Young and Beautiful

Eighteen.

One would think that Demi would be on top of the world as she graced the catwalk to bring her Paris Fashion Week show to a close, her very presence being greeted with a standing ovation and loud cheers and never-ending flashes that nearly blinded her. One would think that the smile on her face would be genuine and she'd be floating on top of cloud nine and not ready to come down anytime soon. One would think that she would be fulfilled and happy but she wasn't.

On the outside, of course it looked like she was experiencing one of the best moments of her life and nothing and no one would be able to take that away from her but on the inside she actually felt empty. Even in the room full of people she felt an incredible sense of loneliness creeping up on her and it was when she realized that she wasn't happy. How could she be? It felt like she had given up everything inside of her, made every single sacrifice to get to this moment and for what? How could she make it this far and still be unsatisfied with her life?

Wilmer probably noticed it before anyone else did. The right side of her mouth was twitching but she kept the smile on her face to try to disguise it. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands together so that no one would be able to tell how badly they were trembling. And most of all, her smile was fake. Her lips were tugged up and her teeth were showing but nothing about her smile reached her eyes. Her eyes were empty and looking at her long enough made him realize how sad she looked, how upset she seemed. And all he wanted to do was gather her up in his arms and make all that sadness go away, but he knew that it wasn't his place.

Once Demi made a speech thanking everyone for their support and their encouragements, everything began to die down. They filmed a significant portion of the after party but after an hour of filming, they decided to pack up and head back to the hotel to get ready for the flight that they had to catch in the morning. Wilmer stayed though. He just needed to make sure that she was okay and wouldn't randomly break down in the midst of all of those people. He was her friend. That's what friends were for, right? Marissa surely wouldn't be able to handle the task based on the way that she was practically hanging off the bar and filling the room with her obnoxious laughter. Demi needed someone to be there for her so why couldn't it be him?

After three hours at the party and another half hour of taking pictures and saying goodbyes, Demi was finally ready to go. In the morning she would be flying back home and dealing with the mess that had erupted between her and Nick and all she wanted was a good night's rest. Usually her way of coping with things was to not think about them, to push them away to be dealt with at a later time when she could handle thinking about them. That's what she did with her parents. It took her two years before she actually cried about them dying and the way that they died. That's what she did when Kevin raped her. It was just hard for her to come to terms with things and to deal with them head on and she didn't know how to fix that. But she wanted to fix things with Nick. She wanted him to know the truth even if he didn't want to hear it.

Even though she took her town car and Wilmer took a cab, they were back at the hotel at the same time. She didn't say anything to him as they waited for the elevator to arrive or even when they entered the elevator and it was just the two of them because it was late and no one was really moving around the hotel at this time.

"Good job," Wilmer sheepishly said, just to break the silence between them. It made him shifty and uncomfortable and he just had to say something because not talking was weird.

"Thank you," she quietly responded. It was as if they weren't comfortable around each other anymore. As if all the progress that they had made was suddenly gone and they were back at square one: boss and employer. Wilmer never took her to a Mexican restaurant after she hadn't eaten all day in a part of town that she would never dream of visiting and he had never witnessed her breakdown and she had never told him things that she couldn't even tell her own husband and they had never kissed in that stupid palace. It was like all of that meant nothing and Wilmer didn't want it to be like that. He understood their reality but he didn't want to accept it.