Always, Lily

▫️Thirty three

LILITH

Seven days had passed.

I had not seen him. I had not contacted him in that period, but he had.

He called me everyday, at exactly eight in the evening. I never picked up. I couldn't bear listening to him without crying.

I knew it was wrong of me to ignore him this much but I just couldn't. My phone rang and even without checking, I knew it was him.

I stared at the phone ring. The profile picture and love emojis I'd added to his name still there.

The call ended and another began. He usually called three times and then he'd send me a good night message.

Towards the end of the third call, my fingers itched over the screen and without knowing, I picked up.

"Lilith," he breathed out, his voice soft but tired.

"How have you been? Are you alright, love?" I clenched my eyes shut, holding back tears.

"Talk to me please." He pleaded at my silence. He was vulnerable, I could feel it.

I opened my mouth to say something but instead, a sob escaped me, the tears now coming out freely.

I quickly ended the call before he could hear my loud break down. I covered by mouth with my right hand to avoid alerting the others downstairs.

He called me again, his messages came in one after the other but I turned away from my phone.

Crying was my weakness. I couldn't handle the hurt without tears. A week had ended. I was supposed to feel better now but truth be, I was worse than before.

Hearing his name would cloud my eyes with tears. Seeing his texts morning and evening didn't help either.

He was still nice to me. He would wish me a good day every morning. Every evening, he'd ask how my day was.

I never sent any reply but even after it being a week now, he still asked. He still cared and it made me feel terrible.

How were we going to solve things out if I couldn't bear listening to him?

My eyes shifted back to my laptop screen after my phone had gone quiet.

I was drafting some presentation slides for the next phase of my project. A meeting with the departmental heads had been scheduled a week from now so I had started an early preparation.

Working on this on a Saturday night wasn't the best idea. I knew it though I was partly doing this to distract myself from the countless thoughts I had in mind.

I had locked myself in my room for the past one hour yet the only thing I had managed to type was the project title and my supervisor's name.

It was cowardly of me to hide myself from my family when they had travelled a long way to come see me.

Mom, Luce and Lucas were downstairs together with Orion. They had arrived this afternoon at around four.

We had talked for a bit before I came up my room with the excuse of working on my project.

They had given me the space I wanted and it was the perfect solution to avoiding them all.

Mom was visiting so that she'd meet with Enzo. I didn't know how to tell her that we were not on speaking terms.

Orion was of no help since I'd been avoiding him for the past week. Hiding here wasn't going to solve anything but it felt better than facing anyone.

I tied my hair up so that I could focus with typing. I sat at a more comfortable angle and resumed creating my slides.