The Way We Learned to Love ✓

15 - lily

Hi everyone, my beta reader friend recommended that I leave a reminder before this chapter about the trigger warning at the beginning of Chapter 1. I personally don't expect this one to be harder to read than some of Liam's that have already passed, but I figured better safe than sorry. I don't want to give away too much here about what's going on in the chapter, but if you have any specific concerns about the trigger warning feel free to comment here or send me a message. x

This chapter is also pretty information-dense, so I probably wouldn't recommend reading it while you're half asleep (looking at you, ohlee).

____________________

june-august 2014 : 6 years and 1 month ago

Lily was not a fan of waiting rooms.

She had only been sitting in this uncomfortable chair for a few minutes, but it felt like an hour had passed already. With her eyes firmly locked on the Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital plaque on the wall, she tried to focus on her breathing and not panic about the hellish week that was ahead of her. Sharing a room with a stranger. Being observed like a lab rat. Isolated from everyone she knew.

Last night was one of the worst of her life. Mom and Dad tried to explain the conversation that they had with her psychiatrist, but the damage had already been done. How was she supposed to trust any of them when they were talking about her behind her back?

She didn't even want to talk to Henry, yet she let him in when he came knocking at her door. She was mad at him, so mad that she wanted to cry and scream at him until her throat was raw and force him to keep his mouth shut and let her do it. But somewhere deep inside her, she acknowledged that he was on her side and knew that his nosiness was coming from a place of concern. He had made it abundantly clear that he was against this whole thing.

And she couldn't afford to not have him because life as she knew it was slipping away between her fingertips and he was the one thing she felt kept her tethered to who she was. So she didn't scream at him. And she didn't cry much, not immediately. That came a little while later when Mom cracked the door open to reluctantly hand Lily a piece of paper. It was a list of everything she should and shouldn't pack.

No electronics.

No glass containers.

No necklaces, rings, or bracelets.

No books.

No pens or pencils.

No drawstrings.

No belts.

No shoes with laces.

Shoelaces, seriously? She stared down at the paper for a long moment.

Lily had become so accustomed to the constant stream of tears that she didn't even realize she was crying again until Henry's arms around her pulled her awareness to her own body, which was shaking with sobs, and the awful sound that was coming out of her.

"I'm sorry," she managed, voice wobbling.

"Shh, it's okay. Get it all out. I get it."

She clung onto the sound of his voice and the familiarity of it, unable not to feel as though she were about to be brutally ripped away from him. But a new ache formed in her heart upon hearing his words, a pain of the loneliest kind.

"No you don't," she whispered.

He got very quiet after that. She knew he knew she was right.

A tear tumbled down her cheek and splattered onto the paper. This was it, her confirmation that she was absolutely insane. It didn't matter how much Henry told her she wasn't.