rissy stories

In the spirit of Friday the 13th, I’ve decided to post this fictional short story first. It’s a little long, but hopefully interesting enough to read through quickly. Enjoy! 🙂

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“Lily? Where are you?” She recognizes his voice calling out from behind her, a short distance away. She cringes against the squeaking sound of the entrance gate rattling shut. She quietly curses to herself for not thinking to close it when she entered ten minutes prior, but it’s not like she’s thinking straight after completely losing her sanity in the fight. She can’t even analyze where and when the situation went horrifically wrong.

She leans the back of her pounding head against the cold tombstone and slides further down into the dirt to make certain that he cannot see her. Her ripped jeans are now soaked with soil, but that doesn’t bother her. Her quick breathing rate is what’s bothersome because he would be able to hear this and find her for sure.

“Please come out, Lily. I know you’re in here somewhere.” His sweet voice says once more, making her heart melt and tears swell in her blue eyes. His uncanny ability to always make her feel safe and wanted is definitely not what she feels she deserves right now. A girl like her doesn’t deserve sympathy, especially from a man like him. At least she knows that he wouldn’t turn her into the police, which is what he should do. But no, he wouldn’t. Would he? Fear gripped her heart once more. She couldn’t take that chance.

She hears the crunching of dead leaves as he begins to walk around the cemetery, searching for where she has fled. She holds her breath now as her body begins to shake with nervousness. She doesn’t want to explain anything to him. He is the last person she ever wants to disappoint, even though she probably already has.

She begins to worry that her bushy red hair might give her location away, so she reaches her hands up to press some of it closer to her head when something catches her eyes. She brings her hands out in front of her face, mouth hanging agape. Her already pale skin becomes even paler as she realizes that her hands are completely covered in blood. Her rings are deformed while the sharper ones have tiny scraps of ripped skin hanging off of them. She worries that her growing fear of actually having murdered her best friend has almost been officially confirmed.

“What did I do, what did I do?” she asks herself, barely above a whisper. She then lets out an involuntary, terrified whimper and quickly pulls her sweatshirt sleeves over her hands, taking fistfuls of the ends. She wraps her arms around her knees and pulls her legs closer to her body as the breeze picks up velocity, lowering the already freezing temperature. She shivers against the tombstone, wanting nothing more than to just go home, take a boiling hot bath, and scrub her body until her own skin starts to peel off.

His footsteps are now getting closer and closer, eventually stopping right behind her. She uses her sweatshirt to wipe away the scared tears escaping from her eyes and she twists her head to look behind her. She accepts her fate and finds him standing there, his brown hair ruffled due to the breeze, soft chocolate eyes staring down at her with worry, and a kind smile.

“There you are. You’ve always been such a great hider.” He says with obvious sarcasm, trying to lighten the mood. However, she only rolls her eyes and turns her head away from him. She pushes herself out of her slumped position and positions her back fully straight against the tombstone. At least he didn’t bring the police, right?

“Congratulations, Greg. You’ve found me.” She replies unenthusiastically with a hoarse voice and stares at the tombstone placed right in front of her. She secretly prays that he’ll just go away and leave her alone, but she knows deep down that he’s too stubborn to do that. Besides, who in their right mind would listen to any of her prayers right now?

He walks towards the tombstone that she’s staring at and sits down right in front of it. She averts her eyes and stares down at her knees that are still bent and close to her chest. She can’t bring herself to look at him. Not right now. She hears him sigh.

“Fine, you don’t have to look at me…but Lily, just talk to me. What in the hell happened to you back there?” Greg asks, trying to sound as comforting as he possibly can, but he can’t help but have questions. The past hour has his mind reeling. He looks at the broken girl sitting in front of him and compares her to the one he first met two years ago. Her appearance right now is completely different, but maybe her soul is too.

xxx

He first spotted her in the middle of freshman hallway on his first day as a sophomore in high school. She was only an innocent, little freshman. She looked absolutely perfect with her long and straightened red hair, her lightly applied face makeup, and clothes that were actually decent compared to Delilah’s, her polar-opposite best friend. Greg knew Delilah and girls like her, with their low v neck shirts, short skirts, and high heels that grab the attention of almost every male within the vicinity of the area.

