The Girl Who Once Lived

Chapter 1

His POV

"Isagani, look!"

Something in her gentle touch on my back had the power to restrain my hands from going about their work. My ears were filled with music, but it was not loud enough to drown out the enthusiasm in her voice as she called my name after finding something peculiar in this tiny, dusty, and dirty attic made of wood.

Filled with curiosity, I placed down the paintbrush and palette on the floor as I wiped off the remnants of paint left on my hands – never minding if I was facing the masterpiece in the making, trading to see her cute gummy smile once again.

Who wouldn't be tempted if Lily Heart, the daughter of the town's Governor, was sitting next to you on this quiet afternoon while she could have been out there hanging out with her pals in their Ferraris? I'm desperate to find out what has entered her head.

"Lily..."

The entrance of the wind from the broken window took my curiosity away. The wide smile plastered on my lips vanished quickly.

"What?" Her doe hazel brown eyes asked me innocently as if this was not new to her at all. Why was she acting so composed?

I stared at it for a while, then back at her eyes, looking for some justification for what she did. Where did she even get... How did... What was the reason...

I was unable to take it in. I had several questions I wanted to ask, but I was concerned those words would cut deeper in her wounds. Even the number of letters in the Alphabet could not adequately explain what I was experiencing as I opened my mouth to speak. I remained motionless for a few minutes, looking like a blinking, frozen object unsure of what to do. I don't even know how to react.

This is my first time seeing...

"Don't you dare tell me you're afraid of blood? "She inquired, which jolted me back to the present. Her voice had a mocking tone. She appeared to be treating this as some test, but I was not ready for it. I was in no way content.

I created a facade to bury my feelings. While carefully searching the nearby drawer for a clean cloth to cover her bloodied wrist, my hands began to perspire. What on earth was that girl thinking?

The ground could tell how much I wanted to run, but I decided against it. I wanted to yell at her, but I refrained myself.

When I finally had a white cloth in my hands, I turned back to her. While she looked at me closely, I tore it up without looking at her. She was reading me as though she were enjoying a novel.

"You're shaking."

Fuck yes, I am.

I discreetly tucked a piece of white cotton around her wrist while avoiding looking directly into her perceptive, deceptive pair of eyes.

"Lily, do you find this amusing?" I exclaimed incoherently after a long breath. I was irritated. I was perplexed.

She let out a chuckle. "Pussy!"

As soon as she said it out loud, my brows began to furrow even more. My mind was blown by this girl!

When I looked at her, her lips were arched upward and wide open. Her shoulders were moving. She was giggling hysterically. However, the look in her eyes and the lack of emotions in it was telling me otherwise.

Was she sad? Did something happen today? Was she feeling pressured? I don't know what's happening. I can't understand her. She's still a mystery to me. I want to know why. I want to know every bit of her feelings...

I was drowning in my thoughts when she asked me something I would never forget.

The light emanating from the dormant sun was obscured by the clouds. To locate their homes, the birds gathered in large groups. As the dirt greeted their fall, the leaves were twirling to the beat of the wind. People crowded the streets outdoors as they tried to get the rest they deserved after many hours of labor. My outlook on life changed that melancholy afternoon when Lily Heart asked me a question.

"Don't you think this is art?"

What is art?

She averted her attention to the scars she had caused herself as she sensed what was going on within my disturbed head. Her fingertips traced the incisions above the white cloth slowly and deliberately. I detected no indication of regret in her choice. Instead, I felt content.

"A form of expression..."

"So that's why you did it? Do you consider self-harming to be an act of expression?"

"Isn't it?"

I gave her an unbearably long look. Her father was the town's Governor, while her mother taught middle school. She was leading the kind of opulent life that every child born into poverty aspires to. But out of all the ways she could have expressed herself, she chose a distinctive and contentious one.

"There are no rules in arts. There is freedom after this."

Her gaze caught mine; her cocoa brown hair swung in the breeze that entered through the window; her face was reflecting the sun's rays, which enhanced the beauty of her brown eyes. A sincere smile formed on her lips.

"Do you agree with me?"

I sighed – never knowing if I would disappoint her smile. Nothing slipped out of my mouth. I resisted nodding. I didn't move my head to disagree. The only thing I did was to hold her wrist – the art she was talking about.

"Never do this again. You hear me?" I pleaded. My fingers couldn't carry the loneliness peeking into her wounds as I caressed them with tender care.

Lily Heart laughed a little softly. She poked my nose and pulled her arms away from me. "Isagani, this is what you signed up for!"

That was just the beginning of everything.