The Way We Learned to Love ✓

29 - lily

june 2018 : 2 years and 3 months ago

Lily dreamed in constellations of laughter and dancing and champagne. Of him. Them. She woke up with a smile on her face, but it wasn't until she rolled over in bed and looked at her phone that she realized it might have been more reality than dream.

She had a text from Liam.

LD: can I see you today

She felt her smile widen. Considering that it was Sunday morning, she was pretty certain that her parents would have already left for church. She scampered out of bed and poked her head in their room to check before returning to her phone.

LM: my parents are gone for a couple hours if you wanna come over

Was telling him to come right now too pushy? She hoped it wasn't. No, it wasn't. He was the one that asked.

LD: be there in 20?

She nervously bit on the corner of her lip. She ideally would prefer to have a bit longer to get ready considering that her hair usually looked like a rat's nest after sleeping on it, but pushing him off would give them less time before they were running the risk of her parents getting home. They had yet to be introduced to him—by some miracle, Mom and Dad gave Lily her space and didn't demand to meet him when he picked her up for the gala last night. It was going to look just a teeny bit shady if they came home to find their daughter getting cuddly with an unfamiliar boy on their couch.

She quickly replied to him with an affirmative before hurrying into her bathroom. She needed to take advantage of her whole twenty minutes not only to get herself looking presentable but also to collect her thoughts about yesterday's emotional rollercoaster.

Lily was unable to wipe the smile off her face while she did her hair and makeup and played last night over and over again in her head. She couldn't remember the last time she felt this giddy, but it was such a freeing sensation after being so down lately.

Going into full Cinderella mode and running out of the ball had perhaps been an overreaction – okay, it was definitely an overreaction – so she was grateful that the prince caught up with her. But a piece of her, the part that felt guilty for not trusting him before to be a better person than the boys of her past, was sad. When he confessed what Caroline did, Lily felt awful for ever falling prey to those stupid rumors about him and even worse that it took him being that vulnerable for her to finally believe that he would treat her well.

Her instinct was to cast blame on the bad timing of it all – namely, the fact that Henry leaving made her ultra-sensitive to people walking out on her – but her conscience nagged her that she was just searching for ways to deflect responsibility for her own behavior. She had been worrying about Liam abandoning her long before she knew about Seattle. She owed him an apology.

Lily scurried downstairs with a couple of minutes to spare and hastily tidied up the living room.

There wasn't a huge point in doing so when it might not ever look this neat again, but she wanted to leave a nice impression since this was his first time actually coming inside. She lit the tiny lavender-scented candle that was sitting on the coffee table.

The ringing of the doorbell sent butterflies fluttering against the walls of her stomach and she quickly set the lighter down. She hoped she looked okay—she knew he wouldn't expect her to look stunning first thing in the morning, but she still couldn't help but feel severely underdressed compared to last night.

She answered the door and felt her cheeks warm. Liam didn't look any different than usual, but seeing him for the first time since kissing him made it quite difficult to not get distracted by the memory of said kissing.