The Monroe Legacy - G. 4. Chapter 5 - Missing Pieces

'Tia?' Lillia repeated dumbly, her mind struggling to understand what Casper was saying.

The girl stepped out from behind Casper and extended a hand towards Lillia,

'Well my actual name is Talia but most people call me Tia. Nice to finally meet you'.

Lillia finally let out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding. It was all just a big conincidence then, for a second she had thought her brother had either gone mad or that something utterly impossible had happened. She looked at a Talia again and noted that she was an unusual looking girl, her purple hair was well dyed, barely any root showing and her eyes were so dark they had to be contacts! Her outfit was.... Interesting and for a second reminded Lillia of something she couldn't quite put a finger on. As she puzzled to think what it might be she realised Casper was speaking again, his voice impassioned.

'....met Tia at space camp and felt like I knew who she was. She felt the same though we'd never met before and we spent more and more time together, each feeling like we already knew the other person.' Tia nodded in agreement, unconsciously moving closer to Casper as he continued.

'After the first couple weeks I decided to risk telling her about my imaginary Tia, about the similarities they shared, about how well she seemed to understand me. I fully expected her to laugh in my face but instead she told me that she had an imaginary friend too, only hers was called Cas and that it was kinda like me, introverted and logical when she needed someone to reason with her. At first it just seemed like a really freaky coincidence butt we've talked a lot about it and it kinda makes sense.'

At this Lillia cocked an eyebrow, this all sounded pretty weird to her.

'How does it make sense?'

Tia stepped in, her tone the quietly passionate, totally logical one that Lillia had heard Casper use a thousand times.

'Casper and I are both highly intelligent humans with slightly dysfunctional personalities. Casper has Aspergers, he doesn't like change or people but needs somebody to talk through his theories with, someone of equal intelligence who can see the connections in areas he finds confusing. I have ADHD so I need somebody who focuses me, who can make me understand the minute details when my hormones are telling me to rush onto the next project. We both grew up with those things missing and so we invented somebody who had what we lacked.'

Lillia nodded, that did sound kinda plausible.

'With any made up character there's a probability of there being someone in the world who shares most of that imagined personality. Casper and I, our creations were as intelligent as we were and because they belonged to a relatively small percentile of the population, it follows that if such a person existed there was a higher probability that we would cross paths. As we did.'

Tia paused and took Casper's hand, both of them looking expectantly at Lillia who was still processing. It wasn't the most ridiculous theory she'd ever heard but it was still pretty weird if it held any truth. But she could see her brother believed it absolutely, there was a light in his eyes she had never seen there before.

'That still doesn't make total sense to me,' Lillia began, hating seeing his shoulders begin to slump, 'but I'm going to give you geniuses the benefit of the doubt. I just have a couple of questions.'

Casper nodded enthusiastically,

'Anything!' he said.

'Firstly the name thing... That's freaky. What happened there? And secondly why is Tia hiding in your room Casper?'

Her brother shuffled his feet awkwardly.

'The name thing is a coincidence and isn't quite as spooky as it sounds. Tia is just a nickname and her imaginary friend Cas was short for Cassy and was a girl. But it is still a bit odd. As for the hiding thing, that's what we were debating when we woke you.

Tia lives with her aunt who has fostered her since she was a kid. Her aunt doesn't get that Tia is smart and could have a future so she wants Tia to drop out of school and go clean hotels with her. At least that's what she wants when she's sober.'

Lillia looked across and saw in Tia a combination of fear and determination. Her bright eyes and clenched jaw showed that she would fight while her folded arms gave her the posture of a kid who wasn't sure they had done the right thing.

'I was going to run away after Space Camp, I got in on a scholarship and told my aunt I was visiting a friend,' Tia explained. 'I'm 16, I'm old enough and I'd rather work in a diner and do night school than work with my aunt and have her take "rent" and "taxes" out of my pay before I see a penny. Casper persuaded me to come with him instead and I'm glad I did but it feels wrong lying to your parents.

I was trying to explain I should leave and take care of myself, Casper was saying I should stay and that nobody needed to know. It's a mess' Tia finished lamely.

Lillia just nodded, her brain whirling with new and confusing information and unable to find the right thing to say to the two hopeful teenagers who stood before her, their new companionship on the line. In the end Lillia knew they all needed a little time.

'It's late. We're all tired. Don't do anything dramatic and in the morning we'll make a plan'.