This wasn’t appealing to Greg at all, and he practically saw an angel halo floating above Lily’s head compared to Delilah. Even without having said a word to one another…he could tell that she was different. So why was she hanging around Delilah?

His question was asked and answered as a senior girl walked by and bumped Lily into a locker, making her gasp and stumble. Her blue eyes were struck with fear as Delilah grabbed onto her, keeping her from falling over. However, her books fell at her feet. The senior acted as if she had done nothing wrong and began to walk away, until Delilah attacked her, grabbing fistfuls of her hair, yanking her back, and making her shriek. Delilah threatened her as Lily knelt down and started scrambling books back into her arms. That’s when Greg shook himself awake and took his cue. He rushed over, knelt down beside her, and helped her.

“Are you okay?” he asked with worry and she immediately nodded, keeping her eyes glued to the floor. He then glanced up at Delilah, Lily’s defender, with more respect.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” she kept repeating over and over. He helped back onto her feet and that’s when she finally looked at him. She was breathtakingly beautiful, especially when she smiled.

“Thanks.” she whispered, but he was too frozen to respond. Delilah rejoined Lily as the senior ran off, her hair a mess and her makeup running with tears streaming down her face.

“She won’t be bothering us again,” Delilah said casually and then looked at Greg, “Oh, hey Greg. I see you’ve met Lily. She’s a delicate flower that obviously needs sheltering.” she introduced them with a hint of sarcasm. Greg chuckled at the pun while Lily blushed.

“Yeah, well, clearly she doesn’t lie,” she admitted and then the clang of the bell rang throughout the hallway. Delilah suddenly grabbed onto Lily’s arm and pulled her away from Greg. “It was nice to meet you!” she called out to him as they disappeared into the crowd of students. Greg watched them leave, still standing there dumbfounded.

“You too.” he said several seconds too late.

xxx

Lily definitely isn’t the 15-year-old girl that he once knew back then. She isn’t a delicate flower anymore. He doesn’t hate this reality, but worries about her nonetheless. Especially as she shakes her head back and forth with a scared look upon her face.

“N-no…I-I can’t do this!” she stutters fearfully, sounding on the verge of tears again. Usually when she doesn’t want to talk, he lets it go. However, he is determined to make her talk this out. Still, he notices how tense and uncomfortable she looks. She has a black eye forming and it’s beginning to swell. Her curly red hair is like a lion’s mane: bushy and messy.

He fights the urge to crawl up next to her, wrap her in his arms like a broken bird, and kiss every part of her body that hurts. Right now, he needs to get her to explain what happened, but she still refuses to make eye contact with him. A knot begins to form in his stomach, but he purposefully reminds himself, once again, that it has nothing to do with him. He understands that she probably feels ashamed, but he wants to be her sanctuary, like he’s always been. Still, he can’t help but ask in a whisper.

“Lily, why won’t you look at me?” a long silence follows. Lily forces all of the air out of her lungs, her shoulders hunch over, and more tears slide down her cheeks. She knows that she’s hurting him by never truly looking at him directly in the eyes and she wishes for someone to shoot her dead in that moment.

Who is she to ever inflict this man with any kind of misery? However, that was the whole reason for her not wanting to say anything to him, right? She knows that she owes him for putting up with her on a daily basis, but she worries that she will lose him forever along the way. They finally lock eyes with each other and she gulps down her fear.

“I k-killed her, Greg.” She stutters again, but with a dead tone. Greg takes a deep breath and squeezes his hands together, thinking back to an hour ago.

xxx

He had heard a bunch of violent noise coming from outside his house while he was watching TV, but thought nothing of it because this wasn’t new. Physical fights happen all the time between boys in this part of town. The guys are violent jerks and the girls, in turn, are provocative and mean.

