The Death of Lila Jane

by Teresa Mummert

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked as I stared him down.

  “Me? You kissed my girlfriend!”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “Your girlfriend kissed me. And if we're honest, I probably wasn’t the first guy she tried to hook up with tonight.”

  “You have a death wish?” He asked as he shoved his hands hard against my chest in what can only be described as the stereotypical douche move from any teen movie from the nineties. But when I didn’t stumble backward he cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy dog, leaving his jaw wide open for me to hit him. So I did.

  “Hell yeah, I do,” I responded, swinging wide and connected with the left side of his face. Lila squealed, clasping her hands over her mouth as if she could actually be heard over the shitty house music.

  “Don’t you hit my boyfriend,” Shy yelled, her southern drawl even thicker when she was angry. But as she grabbed at my arm, clawing the flesh of my bicep with her shitty plastic nails, Lila grabbed hold of her multi-colored ponytail and pulled her off me.

  All hell broke loose.

  The party goers quickly redirected their attention to us. Luckily for me, none of the other football players decided to defend their friend, which I knew I would be grateful for if I lived until morning. I wasn’t conceited but I liked my face the way it was and wanted to keep it.

  We fell to the floor with a thunderous thud that I knew would result in some pretty impressive bruises tomorrow. But right now all I wanted to do was put this jerk in his place.

  After about thirty seconds of wrestling on the floor, arms had banded around both of us and we were being pulled apart but not before the collar of my shirt was ripped.

  I spun around, scanning the room for Lila, who still had a death grip on Shy’s hair as they both clawed and swung at each other from such close range, neither could land any kind of decent hit.

  I grabbed Lila from around the waist and lifted her from the floor as a string of expletives poured from her mouth. I didn’t even know she had it in her and I couldn’t wipe the proud smile from my face as I carried her through the crowd toward the door, grabbing a half-empty bottle of whiskey on my way out. At least, I knew that Shy wasn’t going to mess with Lila again. She’d stood up for herself.

  I sat Lila down as soon as we made it off the porch and grabbed her wrist, pulling her toward my car. Her mouth never stopped running but soon her anger dissipated and she began to laugh as the adrenaline took over.

  “That was unbelievable!”

  “Yeah, it was something,” I agreed as I let go of her to unscrew the lid of the bottle, chugging a shot.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” I held out the bottle and she took it, tipping it to her lips without hesitation before cringing. “Oh… that’s just nasty.”

  I took the bottle back as opened the passenger door, waiting for her to slide inside.

  “I wasn’t thinking. That was the point. You wanted to live like we’re dying.”

  “Yeah, but we could have actually died. There were three of those guys, Kaden. I mean… what would I have done if they all attacked you?”

  I paused, looking down at the concerned expression on her face before closing her door. What would she have done? I wasn’t used to anyone standing up for me and as laughable as it was that this tiny girl wanted to protect me, it made me feel like a complete asshole for even putting her safety at risk. She didn’t need someone to teach her to live on the wild side. She needed someone to protect her from idiots like me.

  The sound of the screen door slamming barely registered in my mind as I silently scolded myself. I should have paid attention because a hand was on my shoulder before I could round the front of my car. When I turned to see who had grabbed me, a fist connected with my mouth, instantly filling my mouth with the copper taste of blood.

  “What the fuck?” I yelled as my hand went to my mouth, catching a few wayward drops in my palm as I leaned against the hood of my car.

  The passenger door of my car slammed as Lila hurried between us, grabbing my attacker by the arm and pulling him back.

  “Silas, what the hell are you doing here?” She yelled as she shoved him hard against his chest.

  “I should ask you the same thing. Why are you hanging out with this asshole?”

  “This asshole is my friend,” she snapped.

  “Thanks,” I deadpanned as I cracked my neck.

  “And you have no right to hit him!”

  “Lila, what the hell happened to you?” His voice was calm now and it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he had a thing for her.

  “Nothing happened to me, Silas. I’m still the same old girl. You’re the one who changed.”

  “I’d hate to break up this reunion,” I waved my blood covered hand as they both turned to look at me. “But why the fuck did you hit me?”

  “You could have gotten her hurt, you selfish prick,” Silas snapped as he stepped toward me.

  “I’m fine. Not that it is any of your business.” Lila folded her arms across her chest as she stared him down, but he had every right to be pissed off at me. What I did was stupid.

  “It is my business. You’re my friend.”

  I almost felt bad for the guy because Lila was oblivious to his crush.

