Lillian Henry is seventeen years old when her 20 year-old brother, Adam, and his best friend, Blake Kingston, enroll in the army. And she's eighteen, when they come back, her feelings left unchanged. As for his, they're even stronger than before.
T...
"So...?" Adam says as we are throwing a football at each other. "How is it going with Lian?"
"You really want to talk about my relationship with your sister?" I chuckle, confused about this sudden interest in my love life, even more since my love life involves Lily's love life too.
"I mean, I don't want to know if you are fucking her, I just... you know, I see Lian every day, I know that you make her happy and that she feels safe, but I barely see you anymore. I don't know much about what's going on in your life anymore."
I nod in agreement. "Well, if it's your way to ask about the nightmares and how I've been coping, let's just say that Lily has been helping a lot."
"I'm glad you found each other."
"Me too," I confess. I don't know what my life would be like right now, if it wasn't for Lily. "How about you? How have you been?"
He sighs as he throws the ball at me once more. I catch it as he begins to speak, "I still hear the bombing and shooting at night. But I've been going to therapy like they suggest I did. They gave me pills to help me sleep, they've been helping."
"I'm sorry I didn't reach out earlier, I should've checked up on you."
"You were dealing with your own shit, and helping my sister, I could never hold that against you. You know, after what happened with Rainer, I thought I'd never see her old self again. And I felt awful for not being there for her, and for acting so protective over her when we came back, for not listening to her. I am glad that I have you as a best friend, Blake, otherwise I don't think I would be able to talk about Lillian in the present tense right now. In the end, it's all that has ever mattered to me. I don't care about the nightmares, I don't even care about myself, if I don't have my sister in my life."
"She has that effect, right?" I agree, the corners of my lips curling up into a smile. "Sometimes, I feel like she doesn't even realize how important she is to people, how much she helps without even trying to."
"You know, if a year ago you would've told me our main common point and subject of conversation would be my sister, I would probably have laughed in your face, but now, I wouldn't want it any other way. She really kept us going, didn't she?"
My head goes up and down repeatedly. "There's a part of me that needs to go back, you know. But another part of me only desires to stay. I told her that, and you want to know what she told me? She told me that I should go. She looked me right in the eyes, and told me that she would wait for me, and as much as I wanted to tell her that I appreciated it, I couldn't, because all I could think about was the chance that I won't be coming back."
"Don't say that," Adam pats me on my back as he joins me on my side of the yard.
"I have to go back, I have to do this for myself. But it will be the last time. Once we're back here, I'm never leaving again. I've never felt like this for a long time. Like I belong, like I have a purpose. For a while, I thought helping others, fighting for them, was my purpose, but there's only one thing in life that fills me with success, happiness, love, and it's not the army."
We look at each other, then away, towards the skyline on the horizon. "It's Lillian," we say in sync, agreeing that if there's one person we need to protect, to care for, to love for the rest of our lives, it is her. She might not realize it, she might not see that she is everything in this world.
She's beauty, she's hope, she's love.
She's the first ray of sunshine after a storm. The rainbow after rain.
She's my Lily.
She's Adam's Lian.
And we will come back to her, that's a promise I make.
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I apologize for being inactive recently.
And for this short chapter. I have been feeling pretty unmotivated recently, but my desire and love for writing is slowly coming back and I have plenty ideas for what's coming next in Yours to love. Let me tell you, you aren't ready.
I hope you still enjoyed this chapter, even though it was short and that you are still willing to read my story even though I don't post regularly. I'll be trying to post more in the next few weeks.
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