However, despite the madness surrounding him, he took solace in being the luckiest eighteen-year old in the world to have found Lily. She was a sweetheart compared to the girls his own age, but this inevitably turned her into a target to bully. So he, and Delilah, always had to protect her over the years. He never minded this though, and he smiles whenever he thinks of her. He embraces the feeling of being wanted and needed, for the first time in his entire life.

As he daydreamed, the violence outside continued, so he pushed himself off of the couch and headed for the window. He looked outside, expecting to find two guys fighting across the street in the empty parking lot next to the liquor store, with a crowd surrounding them, cheering on one or the other. However, something was off and different. He squinted against the sunlight to try and get a better view of the two people fighting in the middle of the crowd that appeared to be shocked and scared rather than excited.

He quickly discovered that it wasn’t two boys in a fight. It was two girls and no one seemed to be doing anything about it. Fear gripped his heart because girls physically fighting never ends well, if at all. At least guys usually part with a feeling of satisfaction about evening the score, or something like that, but they move on in the end. Girls, on the other hand, hold nasty grudges. Therefore, he decided to take immediate action. He ran towards the front door, ripped it open, and sprinted across the street before barely looking both ways. The crowd in front of him was completely paralyzed.

He finally made his way to the front and immediately understood why everyone was so still. His sweet Lily was sitting on top of Delilah, beating her absolutely senseless. Her jeans had several rips in them and her sweatshirt sleeves were rolled up with scratches all over her arms. Delilah had clearly fought back before Lily knocked her out. Lily wasn’t stopping though, and it was like a hurricane of fists. Delilah’s nose was broken and some of her teeth were lying in her blood-covered blonde hair.

Greg shook himself awake, ran over to Lily, wrapped his arms around her waist, and yanked her off of Delilah. Lily dug her nails into his arms and began screaming in protest. Everyone around them was in some sort of trance,

“Lily, stop, it’s me!” Greg cried as she elbowed him in the stomach.

“LET ME GO!” She screamed with a raspy voice. He then noticed bruise marks on her neck, probably from Delilah’s hands during their fight. He turned her around to face him and saw a crazy look in her eyes. She appeared possessed, and he realized that he needed to wake her up.

“Lily, you’re going to kill her!” Greg shouted with terror, shaking her hard, only once. Lily then stopped struggling and finally came to her senses. She slowly looked around her and found everyone looking horrified. It took a moment to sink in that the horrified looks were directed right at her. Then she looked down at Delilah.

Horror of what she’d done made her feel sick and she vomited onto the ground beside her ex-best friend. The crowd ran away with disgust and fear of her, in the meantime. Greg tried to comfort her, but she ended up sprinting away with shame, and disappeared before he could even catch her. He was now left alone with Delilah. He stared down at her with fear and quickly pulled out his phone with trembling hands.

xxx

“You didn’t kill her, Lily. She was breathing when the ambulance came.” He explains, hoping this will ease her worries. She begins to sob hard with relief into her knees, digging her fingers into the dirt. Greg goes to her and cradles her, rocking her back and forth.

“She was my only friend in this awful place, but she believed her liar of a boyfriend over me. He claimed that I was the one he cheated with. We had been fighting about it on the way home from school when Delilah got angry enough to attack me and I…I lost it. I’m a monster!” Lily cries into his chest. Greg can’t help but laugh at the notion and shake his head.

“Hardly. Look, you’re a nice girl who’s been tested. You finally stood up for yourself and I’m proud of you.” He says. She doesn’t reply, but curls up in his arms and leans more heavily against him. He hugs her tighter, happy to know that even though she finally fought a battle of her own, she still wants to lean on him. Lily eventually calms down and falls asleep in his trusting arms. He guards her from the cold world until she awakes.