Lily POV
I was in my bubble of nothing, just floating. Floating around in the darkness of my mind. No feeling, just darkness and silence. I felt at peace and I was forgetting why I was here. Forgetting if I came here voluntarily or if I was placed here. Yet I felt nothing, so I didn’t care. I wasn’t awake or asleep, just floating, and weightless.
I could hear a buzzing, the buzzing getting closer before I realised it was a voice I could hear. There was something about the voice. I knew it somehow, but I couldn’t figure out why it felt familiar. The voice got louder and louder as they got closer.
“Lily, Lily, damn it, where are you? Need a torch in here” I listen, trying to remember who it is, only coming up blank until I feel it rush past me.
“Man, time really stands still in here” The voice says and I feel myself questioning them.
“Who are you and how did you get here?”
“It’s me Layla, you don’t remember me?” She asks. The name is important to me. I know that much.
“You know who I am, how can you forget, I am the best part of you. And you me” She says and something in her words makes memories flash back to me. Memories of the day my father died, memories of Kade ripping my father’s heart out of his chest. The look on his face as he looked at me. Memories I was here to forget.
“Why are you here?” I ask her annoyed realising I left her and I feel the pain, the crippling pain of grief starting to swallow me.
“I missed you” She said, and I felt her presence around me. Comforting and I could almost feel her the closer she got, feel the teether that links us and all its frayed pieces barely holding us together and also dragging us apart. We sit in the darkness, not saying anything. After a few minutes, I hear her voice echoing loudly beside me into the abyss.
“Well this is fun, do you come here often?” She says and I chuckle.
“Don’t suppose you brought a torch, it’s dark down here” Layla whines.
“Go back Layla, you can’t be here” I tell her.
“No, if your quitting I quit too”
“No, go back. You said you would take over”
“Yeah, tried that, I suck at being you. And there is something wrong with that skin of yours, it made me so itchy. You really need to rub some lotion on it, something is not right with it” She says.
“You promised, I tell her”
“No, I didn’t. I said I would take over, I never said how long for”
“How long has it been?”
“I don’t know, took me a while to find you or maybe it was second I have no idea, time is weird back here,”
“Can you go back please Layla? I want to be alone”
“Maybe that is the problem Lily, we are always alone. I’m alone, you’re alone, maybe if we were together, we wouldn’t feel so alone,” She rambles.
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t want to remember, you being here brings it back, now go”
“I will if you come back” She says tugging on our already broken link.
“It’s not broken Lily, don’t think that”
“We are broken Layla, why am I the only one of us that realises that”
“Because you’re the only one that thinks it, we are perfectly imperfect. Maybe we aren’t broken, maybe the pieces are just lost, we just need to put the pieces back together” I say nothing, just letting her ramble like she does. I don’t know how long we sat there in the darkness when her questions made me tune back in.
“If you could have one thing, what would it be?”
“You know the answer already, Layla”
“Well, I can’t bring Dad back so choose another” She says.
“I don’t know then”
“You want to know what I want?” She asks.
“What do you want, Layla?” I ask, bored with this questioning.
“I want you to accept yourself and forgive yourself”
“Forgive myself?” I say rolling my eyes. “I have done nothing, to need to forgive myself”
“Yes, you have. You gave up, gave up on us. We were never broken Lily, we were never whole to break. How can you expect anyone else to accept us when you don’t. I have always accepted you. I never wanted to be by anyone’s side more than I have wanted to be by yours” She tells me.
“Not even Damien’s?” I ask.
“I would love to do a lot of things to Damien, but If I had to choose, I would choose you. So can you forgive yourself or at least try. We don’t have to do this alone, not anymore. I won’t ever leave you Lily, you are mine”
“As you are mine, Layla”
“So you will do it?”
“Do what?”
“Come back and accept us as perfectly imperfect” She says and I chuckle.
“Yes, Layla. I will try but I don’t want to go back”
“Well, maybe we stay for a bit, probably best that way, your sister scares me”
“Aria? Why, what did she do?”
“Oh nothing, just”
“Layla, what did you do?”
“I will tell you only, if you promise not to get angry”
“Layla?” I growl.
“Okay, okay, I may have tried to attack her, but she was so much quicker. That sister of yours is a real badass, Reid has trained her well. Luckily Ryker got in the way because she probably would have given me a beat down, then Damien drugged me and then I came here and yeah all caught up. So yeah, she is pretty mad at you for nearly hurting Ryker so I thought it best to come get you so you can deal with her and I don’t try to eat her” Layla blurted like word vomit.
“You did what?”
“You said you wouldn’t get mad, I didn’t even leave a scratch on her, I am sure. Pretty sure we got gravel rash in places we shouldn’t have gravel rash but we will be fine, might have scratched that itchy ass skin of yours glad to be rid of that. Think you need a flea bath”
“I don’t have fleas and will you slow down, you aren’t making sense. Why would you attack my sister?”
“Because I made a list, like you do of what I need to do, to bring you back”
“And attacking my sister was on that list?”
“No, but she was like an added extra. You were upset because she didn’t tell you about Kade, so I wanted to get revenge for you”