Caim

48 | turning back

Miliani'S POV

The first thing I did after Ailee dropped me home was going into Layla's room. It's been years since I stepped inside the threshold of her abode, as it felt like betraying her peace even though she isn't here. Layla was always a reserved person; she never liked any sociable activities- people her age do without parent's guidance- that forced her to go out of her room. Layla for the lack of better statement was living in Victorian era and twenty first century simultaneously.

Her room was still in the same condition as it was left the day she died. Her bed made, chair pushed in under the table and just her towel lying on the back of the same chair. Pastel green walls covered with pictures after pictures of different types of flowers though, they were covered with a thin sheen of dust; she loved flowers, always saying 'flower gives you hope to start something happy, it can change the mood a whole three hundred and sixty' whenever someone asked why she brought so many flowers every Friday while coming home from work. She'd give all of us flowers- each with a specific meaning, like mom was always a rose- as it depicts hope- dad was a gladiolus- for strength- and mine was a lavender-for happiness.

Nobody knew but I always kept those flowers in my favorite books so they can absorb the love Layla has for us, in that way I can always feel the love she gave me. They have dried but the petals still smell of home, they smell like her. I still hug those books whenever I need her hugs.

It was difficult to cope after she left us; it broke something in all of us. Mom and dad left me, it was only the second day of her death when they left me to fend for myself, and I was only fifteen. I didn't knew how to cook, didn't knew how to do laundry. My nights always considered wet pillows and a guilt weighing me down. Seven months, it took me seven months to absorb that my parents really left me; they didn't believe their own daughter. It broke me completely, I thought after everything I will have my mom and dad but once again I was betrayed.

It's always the close ones that hurts you the most.

Wiping a tear that managed to fall from my confines, I looked around to feel the familiarity of her room. I wanted to feel Layla being here for the last time, I never went to her grave after her funeral. I couldn't find it in myself to visit after what she went through because of me, but today I need my elder sister. I need her support, her reassuring words but most importantly I need her smile, it always brightened up my days.

After what I saw today I needed her the most. The betrayal was far bitterer than anything I've ever endured. I never thought that Caim could kill someone, I saw him pull the trigger. He shot the guy right in-between his eyes. It was just one bullet and he was dead. My mind couldn't follow the horrors of the event as they unfolded in front of my eyes. My mind screamed at me to just leave but my eyes couldn't believe what was happening in front of them.

It felt like all the layers of lies were stripping right then when he pulled the trigger and killed the man, his eyes held rage, a rage which only knows how to destroy. I've seen that type of anger before, in Sean's eyes when he called me towards him that night. I was afraid as I never saw someone holding so much anger behind their cool gaze. When I saw Caim my mind forced me to compare those two but it was my heart that objected my brain and said that Caim would never hurt me but I was past any sensibility that time.

He betrayed me and I don't want anything to do with him.

The brown wooden shelves were stacked with many unique brown boxes, wooden with indicated designs carved on them, she was obsessed with carving things, and her favorite was boxes. A small smile grazed my lips when I saw a small black box with Miliani carved in it. I gently lifted it to take a closer look to it, my name was carved into cursive letters and then painted a beautiful shade of golden. It looked like it belonged in a fairytale, it looked like those musical boxes which when you open them a beautiful fairy pops out and plays out a melodic tune.