Trust No Bitch: Part 3

Lilly Philipps

As first impressions go, turning up on your secret boyfriend's front doorstep, overwrought and drenched in what closely resembles blood, is not the ideal way of making a positive one on said boyfriend's mother. The woman appeared absolutely horrified at the sight of this stick-thin, bleach blonde, frantic eyed creature storming through the front door of her 2 story, unpretentious semi-detached and yelling for her son.

"Oh my God, Lilly, is that...?" Luca had said as he emerged from his kitchen, his mother shuffling about, sheepishly attempting to busy herself with something.

"Fake blood...yes...I hope." Lilly murmured. "Can we go to your room...Please?"

"Uh..." Luca's eyes flicked from his mum's, back to Lilly's, whose were widening further and further by the second. "Yeah, yeah, sure." He said abruptly upon registering the urgency of her expression, taking her by the arm and leading her upstairs, his mum standing at the bottom scowling at the pair of them. Although Luca had attempted to be discreet about it, Lilly still caught his penitent shrug at his mother before they disappeared round the corner. It was for that reason, his embarrassment, that she waited until he had fully closed his bedroom door to start vociferating.

"For fuck's sake, Luca!" She snarled, the malignancy in her voice sounding quite anomalous, like a song that'd had its pitch slightly altered, sped up or slowed down. "I spent 3 bloody pound on a call phone trying to get hold of you before I came here. Why didn't you pick up?"

"My phone was off!" Luca responded, shaking his head in confusion. "Lilly..." He said quietly, resting his hands on her shoulders. "What the hell is going on?" For a moment, she avoided his gaze and stared at the ground, her vision beginning to cloud with tears. "Tell me." he pleaded again gently, though his softness was not what Lilly wanted. Consumed by a rage as abnormal to her as the sneering, she threw his hands off her shoulders and bared down on him.

"Our baby, Luca! Our baby's gone!" She yelled, Luca wincing and glancing towards the floor as if afraid that his mother was standing directly beneath them. Of course, his first reaction was shame. He clearly did not share the excruciation she felt at the mention of the baby. Then again, he didn't have to experience the sly taunting of his own body, producing milk that obviously was not needed, womb contracting complacently as if its work was done, all of it one giant, cruel Cleo-like jibe. "Our baby is gone." She repeated. "I lost it. I lost it...I lost our baby. And all...all this. I just had to throw it in the fucking dustbin! It didn't help-"

"All what? You had to throw what in the dustbin?" Luca interrupted innocently, attempting to guide her down onto the bed next to him.

"All this! This shit! They want to know who I'm protecting, Luca! They want to know who I'm protecting. And it's you! Give them up, give them up, they keep saying! They know I was working for someone when I lit that fire, Luca. They know there was a middle man between me and Cleo, they want to know who and they're doing anything to make me tell." Lilly replied, throwing her arms up in exasperation. Her anger had been depleted as quickly as it had arrived. She just wasn't made for such an emotion. It required too much energy, wit, audacity, to really achieve its desired effect, things Lilly believed that she had long since possessed. Instead, she sat herself down next to Luca and succumbed to the enervation, her head dropping and landing in her hands despondently. She only moved again as Luca attempted to put a comforting arm around her heaving shoulders. "I made a mistake...a stupid mistake." She sobbed piteously. "God, why am I so stupid? Why did I agree to set that fire? There must have been other options. I was just too bloody dense to see them, as always. Typical Lilly fucking Philipps, yeah? Can't tell her left hand from her right foot, or something like that."

"Lilly..." Luca tried, prising her head out of her hands and tenderly lifting her chin.

"Yes."

"Who is they? This person who wants to know who you're protecting?" Luca asked, Lilly laughing joylessly.

"Your Supplier." She muttered in reply. "The Supplier. They killed Cleo and Mia Jackson and Dec Johnson and Tess Rowe and they want you dead too. And they want me to sign your death warrant." Ignoring Luca's troubled expression, she continued. "Our baby, Sienna, our little girl. She's gone. And I can't do this anymore. It's all my fault. If I had never started that fire, I wouldn't be in this shit now."

And despite all that Luca said, his gallant declarations of self-sacrifice, his repeated "just give them my name, babe."s, Lilly knew he didn't mean it.

That fear, that sudden sense of impotence she could see in his eyes, she knew as well as her own name. Could describe it, write it down with her own eyes closed, probably put it into words then say it backwards. She knew it like a blind person knows, and loathes, the darkness. Like the deaf know silence, even.