The line was long, but worth it. Lola stood holding Patrick's hand, and this feeling was intoxicating, so she didn't mind the waiting all that much.

They were at Five Seasons, the fanciest restaurant in Royal Woods. At least once a week, the couple made an effort to get out for a date. In the first few weeks of Lola knowing Patrick, she thought that finding the time to do this would be hard. After all, Patrick was taking a summer study course, and Lola was spending a lot of time with her family after the recent deaths of her parents.

However, it seemed that most of Lola's time recently was spent with Patrick. Love, she supposed, could do that to someone.

Eventually, the line moved on and they were finally at the front.

The maître d'hôtel was too busy to even look up at Lola as he spoke. "Do you have any reservations?"

"No," said Lola.

Patrick squeezed her hand and looked down at her, quizzical. "You didn't make any reservations?"

"I don't need to," Lola said, trying but failing to not smile smugly, a little too proud of yourself. She looked at the waiter. "My name is Lola Loud," she said. "I assume you've heard of city councilwoman Luan Loud?"

The maître d' looked up. "Oh?"

Lola let go of Patrick's hand and walked to the waiter's side. She leaned in close, whispered into his ear, and leaned back.

"Right this way," he said, motioning for Lola and Patrick to follow.

As they sat down at a table and the maître d' gave them their menus and walked away, Patrick whistled. "How'd you swing that? The hell did you tell him?"

"Don't worry about that," Lola said smugly.

Patrick ordered a modest meal, roasted partridge breast in raspberry coulis with a sorrel timbale. Lola ordered squid ravioli in a lemongrass broth with goat cheese profiteroles, as well as an arugula Caesar salad—the most expensive dishes on the menu.

When they finished, Lola stood and walked over to Patrick's side of the table, bending down and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Time to go," she whispered lovingly in his ear.

He chuckled. "You're forgetting about the bill."

The progressive thing for Lola to pay half or even all of the bill, despite Patrick's constant insistence on always paying it himself in full. They could never agree, and often simply took turns on paying. Tonight, though, that wouldn't be necessary.

"Oh, don't worry about that. It's already covered."

It was dark when the two left Five Seasons, and they walked under the street lights. It was chilly out, and Lola was wearing a sleeveless dress, so she huddled close to Patrick the whole walk for warmth… and, maybe, because it felt good to be so close to him, too.

They eventually came to his apartment building in the urban part of town. "Want me to walk you home?" he offered. Lola's house was a few blocks farther away.

She shook her head meekly. "Can't I stay with you just a little longer?" The streetlights gave her blonde hair an orange glow.

He thought, and nodded. "Yeah, sure, I don't see why not."

They went in the building and took the elevator up to Patrick's floor. They went to his apartment—it was small but cozy, and a large window in the living room gave a good view of the sparkling town below.

"Where's your Mom?" Lola asked.

"On a business trip," Patrick said, just remembering. "Won't be back until tomorrow night." He paused. "I suppose it would be rude if I didn't offer to let you stay overnight."

"Oh, I'd love that, Pat." A wicked truth but a truth nonetheless, Lola thought, was that having dead parents and living only with siblings afforded much more freedom.

He offered to watch a movie with her and she agreed, so he brought her to his room so that Lola could pick a film from his shelf.

"Do you mind if I change out of this suit," he asked while she browsed.

"What? Why would I mind?"

"Well, you're in that dress and it's not fair that I get to change into something more comfortable and you don't."

"Oh, Patrick," she sighed, walking over to him while he took off his shirt. She closed her eyes and leaned on him, wrapping her arms around him. His muscles and frame were strong and appealing. His warmth and presence were intoxicating. "You need to learn to think about yourself every once in a while," she said softly.

They stayed like that for a while, and when Lola had enough, she kissed him on the cheek and got back to looking for a movie while he changed behind her. The two eventually went back to the living room, American Psycho in hand.

Upon seeing the selection, Patrick chuckled. "I didn't know you liked slashers."

She shrugged. "It looks interesting." Lola was pretty squeamish and didn't often enjoy blood and gore, but tonight she needed to watch something strong. She was just in that kind of mood—she felt invincible. If Patrick was near, there was truly nothing that could scare Lola Loud.

The lights were killed and Lola snuggled close to him. The movie played, but she didn't pay attention to most of it. She was content with closing her eyes and scooting closer to her boyfriend. When David Bowie's Something in the Air began to play and the end credits rolled, Pat got up and went to the kitchen.

Lola playfully draped herself over the back of the couch, holding on with her legs. "What are you doing?"

"Making us some hot chocolate. I'm just in that kind of mood."

Hot chocolate sounded really, really good.

