LILY WHITE

TEN

TOMMY

She makes me question things about myself. Of course I have my reasons for my bitterness, but now I see that it was my childish delusions that kept me away from Lillie.

I think of myself as stupid for letting myself do that to us, to miss out on what could've been years of bonding. Whenever Lillie asks me why I hated her my heart breaks a little bit more because I know that I've hurt her where she doesn't deserve to be hurt. It pains me to know that.

I storm off of her roof tonight because I still can't bring myself to answer that question, even though she deserves to know. I just can't do it.

I miss her company as soon as I am inside, but I can not change my mind now. I look at her from outside the window, barely catching her flying hair and glimmers of her skin. I can't go back and I can't answer her question.

Instead, I look around her room again, taking in what I saw the night prior. It looks and smells almost the same. Some books have been moved and her bedsheets lay differently, but I don't notice anything else.

I stand by her nightstand and grow curious of the picture framed by a white wood. I try to look closer, but the dark makes my eyes malfunction. Instead, I pick up the picture and inspect it closely.

It's Lillie. It's her as a child, holding up a ukelele. She's smiling and it shines through the picture and passes it on to me. She's not at home, I don't recognize the floor she sits on but it doesn't take long until I know that her parents aren't taking this picture.

Lillie had to grow up by herself. She's had to build her own life piece by piece, placing each brick of the puzzle by the hands she herself created. She had to make her own parents, design her own future, think for herself. I couldn't imagine ever doing anything like that by myself, but Lillie, she does it and more.

Next to the picture there's a book flipped over on it's back, I pick it up and look at it's cover. It's The Scarlet Letter, a book I would read meaninglessly for an English class, she's reading it for her own enjoyment. She reads of empowerment when there should be tragedy.

There is a bag that hangs from her wall that I also touch, inside holds sunscreen and more books. I look at her library again, peer into her closet.

I look at Lillie outside and I panic, not wanting her to know that I've been walking around in her room. My first instinct is to leave, so I do so in a hurry. I shut the door behind me so she can't see that I've barely left.

When I'm in my room all I want to do is sleep. I lay in my bed and close my eyes waiting for the exhaustion to tower over me and hit me with rest. It comes quickly and I sleep without covers or a pillow below my head.

-
I wake to my mother towering over me, she looks tired. She calls me down for breakfast and leaves the door open.

I lay in bed a little longer, my neck hurting from the uncomfortable position I slept in. I hear my mother calling Lillie for breakfast in the room across from mine. She does the same to Lillie as she has done to me and leaves her door wide open.

Lillie puts her hands to her face and yawns, she moves gracefully and puts her knees to her chest, a position that I have observed she does a lot. Maybe it's for comfort.

She stays there a couple seconds, stares at her floor, her eyelashes hitting each other then separating. Something about seeing her unaware of my company feels odd.

That doesn't last for long, she's noticed me and now looks back. She smiles gently, rubs her eyes again, and crosses her arms before slowly getting up to the door. She makes a mini surfboard with one hand, a little man with the other, she makes them ride the waves in the air. I take it that she's asking to go surfing.