After She Left

SEVEN

"We were all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us, and wealth classified us."

-Banksy

"So..." Lilly said while we sat at the edge of the cliff watching the sunrise.

I turned to her, tilting my head: "so..?"

I had lost track of time, but I was almost certain we had spent nearly 2 hours jumping off the edge, swimming around and just fooling around. Then we just sat down as comfortable silence overtook us until Lilly had spoken up.

She smiled, pretending to be me as she tilted her head the same way: "how long do you plan to hide?"

This made me straighten up and avoid her gaze: "as long as I can?"

"Well that sounds like a great idea," she replied sarcastically, "I thought I taught better."

The sun had nearly risen, a little part of it already blinding me, yet still hiding behind the forest that seemed to go on for forever after the lake ended. Before I realized it had already sneaked into my brain that had been very comfortably empty for the last few hours. I thought about Eden and how to get out... no, deal with the situation that I was in but I couldn't come up with any ideas.

I sighed: "I don't know what to do, how to do what I don't know I need to do."

Lilly laughed, shaking her head: "you did come up with that very complicated response, so I'm sure you'll manage."

I nudged her side, smiling at her smartass response.

"Ouch!" she laughed, pretending to be hurt, "you should do MMA or something girl."

"Shut up, Lil," I rolled my eyes, still smiling.

She held a hand to her heart: "first you give me a nickname then tell me to shut up? Is this some b**m s**t?"

I couldn't help but laugh, this girl was ridiculous: "yeah, dream on."

When we stopped laughing, I could feel the mood shift back to serious as she dangled her legs over the edge, looking at them.

"I can help you if you tell me what's up," she said quietly, probably quite aware of the fact that I was quite guarded and she didn't even know my real name.

I inhaled loudly, then exhaled, thinking about it. What did I have to lose by opening up to her? It's not like I had to tell her my name or address, it wasn't what she was asking for or offering help for. I realized this girl, that wasn't connected to the mess in any way and was actually refreshingly intelligent could be the best person to ask for advice. Yet telling her would make it more real than it was. It would mean opening the very crappy, old closet full of skeletons that were threatening to burst open by the things I'd put in there.

But there was only one way to deal with the skeletons - I had to open up about it otherwise it would hold me back for far longer.

"Okay, let's do this," I sighed.

"Now you made it sound like something s****l, babe," she smirked, giving me a wink.

I smiled back, shaking my head: "so this girl I told you about earlier - she was my first love, first girlfriend, first everything. I didn't even hold myself back at once when it came to her, I was that in love, and before I could realize, she had become my... well, everything. As in, come on, I even needed her there to fall asleep and when I woke up, and during the day, I could never get enough of. I thought I was protecting her from someone, something bad, I thought I was building a future for us."

I cleared my throat, feeling the familiar lump in my throat that appeared whilst thinking or talking about her. Lilly placed a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it in a way to comfort me and tell me to keep going once I was ready.

"And then.." I sighed, "then I found out it was all a lie. Pretty much the thing I thought I was saving us from turned out to be her. She was the one that lured me in, in hopes to make me fall for her to use me for her advantage at the end."

I smiled to myself: "to say it hurt would be an understatement. It crushed me, ate me whole. I left the country without talking to her and didn't come back until yesterday. And now I have to work with her, she lives in my home. I thought I'd forgotten, I'd healed, but then she just comes and f***s it all up as if she did nothing and it was my fault and she thinks she can just kiss me and make it okay and f**k me and crush everything I'd built for myself and just f*****g look at me and have me back an.."

Lilly pulled me in for a hug, holding me tight while I sobbed which I hadn't realized I started doing: "shh... calm down."

I felt good in her arms as if her calmness was taking over my dazzled thoughts. She was just a neutral person in the mess, which gave me a hope she could give me input on things I couldn't make out myself.

After a few minutes I calmed down, leaning back and wiping my tears: "good thing you didn't see my face, I'm an ugly crier."

She smiled at me: "you're not wrong about that, babe."

I pushed her, which made her laugh: "I'm kidding."

She put her hand on mine: "you want my opinion, right?"

I nodded, looking at her hopefully.

"Your emotions made it obvious you rarely ever talk about this if you ever have, even more, obvious is the fact you haven't told her none of this. Since you didn't have a closure, it's only natural for your feelings to resurface and go karate kid on your ass, boo, ain't nothing wrong about that. But you do need to tell her this, cause if you don't, you'll end up digging yourself deeper and deeper in a hole. Eventually, hopefully, sooner than later, you'll come to realize you can no longer get out of that hole."