The kitchen had no walls separating it from the living room, so Lola watched Patrick work. She wanted sex bad, but could tell that Patrick really wasn't in the mood. There would be other opportunities. All she wanted to do was keep Patrick happy, so she was fine with simply continuing to enjoy one another's company. When he was done, Patrick came back to the couch and gave Lola her drink. The two were content to sit in silence close to one another while they drank.

"You know," Patrick, stirring his drink and looking absently out of the apartment window.

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking."

"Oh?"

"I've been thinking a lot about the future."

"Yeah?"

"Teenagers are stupid. They think that their high school relationships are going to last forever, and they never do… but… Lola, with you, all I can see for the road ahead… I…" He looked at her. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd be perfectly happy spending the rest of my life with you." The last part came out quickly, and the confession made Patrick feel weary; he momentarily felt light-headed.

"Patrick…"

"I want to wake up to your face every morning, I want to have kids with you…"

She blushed.

"And I know it's dumb to think so far ahead, but I don't really see any other way I can be happy."

"I don't think it's dumb," she said fast, and held him tighter. "I think it's a splendid idea."

He took her in his arms and stood up. "I hope that's how things pan out, Lola. I hope."

Neither one wanted to leave the other. Lola stayed in Patrick's arms as he carried her to his room, as he turned off the bedroom light with his elbow, and as he went to bed with her. They slept peacefully, more so than ever before in either's young life.

After many, many hours of hard work, after Luna had spilled a great amount of blood, sweat, and tears, and even after (admittedly) much procrastination on her part, it was complete.

Her first album.

Entitled Cries From the Third Door on the Left (a reference to her bedroom), Luna had singlehandedly crafted, in her opinion, a very decent album. Finally, finally, her name would at last be out there. Granted, she didn't expect to make it big right away, but someday, Luna just knew she would. She just had to—she was driven, she was ambitious, and she was talented.

Luna had been in a slump long before even her parents died. She spent many nights at clubs, listening to the newest bands in Royal Woods and drinking a lot while doing so. She would come home so late that it was early, drunk, and that was not a good impression on her younger siblings. Hopefully, completing her first album would be her ticket back to a sober lifestyle.

She'd sort of been working on an album even before the accident that took the lives of her father and mother. Luna did it for fun at first, but after her parents died, she decided to buckle down and actually get serious about creating music.

Of course, if she was going to be completely honest with herself, Luna hadn't been working as efficiently as she could. In fact, far from it—she often got up around two or three in the afternoon after coming home late from a bar, started to play around on her guitar and maybe write down some notes if she felt they were good, have dinner, and then go back out to a club, hoping to hear a band and be inspired to work harder. Most of the time, though, she just wound up drinking and repeating the process of coming home late and waking up late.

On some rare days, though, Luna made an effort to make some real progress on her album. Those days, she worked tirelessly around the clock, actually getting work done.

Cries From the Second Door to the Left only had six songs on it (she had done it alone, after all), but they were good enough, in Luna's opinion, to get her name out there. Everyone had to start somewhere, there was no shame in it. She would only get better from here on out. More songs, better songs, and better sales, too.

After a couple of weeks of finding a company to publish her work, she found an obscure record label but a record label nonetheless, and submitted her work. Before long, she was mailed her first copy of the album. Cries From the Second Door to the Left would only have less than a hundred physical copies printed, all of them given to Luna to sell herself (which, realistically, she realized only family and friends would likely buy) but all of her music was uploaded to all of the online streaming sites. There, hopefully, they would find a wider audience and get the ball rolling.

Right before dinner on a warm night, Luna marched into the living room. Lynn was trying on her new boots in the living room (later that night, she would start her first shift as her new job as a security guard), Lori and Leni were cooking dinner, Lincoln was playing a complicated board game with Lily, Lucy was watching the game unfold, and Lana and Luan was watching reruns of Luan's old sitcom on TV (Luan hated watching her show, it brought back too many bad memories—still, there was the chance that if Lana surfed the channels, she would stumble across the local news, who had been running the story of Luan's outburst at the town hall all day); Lola was out.

"Yo, Louds!" Luna cried in her raspy voice, holding up her album. "Guess who's finally a real musician!"

They gathered around and looked at what she had in her hand.

"Luna," said Leni, "you wrote an album?"

"Sure did!"

"Wouldn't it be better for you to have been working a real job for the past few months?" snapped Lori.

"In the long run, making this thing is the best thing to do. It might make it big and then I'll be rich!"

"Oh, please." Lynn shook her head and closed her eyes. "You're not going anywhere with this, Luna. It was a total waste of time."

"My main concern," said Lori, "is that you didn't tell any of us about this."

"I told Luan!"

Lori turned to the city council member. "And you didn't tell us about this?"

"Well, uh… no."

"And why is that, Luan?" Lori was acting smug—what was she trying to do?

"Well… I thought you guys would be mad at her. I thought you'd ask her to stop and get a real job."