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The morning came and it was clear to Lillia what needed to be done. Tia was right, She couldn't keep living in the shadows, especially when there was a good chance that Gray and Rachel would understand and want to support Casper's friend.

Lillia let Tia pick out some clothes from her wardrobe, the poor girl had been stuck with the oddments in Casper's old costume chest and then they all went to tell Gray and Rachel the truth. Lillia sat quietly, nodding encouragingly when a Casper looked over for support. Hearing the story for a second time it all made more sense though she did notice a couple of shifty glances between Tia and Casper, like they were leaving something out.

Gray and Rachel reacted in much the same way that Lillia had, disbelief followed by a slow acceptance of the story. They then left to talk it over leaving two anxious teenagers and an observer behind.

If Lillia had had any doubts as to Casper's attachment to Tia. It was now stripped away, he sat close to her, his arm protectively around her shoulders and stroked her hair. Seeing such a natural display of affection from her usually aloof brother made Lillia's heart hurt. Partly she was happy for him but she was also jealous, she had once had that but not only was it lost, she couldn't even remember what it felt to be loved so fiercely.

When the adults eventually returned it was good news for the young couple. Tia could stay as long as she told her aunt where she was, attended school and kept to their rules. She was to sleep in Lillia's old room and contribute to her costs only by doing her share of the chores.

Lillia crept out as they began discussing the details, unwilling to spoil their happiness with her sad moment. Instead she opened up her laptop and started planning her 18th birthday, how best should high school royalty celebrate their big birthday?

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Those last months of high school flew by at an alarming pace, change looming unstoppable on the horizon. The closer college got the tetchier Lillia became, taking out her frustration at her prospects and her present position on anyone who got too close to her. She dated and dumped every eligible and attractive guy in the senior class, popularity being her main qualifier and found every one of them, no matter how sweet and attentive, left her cold. Casper and Tia's blossoming romance haunted her at home and she took to spending her time either at the gym or the mall, remaking herself over and over and hoping to rediscover some of what she had lost.

Her eighteenth birthday went off with a bang, her pink pajama party would go down in the Brittlebush student history as one of the most memorable nights of the decade. The food and drink were laid on by Gray and Rachel to lavish praise, perhaps made more effusive by the copious quantities of booze somebody had laced the iced tea with. 

Lillia had provided matching pjs for her special guests, marking out the elite from the crowd which only made the screaming match between Daisy and Rose after the former made a drunken pass at the latter's boyfriend more entertaining for the masses.

The fall-out left Lillia even more firmly at the top of the food chain and as finals tension mounted the power manifested in various ways. Brooke found herself permanently banished from the popular crowd after a thoughtless comment about an autistic boy in her year, Daisy had to exchange her prom dress twice when Lillia decided it clashed with her own and Troy Ferrel had to move his graduation after party three times so Lillia could make it.

Lillia never planned to throw her weight around so much but the more times she got her own way the easier it became just to go with it. She knew that college might be very different, that she'd have to work for her status and so she resolved to enjoy ruling the little society of Brittlebush High, she was through with feeling guilty. To move on Lillia would put guilt and her concerns for other people's expectations in that locked box in her head where she filed away all the pity and the disappointment. When she was caught up in the planning of the next social event or how to get a cute guy to dump his girlfriend for her it was easy to push away that hollowness inside of her, to pretend she didn't see Jeremy's sad glances over at her and what she had become.

When the housing allocations for college came in Lillia was gratified to discover that she had been pre-selected for the exclusive Phi Gamma Theta sorority while Rose and Daisy were just in general dorms until rush week. Knowing that she had a place in college society already gave Lillia a boost, perhaps it was silly but while she knew that for lots of people college was a chance to start over, she was quite happy just to keep going as she was, she'd already had to start over once thanks to her accident!

Lillia graduated with acceptable grades, voted most likely to marry well and spent the summer perfecting her college wardrobe and lying out with Rose. There were a few parties but the charms of Lucky Palms were wearing thin for Lillia, it was the same people, the same drama and under it all those same gaps in her memory, those same questions she couldn't answer.

When moving day came she barely cried, despite the torrents from her parents. It felt like it was the right time to go, to find out who Lillia Monroe would be when you took her out of the town that had moulded the old her, where she felt her new behaviour disappointed the people around her. As she pulled out of the driveway behind the moving van which held her and her friends belongings she felt a thrill race through her. College was going to be fun.

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Find out how Lillia handles freshman year in Chapter 6 - Irresistible