✧⁺❀ C h a p t e r t w e n t y s e v e n . . .
Night was coming and Alex and Lola had already experienced a whirlwind of emotions at the fun fair. They had laughed and screamed on the rollercoasters, daring the other to raise their hands on the big drops, crashed into each other repeatedly on the dodgems (they had had one go in the same cart colliding into others, but had decided it was more fun to ambush each other) and had ridden the waltzers until Lola feared that the popcorn she had eaten earlier may make an unwelcome return. There had been a child-like joy and wonderment to the day, the most pure form of mutual love, away from the reality of the city.
It was nearing midnight, but neither of them had been paying attention. Therefore, they decided to follow the sign that read Hall of Mirrors, as it appeared to be the only amusement that didn't threaten to spin them to the point of nausea. They handed over their tickets and entered the labyrinth of mirrors, clasping hands. Their warped reflections reminded Lola of something out of a cartoon. The reflected images ranged between elongated and slender, stubby and plump, inverted, tilted, and contorted.
As they stood in front of one mirror, which reflected light into heart-shaped sparkles, Alex pulled out a small camera from his back pocket and took a picture of them both. Lola had had her head sleepily resting against his shoulder, but the sound and blinding flash caused her to jolt upright.
"How long have you been hiding that?" she asked with a laugh. Looking down, she saw it was a disposable one, the kind that needed the film developing to even see the photos.
He waved it softly in his hand. "It's full now. I've been taking pictures of you all night." He grinned. "You just hadn't noticed."
Humming with a smile, Lola asked, "Is this something I need to report to the police? That I seem to have attracted a stalker."
"I'm not too sure how sympathetic to the situation they'd be. I bet you're no stranger to lovelorn boys falling head over heels for you."
Whenever Alex said things like that, it always made her laugh. He seemed to be of the belief that she had had swarms of lovestruck men following her for her entire life. As though she had something of a magnetism around her that would make lovers drop whoever's hand they'd been holding, to go devote themselves to her. Nobody looked at Lola that way.
Except Alex. Alex did.
It wasn't until Lola and Alex attempted to leave that they discovered that the hall of mirrors was not as straightforward as it seemed. The mirrors were arranged in a way that made it practically impossible to find the exit. Whenever they turned corners, they found themselves imprisoned in circuits that brought them back to where they had begun.
Believing she had found the way out, Lola ventured down a pathway to the right, only to discover that she was lost. Surrounded by a labyrinth of mirrors which reflected hundreds of images of her and Alex, she realised what a challenge it would be to find either him or the exit.
"Alex? Where are you?" she called out. Then with a small laugh in her voice, "This is a bloody nightmare."
Alex shouted back to her, telling her to follow his voice, but the sound ricocheted off the mirrors and appeared to come from every direction. It was like being immersed in a fantasy, where nothing was real and everything was distorted. They both began to wander through the maze, hoping that eventually, they would bump into each other. Lola bumped into mirrors, watching her image shift and contort and cursing herself, imagining that she would wake up the following day covered in bruises. What had once been fun, was quickly becoming a pain in her backside.
Then, suddenly, they saw each other. They had reached a spot where two paths crossed, and they recognised each other's faces among the reflections. They sprinted towards each other, and as Lola went to hug him, Alex lifted her from the ground and span her in a circle, before returning her to terra firma.
"Finally!" Lola exclaimed. "I thought we'd never find each other."
"I'm getting more and more tempted to smash a bunch of these mirrors until we find a door," Alex replied with a laugh.
They hugged each other tightly, feeling each other's warmth and heartbeat. As they looked into each other's eyes, Lola felt herself suddenly overwhelmed with love for the man in front of her and relief that she had found him again. It really had felt like it was never going to end. It seemed that Alex was thinking the same, as he abruptly brought her lips to his, as they kissed passionately, forgetting about the mirrors and the maze.
They felt like they had entered a wonderland, and found the real thing worth finding. Neither of them cared about finding the exit anymore. All they cared about was being together. They kissed again, then again, then again.
