The family ties of Lily Juniper Abernathy (book 3)

Chapter 31

Effie

"Lily? baby, are you okay?"

"Uh-huh."

That didn't sound very confident.

"If you're struggling to get your tights on I can help?"

The bathroom door opened. She was red in the face and wheezing a little.

"What've you been doing?"

"The hospital gave me this corset type thing to hold my ribs together...I've been trying to fasten it up."

"Come here." I span her round

"You have to pull it as tight as you can put up with."

"Okay."

"WAIT-" she picked up a piece of paper and clamped it in her teeth

"If I hurt you then I'm sorry?"

"Doesn't matter." She gripped the table and crushed her eyes shut.

"Count of three yeah?"

She nodded

"1, 2, 3!"

I pulled the two cords and the paper fell from her mouth "OK!" She choked

I tied it "Right?"

She turned back to face me wiping her forehead "Thanks."

"It's okay babe: is it too tight?"

"No, it's fine."

"Good."

Lily

I frowned "This reminds me of those splint things I had with those needles going into my muscles."

She paused and said slowly "You remember having them?"

I nodded and giggled at the surprise on her face "Of course I do, I hated them with a vengeance."

I do remember. Next to actually having my legs broken, the splints were the worst. My mom used to have to pin me down and drive the needles into the backs of by thighs. It used to hurt like Hell- considering the needles were more like spikes and had to puncture my tendons to make it work and my mom had to make an incision with a scalpel to get that far in to my legs in the first place. I remember screaming and crying and hitting out to get her off me. I used to hide in the most obscure places to get out of it- my dad once told me the first time he ever went to do it it took him three hours to find me. I kept swaping places where he'd already looked. I lived with that until I was nine. By then my 'weirdo who no one wants to be friends with' status had been established in both the Capitol and in 12 and I just suppressed the screams of pain and focused on one day being able to go without them.

I remember the day me and Finn met after my accident. He thought my splints were cool because I looked like a robot: only a boy could make that sort of judgment. I remember that same day he sat me on his skateboard and pushed it through the hospital grounds. He jumped on it once it picked up speed and we whizzed off out the hospital gate- most fun I'd had since riding my bike- until we crashed into a market stall full of fish...that's why I don't like them.

"What are you grinning at?"

I blinked and smiled at my mother "Nothing?"

"Well in that case, get dressed, we aren't even invited so let's not make it worse by being late!"

I nodded still grinning like an idiot "Okay."

I slipped my black lace jumper over myself and the black skirt went straight on. That was clearly a fluke.