The Capitol really did have a very active rumor mill, one which Demi was not at all unfamiliar with. She had heard many of the things that were often being said about her, and about her situation with Isaac. In truth, she had to smile because if a rumor did start up about why exactly Lita was visiting her, well, it would likely be one of the tamer rumors floating around the Capitol about her.
“That would make two of us,” Demi remarked with a little laugh. “Most of the rumors about me here don’t exactly paint me in a good light.” Far from it, actually. She often wondered if Rose and her group of friends kept her around simply because they wanted more fuel for their fires in the rumor mill department. That was a thought that often slipped into the forefront of her mind when she thought about the motivations behind the wives of senators looking to become chummy with her, she wasn’t one of them, and yet they kept insisting she join them. She could only assume they were looking for the ‘dirt’ on what was really going on between her and Isaac.
Her shoulders rose and fell in a little shrug. “Sometimes it does,” she agreed. “It’s easier when you don’t exactly have a lot of stuff too put into a place, which has almost always been the case with me.” The only serious relationship she had had before the world went to hell was back when she was nineteen and just moving out of her parents place, so she hadn’t had much to her name at that point. Now the world had gone to hell, and Demi could only assume most of her stuff was still tucked away in her trailer in the Dog Park, unless it had been given over to someone else, in which case she truly didn’t have much to her name. “Control and commitment issues? That sounds like it would make an interesting laundry list of past relationships.”
Demi had her own commitment issues, ones that likely stemmed from issues fair different than Lita’s. Still, she could understand on some level the inability to commit to someone - for years that’s exactly how she used to function. Now it just seemed that every relationship Demi had was complicated, which only made her long for the days when she hadn’t let anyone near her heart.
Lita’s questions didn’t surprise her, how could they? Demi had been asked the same kind of thing by anyone who had even a shred of decency in them. “Isaac isn’t using any kind of leverage to get what he wants from me. Truthfully, he treats me like I might be breakable and rarely allows himself to look at me for too long, let alone anything else,” she admitted, not exactly playing up the ‘dating’ lie, but not saying anything that might imply it was all a scam either. “Things are complicated between us, which I think is to be expected, and I know this is going to sound kind of stockholm syndrome-y, but Isaac really is a good guy. So don’t worry, he’s not abusing his power or position with me, Doc.” She knew that on some level she had gotten lucky. She could have very well snagged the attention of a much crueler man, someone who would have done exactly that. Isaac wasn’t that kind of man though, and for that Demi was thankful.
“And I totally owe you a picture of him, don’t I?” Demi jumped topics, steering back towards something less serious. “Unless you don’t want to see what he looks like, in which case you could just continue to let your imagination fill in the blank.”