Everything after this has only been seen by me (meaning its been a tad bit less edited, but still wonderfully amazing I hope!)
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As the weekend wrapped up, Monday rolled around. Lilly knew she had to get out of the hospital, but from that point on had to decide what was next. Her first thought was that someone she mentioned before she tried to kill herself, Sean. He would be at school, and she knew he was in her first period. It looked as if she was going back to school that morning to follow her promise to talk with him.
Over the remnants of the weekend, and after she mooched an entire new wardrobe off several helpless guys stalking the mall, she went through the tedious work of cleaning of her bedroom. The first thing that went was the caution tape. The second, the blood on the wall. The third, she threw out the bedspread and most of her old clothes.
During Lilly’s entire clean-up mission, her mother strolled around the house as if Lilly was a ghost. Her eyes never acknowledged another person in the room.
At night, Lilly could walk by her mother’s room and hear her mumbling in her sleep, mumbling about her dead daughter. Did I do that? She questioned herself. Even when she was right in front of her mother, her mom didn’t see her. It was probably for the best anyways Lilly assured herself she didn’t want to interact with her mother anyways.
Lilly had her own plans now. Plans that were best her mother stayed out of them. She wasn’t going to be shy anymore; she wasn’t going to be the pretty pink girl anymore. She wanted to be someone who stood out, someone that would catch Sean’s attention. She decided not to use her controlling trick on him; she wanted him to actually want to be with her. She didn’t want him to fall in love with some image full of deceit she can flail around to make anyone go googly eyed over her. Lilly sat in front of an aged mirror in the bathroom adjacent to her room, the one normally shared by her and her parents.
She looked at herself in the mirror which constantly reminded her of how pale she was. She figured the best way to double as shielding herself from the sun and hiding her almost disgustingly pale skin was to complete cover herself. She made sure her black jeans covered all of her legs, and noted that the bottoms rested gently on her new black shoes. She really did like how the glowing white laces contrasted with her shoes and pants. Lilly pulled the bottom of her thin jacket straight, removing a few folds, and zipped it up over the dark gray t-shirt she planned to never show. She made sure the collar covered her entire neck and slid a black beanie over her head. The beanie had a snarling smiley face with jagged teeth printed on the front and she made sure the face was angled just right and facing forward. Once she adjusted the convenient protruding rim on the beanie to shade her face, she was ready to leave the house.
Lilly appeared on one of the dirt fields adjacent to the school, still fully amused by her ability to teleport. She calmly walked across the dirt field and onto the campus fully expecting to be rushed by her friends who would hoard around her asking how death felt, what happened after, if she saw anything, etcetera. But when she walked down the halls of the school there was no crowd, no one called out to her or even really noticed she was around. She zigzagged through the hall to her first class seeking her friends, almost wanting the attention for the right to shrug it off and ignore them. After an unusually long time she found a friend outside of her first class.
“What the hell happened to you Lil?” Kelly asked. Blunt rudeness was fairly obvious in her voice.
“There was nothing on the news?” Lilly snapped back, peering into the room to see if Sean was there yet.
“Why would you be on the news? Your new look is just depressing. What happened? Was the break up that bad?” Kelly’s voice was now cool and calm. Apparently she didn’t make the connection that the break up with her last boyfriend was weeks ago and her clothing change was obviously not related. But she was a good friend when it came to boy problems. As a matter of fact she thrived off them, probably the reason she right straight to one. But there was no news about what actually happened? That’s interesting.
“Partly, I just needed a new look.” Lilly lied, now tempted to use her controlling trick to get Kelly to go away. Lilly looked through the open doorway once more, she spotted Sean nearby in his seat.
Lilly shoved her friend out of the way and walked into the room. She slowly approached Sean and flashed a quick smile to get his attention. He was clearly stunned at her appearance. Lilly glanced over him, he had light brown cargo pants and a blue and white striped shirt. Suddenly Lilly was not sure he would like the darker appearance. She also quickly too note of his brown short hair and brown eyes. She reminisced on a crush she had on him since their first meeting during freshman year, almost four years ago. “Hey Sean,” she blurted out trying not to stumble on her words.
He didn’t respond quickly, as if stumped, and then decided he had to say something, “Hey Lilly. I noticed you missing the last few days.”
“Yeah, I know,” she smiled.
“You changed a lot over your break.” He glanced from side to side making sure no one was looking at him. He then moved a bit closer, “I like it.”
Lilly fumbled over a response and settled with, “See you after class.”
