Five ✘ Lila • Survival

#3 Her smile

They could have run away, they could have somehow covered it up, they could have lied - but they faced it head on.

"God, I hoped I was wrong..." gasped Allison as she looked at Five and Lila standing side by side in the doorway of his room.

Their disheveled hair, their sleepy faces, and the fact that Lila was only in a robe gave away a lot.

"Please tell me it's not what it looks like..."

"And what would you like to hear? That Lila needed to blow dry her hair in the night and to avoid waking you up, she went here to blow dry it?"

"Dry my hair?" Lila asked.

"Well, because you were in the pool..."

"Oh yeah, the pool..." she bit her bottom lip and gave Five a look that made him smile.

"God, stop it!"

They both looked at her again.

"Seriously, you can't be serious about this... all of this! Didn't either of you think about the fact that Diego is only a few rooms down the hall? Are you really not even a little ashamed?"

"And you came here as vice police? Just because you're all trying to pretend nothing happened doesn't mean it's solved. But we don't really have to confess to you."

"Maybe not to her, but to me." Diego echoed just a few feet away from them.

All eyes went to him as he reached them. He looked at Lila and then at Five.

"Can we talk? Alone."

"Diego, I..." began Lila.

"We'll talk together later, Lila." He looked at Five, "I want to talk with you now."

--

Five looked down from the rooftop terrace a few floors below, "a convenient place if you wanted to get rid of me outright..."

"Believe me, as much as I want to punch you in the teeth, I don't plan on going for your throat like you did mine. Even though it may mean nothing to you, you're still my brother to me."

"Well, that's really sweet..." he uttered in his usual tone.

"So you're still going to act like I'm the one interfering in your relationship? You do realize that Lila is my wife? She's my wife!"

"You don't have to remind me of that."

"Then what the hell is this all about?"

"It's so easy for you all, isn't it? For you we've been gone how long? Half a day? But for us it's been seven years, Diego! Seven years. You may know about it, but you have no idea what it was really like. Now we're expected to pretend that nothing happened and everything will go back to the way it was, right? But I can't do that. I don't want to! And I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to either."

"But here you are no longer in your lost world, here Lila is my wife and the mother of our three children."

"Oh God, over and over again, yours: she's my wife! And what makes her your wife, a piece of paper about your marriage? So we'll forget she told you she wanted a break, we'll pretend she was unfaithful to you when you were experiencing the peak of your happy marriage, won't we?"

"What the hell do you know about that?"

"I know a lot about it, actually! I've seen the beginning of your relationship, I've seen the gradual end. If you didn't notice how Lila gradually faded in your marriage, I'm not the one who didn't see what was going on here."

"Weren't you the one who told me that Lila would never give up what we have? That only an idiot would give it up? Hm?" He looked at Five. "What exactly did you bury and pour concrete over?" He remembered his words.

"What?"

"Don't play dumb, you advised me yourself when I shouldn't have been dealing with what Lila was secretly doing behind my back-with you!"

Five didn't reply.

"You wanted to sleep with my wife before all this?"

"That's ridiculous!"

"Really? So you just happened to notice her state of mind during our marriage? How long have you been thinking about her?"

Five actually thought about his question for a second.

"From the very beginning, you've been dealing with some of your own stuff together, all of which you've left out! God, all your weird moments, the animosity." He looked disgusted, as if he guessed there was something unspoken that had been there for a very long time.

Five realized that he actually had quite a few memories of Lila before all of this, and in the context of other things, it began to dawn on him that there had always been something about her that had attracted him in a way.

"I never planned for it to go this way."

"So what's your excuse for getting involved with her, huh?"

"Trust me, you don't want to hear it."

"Talk!"

Five hesitated, but then spoke. "Even though we were in an absolutely horrible situation, even though our lives were on the line. Even when sometimes we didn't even have enough to eat... Lila could conjure up a smile even in those moments, which made it all so much more bearable. Even if I were to wander with her for the rest of my life, I would still be happier in her company than at any other time or place." His tone of voice changed instantly as he began to speak of her.

"So because of her smile?" Diego asked irritably, almost mockingly. The way Five was talking about her was making him upset. Because it didn't just sound like - a meaningless fling.

"If her smile doesn't have that effect on you, maybe you don't deserve to see it."

They were both silent for a brief moment.

"I want you to stay away from her."

"So much for the effect of what I just said." Five frowned.

"You were right. It's been too much for Lila lately, like you said yourself, you've been through some tough times. That's why you'd better keep your distance from her! Give her a chance to realize what she left behind so she can live like she used to again."

"How about you let her choose what she wants?"

"And let you manipulate her to your advantage?"

Five gave him a serious look, "Don't even say that as a joke! I never forced her into anything! Everything that happened between her and me happened because we both wanted it to!"

"Like I said - stay away from her or you'll regret it!"

Five had to laugh at that, but there wasn't a drop of joy in his eyes.

"I warned you." Diego clenched his hands into fists, finally turning to leave.

"And I warning you! Until she tells me herself, I will never leave her life." He shouted after Diego, who disappeared around the corner on the stairs immediately afterwards.