Sitting at her mother's desk, Jolene exhaled furiously, blowing away a strand of her chocolate brown hair that previously hung over her face. She seemed exhausted, as though it was her working on that desk all day and night and not her mother. There was a pen placed between her fingers and it looked like she was up to something as usual. What was once a blank paper was laid out in front of her, several doodles scribbled upon it. One that stood out was Jolene van der Woodsen repeatedly written out in a uniform pattern. She drew a few hearts around it and a couple of other unidentified doodles. But it was actually what was on top that would have garnered the most attention. She jotted down Mrs. Dr Ryan Dawson but then scratched it out, evidently not much for it to be concealed behind the blue ink. However, next to it was a porn sketch of something they might or might not have engaged in and 'Ryan's jailbait' etched into the paper so roughly that the words almost tore into the clean white sheet as if they were burned in. "Jolene," her mother called out as she stood right over the threshold to her home office. It was said in a very soft tone but the presence of Melinda Marciano simply made her daughter jump out of her skin. She crumbled the paper at once and tossed it into the recycling bin that lay under her mother's desk. "What was that?" Melinda asked, as she approached the desk. "Oh," Jolene said immediately and then paused. She needed at least a good half second to lie to her mother, something that the senior Mrs. Marciano could spot quickly, especially with the information she had just received. "I was just.. taking mess.. i was just drawing something." Rolling her eyes rather dramatically so Jolene could catch it, Melinda chose to delve futher into the subject. "Oh Jojo," she said sweetly but her intentions were clear. She thought that instead of simply jumping right to the point and bringing out the issue into the open, she would pry the words out of her daughter's mouth. "Where have you been these days? I barely see you in the house anymore." Jolene breaks the glance she had with her mother, letting her eyes roam around the room aimlessly. The only other pair of piercing green eyes that made you feel uneasy, if not Jolene's, were her mother's. They were designed to pry the truth out of people while belittling whoever had the dubious pleasure of looking into them. "Zarah," she says at first and then grimaces. "I've been sleeping over at Zarah's and Georgina's more often. You know, bonding with my... girlfriends? I'm growing up mom... and pretty soon I'll have to move on. You've got to let go of me now... so it'll be easy on you later." After she delivered those lines with her voice faltering as she made odd pauses, she got up and was ready to walk on out of there to prove her point. "I know, Jolene," her mother said. Turning on her heels, the former supermodel came face to face with her mother. "Good. So then it's settled, I'm allowed to be wherever I want to.." "You don't understand, young lady!" snapped Mrs. Marciano. "I know about you and Mr. Dawson." Jolene's face almost falls as she hears those last three words, 'you and Mr. Dawson'. Unable to say anything else, all that escapes her dry lips are a, "what?" "I cannot believe it, I can't even look at you the same anymore, darling," she says. Her eyes are still fixated on Jolene, however. "Of all the things you've put me through in the past, this has to be the lowest of the lows." "But mommy." "Why didn't you tell me?!" yells Mrs. Marciano. "I would have had the bastard shot." She then approaches Jolene and wraps her arms around her only daughter, tears were already welling up in her eyes. "Baby, I don't know what to do. You know why we can't call the cops or even give anyone a reason to ever suspect anything, especially with this family of ours. If I could, I would have had the bastard put away for life but.. I can't. I can get through anything and you know it but the one thing I can't do is serve time." "How?" asks Jolene as if the rest of what her mother said had absolutely no effect on her. "Well you're lucky to have a friend in Georgina Sparks always looking out for you," replies Melinda, causing Jolene's face to go completely red. "I completely understand, mom," Jolene says softly. "I guess I could just look at this as a.. life lesson. Getting raped always has it's benefits." That last line was laughable and most certainly untrue but Jolene delivered it as though she was a child in an orphange looking at the brighter side of life. It was not her shocking positivity but the hope she seemed to have. Before Melinda could utter another word, Jolene left her office and literally flew down the stairs. She managed to snatch her cellphone out from wherever it had been once and dialed Georgina's number. Obviously, the anwering machine had taken the place of Georgina as her friend and she now chose to unleash every swear word left out of the dictionary on it. "YOU FUCKING BITCH! WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING? I HATE YOUR FUCKING GUTS AND IF I EVER SEE YOU AGAIN, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH AND I WISH YOU'D JUST CHOKE ON THAT BIG FUCKING BLACK DICK DEMITRIUS DAVIS HAS AND DIE! I'M GOING TO.." Her message got cut off and she was almost about to call back again knowing that Georgie was probably screening it but something stopped her. -------------------------<3--------------------------- Almost 30 minutes later, Jolene had arrived at school. She hadn't been to class that day and didn't feel like she needed to give an excuse but fully knowing that Ryan's class was about to end, she would catch him and be able to seek some sort of solace within him. She was right. Dr. Dawson had just stepping out of the building and she ran into him immediately, tears streaming down her small, sad face. "What's wrong?" asked a concerned Ryan Dawson. "Ryan," she said softly, "Can we go somewhere?" "Sure, I'll take you to my off-" "No!" she snapped. "Somewhere as in.. Mexico, Fiji or like.. Australia." Her sobbing had gotten worse and she could barely spit out the words she was attempting to say. "You want to go on a vacation." Shaking her head, she said: "I want to run away, just you and me. C'mon. we have to leave. I need peace. I cannot be here in Manhattan anymore." "What's wrong, baby?" he said softly, keeping his tone down so no one could hear him. The premisis was clear with the exception of a few clerks but Jolene didn't care who heard her, she shouted out loud each time. "I can't tell you. We just NEED to go!" "We aren't going anywhere!" he shouted back angrily almost shaking her fragile body. "No-no please don't do this," she muttered back. "Please don't yell." Just then, he grabbed her tightly in his arms, hugging her as she wept into his clean white shirt. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said, almost in a whisper this time. "I just don't understand why we have to leave so suddenly." Sighing softly, she mumbled: "Can we go somewhere else and talk about this?" The two of them then left for the parking lot.