Accomplice《Lilix》

PART 11: Formalities...Continued

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"She ruined her life."

The look on Felix's face was much more satisfying than she thought it would be. It's what he deserved for being impatient. "No one had a problem with this girl either. The guys wanted to date her, and the girls," Lila said with a shrug, "well, they wanted to date her too. Everyone loved her. So did I. I thought Kira felt the same."

Lila paused. She wanted to keep it brief, but the whole year was a blur by that point. The best she could do was summarize it as anonymous texts, rumors that spread like wildfire, and an innocent girl who had her reputation crushed.

"So, what happened to her? Where's she now?" Felix asked.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. "Don't know," she finally said. "I don't think I wanna know. She stopped showing up one day and everyone joked about the worst. Kira tortured her, turned her life into a living hell. And she found all it fun."

Felix nodded, but then realization hit him in the face. "And you knew about it."

Lila hesitated, trying to sort out the thoughts in her head. "I did, but I thought I didn't." When Felix raised an eyebrow, she continued. "I had a feeling Kira was behind it, or at least knew something about it. Everything just felt off whenever she was around. But of course, my stupid self was in denial. I thought I could trust her. For some reason, I didn't understand the concept of betrayal."

Felix simply rolled his eyes at this. "So she went nuts and ruined another girl's life. Sounds like her. What happened next?"

"I ruined hers."

...

Felix stopped moving, registering her words. She stepped on his toes, deliberately this time, and that was enough to snap him out of it.

Lila laughed under her breath. "People always say that they'd trust their friends over rumors. But they don't know that," she said.

She remembered crying in another friend's arms, admitting everything that Kira had done. Everything she'd been forced to go along with. She remembered the way Kira had looked at her from across the hallway, anger blazing behind those brown eyes.

To her surprise, Felix seemed mildly disturbed. "You weren't forced to do a thing, were you?" he asked, lowering his voice even more.

"Of course not. She underestimated me, I overestimated her. Simple," Lila said like it was obvious. "She thought she could handle it, all the rumors and stuff. But everyone breaks at some point."

She tried not to smile as she said those words. Before, she thought that Kira watching Belle break was horrible, the kind of amusement that only an awful person could feel. But when she saw Kira walking down the hallway, her head lowered, avoiding people's eyes, she finally understood.

"She ditched Italy for somewhere more worthwhile. One of the best days of my life." Lila left out the part where Kira's goodbye present to her was a sharp slap to the face. Her cheek hurt for days after, but it was worth it.

She noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She'd forgotten that her and Felix had been dancing during this whole conversation.

The Blanchets', aside from Kira, were looking her up and down, judgment and spite written all over their faces. It'd been years since she even had a conversation with them. Just thinking about sharing a word with them made her blood boil.

She told herself it would be worth it. The moment everything came crumbling down, the look on their faces would be so, so worth it.

The dance concluded, and Lila let out a sigh of relief.