Chapter 25 The Recording
Lily's POV
I stepped into the classroom and felt every head turn.
Not the usual way they turned when I walked in, loaded with contempt and the particular amusement of people who had already decided what you were worth. This was different. Uncertain. Like they were looking at someone they were not entirely sure they recognised.
A few steps in and I saw Wade on one knee in the middle of the room.
I looked at the flowers, then looked round the class.
My name was written boldly across the walls, the whole classroom rearranged around the fact of me.
I listened to him speak then I walked to my seat without uttering a word.
Within minutes Clara's friends began drifting toward me one by one, sliding into nearby chairs with expressions I did not trust.
"You look beautiful," one of them said.
"Beautiful?" I asked in surprise.
"Acting like you don't know? Haven't you checked the mirror lately?" Jessica said.
"Now all the boys can't stop staring at you. Almighty Wade Harrington kneeling and begging for you? Girl, that's a milestone."
"Well, I don't consider it one," I said unconcerned.
"Girl, you're so lucky—"
Then Clara walked straight to my seat. She clicked her fingers and Jessica stood immediately and moved behind her.
"So, you've got the nerve huh? Because you think you're getting beautiful? Then you think the whole class revolves around you?" she asked.
"It obviously does," I said.
She opened her mouth in shock.
"Who do you think you are?" She yelled at me, her voice cracking with insecurity
"Of course, I'm the scholarship student who beat you in her first year at school," I said proudly, standing up trying to break her defense.
The whole class gasped in shock.
"Beat me? You slept with the teacher to scale your way up the Golden List!" She retorted
"Jokes on you," I said, and the words came out before I fully decided to say them. "You framed me because the teacher rejected your advances." I snapped back
"What the fuck? Clara got rejected?" The class erupted into whispers immediately.
"What are you talking about? I never did such a thing," Clara said, her voice breaking at the end
I leaned slightly toward her. "Now you see what it feels like to get accused for what you didn't do?" I whispered into her ear.
Then I straightened up and addressed the room. "She didn't just try to seduce the teacher, she has been begging for Wade's attention. Poor Wade, he never liked her." I said walking majestically in strides.
The whole class went into shock.
Wade had his head resting on his desk and refused to lift it. But that was none of my business, I wanted them all to get a taste of their own medicine.
"Shut up! Fat scholarship slut!" Clara burst out
I walked confidently to the front of the classroom, turned around slowly and faced everyone.
"You call this fat?" I said.
And everywhere elapsed in silence, complete silence.
Then I walked back to my seat.
After classes the whole room shifted around me in a way I had never experienced. People who had looked through me for months were suddenly finding reasons to stand near me. Clara was visibly losing her group and I was gaining one without trying.
I was not interested because these were fair weather people. The kind that mock you when you are going through the hardest seasons of your life and switch sides the moment the table turns. I had no use for that kind of company and I was not going to pretend otherwise to make them comfortable.
I ignored them all and packed my bag.
Then I opened my locker and saw the wildflowers, slightly bent and tied carefully. The exact same ones from that Sunday at the park. And beside them, face up, the photograph. The two of us squinting into the afternoon sun, shoulders touching.
My hands went still, My heart softened immediately and memories of the Harrington house flooded my mind before I could stop them. The kitchen in the morning. Mia's pink room. The sitting room couch with all three of us on it watching cartoons.
Maybe Wade was really remorseful. He had told me he loved me even when I was at my heaviest. He had said it like he meant every word. Maybe I had run before I fully understood what I was running from. Maybe I had misunderstood things.
I shook the whole thought out of my mind firmly.
He had broken me in front of everyone. He had stood in that classroom and denied me and let them say those things about my mother and there was no explanation in the world that could undo what that felt like.
Nothing would make me go back to someone that broke me.
I picked up the flowers to throw them in the bin but my hand would not move.
I stood there and the memories came anyway, the way they always did when I was too tired to keep them out. That night in the pool house. The warmth of him. The way he had held my face and said those words.
Then I remembered my first kiss.
My first kiss had been with Wade Harrington in a shower with foam still in my hair and pool water soaking both of us and it had been so completely unexpected and so completely real that I had not stopped thinking about it since.
I put the flowers down. I picked up the photograph and put it carefully in my bag.
I was keeping the picture.
"That is not weakness, it's just a picture." I told myself
I sat in Ryan's car and watched the school disappear behind us and thought about Mia.
The way she had tucked herself against my side when she was frightened. The way she had squeezed my hand that very first day with small fingers and surprising grip. The way she had typed welcome home and meant it with her whole heart.
I wondered who was picking her up from school. Whether she was eating, whether she had found another friend at the park or whether she was sitting under the oak tree alone again.
My mind was so restless.
Maybe Wade was not worth quitting a job that had given me Mia. Maybe I had let my pain make a decision that hurt the wrong person most.
"What's going on? You've not been yourself since you got in the car," Ryan said.
"Oh, it's nothing," I said.
"Are you sure?"
"I just can't believe the workout and the medicine really worked," I said, pulling myself back. "Everyone was so surprised today. You cannot imagine the confidence it gave me."
He looked at me and smiled. "I told you, it is one hundred percent effective."
"Undoubtedly," I said.
"Look at what I got for you," Ryan said, reaching into the back seat and producing a small box.
After some hesitation, I opened it and an expensive necklace sat inside, delicate and clearly not cheap. I stared at it in surprise.
"This is too much Ryan. How did you get this? Don't tell me you used your allowance," I said.
"Come on Lily, this is my little way of appreciating you," he said.
"Appreciating me? I should be the one thanking you for everything you've done for me this past month," I said.
"Lily, you don't understand how your smile lights up my day. And that's enough gift for me," he said.
"My smile?"
He took a long breath and held the box toward me. "Rejecting this would really break my heart," he said.
I looked at him and at the sincerity sitting so openly on his face.
"Thank you," I said and took the box.
"My parents are returning next week," he said.
I simply nodded and we drove home in comfortable quiet.
I had barely settled into my room when my phone buzzed.
An unknown number. With a text and no name attached.
"Listen to this" the text read
A voice recording was attached, I stared at my phone for a moment then pressed play.
Wade's voice filled the room, then Chris's.
I sat completely still and listened to the whole thing. Wade's voice low and unguarded, saying things I had not been meant to hear.
"My joy is dead already, only nly Lily can bring it to life, I love Lily, from the very first day she stepped into this class." I heard them, it was Wade's voice
The tears formed before I could stop them.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hands and listened to his voice say my name like it meant something and felt every carefully built wall inside me develop a crack it had not had before.
I pressed stop, letting the tears soak my dress while I sat in silence.