"I don't think so. I think you know Luna's going to be a failure in the music world, but you couldn't tell it to her face. You didn't want to tell us about the album because you knew when it finally came out, it was going to fail."

"W-What?" Luan was caught too much off guard to see the many flaws in this logic.

"Don't play dumb, Luan. I've known you your whole life."

Luna looked at her sister. "Do you think I'm going to be a musical failure?"

Poor Luan was forced to take a side. "I… I don't know," she said.

Luna and Luan had been so supportive of each other… and, all of the sudden, she was giving Luna this kind of crap? When asked if she was going to be a failure, Luan said she 'didn't know?'

It may have been rash, but from that moment on, Luna considered Luan to have backstabbed her. She never felt more defeated in her life.

That was a couple of hours ago. Presently, Luna lay defeated on her bed. They didn't understand. They were holding her back. They were keeping her from getting big. She had presented her first album to them expecting praise and admiration, and only got crapped on by everyone.

She looked at the clock. It was two in the morning. Lynn was working the night shift, and the rest of the household was asleep.

The thought of working a minimum wage job and wasting her potential disgusted Luna. If her family wasn't holding her back, she had so much potential to make it big. Luan, the sister she was closest to, and possibly the only one that still tolerated her, was very similar in this regard—she had big ambitions. She wanted to run for the city council. She encountered much resistance from the family for this, and, admittedly, it was a big risk. If she lost, even though she didn't spend much on the campaign, all of that money would have been wasted. She won, though, and soon, she would be bringing home the biggest paychecks in the family, possibly even bigger than Lori's.

Luna, too, would make it. She had the talent, she had the musical experience, and she had the personality that a big musician needed. She was born to do this.

And her family was keeping her back.

Luna wasn't going to have this. It was time to cut the cord. It was time to move on. She had lots of good memories at her childhood home, but she was twenty-five, and it was time to grow up.

It was time to go.

Many of the lyrics of the very next song that Luna wrote were in reference to this very night:

I've felt times like I'm dead and gone

There's no in, no out

No right or wrong

So goodbye all you cunts

I'm done with these places

Tired of all your hideous faces

Evey one of you fools is a stupid fuck

Good luck! Good luck!

Good luck! GOOD LUCK!

It was three in the morning and Luan sat alone on the living room couch. The room was dark, and the only light was coming from the television. She was watching her old sitcom, something she hadn't done for a very long time, but had started again today.

Lana had wanted to watch it earlier that day (technically, Luan thought, that was yesterday, but she wasn't going to split any hairs), and it brought her back to a dark place. Oh, how happy she had been in Hollywood! How successful!

If given the chance to go back to that life… Luan didn't think she would. She wasn't sure, though. On one hand, she enjoyed the money, the luxuries, and, of course, fame. All of the fans were a most welcome change from her childhood, where, growing up with nine sisters and a brother, very rare was it for her to be given personal attention from her parents. On the other hand, though, she sort of let it all go to her head… the evidence of which was clear: she had missed her parent's funeral.

This fact still weighed down heavily on her, and in many ways Luan liked to think it was the main driving force behind her campaign for city council. It was the best way to help her siblings and keep her family's legacy alive and thriving. She was her parent's daughter, after all. After arrogantly her siblings, she felt as if the least she could do for her deceased mother and father to succeed and bring pride to the family name.

Of course, with how her first city council meeting had went… it may have been better if she didn't run at all.

To make a pun (a habit she had slowed down significantly on since she left Hollywood): so far, all she had done was royally fucked up the Royal Woods city council.

Right now, none but Leni knew that the first meeting had been a disaster for her, but soon, the rest of her family would find out one way or another. Of course, it wasn't like she was fired from the council—Luan would only be removed if her fellow council members had a town vote to impeach her or if she left—but, for her first day, she had made quite the scene. A scene that, in 20/20 hindsight, was not very good for the prospect of her reflection in four years. A scene that, upon thinking about it, was pretty fucking bad (maybe she would be impeached for it). A scene that, if Mayor Glen was still alive to see, Luan would likely flee the town in embarrassment.

She took a deep sigh. Luan would have to work extra hard to win reelection. It was far off, but Luan had lashed out on her very first day on the job. People wouldn't quickly forget that. She'd have to show, once again, she cared about the town. She would show up to every meeting and behave herself. She would organize community events in the town. She would help out Royal Woods in any way possible. It would be a source of terribly deep shame if Luan lost the next election, or worse yet, if she was impeached for misbehavior.

She would just have to work her ass off to prevent either of those things from happening.

Lynn sprinted down the hallway. The back door to the pizzeria was her only way out, her only shot at survival. She didn't know what the fuck was in the building with her, but it was big, it was dangerous, and it was coming after her. Fast.

She reached the exit, and frantically, she tried opening the doorknob. It was locked, even from the inside. What the fuck?

Lisa watched helplessly from afar.