New - Lauren Cimorelli

Episode 20

The ride from Connecticut to Boston was only 3 hours so we will stay the night at the hotel and hit the road next morning. The show in Boston will be tomorrow night, so we had plenty of time. All the girls went to church before the show but I decided not to come, I didn't feel like I could connect to anything.

"Lauren" I heard Lisa calling me when she opened the slide door of our balcony in the hotel room, I unplugged my headphones and looked up at her, "Want some?" She handed me a small bag of chips but I shook my head, "Can I sit down?" She asked me and I nodded.

We stayed in silence for a long time, just looking out at the lonely street. I don't know why she wanted to sit with me and just be in silence, but I liked it, I appreciated that moment.

"We missed you in church, Dani said you're not really at your best right now" Lisa eventually said and I looked at her, "You usually use church to feel better" She noted.

"Yeah, not this time" I said and she looked at me questioningly.

"We're both really good at hiding our feelings, uh?" Lisa laughed and I nodded in agreement, chuckling with her. "I met again with someone from my past" She suddenly said and I furrowed my eyebrows, I wasn't expecting her to start a story right now, but all my attention was with her, "He's not really an ex, but we used to hang out a lot... The thing is that he is bad news, and I fell right back into that."

"And Chad?"

"I didn't cheat on him, we didn't do anything, he had this group of friends that are just toxic... Chad knew I was meeting with them again, but he never knew who they were, they never met, so he thought it was normal, me meeting old friends you know? But I started to... fade away" She chuckled at the metaphor and stared out at the street.

"What is that mean?"

"I realized how numb I felt, like when Chad would ask me if I had fun with them, I couldn't really say yes or no... It took me sometime, some help, but eventually I realized that they were making me see everything in a different perspective, a bad one. I was prioritizing them over myself, and then I started prioritizing everything in my life over myself..."

"The story of your life" I said, remembering how many times in the past that happened to her, she said she managed to work it out eventually, but apparently now it came back to her.

"Yeah" She looked down ashamed.

"It's always someone new that comes into your life and suddenly they become the center of your world, even if it's not romantic." I noticed and she nodded.

"Everytime, like a restart to all the work I had done before. I cut them off now, Christina caught on to me and gave me a couple of lessons, I just hope next time I'll realize sooner and not let myself down again."

"I hope next time you'll stop it before it even starts, so you won't have to realize anything later." I told her and she laughed and nodded. "It never happened to me you know, I never felt numb... but I did have a lot of ups and downs in the same day." I shared with her.

"Like today?" She asked right away.

"Yeah, on stage everything goes away, mostly... And then it comes back, mostly at night, when everything is so quiet."

"Not for me, I know it's a thing singers say that on stage they forget about everything, but if I'm in a bad mood I just pretend to be okay on stage, but it doesn't go away."

"Well, you've always been weird" I teased her and she punched my arm. "Can I tell you something I never told you before?" I asked her and she nodded right away.

"Anything." She said with a smile.

"I admire you" I told her and she looked me with shock, "I mean I admire all of our siblings, but like in music... you are probably my biggest inspiration, your voice, the way you write, the things you're writing about... you always find a way to give us a piece of your soul with your songs, and I admire the way you always bounce back even stronger after dealing with your struggles, the ones you tell us about in your songs and the ones you keep to yourself and I... I love you for that, really..." I don't know where all that came from but I felt like it was time for her to know that.