  “You were my friend.”

  “Fine.” Silas nodded, taking a few steps back. “Just be careful. He’s not who you think he is.”

  “Neither were you,” she said quietly as she walked back to her side of the car and got inside without another word.

  I slid into the driver’s side and started the car, turning up the radio in hopes of having to talk.

  “This again?” She asked with a dramatic sigh before turning down the volume. “Where are we going?”

  “I think that was enough excitement for one night.”

  “You can’t be serious?” Lila had turned her body to face me as she spoke with her hands. It was the most animated I’d seen her and it would have made me laugh if I didn’t feel so damn guilty.

  “As a heart attack.”

  TEN

  LILA JANE

  August 6, 2015

  I struggled not to scream in frustration as we hurried down the highway toward our housing development.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “It’s not you, Lila.”

  I snorted before I could even stop the pig-like sound from escaping me. “That’s original.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  I could feel his eyes on me as I kept my gaze locked ahead.

  “Why are you taking pills?”

  My head whipped to face him so quickly it hurt my neck. “I changed my mind. You can take me home now.”

  “Lila, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” He fell silent, waiting for me to respond but I refused. “I told you about Taylor.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “That was about someone else. It wasn’t your own secret to tell.”

  “You think it wasn’t hard for me to open up to a complete stranger about my past?” His voice rose but it didn’t have a hint of anger.

  “Oh, so we are strangers.” I folded my arms across my chest as I glared out the passenger window, struggling to keep nervous tears from falling. Why did Shy have to bring up the pills?

  “Yeah but I am trying to get to know you. You aren’t exactly making it easy. Taylor took so many different medications.”

  I rolled my eyes but as I watched my expression in the reflection of the glass I felt like the biggest jerk on the planet. “I’m not Taylor so you don’t need to worry about it,” my confession was so quiet I could barely hear my own voice but I knew by the exhale of breath from Kaden that he had heard every word.

  The car slowed and I soon was staring out at a swath of still trees from the shoulder of the road. Kaden put the car in park and we sat silently for a moment until my inner voice began to scream out into the uncomfortable abyss o
f my subconscious.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, wishing my face was buried in a book where I was anyone but the stupid girl who was sitting here next to Kaden.

  “Waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “For answers.”

  But I didn’t have any to give him without sharing things about myself I’d never told a soul.

  “Lila…” He was struggling to pick his words carefully and it made every slow second that ticked by that much more painful. But I knew where this was going. Nowhere. If I couldn’t open up, give him something, the night was over. “I think you’re a cool person.”

  Another snort escaped me and I wanted to through myself into incoming traffic. Unfortunately, the road was still empty. “But…” I tried to keep my voice even. I wasn’t mad at him. Not really. I was mad at myself.

  “But I went through so much with Taylor. It messed me up bad and I don’t know if I can go through it again.”

  His confession caused the tears to overflow and I struggled to open the door with blurred vision, crying out when I was unable to unhook my seatbelt before his thick fingers circled my wrist, preventing me from leaving.

  “You’re an asshole,” I spat but my entire body was shaking with embarrassment as my sobs grew louder.

  “I know,” he whispered into my hair as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest, holding me while I cried. He was right about me. I was a stupid little kid.

  After a few minutes of more humiliation, I was finally able to pull myself together. I pulled back from Kaden, too embarrassed to look him in the eye as I wiped the dampness from my face.

  “Just take me home.”

  “Lila...”

  “You promised.”

  Clearing his throat, he pulled the car back on the road and continued on toward our housing area as a classic rock ballad hummed quietly in the background.

  The minutes ticked by so slowly it felt like hours and when we finally turned onto Maverick Street, my stomach was in knots. There was so much I wanted to say to him but mostly I wished I’d never answered my door when he came over.

  The person I’d had him built up to be in my mind was an impossible standard for him to live up to. He wasn’t the hero in one of my stupid books, he was just some teenage boy with a chip on his shoulder. A stupid, cute boy who actually wanted to get to know me and I was pouting like a baby because I knew once he did, he wouldn’t want to be near me. I felt like I was ready to have one of my attacks but the dread was accompanied by another feeling, a rush.

  Most people refer to this moment as butterflies in their stomach, a childish but endearing view of the chemical effects another person can have on your body. It was basic biology. The only purpose of love was procreation not what we’re lead to believe in romance novels, that we needed another person to complete us. I was already whole, even if I was empty.

