Because of that Night (Book1)

chapter 13: Lila

The first semester at Borne High was going by in a whirlwind for Lila. It was the first time she had sat back and could look at where she started and see a clearer path to where she was going. She had the closest thing she had ever had to a best friend and had a solid group of friends that she could honestly call friends and not feel that was pushing it. She didn't want to jinx it, but life was going pretty well, and with the soon approaching break for Thanksgiving, Lila felt happy with where she stood with things.

Her inclinations had been right about Michael. Ever since the night of that first party of the school year, their relationship had only grown. It was the first time she viewed herself as desirable to a boy in her life. She felt powerful and free, and when she was around Michael, her face hurt from smiling so much. Even still, though she hated to admit it, whenever the five of them would be in a group together, with Michael always by Lila's side, making her laugh and moving as close to her as he could, she somehow always instinctively looked over to Hunter. He usually never paid them any mind.

Hunter was a tough person to read, but he could sometimes be oddly open. Their time in art class was time that Lila looked forward to each morning. By the second day of the semester, Hunter and Lila had found themselves on an island alone in the class. Jeremy had stuck to his word apparently about wanting out of Ms. Tate's class, and that naturally led Dani to follow suit as well. Neither Lila nor Hunter seemed to mind. It actually opened up the opportunity for them to have no other choice but to speak to each other, aside from when they really needed to focus, and Ms. Tate allowed the class to listen to music on their phones or iPods. Most everyone else had switched their seats around once Ms. Tate allowed for them to do so. Lila felt relieved that when that day came, Hunter made no move of going anywhere else.

It was strange, though Hunter wasn't the most talkative person Lila had ever met, when he did ever speak, she hung on his every word. He was incredibly well-spoken, and though they were only separated by about a year and a few months, Lila found herself feeling as though he was so much older. Even still, when Hunter did take the time to say something, she noticed a cloudiness in his eyes that never seemed to go away, no matter if they were laughing about something one of them had said or just casually talking about their days. It was a cloudiness she saw in Michael, too. It seemed especially apparent whenever any of their parents would be brought up in conversation. If Zooey brought up her mother and complained about her incessant nitpicking about her clothing choices, they remained silent. If Seth talked about how critical his dad had been of him in his soccer game the night before, they remained silent. It wasn't that it was obvious, but that when Lila stopped to think about Hunter and Michael and what their family was like, she realized she didn't have a clue about any of it.

Eventually, curiosity got the best of Lila, and one evening the week before Thanksgiving break when she was over Zooey's house where they were doing some studying together, she brought up her observations. Zooey had stiffened for a moment when Lila asked, and it was the first time Zooey wasn't quick to have a response to her. She was laying on her stomach on top of her bed while Lila sat below on the floor, her papers, books, and notes spewed all over the carpet. Zooey held herself up on her elbows, folding and unfolding her hands together before finally looking back at Lila.

"Hunter and Michael's mom died just last February," she had said solemnly.

A heaviness hung in the air almost immediately. Lila wasn't sure how to respond to this, because really, how can you? She shifted a bit, sitting cross legged and leaning over her legs to move semi-closer to Zooey.

"I had no idea," she said dumbly. But Zooey shook her head in reassurance to her.

"Don't feel dumb, Lila. There's no way you could have known. Neither of them talks about it much. I'll bring her up sometimes; talk about the good times we had or something funny that happened with her way back when we were kids and they just" – she snapped her fingers then, sighing, "shut down."