Yours Truly

Chapter 3

"I think I even remember praying one night that you guys would break up," Desi chuckled. "And then when it finally happened I almost shed a tear."

Lily smiled at Desi brightly. "Well, whatever happens between Carina and I whether we become friends or more than that, I know you'll like her. I definitely do."

Now this morning when her alarm wakes her up at 6:10 AM, Lily immediately hops out of bed without any hesitation and merrily skips her way into her bathroom to follow through with her daily morning ritual. Once her face is washed, teeth are brushed, light makeup is applied, clothes are put on and bladder is emptied, she jogs down the stairs and into the kitchen to see her parents sitting at the dining table, talking and laughing about whatever it is middle-age folks chat about these days.

"Top of the morning!" Lily greets happily as she begins to fix herself a bowl of cereal.

"Who are you and what have you done to my daughter?" her dad, Matt, asks curiously.

Lily playfully rolls her eyes at him and chuckles. "Is it so surprising that I'm in a really good mood this Monday morning?"

"Yes," her parents both reply at the same time seriously.

Matt steps up from his seat and walks towards his daughter. "Not that I'm complaining," he shrugs. "I like seeing you in a good mood like this," he kisses Lily's temple, his stubble tickling her skin, making her scrunch her nose up. "Morning, sweetheart. Mom and I have to get to work now but have a good day at school, okay?"

With mouth full of cereal, Lily simply gives him a nod and a thumbs-up. He smiles at her, feeling insanely blessed to be able to have someone like her as his only child. She watches as her parents gather all of their things and waves goodbye right before they disappear behind the door.

Lily then quickly finishes her breakfast and glances over at the clock on the oven. She's finished getting ready in record time, most likely due to her extreme excitement of seeing a particular set of brown eyes this morning. She grabs her car keys from the counter and jogs out of the front door, locking it behind her.

The commute to school every day is only 10 minutes tops but with Lily's driving, she's there in about 5. The parking lot is still somewhat empty considering school doesn't officially start for another half an hour, but she likes it like that. It's like the calmness before the storm with the storm being a bunch of loud and obnoxious teenagers.

Lily exits out of the car with her backpack on her back and locks her car as she begins to walk towards school, eagerly anticipating English class this morning. In her most recent letter that she wrote over the weekend, it was so hard for her to pretend like she has no idea who Carina is. It was hard refraining from starting it off with, "Dear Carina" and she quickly had to stop herself before she was about to write about being sorry for ramming heads with her. This was definitely going to be more challenging pretending that things are still anonymous on her side and hopefully her horrible word vomit won't accidentally let anything slip that Carina's told her in her letters before.

That, of course, would mean that Lily would have to actually speak to Carina and though excited to see her, that doesn't mean that she won't fumble over her words like last time. She's getting slightly giddy and nervous as she makes her way to Ms. Ashworth's classroom and she's fighting the involuntary rise of the corner of her lips. Just the thought of seeing Carina later stirs butterflies in her stomach and it strips away all the confidence that Lily posses.

She finally makes it into the classroom and lo and behold, the girl that's been on Lily's mind the entire weekend is near the back of the room where the filing cabinet is, in the process of dropping her letter in and picking up the one Lily wrote her on Friday. Lily doesn't ever really remember seeing her at school this early so it's definitely a surprise to see Carina there before her, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless. Horrifying and nerve-wracking, but pleasant.