☆☆☆
After leaving the hall of mirrors, the pair walked back out into the darkness of the Sheffield midnight. A row of different games was illuminated by fairy lights strung up over the stands, which caught their attention. It was a well-known fact of fun fairs that every single game was impossible to win for some reason or other. Lola's mother had told her this as a child, which she had optimistically refuted, believing that nobody could be so cruel as to want to cheat a child out of their money. It hadn't been until Lola worked at a fair herself for a couple of weeks in her sixteenth summer and had to break the small metal loops on top of the hook-a-duck ducks so they were impossible to be - well, hooked - that she realised that her mum had been right. Her general cynicism about life crept in thereafter.
Alex approached a game of stacked bottles, where the aim was to completely knock them down with the plastic guns provided in exchange for a prize. "Fancy a game, Kissinger? You vs me?"
Lola shot him a sceptical glance. "You do know those games are massively rigged. They glue all the bottles together with Superglue. I should know. I've done it!"
"You know what it sounds like to me? You're too scared that I'll beat you."
"Scared? Never." She grinned. "Oh, Turner, it is on."
The pair gave their money to the seller and took up the cheap, plastic guns. A minute countdown lit up above them and they began to fire. Several bullets of some terribly weak material - Lola wouldn't put them past using paper - fired and not a single bottle fell. After all, what was essentially a glorified - and spitless - spitball was hardly going to break a tower that had been practically industrially melded together.
"I told you they were rigged." Lola laughed. "Now both of us are down by a fiver and neither of us have won anything."
"Just because we both lost, doesn't mean there can't be a prize." Alex grinned with a mischievous glint in his eye.
"What prize are you thinking of?"
He smirked. "A kiss, darling."
Lola blushed immediately. "I'm not kissing you out here in the open. In an empty hall of mirrors is one thing, but a massive field full of people? What if someone sees? The tabloids will have a field day. You know that."
"That's their problem, not ours. Besides, what's the worst they can say?"
In fact, Lola knew there were many bad things they could probably say. She wouldn't put anything past the flaming pile of shite that was The Daily Mail. With Alexa, Lola assumed Alex had been against some publicity - she thought of his song If You Were There, Beware - but as she was already quite famous and well-perceived in the British public eye, aside from some occasional snarky comments, she imagined it wasn't terrible. After all, Alexa was famous in her own right, but with Lola, a nobody from Sheffield... gold-digger, slut and surely, many more lovely, lovely names would be in the headlines about her.
She thought about expressing her doubts to Alex, but he had already wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her softly in his embrace. He pressed his lips against hers, biting gently on her lower lip, which caused her to smile against him.
Lola laughed as they pulled away. "You're an idiot sometimes."
"You've made me an idiot. I'm a fool for you."
As Alex stood smiling at Lola, she noticed two girls walked towards them. One had blonde hair scraped tightly into a ponytail and the other let her brown hair tumble down her back. They both appeared to be in high school - certainly no older than 16. She noticed that one of the girls was wearing an Arctic Monkeys t-shirt, presumably from one of their concerts. Lola knew that with Alex's fame he was probably accustomed to events like this, but as fans had never come up to him while she was present, at times she forgot how well-known of a celebrity he was.
The blonde stepped forward with a bright smile. "Hi, I'm Natasha. I love you and the rest of the Arctic Monkeys so much. I was wondering if we could get a photo with you."
The raven-haired girl spoke similar comments, saying how much of a fan she was. Then, she fluttered her eyelashes. "But you're my favourite Alex." Lifting her skirt, she revealed a tattoo of Alex's full name etched onto the top of her thigh.
Not so sixteen then, Lola thought, feeling slightly uncomfortable and feeling a similar sentiment from Alex at how far the brunette had rolled up her skirt. After around a millennia, she let go of it and it fell back to its proper length.
Alex smiled slightly, clearly wanting to ignore the majority of what had just happened. "I'm glad you're a fan of the band. Yeah, of course you can have a photo."
