3RD PLACE WINNER
"Hey, baby," I said as I grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the crowd of kids. "How was school?" I asked, bending down and kissing her head before taking her backpack out of her hands. She is so beautiful and I'm so glad she's here.
"It was good, I colored a picture of you, me and daddy," she said pulling a scribbled picture out of her purple backpack and showing it to me. I smiled at the picture of Peter with green hair that stuck up all over and a stick figure body. I was holding Peter's hand and had long blue hair that touched my feet. Lillian had short pink hair and was holding my hand.
"You did such a good job, it looks exactly like daddy," I said. She giggled as I put the picture back in her bag.
"Daddy is home tonight," I said getting down to her level and her bright green eyes lit up. She looked just like him with her green eyes and dirty blonde hair.
"Ryan gave me this," she said, pulling a small statue of the Eiffel tower out of her jeans pocket. The statue was silver and looked very intricate. "He said that, one day he would take me there because he's going to live there with his grandma soon, he also says weird things like wee when I ask him if he wants to play," she rambled.
"Is Ryan your boyfriend?" she squealed with laughter. Ryan was one of her best friends from school. We were walking home from her pre-school like we did every day at 2 o' clock. I wasn't proud that I had a baby at fifteen but I never want to take back what happened: I loved Lillian so much.
"No, all boys are icky except for daddy," she said and I knew that Peter was preaching that to her since the day she was born. I was glad he wasn't a deadbeat dad like some other teenage boys. We both made a mistake but he promised he wouldn't walk away from us and never look back.
We got to the house and I walked in to see Peter sitting at the kitchen table looking at his math book. He had his hand tangled through his hair and he looked frustrated. I moved over to him and rubbed his back lightly, "take a break, okay?"
He shut the math book and looked over at me then pulled me into a quick hug. I heard Lillian giggling and I knew she was playing their game. She plays the same game every night when her or Peter get home.
"Where's Lillian?" he asked walking into the living room and moving past her usual hiding spot behind the couch. "Is she behind the TV?" he swung his head behind the TV and she giggled again, "how about the curtain?" he pulled the curtain away, "I know where she is..." he trailed off and slowly moved up to the couch. "Behind the couch," he said quickly and grabbed her. He started tickling her and she laughed loudly, squirming in his arms.
"Stop it, daddy!" she screamed trying to get him to stop tickling her. I just stood in the door way and smiled at the pair laughing and playing around with each other. Peter had been so stressed lately it was nice to see him smiling again.
"What are the magic words?" he asked and kept tickling her making her shriek with laughter. She kept trying to writhe out of his arms but his grip was too tight.
"Daddy is the coolest and Lillian eats her boogers," she laughed out and he stopped tickling her. He put her on the couch and plopped down next to her. Then she went into one of her rambles about her Eiffel tower statue that Ryan gave her. He just nodded and tried to keep up with her. She was talking fast and shoving the statue in his face.
"Why don't you go put that on your desk?" he asked with a smile. She instantly ran to her room. He blew out a big breath and slumped down on the couch. I sat down next to him and put my head on his shoulder.
Then Lillian came back and plopped on my lap. She reached up to my necklace and started playing with it like she always does. It was heart shaped and had flowers on it. "Can I have this someday?" she asked.
"When you're older you can have it," I said with a small smile on my face as Peter ran his fingers through my hair. I looked up at him and he kissed me lightly on the lips. I still love him as much I did four years ago when I gave him my virginity in his backyard. Despite the fact that I got pregnant, I can never regret it. "Want me to put a movie on?" I asked looking at Lillian.
"Yeah, I want to watch Cinderella. Me and Ryan play that game all the time, I'm Cinderella and he's the prince," she said jumping off my lap and going over to the movie shelf.
"What did I say about playing with boys?" Peter asked looking at Lillian as she pulled Cinderella off the shelf. She sighed and looked at me like I was supposed to do something about it. Sometime she acted like she was fourteen instead of four.
"Peter, stop it, he's just an innocent boy that wants to be Lillian's friend," I said putting a hand on his chest. He pushed a lock of my brown hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ear. I saw his eyes get darker and I had to calm him down before he scarred our child for life.
"I was just an innocent boy that wanted to be your friend too and look what happened," he said glancing over at Lillian. "I don't regret it but I just don't want her to be corrupted," I patted his chest lightly and smiled at him, it was cute how over protective he was.
I pulled away and saw that Lillian wasn't there anymore and that the front door was open. I ran outside and saw her going towards the road. "Lillian, no!" I screamed but she didn't listen.
She ran out into the road and it seemed like my whole life was going in slow motion. The car spun and it felt like the whole world stopped and I was in a cheesy action movie for a second.
The car crushed Lillian to death in an instant. I knew it from the moment I looked at her body lying on the road. My world was crashing down around me piece by piece and I couldn't do anything about it.
I ran to Lillian's body and dropped down on my knees in front of her. Tears streamed out of my eyes as I looked at the horrifying scene in front of me. I threw up on the side of the road from just looking at it.
"Lillian," I called. Even though I knew she was dead I refused to believe it. I just kept calling her name. I couldn't let her go.
"Ma'am, we need you to move," the paramedic say but I just stayed there with Lillian and cried for her. Her lifeless body was taken away from me by the paramedics and I pleaded for them not to take her.
Two strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me into their chest. I sobbed into Peter's shirt. I felt warm drops hit my arms and I looked up to see him crying too. "I-I'm sorry," he closed his eyes and pulled me back into his chest.
He picked me up and carried me inside as I wiped my tears. Losing a child is the worst pain a parent can ever experience. It shatters them for life and ruins everything they work towards. They devote their lives to their children and without them they are lost and broken.
I may be young at nineteen years old but I knew that I would never be the same after this.
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It's been two months since Lillian died and this is the first time that I have been in her room. It still smelled like her as I walked in. I saw that statue on her desk and moved towards it. I pulled off my necklace and put it around the statue. It belonged there.
Tears came to my eyes but I pushed them away and smiled thinking about how much Lillian wanted to see the Eiffel tower for real. It was her Eiffel tower dream.
Death is everywhere and as we travel through life we lose and gain great things. I lost Lillian but I gained another child named Chase a year later. He would never replace her but I loved him just as much as I loved her. I still cry sometimes but Peter is there for me.
We ended up getting married a few months after Chase was born and then we had two more sons Ryan and Dillon. We named one Ryan because that was Lillian's best friend and we could never forget him.
I've never forgiven myself for letting her leave the house and get killed but I had to move on with my life. My four boys help me live to see new days. And they make me smile because they are all so different from each other.
Ryan is my little know-it-all at six, Dillon's my trouble maker at two, Chase is ten and the athletic one and Peter is the love of my life. I can never regret the life I have even though Lillian isn't in it.
Life is bittersweet at times.
