The Untold Chronicles of Liliana Lawton

Chapter 11- Home

"Slowly, slowly, you'll start to understand,
The first mistake, where it all began."

The smell of lavender as I walked through to the reception. A warm cozy clinic, with balanced lights and nicely painted walls. The walls were of a cream colour, and a purple round candle was burning on the receptionist's bench. The place was warm, I assumed the ducted heating was on. 

The receptionist smiled at me and told to me to take a seat. The chairs were quite ordinary but they came in colours. Green, red and blue. I decided to take the green chair and awkwardly sat down. 

My mind was spinning and my anxiety levels were high. I needed to distract myself while I waited, in order to calm down. I started to look around, eyes darting from wall to wall until I caught sight of an image.

It was a black and white image of a young man. He was smiling with his cheek leaning on his first finger and thumb. There was a quote that read, "Guilt is anger directed at ourselves - at what we did or did not do." Peter McWilliams

Guilt...? Is that what I've been feeling the entire time? Guilt? When we do something that we didn't mean to, or didn't do something to stop a bad situation. The feeling of bitterness, almost like betrayal. When you know you've done wrong but can't fix the situation...guilt.

That word echoed through my brain, it felt like a constant ringing noise and it was causing me to have a headache. If only Ivy was here to comfort my anxiety, she always knew what to do in such situations... Ivy? Ivy...

A memory of Ivy flashed within my mind. Her face emerged into the bathtub, floating, lifeless, gone from this cruel world. I tried so hard to hold back my tears. I started to shake in the chair, I wrapped my arms around my stomach. 

There were so many things in this cruel world that I wanted to change. That I wished I could change. Everything felt like a blur, nothing made sense to me. All my friends were gone, taken away by choices in life that could have been avoided. 

I was alone, I felt so alone. Ivy wasn't here to comfort me, Violet wasn't here to take me on an adventure, Evan wasn't here to crack dumb jokes and Lester wasn't here to put on music and make us all dance. 

No more party nights, no more pizza and movie nights, no more adventures, no more laughs...It was just me. All alone to fend for myself. My hand made it's way to my pocket and I took out a Polaroid picture. It was taken at the final party we had, holding our beer cups and wearing party hats. We were all smiling, we were all so happy...

But that was all gone. There was nothing left but emptiness. As quick as it came, the quicker it left. Everything I knew about myself, my friends and our lives was just...gone. Forever. Into the depths of darkness.

Tears were running down my eyes but I quickly wiped them away. I missed them, I missed all of them. I wished they were here next to me. 

But they weren't, and I needed to help myself before I fall into darkness forever. Ivy used to tell me that the only way out of hell was to climb out of it because sometimes the exit was locked. 

I just wanted it all to be a bad dream but I knew that wasn't the case. Was it my fault that this all happened? Maybe, I'm not sure. Could we have avoided all this? Maybe, I don't know. 

I wiped the remaining tears and sat up straight in my chair. I looked at the receptionist who was busy on the computer. I don't think she noticed my tears or my shaking which made me feel relieved. 

I looked up at the clock, that was ticking just opposite me. It's 2:05pm, five minutes over time. Violet never liked being late, or anyone being late in general. She always found it rude but I didn't care.

I always believed time was set for everything to be on the exact hour, exact minute, the exact second. It all had reasons, because if my therapist wasn't late by five minutes, I wouldn't have been able to wipe my tears in time.

The door opened and a random gentleman walked out. He thanked the therapist and the receptionist and walked off. 

There she stood, tall and lean with a friendly smile. Blue jeans, a pretty white shirt and a silver necklace with a teal shaped heart. She looked at me and her smile got wider.

"Liliana?"

"Yes." I answered, trying to push on a smile.

"Come in."