The Youthful You Who Was So Beautiful

Two

Eliza was greeted with cigarette fumes the moment she exited her toilet cubicle. Eliza turned away and started coughing. When the fumes finally cleared, Lily's arrogant face entered into Eliza's vision field. Remnants of make up were still left on Lily's youthful face, the overly mature makeup looking extremely out of place on such a young face.

Eliza, too, wished that she would be able to age tremendously within a single night. Only then would she be able to successfully escape the ferocious and cruel colosseum, and avoid being preyed on by the merciless vultures.

However, she was unable to escape her youth no matter how hard she tried.

Eliza started towards the door of the toilet. However, before Eliza could even take a single step, Lily abruptly slammed her onto the cubicle door. Eliza hoped from the bottom of her heart that this would simply be an one-off incident, and didn't serve as a signal of the start of Lily's war on her.

Lily slowly moved her cigarette towards Eliza's stiff face, before finally pressing it against the cubicle door. She closed the distance between her and Eliza, "What did the police officers want from you?"

Eliza replied calmly, "They...they asked the same...... same few questions."

"Sa...same....same..." Lily mimicked Eliza's stutter. "Why is your mouth so stupid? Can't it speak properly? Just look at you – the police would still suspect that you're lying even if you're speaking the truth."

Eliza shook her head vigorously.

"So, Eliza. Tell me – where was I when Chloe jumped from the school building?"

The sunlight shone on Eliza's face, highlighting her pale complexion; Eliza glanced at Lily, trying her best to complete the sentence in a single breath, "School......" Lily stared at Eliza viciously, and was about to slap Eliza when Eliza finally finished her sentence, "Outside school...".

That day, Eliza was on her way home when she saw Lily and her friends surrounding a female student from High School. They were extorting money from her.

Lily looked at Eliza coldly, "You stuttered this to the police?"

Eliza lowered her head. On spotting some slight movements from Lily's hand., Eliza immediately shook her head and replied, "I wrote."

However, the slap still found its way onto Eliza's face.

Eliza's head was tilted to the side, her long black fringe serving as a cover for her flushed facial expression and her shame.

"I knew you wouldn't dare to speak about rubbish." Lily spat at Eliza. Just then, the bell rang, signaling the start of lessons. Stacy, who had been standing guard at the door, started to urge Lily, "Come on, let's go."

Lily walked closer to Eliza, and grabbed a few strands of hair from Eliza's neat ponytail. She coiled the hair strands around her finger, and gradually pulled on the strands till they broke, "Eliza, you better keep your mouth shut tight."

......

Every class is like a miniature society. There are people whose personalities are bright and extroverted, there are people who are busy all the time, and there's people who are quiet and reserved. There are also people who are individualistic and independent, people who are simply normal and ordinary, and people who are simply invisible.

Eliza belonged to the final group.

Eliza managed to hurry back into the classroom before the bell stopped ringing.

Chloe committed suicide. She repeated internally.

Although she was initially distracted by the pain that remained on her cheek, calmness gradually descended upon her. She lowered her head and started solving the mathematics problems, her mechanical pencil making rustling noises as it moved across the paper.