Partially deciding to be nice and partially desiring to be as far away from these girls as soon as possible, Lola offered to take the picture. The blonde passed her her phone and she took several pictures, before handing the phone back to the girl. The two teenagers were smiling brightly and had been tossing their hair around as the photos were taken, but Alex looked noticeably bored. This caused a slight smile to creep onto Lola's lips.
Alex wished the two girls a nice night and reached for Lola's hand again, but before he could take it, one of the girls stopped him.
"Wait, can I have one more thing?" she asked.
Alex was now really wanting to leave and be left alone with Lola, but assuming it to be a harmless request like an autograph, he replied, "Sure, what is it?"
"Can I have a kiss?"
As the brunette batted her eyelashes at him, Lola felt a wave of nausea wash over her. The words hit her like a brick. A kiss? What kind of fucked-up request was that? She noticed Alex looked uncomfortable, but there also seemed to be a hesitation to respond. Was he seriously considering it?
He gave a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry, love, but I don't think I'm going to do that."
"Why not?" the girl retorted, pouting. "You kissed that other fan."
She pointed at Lola, who felt her cheeks heat up. Fan?
"She's not really a fan." He laughed hesitantly. "She's here with me."
"Is she your girlfriend?"
"She's my..." Alex hesitated, trying to think of another word. He didn't want to reveal their relationship to these strangers, especially not when he and Lola hadn't discussed how exclusive they intended to be. They hadn't said that word yet.
"Your what?" the girl pressed.
"My... friend," he said lamely.
"Your friend?" the girl scoffed. "Yeah, right. You don't kiss your friends like that."
She looked at Lola with disdain and whispered something to her friend. They both laughed.
This was worse than if Alex had just kissed the stupid girl. Lola looked at him, willing him to defend her, but he just silently took her hand and pulled her away from the girls. She felt sick to her stomach. As they walked in silence, she looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something, but no words passed his lips. Eventually, they reached a food truck and Alex took his wallet out of his jeans.
"Do you fancy anything to eat, love?" he asked.
Lola had to admit that she was mildly irritated at these being the first words he had said to her after the events with Natasha and thigh-tattoo girl, but she made no comment on this. It had caused her to lose her appetite.
"I'm fine. Don't worry. I don't really feel like eating."
Alex looked concerned, but when she gave a dismissive gesture that said she was fine, he walked off to go get something to eat, leaving Lola temporarily on her own. It was now that she noticed that the two girls from earlier were sat on a bench not far from where she was. They were sharing a bucket of popcorn and talking - she realised - about her and Alex.
"Did you see that girl he was with?" the first scoffed.
Her friend rolled her eyes. "She was so ugly. To say he could have any girl he wants and he chose her."
"Well, you heard him. She's clearly not his girlfriend. He's probably fucking her for a bit, before he moves on to the next girl. It could be me," the blonde laughed. "She's probably only with him for his money anyway. It's what she deserves."
These words caused Lola to feel a plummeting, sinking feeling within her chest. She felt waves of nausea washing over her. She knew it was a bad idea to be out with Alex in public. She had imagined there to be some jealousy from fans - she remembered the burning envy she had felt as a teenager when she discovered that Roger Taylor was married - but she had thought she would be able to tolerate it. And she hadn't thought it would be this bad.
Normally she wouldn't have cared less what anybody said about her, so why did she now? Then she realised. If someone wanted to judge her for something she had done, Lola supposed they were entitled to that opinion, but judging her solely for being with somebody else? In what way was that fair? At least let her do something horrible before being called the names that went with it.
As she stood, feeling heavy-hearted, she saw Alex walking over, holding a bag of chips. He held them out to her.
"Are you sure you don't want one?"
She shook her head quietly. "I'm really not in the mood for eating."
He looked at her worriedly. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You're not being yourself."
"I'm fine," she insisted. She walked over and sat on a bench, wanting to leave the conversation. She would rather him talk about anything else at all.
Alex seated himself next to her. "Lola, please talk to me. I know you're not ok."
"Yes, because you know everything. Don't you, Alex?" she spat, without meaning to.
