost done when I noticed Norman stirring behind me. “By the way, in case you’re wondering what the lump in the bed behind me is then its Norman. He’s sleeping. At least I think he’s sleeping.”
“I’m not.” He assured me, turning on his side to grin at the camera, giving it a small wave. I scoffed, rolling my eyes, turning to shove his chest gently before getting back to my video.
“So my favorite songs for this month! Yay. Alright so the first one was my favorite when I was younger, but I like, rediscovered it recently and found out who actually sings it.”
“Spit it out.”
“Okay, Jesus. It’s ‘She’s like the Wind’ by Patrick Swayze, who, fun fact, I had a massive crush on when I was little.”
“Hey!” I looked down at Norman who was pouting slightly.
“What?”
“Why didn’t you like me?”
“Because I didn’t know you then.”
“I feel hurt.”
“Oh, you’re such a baby.” I told him, as he propped himself up on his elbows, capturing my lips with his for short and sweet kiss before sitting up and resting his head on my shoulder, pushing the hair there out of his way. I giggled slightly at him before continuing. “And of course, same as last month, Talk Dirty. Because it’s so damn catchy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to tend to my boyfriend.” I laughed, shutting off the camera spinning around. “You’re so needy. Have I ever told you that?”
“A few times.” He admitted as I stood up, putting my camera equipment away before pulling off my heels with a groan and throwing them across the hotel room, staring down at my swollen feet in dismay.
“I’m going to change. I’ll be back.” I told him grabbing sweatpants and a t-shirt from my suitcase and going to the bathroom to change. When I came back Norman was on his phone, probably going through twitter and Instagram. I wasn’t concerned. “Hey!” I shouted, jumping on the bed.
“Ugh, what?”
“I’m going to watch a movie.”
“Can I watch too?”
“Yeah. I’m going to play it on my laptop, though.” He nodded as I grabbed it, turning it on and getting onto Netflix, scrolling through the movies. “What sounds good?”
“Dirty Dancing.” He told me, pointing at the screen. I smiled over at him, happy he remembered my favorite movie was Dirty Dancing and hit play, leaning back into the pillows. Norman grabbed my legs, pulling them onto his lap before grabbing my left foot and rubbing it gently, causing me to let out a small moan of appreciation and snuggled into the pillows.
“Did I ever tell you you’re amazing?” I asked him, pulling my feet off his lap and rolling onto him. Propping my upper body up by putting my hands on either side of his head, balancing my weight so I didn’t crush him or anything like that. That would be really bad.
“Hm, only a few thousand times.” He hummed, wrapping his arms around my waist.
“You are amazing.” I leaned down, kissing his lips softly. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”