“Okay,” they both sat down in their chairs, at opposite sides of the room, as the class began.
After class they talked more. Both of them knew little about the other. She found out that he walked home, that he did really have a motorcycle, and that it didn’t actually work. He couldn’t sing despite all the rumors and that unfortunately he was the kid featured on the commercial about making sure you check for head lice regularly. She decided to walk home with him; she didn’t have anywhere better to go. Her mom’s zombie-like ignorance of her crept her out so Lilly was already trying her best to avoid home.
***
Two weeks passed. Her small black pupils had slowly grown over the last few weeks, they were now triple their original size and covered what little color her eyes had left. Her eyes basically consisted of a slight contrast with the whites of her eyes and the large black pupils. She was hard to look at; most people simply avoided eye contact. It was almost as if her eyes had power over others, like she unconsciously sucked them into her grasp. The feeling of being pulled into her control was one no one could bare, no one except Sean. He ignored the pull; no, he was somehow immune to it all together.
He met her in between classes, and after school they walked to his house. She wouldn’t go home until late at night if she even left his house at all. Then she was back in front of his house the very next morning to walk to school. He never asked about her dark clothing and never questioned how she could stand it in the heat. Sean left her alone on that subject; he knew something happened during the week she missed and that she didn’t want to talk about it.
Her eyes were not the only physical thing changing. She couldn’t help notice that her teeth started to spread apart on the top and bottom. After her first four teeth on both sides a gap formed. By the end of the two weeks she could stick her tongue into the gaps. As she rubbed her teeth against the gums, an irritating tingling sensation built up in them. It was the same sensation as when her molars came in the previous summer. She was constantly swiping her tongue through the pair of gaps on the bottom and tops of her mouth. It was addictive to swish her tongue through the gaps and she felt they deserved to be explored.
Over the past two weeks, Lilly gave a name to her ability to teleport. She called it jumping. Lilly made sure everything was in order in her bathroom. After checking to make sure no skin was exposed to potential sunlight she swished her tongue through one of the gaps and jumped for Sean’s front yard where she tasted blood. Hers. Lilly tasted blood rushing out of her cut tongue and frantically barged into Sean’s house passing him on the doorstep. She swerved around the couch, and went down the hall to the first door. As she entered the bathroom and opened her mouth to see the cut, blood dripped down her chin. She had a clean cut vertically down her tongue. She tried to swish the blood away as it continued to poor out of her tongue and forced a glance into the gap that cut her. A small razor-like tooth tip poked through the gums, it was what cut her tongue!
“What’s wrong?” She heard Sean’s concerned voice from the hall.
Lilly turned to the open doorway and said, “Nothing.” A drop hit the tile. She was still bleeding pretty well.
Sean saw, “What happened!?” he asked moving into the bathroom and trying to look into her mouth.
“I don’t know!” she cried no longer caring if he saw anymore, he already found out. Her mouth was full of blood and the cut was still gushing out more.
“Let me see,” Sean said. She opened her mouth and pointed at the shiny tip sticking out of the gap. “Wow, another tooth? That’s weird, and it looks really sharp.” Lilly swallowed a mouthful of blood. He continued, “Should I call a doctor, it looks real bad.”
Lilly grabbed his arm and said in a firm voice, “No.”
“Well, the bleeding should stop soon, Try to watch out so you don’t cut yourself on it again.”
“Okay,” she responded, embarrassed.
“I’ll get some ice to help stop the bleeding.” She followed him into the living room. He disappeared from her sight for only a second and returned with an ice pack. After a few long minutes the excessive bleeding stopped. The ice had worked.
It took way too long to stop the bleeding. It was like something on the tooth prevented the blood from clotting, allowing her to bleed way more than necessary. “Okay,” Sean said he a serious tone, “I have been avoiding the question so far, but what happened to you? First off all the clothing, it gets so hot outside yet you never take any off. Why are you always covered? Second, the eyes, I don’t mind them but everyone avoids them. They are addictive, strangely attractive and not in a good way either. And now sharp teeth?”
Lilly responded, “I’m not sure. Something happened that week I went missing. Something bad.”
“What?”
Lilly put her hand up to the side of her head and pointed it like a gun. “I did this,” she pretended to pull the trigger, “bang,” suddenly as if distracted she got up and headed to the door. “I got to go.”
“Wait! You shot yourself!? Tell me what happened!” Sean shouted following her to the door.
“Maybe if you dye your hair black.” She slyly responded closing the front door. He opened it to try and chase after her, but she was gone. Twisted smoke was all that was left.
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