One Fine Week

08

"Guys let us please be serious and talk like adults, because I really need your honest opinion" Pao pleads, and Vincent annoyingly responds: "Set us free already."

"Alright, so, I think that she thinks that I'm a pervert and which I am obviously not!

"You kinda are, I mean, she caught you gazing at her thighs." Vincent replies calmly, adjusting his glasses while Luke giggles.

"Please, do you really think that it was on purpose?" Pao frowns, trying to explain their friends the situation.

"Nah, but you wanted it, otherwise you wouldn't stare. Exactly like you stalked her for three weeks now, including the coming one, which also proves that you're a creep."

Pao was that kind of boy that would let a woman walk in front of him when climbing stairs, just so she wouldn't feel uncomfortable. But Lilly was an exception.

"Facts." Leon adds confidentially.

"Did you kiss her?" Vincent changes the topic, excited for Pao's answer.

Luke's eyebrows wide: "Don't tell me you didn't."

"No, of course not. You have to take it easy, remember? No rushing. Just how you guys taught me." Pao winks, searching for a pity excuse to defend his act. He just couldn't handle his nervousness with Lilly in his arms, that's all.

"Oh god, you will always stay crazy, Pao." Vincent replies with a chuckle and turns the TV louder.

"Guys, I mean-" A phone call interrupts their conversation, causing Pao to leave the room and pick up.

***

Pao's heart thumbs rapidly against his chest. He couldn't trust his father's words, no, he doesn't want to accept it. He still had many things planned to experience with Lilly. But all that crumbled apart with just a simple call of his father, making him clear that he had to return as soon as possible to Mallorca.

Pao loved his parents and couldn't contradict them, yet he couldn't leave his beloved Lilly either. The pain increases as his mind travels back to the time when his mother left him behind, letting him feel the accurate mixture of disappointment and curiosity he felt back then as a child, when anxiety turned into anger.

Hesitantly, his eyes freeze at the phone he is holding with trembling hands. After all, he would not give Lilly up so easily.

He couldn't give up on her because the situation is not ideal. No matter what the cost.

He surely needed a plan to fix it until then.

***

In the next morning, both teens meet as usual at the reception.

"Hey," Lilly greets Pao energetic with a bright smile, while he responds with a forced grin. Her eyebrows slightly knit, quite irritated by his apathetic behavior.

"Is everything alright? You seem crestfallen…"

Lilly still didn't get a response.

"Okay, then maybe I have to... tickle you!" Lilly laughs until her hand was held abruptly by Pao, causing to fill the hallway with a sudden silence.

Pao rises slowly, his head, gazing deeply into Lilly's anxious eyes as he takes a deep breath.

"I have to return to Mallorca."

Pao's gaze drops to the ground, letting a deep exhale out, not daring to look even for a second into the wide eyes of Lilly's.

Lilly stops her movement at his response, freezing right at space as a shower is running down her spine.

Even though she was calculating with a bad answer, her whole body started to tense and tremble in an immense fear as the adrenaline inside her raised to the endless and beyond.

Lilly wasn't responding, she was so  perplexed that she was at a loss of words. She wanted to ask him, all the questions that travelled around her mind, but she only replied dryly with: "I see... that came pretty urgent."

Lilly hardly managed to get these words out off her mouth.

When love meant that she had a strong sense of security by his side, a feeling of being together, of being understood, of being accepted even with her voluminous flaws, then she surely did that. Yes, she loved him with all her heart, and she could never imagine to stop continuing that.

Hesitantly, both teens gaze into their eyes, the atmosphere subdued and stiff. As if nothing in the world could pierce the protective bubble that included the two teens.

As for Pao, he expected her to push him away and act furious, and he was prepared for her to do so. But to his surprise, she didn't show any reaction nor expression, only pretending as if nothing happened.

When they continued with work, he continually watched how unbothered Lilly did her work, until she reported sick, leaving the young male after an hour by saying that she felt unwell.