The Monroe Legacy - G.4 Chapter 7 - Guilty Secrets

As Rose sobbed in her arms the sickening guilt that had been boiling in Lillia’s belly began to climb her throat, the few mouthfuls of breakfast she had managed threatening to make a comeback. After a broken night’s sleep she had timidly gone to Rose’s room, half-expecting to be greeted by a storm of accusations and abuse and the other half of her hoping that her cousin would be elsewhere.

Instead she was pulled in by a heartbroken Rose. She had just got off the phone with Anoki expecting their fight to have dissolved in the cold light of day but he had told her it was over, that she should move on, that he didn’t and couldn’t love her. It was brutal, final and it meant that Lillia would have to tell Rose the truth herself or deceive her cousin forever. 

Her long-practiced numbness and refusal to accept blame or judgement warred in her head with the terrifying new plan of honesty and kindness, it was a moment where she could continue to be what she had been or truly begin to change.

Lillia drew a deep breath and prepared herself to finally start doing the right thing.

‘Rose….’ She began, determination holding up her flagging courage. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’

Her cousin turned her tearstained face to Lillia and nodded,

‘Okay, but can you tell me on the drive home? I can’t be in this place any more, it all reminds me of him.’ Lillia nodded, the coward in her relieved and the rest of her reasoning that she should get Rose back to the comforting arms of her family before causing her more pain. But she would tell her. Just not now.

Rose rallied on the drive home, each mile they put between Arizona and themselves she sat a little straighter and was soon planning a summer full of distractions and trips. Lillia let her talk, her secret bitter on the tip of her tongue and her mind working to figure out whether it was best to crush Rose while she was already down or go along with her planning and tell her when she was less fragile.

Her internal battle carried Lillia all the way back to Lucky Palms and suddenly she was among people who didn't see the self-centred mean girl, here she was the sensible daughter, the heiress and the good cousin. Her family's pride in her success at college, their sympathy for Rose's heartbreak and their pleasure at being together again made up Lillia's mind.

As sickening as what she had done was... It was only a kiss. Telling Rose would ruin her summer just as Noki had ruined her year. The family would be shaken, fractured perhaps and Lillia was determined not only to make everyone proud it also to become the young woman they believed her to be.

The little voice in her head told her that turning over a new leaf wouldn't make it right, that she should come clean and then make good, but it was summer, they were hundreds of miles from the scene of the crime and Lillia would make sure that she was the best friend Rose could ask for. Then she would be sure to forgive her when the right moment finally arrived for the truth to be known.

The summer passed in a flurry of beautiful days and balmy nights. Rose and Lillia were as inseparable as they had been as children, lying in the sun for hours and giggling about their past exploits, moaning about Daisy's two-faced ways ad tossing a frisbee around. 

The days were as golden as their tans and Rose soon put Noki to the side and fell into a summer fling, laughing that Lillia should double date with her. And she had tried.

She had put on her prettiest dress and a flirty smile and gone to dinner, let them hold her too close on the dance floor and taken a deep breath before running when they went to kiss her. But with each one the same thing was missing as always had been. Now that Lillia knew the breathlessness of losing herself in a moment, had felt the heat of a stolen glance and the enticing uncertainty of a conversation laced with hidden meaning, returning to those old days of meaningless flings was impossible. Even as she fought to forget him and worked to undo the damage her own foolishness had caused, Noki was constantly in her thoughts.

She and Rose never discussed him, it was like he had never existed and she began to wonder if her plan to one day tell Rose would be necessary. But when Lillia was alone in her bed she couldn't keep her mind off what had happened, he was constantly in her dreams and she knew that even if Rose was truly over her heartbreak the truth still needed to be told. Until the past was truly behind her Lillia would never completely be the new person she wanted to be

And she was truly beginning to change.

She spent time helping at the brasserie, a task she'd always avoided with care, spending time with her parents and trying to make their lives easier. She spent time with Eva, looked after Flynn and took him to the skate park that he was obsessed with when his parents were to busy to. She studied, let Casper teach her chess, got to know Tia properly. All the little things Lillia had always sneered at and avoided when she was letting the Flowers steer her she tried out and found that most she actually enjoyed.

For the first time since her accident Lillia began to feel like a whole person. It seemed that her anger and fear had pushed her to fill the gap in her life with more of the things that were right in front of her instead of looking for new opportunities and things to hold on to. Buoyed by this one evening she went outside to the pool, the scene of the crime, hoping that maybe she would be able to put that demon behind her as well.

The water sparkled in the moonlight, the gentle lap of the waves against the tiles sounded so familiar and Lillia approached with her breath held. Just when she thought she was going to do it the panic seized her.

She felt as if she was about to pitch forward into the water and be dragged down. Tears streamed down her face and her breathing became ragged as she collapsed panting on the poolside.

That was how Rose found her, hunched over and heartbroken, for all of the mistakes she had made but even more resolute in her decision to change. The two sat in silence for a while before Rose asked if Lillia wanted to talk.

The summer was ending and Lillia knew that she was running out of time to come clean, she had worked so hard to be a better friend to Rose and the thought  of spoiling it was galling. But she had promised....

'I don't want you to hate me Rosie,' she began, hesitating over how best to dull the pain of her confession for her friend.

Rose just looked confused before responding with a joke,

'I don't hate you Lillia! Well not unless you copy my dress or steal my boyfriend anyway!'

Lillia smiled weakly as the sick feeling in her stomach intensified in to a solid brick of fear. She tried to force the words around it, to make her mouth form the harsh truth but in the wake of her cousins throwaway comment she just couldn't bring herself to destroy them both.

'Lillia?' Rose cut into her thoughts, her tone concerned. 'What's wrong?'

Lillia shook her head to clear the panic and pasted on a bright smile, for once glad that she was so good at glossing over an awkward situation with a false happiness.

'Oh nothing,' she responded, furious at her cowardice even as she admitted to herself what she should have known from the beginning, she couldn't, no wouldn't, tell Rose about Noki. It was in the past and she was building a new future, what was one more regret when she already lived with so many from her years of misbehaving. That chapter was officially over.

'You know I would never do anything to deliberately hurt you right?' was her only concession to the truth.

Rose rolled her eyes.

'I know that! Well except that one time you made me get a Brazilian! Now let's go out dancing, one last night before the packing begins.'

Lillia let her cousin drag her away, giving in once more to the current of what was expected of her but swearing to herself that from now on she would be living with her eyes open. There would be no more casualties with Lillia Monroe's name on them.

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Sometimes we are not masters of out own fate - Read on with Chapter 8 - Bad Penny