Payback [ON HOLD]

Chapter 13

There was only one week of summer vacation left, and the grand plan was still not complete. So, obviously, it was time to call in reinforcements.

Raelynn, Jessica, and Dakota were the only ones free on such short notice, but as the best schemers in the entire friend group, Lilly had no doubt that they'd be enough. Especially when Raelynn showed up with not only immediate ideas, but cookies, too. And she was just the first arrival! It gave Lillian some hope that maybe one or both out of the other two were bringing brownies or something. Forget payback and risky, complicated plans! Dessert was more important.

"Lilly, um, Lilly hon, can we just talk about this plan of yours for a second?" Raelynn asked, not only interrupting Lillian's thoughts, but sneaking up behind her, too, causing her to jump in her seat and let out a squeal.

"ACK, don't DO that!" Lilly scolded, crushing her hands against her rapidly-beating heart. After a moment, she felt composed enough to speak again. "Sorry, sorry. What were you saying?"

For a second, Raelynn just stood there in silence.

Then she burst out laughing.

"I didn't even mean to do that— You should've seen your face— Your eyes—" The girl put her hands around her eyes, then threw them out as she bulged her eyes out as large as she could, mimicking what Lilly's face had looked like. It took her over a minute to calm herself down, and when she did, she was met with Lillian's most dirty look.

Raelynn was clearly fighting a giggle. "Sorry not sorry. You face was just— it was priceless!"

Lilly rolled her eyes but once again couldn't fight the smile that spread across her lips. "Fine, sure. But what the heck were you SAYING, girl?" She said this with a slight, exaggerated southern accent that she couldn't seem to live without these days, thanks to her and her sister's shenanigans. They'd grown much closer over the summer, one of the few pros that came from Timothy's mild heartlessness and selfishness towards others.

Raelynn's reply interrupted this train of thought. "Okay, so, remember a few weeks ago when you were trying to come up with a plan that would make Timothy worry?"

"Of course I do, but I thought we decided against—"

"—the plan where we convinced him you were in a car crash and dying in the hospital?" her friend finished, smiling without seeming to notice at the thought. "Yes, that's the one. I don't even know why we decided not to do that! It was perfect, not ONE FLAW. And girl, I spent hours helping you perfect that thing. You can't just not do it."

"Not do what?" a familiar voice asked from behind Lilly's seat, making her jump again, her heartbeat tripling. But this time, she was more careful to control her reaction, putting on a neutral expression and turning calmly to wave a greeting at Jessica, who hovered in the doorway between the living room rather uncertainly.

Lilly felt a pang of guilt. She was probably hesitating because of the neglect she'd been showing their friendship for so long. It was really uncharacteristic of Jessica to hang back like this when it came to her best friends. Remembering she had the power to do something about that, Lillian put on what she hoped was a welcoming smile, not some sort of deranged look, and patted the spot beside her, inviting her friend to sit. After a puzzled second, Jess seemed to understand and sat quickly as Raelynn — leaning against the sofa the other two girls sat on quite, looking quite comfortable — answered her question.

"Okay, so, a few weeks ago, Lilly and I came up with a genius plan to scare, ehem, the boy to his senses. So, basically, what we came up with is that she — Lilly I mean — would text the group chat that she'd been in a car accident. Her family would have come out with a few scratches and bruises, but she was in just the right place in the car to get lung damage, and she'd tell us she was in the hospital, but it wasn't looking good, because she was also internally bleeding. Actually, forget the lungs thing, it was just the internal bleeding. Then we planned she'd pretend to be one of her family members, and—" She took a deep breath, her first since she started. "AND, she would text the group chat to be one of her family members and tell us she died!"