Suicide Tree || ✓

18. "I love you"

My eyes were blurry either with tears or the pouring rain, I couldn't be sure. My head was pounding and I was drenched, shivering from head to toe. My fingers were numb as I tried to move them but they remained glued behind my back. Only when a burning sensation came across my wrists did I realise that they were tied behind my back with a fraying rope. I sucked a ragged breath when I felt that my bare feet were bound as well, and I was sitting in a crumpled position on a shaky crate. My surprised screams were muffled by the wet rag around my mouth and as I began to recognise the increasingly familiar face in front of me, the most brutal feeling of betrayal seized me. I had been so damn wrong this entire time. I desperately tried moving away but was immediately halted by a tugging sensation by my neck and the risk of me falling off, what I now realised was, a short tower of crates.

A noose, was tied tightly around my neck.

"I'm sorry."

I struggled to spit out the wet rag tied loosely around my mouth, screaming as I did so. I was freezing and shivering in just my shorts and tank top under the pouring rain but that was easily overshadowed by the sheer betrayal that I felt.

"What the hell is going on," I said with a shaky voice, my lips feeling numb. I glared fiercely at the large doe blue eyes staring back at me with sympathy and regret.

"I'm sorry about the noose, don't worry nothing will happen to you. It's just there for insurance," she said smiling softly at me, her eyes begging me to understand.

"What insurance!? What could you possibly gain from me being tied up like this and what the hell is happening?" I screamed partly with anger but also partly with fear because I could recognise the all too familiar surroundings. Somehow, I was under the suicide tree again. This time, the rope around the tree's branch was connected to the noose around my neck, and there were two more nooses hanging beside me from the same branch. The small pond was the only space separating me and Lily.

"No, no! I don't want to hurt you! That's far from what I want," she exclaimed with real concern lacing her voice. Confusion enveloped me. What the hell is she going on about? I stayed silent for a while, examining her face that had only worry etched into it. "I've been trying to tell you, all this time that I'm doing this for you! All of this is for you! I'm protecting you!" Lily pleaded with an almost wildly desperate look in her eyes.

"What?" I whispered, shaking my head with confusion. The fear and anger had long dissipated and was now replaced by confusion and apprehension. There was something seriously wrong with her. "All this time...it was you? You were the one planting those messages? What the hell were you trying to protect me from, when the only danger this entire time was you!" I screamed.

"No! I didn't plant those messages, Kyle did. I just wrote them," she said more calmly, though the desperate glint in her eye remained and it bordered on being crazed.

"Lily, I don't–" I began, still extremely confused and puzzled.

"Why can't you see!?" she exploded, throwing her hands up to the sky. She too was only wearing a thin jacket over her pyjamas, but she didn't seem the least bit disturbed by the pouring rain. "Since the moment you came here, all I wanted was for you to see me! But then Sam caught your attention," she let out a bittersweet laugh, suddenly pulling out knife from within her jacket and waving it mindlessly as I stared with wide eyes. "At first...at first I thought I could stay beside you," through the rain I could faintly see her eyes redden as tears welled up. "I thought I could stay beside you and watch from afar...Sam seemed so nice and I thought 'it's okay, they look perfect together.'" she smiled softly to herself before her face was clouded by a dark expression that I had never seen before in all the time that I had known her. Did I really know her?  "then there was that party you had missed last year, when I saw Sam and Hailey Crawford escaping together to the bedroom," at this moment I gave absolutely zero fucks about finding out that Sam had cheated on me only after a few months of being together because the sheer contempt in Lily's voice as she spat out their names together with her bloodshot, angry eyes was a terrifying distraction.