Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥for their afternoon classes, and in that time, Lily managed to convince herself that something had happened to Cindy. On the drive home from school hours later with Carol, she was silent, her head racing with all sorts of unpleasant thoughts. She usually never shut up, but she barely said a word to Carol, who was asking her heaps of questions about Billy.
The moment they pulled up to her house, Lily said a hurried goodbye to Carol, then raced inside to use the nearest phone. She dialled Cindy's number and the little optimism that remained in her hoped she would answer.
"Hi, you've reached the Maddison's, leave a message and we'll get back to you soon" Came the automated message from the other end of the line.
"Hey Cindy, it's Lily. Can you call me back as soon as you get this? I really need to speak to you" Lily said.
After failing to get through several more times, she put the phone down. She trudged upstairs and threw herself onto her bed, her mind racing once again. Part of her wanted to believe that Cindy was just choosing to ignore her, but the other part knew that it was more likely that something bad had happened, which utterly terrified her.
To top it all off, she was being forced to go out for dinner with her parents and her father's boss that evening. It was the last thing she wanted to do, what with Cindy missing and her lingering hangover. To the people her father worked with, she was a straight A student, like John, so she'd have to spend the evening pretending to be someone she wasn't. It stung that her father had to lie, because he was ashamed of her, but she was used to it, so it didn't bother her anymore.
A small knock coming from her window made her shoot up from the bed in alarm. Her initial thought was that it could be Cindy, but then the knock came again, followed by a familiar voice, "Lily? Are you there?"
Feeling a little disappointed, she pulled back the curtains and opened the window, "What do you want, Steve?"
"Can I come in? It's freezing" He pouted.
Lily nodded and took a step back, allowing Steve to climb into her room, "Why don't you just knock on the door?"
"I feel cooler doing it this way" He shrugged.
She raised her eyebrow, "If you say so" She laughed, sitting back down on her bed, "I'm actually glad to see you, I've had an awful day" She added.
It wasn't until a moment ago that she realised just how desperate she was to talk over everything with Steve. He knew about the Upside Down, so she would finally have a chance to voice her concerns about Cindy to someone, and he was likely to take her more seriously than Carol.
