Just for This Year

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Double update, so make sure to read Chapter Twenty-Six before this one if you haven't yet! It's incredibly essential to the plot.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Thursday
October 31

The Day It Happened: Part 5 of 5

Lila stumbled through the party filled with bad costumes and the stench of alcohol. This night seemed like a good idea at first. But now, she absolutely detested every single person in her house. She just wanted everyone to be gone. She felt as if her mind was separate from her body, nothing felt real. It was almost as if she was watching from a bird's eye view, and she wish she was. Because then maybe she could just treat it as if she were watching her life unfold and not truly experiencing it. But her wishes wouldn't be granted, because there was no escaping this now.

She felt Ashton try to pull her arm but she shook him off. He watched in concern as she stumbled through the party as if in a disoriented trance. He was in a state of a shock himself, and he couldn't even begin to imagine how she felt right now. He didn't know how to help her, he wasn't even sure if there was a way to help her. This wasn't something he could fix.

Lila could only hope Sam was having a better night.

She was numb.

Nothing felt real.

She had stumbled out of the closet after dropping her birth documents to the floor, leaving a very confused and a very concerned Ashton in her wake. She vaguely wondered if he looked at the papers and if he understood why her world had just imploded.

There was a buzzing sound like white noise in her head, numbing her brain.

Her hands were trembling and she wasn't even convinced she was still breathing.

Her mind was racing with questions. 

Why didn't her parents ever...

She felt betrayed. Lied to.

But she and Sam were... they were twins, weren't they? It didn't make sense to lie about that sort of thing. One of the biggest parts of who they were was being each other's twin. Nobody understood each other like they did. They were twins, weren't they? That was who they were.

Lila was Sam's twin.

Sam was Lila's twin.

Lila and Sam.

Sam and Lila.

Ever since they were born, that was how it always was. It was always Lila and Sam. Always Sam and Lila.

But that wasn't the case.

Everything they thought they knew was a lie.

Unless... did everybody know except for her? Was she the last to know in some cruel joke? She couldn't stand the idea of her siblings lying to her along with her parents. She couldn't take that heartbreak.

God, her heart hurt. All this time she has been so worried about her family leaving her one day. Well, it seemed that they already had. She wasn't enough to stop them from staying. Why did they leave? Are they out there? Did they just not want her?

She let out a choked sob, her hand flying to her mouth to smother the noise. She continued to walk blindly through the party with not an idea as to where she was heading to. Some people spared her a glance, but didn't bother to ask what was wrong. She was grateful, actually. She didn't want a stranger to ask her what was wrong.

Lila always thought physical pain was the worst thing you could endure. She thought it beat everything else. But she was wrong. When something hurts you so badly that you feel it twisting in your chest. It can make you feel like you're dying when you're not.

She felt like a glass house. You could see right through her. You could see every crack and flaw in her structure that worsened by the minute. Sturdy one minute... but with any disruption at all she would crumble into nothing but dust.

She never should've wished for this year to be different.

Lila suddenly felt two hands grab her, a fake knife pressing into her back. "Gotcha!"

Lila let out a small, frightened noise as she flinched away from the hands. She whipped around, seeing Estelle with her fake knife. Her friend's smile instantly dropped, tossing the knife to the side. She held her hands out, seeming to want to hug Lila and take her pain away. But she knew better. Lila stared at her hands as if they were weapons to hurt her, taking a step back from them.

"Lila? Lila, what happened?" Estelle rushed out with concerned eyes. "Are you all right?"

No, she wasn't all right.

Not a single part of this that was all right.

Then the sound of glass shattering filled the air and Lila nearly leapt out of her skin. It was a picture of her Dad. She forgot to put it away. Her Dad was currently laid under shattered glass and spilled alcohol, people she didn't even know laughing drunkenly around it.

"Lila," Estelle tried again, hands in the air as if approaching a timid animal. "Li, what—"

But Lila was properly hyperventilating now, but managed to scream at the top of her lungs with her eyes squeezed shut, "Everybody, get... the fuck... OUT!"

The party went silent, except for Lila's heavy breathing. Nobody moved, likely due to their shock from her loud exclamation. She was ready to screech it again until she was cut short.

A new loud noise filled the air— she saw flashing blue and red lights accompanied by a series of sirens, and she knew it was all over.

And then everybody was running.

And suddenly in a distant part of her, she could feel a terrible pain crash into her, and she couldn't breathe.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Quite a short one, sorry about that! But yeah. So that all just happened. Let me know your thoughts on these Halloween chapters, I've been so excited to write them. And honestly I'm pretty happy with how they came out. I've been wanting to add some shock factors to my books that turn the story on it's head, and I think I did that.

I've decided, for storytelling purposes, that concludes Part 1 of Just for This Year. Until the obvious ending, it was generally lighthearted and a coming-of-age story. Part 2 will be darker in the themes and deal with the aftermath of everything that happened. I have some scenes written out and I'm so excited to put them in!