"She hurt you bad and it was unfair, of course you were in pain," she squeezed my arm, "but it's your decision to keep torturing yourself by keeping in all the things that were meant to come out on her."

I nodded, letting the words sink in. She was on point with everything she had said and I was certain I could put her advice into action.

"Basically you're saying I should kill the girl?" I laughed.

"It does sound like she deserves it," she nodded, smiling, "but then we need to find some people to get rid of the body, cause it would be unfair for you to go to the jail after."

I smiled, leaning in and hugging her as tight as I could, whispering in her ear: "thank you, Lilly."

At the same moment we pulled back I saw multiple red dots on her chest. My eyes widened in what was happening. I said very quietly and calmly: "kick off the cliff and jump in the water in 2."

She looked at me confusingly but still did as told as we both fell in the water 10 meters below. We both dove as far as possible under the water. But I had a feeling it wouldn't be enough.

As we resurfaced she looked at me wildly: "the f**k is going on?"

"Later, we need to dive as far away as possible, ok?" I looked back at the cliff where stood the one person I didn't expect to see - Hanna, "shit."

Lilly looked back, then back at me: "in 3, let's head to that big ass tree at the other side."

I nodded, looking at Hanna's silhouette that was so far for the last time. How did they find me?

"3.." Lilly breathed.

What the hell was I doing? Running from my own girlfriend? I had to get an oscar for being the worst girlfriend.

"2.."

Hanna stood there, 2 other people joining her with snipers which I recognized as Angel and Luke.

"Go!" I screamed, diving in myself.

Were they actually planning to kill Lilly just because she was spending time with me? The girl wasn't a threat. Sure, she could be very brave and strong, not to mention adventurous and spontaneous, but since when did the blonde, cute, innocent girls fit into target category?

After around 7 minutes we were finally over the lake, trying to regain our breaths after what had just happened.

"What.. the.. fuck..?" Lilly said between breaths, supporting herself against a tree.

"I'm so sorry, Lilly," I mumbled, "this is all my fault. I put you in danger."

"Screw that. I don't mind a swim. But I would like to know who the hell I'm dealing with here so I know how dead I am exactly," she smiled.

I ran my hands through my hair: "do you know anything about the Gold's?"

She turned around, now resting her back against the tree: "who doesn't? They're the richest family, told to have an incredibly hot daughter that used to go to the local school or something."

I looked at her, smiling awkwardly.

She stared at me, laughing: "no... no way... f**k. It's you, right?"

I nodded, grabbing her hand: "now that we've established my real name.. how do you feel about a run?"

I heard multiple klicks, instinctively pulling Lilly behind my back, whilst facing the forest and backing away.

"Jeez, Ruby, why do you have to make this so hard?" Blake stepped out of the darkness, as did Andre.

Andre still had a gun in his hand, which was pointed at Lilly who I tried to hide behind me as best as I could: "put the stupid gun down, Andre. Who thought you idiots manners?"

Blake scratched the back of his head, feeling slightly guilty as he signaled Andre to put it down: "you know this is for your safety, Ru."

"This is ridiculous. I wanted some alone time," I reasoned, holding Lillie's hand as she stood next to me.

"This is our job, love," Andre said, "besides you did disappear out of nowhere."

"Which totally gives you the reason to point a gun at anyone who's next to me," I laughed.

"The hell is wrong with you?" I saw Eden storming in my direction from a car that just stopped a few meters from us.

Once she was close enough she looked me up and down, checking for any bruises or whatever, then noticing my arm that was linked to Lillie's, which she broke apart, of course, giving Lilly a death glare.

"Feisty, huh.." Lilly smirked, looking at Eden.

This made me smile a little, which Eden noticed, frowning: "so now it isn't enough for you to have one run-away girl, you needed a second?"

My smile faded, as my eyebrow rose and I took a step even closer to her, putting only a few inches between us. I leaned in, smirking, whispering in her ear: "too bad it'll never be you, huh."

Her hand connected with my throat before I even blinked. She was far from choking me, she simply pushed me so that I was now facing her now smirking face: "I think your actions betrayed your words a while ago."

"Ruby?" I heard Hanna's voice, my eyes snapping to the figure standing next to Blake.

Lilly looked between all of us, laughing: "holy s**t, I need to get some popcorn."