"Love, please talk to me. I'm begging you. What happened?" His eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Is this about those girls? I know how bad it was of them and I'm sorry that - "
"Fine! Do you know what? Yes, it was about the girls," she yelled, exasperation in her voice. "But it's more than that. This is going to happen whenever I'm with you. We just aren't from the same world. It isn't going to get better."
"Lola, I'm so sorry," he apologised, pulling her into his arms. "This is all my fault. It really is. You told me not to kiss you, because people might see and I did it anyway. I was so stupid."
"It's not your fault, Al. It's just... shit. I mean, it really hurts. The fact that people hate me, just for being around you is really upsetting. I just - "
Her words were cut off as she heard the flash of a camera lens behind her. Not the gentle, sweet click of the disposable film camera Alex had been using all night, but the harsh noise of an industrial device. Looking up, she saw a man standing above her with a large camera pressed inches away from her face. He looked down it as a hunter looked along a rifle, with a smirk on his lips. Surrounding him were many more paparazzi, all outstretching microphones and clutching notebooks and pencils in their hands. Their smiles were predatory. It wasn't long before Lola and Alex were victims to a bombardment of questions aimed towards both of them.
"Alex, who is this girl? Is she your girlfriend?"
"Hey, hey, what's your name? Where are you from? How did you meet Alex?"
"Alex, how long have you been dating her? Are you in love with her?"
"What happened to Alexa? Is this new thing you have going on serious or just a rebound?"
Silently, Alex grabbed Lola's hand and pulled her up. All night he had held her hand or draped his arm over her shoulder, now he was holding her hand - yes - but with a visible coldness and emotional distance. He started walking swiftly away, pulling her behind him, rather than walking by her side.
Lola's eyes were wide and she looked to him for reassurance, but he said nothing and kept his eyes trained on the ground, as he walked briskly ahead. She understood why he didn't say a word. If the paparazzi couldn't get a full story, but only a single word from Alex, they would take it and twist a story out of it. He completely ignored all the chaos and had put up a façade of indifference. But why did he have to act indifferent to her?
She assumed it was so that in the photos - which were currently being rapidly taken - the headlines may have a harder time trying to suggest that they were in a relationship. Lola understood, but she just wished he would do something, anything to acknowledge her. He wouldn't even look at her.
They kept walking, although Lola was less and less aware of her making the active decision to move; her legs had taken on the role, as mentally she began to disassociate and unravel. She only realised she had stopped walking, when Alex turned to face her for the first time. He widened his eyes to tell her to carry on.
She now became aware of a weight on her shoulder. Turning, she saw hot-pink acrylic nails digging into her shoulder and a hand forcibly restraining her. Looking up, she saw the hand belonged to a reporter about her age with her dyed blonde hair scraped into a bun on top of her head.
The reporter seemed mildly stunned and pleased that she was the first journalist to catch Lola's attention. It was clear that pound signs were flashing in front of her eyes if she was the only one that was able to get a story. She gave a smile, but it was bitter and there was nothing nice in it.
"So, what is it that you actually like about Alex?" she asked, plastic smile still on her lips. Then adding with a manufactured laugh, "I bet it's his bank account, right? You can tell me you know!"
Lola's heart beat furiously in her chest. Mentally, she still felt remarkably not present, but she managed to wrench free of the journalist's grasp and began walking faster than she had been before. She noticed Alex's hand was slightly outstretched, offered for her to take, but she ignored it. She walked straight past him. She didn't even look at him.
If he wanted to ignore her, she could play the same game.
Tears pricked at her eyes. She noticed that now, she was running. She had no idea where she was headed, but she couldn't think about that. All she could think about was that she had been put in a horrible position and Alex hadn't done a thing to help her.
Two cruel girls in Sheffield she could deal with. The insults ended with them. But the whole country knowing she had any relation to Alex Turner? The stories and lies about her would be off the charts. Tomorrow, she and Alex would be plastered on the cover of every tabloid in Britain. She could already see the headlines in her mind's eye.
Slut. Rebound. Gold digger. Whore.
Now, she was crying.
Tomorrow, she would see the headlines. She would worry about it then.
'*.°✩ ━━━ love, alinah