The Wrong Harmony

thirty one

Fake it until you make it, was what her mother had said to her this morning before she drove off. And that's exactly what she would do. If she had to sit at lunch alone, so be it. If she had to listen to stupid rumors all day, so be it. If she had to face backlash and mocking on social media, so be it. She would be fine and it would all blow over eventually.

Her class before lunch was her public relations class. She took it because it was a blow over class and Holly had helped her make her schedule so of course that's what she picked for her. All they did was watch interviews that celebrities did after media scandals and discussed the tactics that their publicists used to clean their messes up. So they watched a lot of Oprah, and that's what they were doing today. But Harmony wasn't expecting this interview to actually catch her attention, unlike the other ones had.

"Today I have Demi Lovato here with me who has been on the cover of every magazine for the past few weeks. I met up with Demi in her home in Calabasas to discuss her family, her marriage, and what's next for this superstar." Why didn't her mom tell her that Oprah was coming to their house?

"Demi, it is a pleasure to see you again." Was the teacher going to turn this off? Was he not aware that she was in the room? Everyone was giving her looks but eventually they paid attention to what was on the screen.

"It's nice to see you again too. I think the last time we did an interview like this was after Harmony's third birthday, and you took her shopping on Rodeo Drive and she just fell in love with it," her mom reminisced with a light hearted chuckle. Harmony thought that she would remember shopping with Oprah but she didn't.

"Yes that seems like an eternity ago because now Harmony is all grown up and all over the magazines and the newspapers and the shows. What's been going on?" Harmony wanted to sink into a black hole. Why didn't her mom tell her about this interview if they were going to be discussing her?

"Harmony is a teenager now. She's almost seventeen years old and she's been going through a rough patch in her life and she's my first daughter so I didn't know how to handle it and neither did she. I think she's just like every other teenage girl out there but her life is just under a spotlight and she's always known that her life is different from everyone else's, I just don't think that it really registered to her that all eyes would be on her all of the time. I don't think she realized that people would be watching her to see if she was gonna mess up like I did. And the kind of pressure that was put on her because of that and because of other factors, I just think it's not fair.

I love my daughter. I love her with every fiber of my being and I know what it's like to grow up with a camera on you. I'm not proud of what she has done. She's not even proud of what she's done. But she's growing up into such a mature young woman now and everyone makes mistakes and it's not the end of the world. It's just something that we're going to have to get past," Demi explained, pushing her hair off of her shoulders. Harmony liked the way that her mom talked about her in interviews. She talked about her like she was her entire world and she just thought everything of her, no matter what Harmony did to spite her or how disrespectful she was to her.

"Of course I haven't seen her in a while but based on the type of person that you are, I think she will grow up to be a very influential woman." Her mom smiled at the compliment and Harmony did as well.

"Now let's talk about your other daughter, the one that we just found out about. Let's get this entire situation ironed out."

"Isabella, she's nine years old. I had her when I was still in the process of my second time in treatment. It was a few days after I had her and I was holding her and thinking about all of the mistakes that I had made and how I was in rehab and everything that I ever did wrong with Harmony and it just made me decide that I couldn't take care of her like she deserved to be taken care of. I signed off my parental rights and gave them to Wilmer so she went to live with him in Florida and I visited as often as I could so that I was a constant in her life but it's like I was building that secret part of my life up and the other part of my life that everyone knew about was crumbling down." Now that her mom was explaining it, giving primary custody of Isabella to her dad didn't sound all that bad, especially if her mom really hadn't been in the position to take care of her.

"I married Trey and a few years later we had Lyric but I had never told him about Isabella and I was flying off to see her and it was just a mess. I've made so many mistakes in my life that I've forgiven myself for, but I will never forgive myself for lying to my husband like that." Her mom was getting teary eyed and Oprah handed her a few Kleenex.

"Trey was there for me when no one else was and he gave me a beautiful daughter yet here I was flying to Florida almost every two weeks and having an affair with my ex husband because the type of love that me and Wilmer had just wouldn't go away. I loved both of them but I knew that I loved Wilmer more and I just didn't want to let Trey go, but I should've because I just ended up hurting him in the worst way possible," Demi choked out. Harmony folded her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair.

"Has Trey forgiven you for what you did to him?"

"Yeah he has. We talked about it and we cried and hugged and kissed but decided to go our separate ways. We'll always have some type of relationship because of Lyric but our marriage is over." Oprah nodded and after Demi calmed down, she moved onto something else.

"So let's talk about Wilmer. Your relationship is just so interesting to me and from the look on your face, you look like you wanna talk about him too." Her mom was smiling so hard and her cheeks were turning so pink.

"I love Wilmer. Our relationship has never been perfect and we've both hurt each other so much and we have so much history but I love that man so much. I could never imagine my life without him. He's shaped me into the woman that I am today. He's given me the greatest gifts of all which are my children. He's my best friend, he's just...he's everything to me. And people can question why I would marry Trey when I have such strong feelings for Wilmer or why me and Wilmer even divorced in the first place but they'll never understand it, no matter how many times I explain it to them. And I don't want them to understand it. It's our love and it's how we are and we're just so happy with each other. I just love him so much."

The interview was stopped after that because her teacher said that they needed some time to discuss the tactics so Harmony pulled her notebook out and took the cap off of her pen.

"Now that's how you do it. You don't cover it up to save your image because the truth will come out eventually. You own your mistakes and explain why they happened and what you're doing to make them better. That is how you clean up a publicity mess," her teacher explained before beginning to slowly clap. Harmony had to give props to her mom and Holly too, because they handled that perfectly.