Cliché || H.S.

Chapter 14

When I get home I don't bother to make dinner like I usually do. I don't have it in me to eat. Instead I head upstairs to retreat to my room. I can hear music coming from behind Celeste's door at the opposite end of the hall, light filtering under the crack, but I don't bother to let my presence be known. I know that if I go in there I'll cry again and I can't take that right now.

The only thing I want to do is to take a shower, to rinse every bit of this day off of me. The white marble feels cold under my feet as I make my way through the bathroom to my steam shower. I turn the water on as hot as it can go and strip the clothes off my body. While the water heats I take a good look at myself in the mirror above my sink. My face is a mess, mascara streaked down my cheeks. I look hollow, my eyes sunken in, no life behind them.

When I was younger I was always the loudest in the room, always loving to be the center of attention. Even as I got older, my mom would describe me as happy-go-lucky type, the kind of person who could light up a room. And I even saw that in myself most days. But now it's hard to believe that same person is staring back at me. I feel like the shell of a human.

I back away from the mirror slightly and turn to get a view of my body from the side. I'm easily the thinnest I've ever been, almost unhealthily so, but I know that it still won't be good enough for some people. There was a time that I would have killed for this body, and now that I have it it feels all wrong. Like I lost all this weight not so I would feel better about myself, but so other people would feel better about me. I don't even recognize myself.

I step into the shower and let the heat cover every inch of my body, working out the tension of the past week. I wash the makeup off my face and shampoo my hair. I scrub my body raw, and by the time I step out my skin is a light pink. I find a pair of sweatpants and throw on an oversized tshirt I stole from my dad years ago.

I peek my head through my door and see Celeste's light has been turned off so I sneak out of my room and down to the kitchen to make some tea. I steal a blanket from the back of the couch and wrap it around my shoulders as I settle into one of the living room chairs. I tuck my legs up and begin scrolling through movies when my doorbell rings. I check the time and it reads 11pm.

I take the blanket with me and look through the window to see Harry on my front porch, his hands shoved into the front pocket of his black hoodie. He's the last person I want to talk to right now, but I don't have the energy to turn him away. Instead I open the front door and slip out, closing the door behind me, making it clear that he won't be invited in.

"Um, hi," he mumbles, not even meeting my eyes. He stares at his feet, nervously rocking back and forth.

"Harry it's eleven at night, why are you here?" I ask coldy. I'm beginning to wish that I had never opened the door. I contemplate turning back around and heading inside when he finally speaks up, "I know that I have no right to ask anything from you right now, but I need you to hear me out. Please. I won't ask for anything ever again if you don't want me to, I just need you to listen to me right now."

He looks up at me with such intensity in his eyes, like he needs me to see how serious he is. He speaks the words strongly and it piques my interest. I've already played out the worst case scenarios in my head, so I'm just shy of confident that whatever he says won't destroy me. I wrap the blanket tighter around my shoulders and lean my back against the door. I don't answer, but I nod my head giving him the go ahead.

He takes a deep breath before he begins, his voice shaking, "I like you Lilian, and I know you must have felt that kiss the way I did. Camille really hurt me, so bad that I thought I might never recover, but you proved me wrong," I flinch when I hear her name, tired of hearing it so much this past week, but I let him continue, "When she saw pictures of the two of us she started reaching out to me, telling me that she missed me. I would never take her back but I hated feeling like she still had some hold on me. I met her in public because I wanted to be someplace neutral when I told her that she was too late, that I met someone else. I don't want to be your fucking friend Lil, and it kills me when you call me that. And I understand if you don't feel the same way, and if you don't then we can pretend this never happened. But I need you to know that I didn't meet with her because I wasn't thinking about you, I did it because you were all I was thinking about."