Chances

Chapter 17

Carina winces as she rolls her neck around and massages her incredibly tense and sore shoulders. Waking up this morning after a couple of hours of sleeping on the couch in the lounge room was horrible and for the first time ever, she's actually tired. She's always been the type of person who is able to wake up after only an hour of sleep and feel perfectly fine and energized. Now she feels groggy, cranky, and drained. And there is without a shadow of a doubt that she's feeling this way because of her argument with Lily last night.

Carina doesn't think she's ever been as upset over someone as she was with Lily, but that's only because she's never met someone she cared for more. Emotions were at an all-time high and Lily let all of her anger and frustrations out, but Carina's glad that she did.

Lily has always been so passive about everything. Carina had no idea about the things that she was feeling because Lily always dismissed them and pretended like it didn't bother her, but she stuck up for herself last night. It might have wounded Carina in the process, yeah, but Lily's been wounded this entire time and Carina wasn't even aware. She feels so guilty about that. She's been so inconsiderate in terms of Lily's feelings but now that Carina knows about them, she can try to make it up to her. She just hopes that Lily will forgive her.

There's no guarantee that Lily will even want to talk to her again. After all, she practically dismissed the notion that they should work things out with her whole statement about "the universe disallowing them to be together." Carina hopes to God that Lily doesn't actually believe that. They didn't stumble into each other's lives by accident. This is too strong of a coincidence to mean nothing. If anything, the universe wants them to be together.

With a heavy, tired heart and slumped shoulders, Carina opens her door and shyly looks at Lily, who is in the process of putting her backpack on her back. She's getting ready for her first class of the day whereas Carina still has a couple of hours before hers.

But Lily looks awful. Her eyes are puffy, hair is a mess, skin pale, and her nose is red. She looks like she didn't get a second of sleep and on top of that, she looks sick and miserable. And Carina is sure of it when she sniffles and her nose is stuffy.

Carina frowns deeply. "Are you okay?"

Lily doesn't reply to her. In fact, she doesn't acknowledge her in any way. It's as if Carina is completely nonexistent.

Carina looks down at her shoes sadly and stuffs her hands in her pocket as she drags her feet across the floor to her bed, avoiding eye contact with Lily. Then a few seconds later, the door opens and closes and Carina is back to feeling lonelier than ever.

Lily is clearly still upset. Carina's not necessarily surprised, but that doesn't mean she's not disheartened by it. She hates knowing Lily is upset and she hates it even more knowing that Lily is upset with her . She must feel like shit mentally and physically.

Carina wonders if there is anything she can do to help. This thing that they're both going through doesn't mean that she still doesn't care about Lily more than anything and she wants to help her in any way that she can. And right now, Lily seems like she's in need of some of her favorite candy, her favorite drink, and some medicine to make her feel a little bit better.

--

Carina walks back up to her room from her car with one hand holding a plastic bag containing an assortment of various things with the other hand holding a scorching cup of hot chocolate. She checks her watch and sees that it's a little past 10 AM, so Lily should be back in the room. Or at least she hopes so.

Cautiously opening the door, Carina just barely pokes her head in the room to see that Lily is inside. She is sitting with her back against the headboard, face still as gloomy as ever. They make rather awkward and silent eye contact for a few seconds before Lily reverts her attention back to her phone.