  I’d always looked at that as the catalyst for the end, the Butterfly Effect[36]. The similar terminology was no coincidence. Love and lust often destroyed relationships. One flap of those wings and a storm was set into motion in the heart, drowning you in sorrow.

  But rational thought goes out the window, so to speak, when you finally lay eyes on that object of infatuation. As silly as I thought the whole notion was, part of me longed to feel that pull to another, to spread my own wings and become a woman, even if it killed me.

  And here I was, at that moment I would remember for the rest of my life. I could leap. I could take this moment and seize it. But as my fingers fidgeted with the door handle, I couldn’t think of any clever or witty one-liners to break the tension. I’d already scared him and he was looking for a reason to dump me at my doorstep. The only thing left to do was to be honest, that genuine honesty he spoke about that could only come without the fear of consequences.

  My eyes danced over the front of my home, my gilded cage. We weren’t rich like Kaden assumed but to a beggar, a dollar could mean the difference between going to bed with a full stomach or starvation. What I saw as comfortable could have meant something entirely different to him.

  It was just like what I saw when I looked at him, something money couldn’t buy. He was freedom. He was the very epitome of the word. He answered to no one and came and went as he pleased.

  “If I talk to you about the medication, is the night still over?” I asked.

  He looked down at his lap before finally turning toward me. “I dunno.”

  I exhaled, thinking that over. That would have to do.

  “Well, I guess the real reason is my mom thinks that medicine can fix anything. Your daughter has no friends? Give her medicine,” I joked earning me a smile but it wasn’t genuine. “Ugh. Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Give me that look.” I understood now why it bothered him earlier when I apologized after hearing about his girlfriend. It didn’t feel good to be pitied.

  “So what, you don’t like to be around people?”

  “Something like that. I just have a lot of anxiety and I guess I don’t concentrate as much as I should. Actually, I just prefer to be alone and read instead of doing some arbitrary worksheet that will determine how smart the world thinks I am. You can’t judge intelligence by mass testing you know?”

  “Is that so?” The side of his mouth was pulled up in amusement now and I wanted to run my finger over the thin slice that split it down the middle thanks to Silas.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I agree, I just can’t imagine you getting anything less than an A on anything. Or that your parents would think you are somehow failing at something.”

  “That’s just because you don’t know me yet,” I joked and his eyes lingered on me for a moment before he put the car in drive.

  “You’re right.”

  “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged as we slowly pulled back out onto the road. “The night is still young and we have this bottle of alcohol. Seems like a shame to waste it.”

  I nodded in agreement, excited to see what the next held in store for us. I knew my parents were going to lose their minds when they realized I’d lied to them but Kaden was right. I’d never done anything wrong to make them question me or load me up with chemicals to make me what they considered perfect.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, a thrill rushing through me at the possibilities of the unknown.

  “Does it matter?”

  It didn’t. Nothing before this moment seemed to matter. The rules and consequences all flew out the window as the hot, muggy air swirled around us as we traveled back into the night.

  “Alright. So tell me something else about you. Why are you living with Daven?”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” I groaned, frustrated that he wasn’t giving me any answers.

  “Why do you live with your parents? You don’t have a choice.”

  “You always have a choice,” I countered.

  “Yeah, you always have a choice, but not the balls to do what you really want, right? That’s why I live with Daven. I don’t want to be there but-”

  “But you aren’t living every day like it’s your last,” I finished his thought.

  “Sometimes it’s just easier to give up and wait for it all to be over.”

  “Wow. You should put that on a greeting card,” I deadpanned, eliciting a small chuckle from Kaden. As we turned out onto Highway 171, my phone chirped in my hand letting me know I’d received a message.

  “Great.” I dug my phone out of my pocket and typed in my code to unlock it.

  “What is it?”

  “Ugh. My friend Bridget. I was supposed to be out with my brother tonight but she went with him instead.” My eyes danced over the message and my heart seized in my chest.

  “She said something is wrong with my brother. Oh my God! Can you take me to Leesville?” My chest was tightening no
w and I wished now wasn’t the time I was without my medicine. The last thing I wanted to feel was this panic. My breathing became labored as Kaden drove toward Rosepine to Leesville.

  “You okay?” Kaden’s eyes were on me more than the road. I sent a quick reply asking what had happened and my heart felt like it was going to explode as I waited.

  I nodded to reassure him but my body felt like it had been electrified.

  “Take a small sip of this,” he grabbed the bottle of liquor and held it out to me. Hesitantly, I grabbed the neck of it and twisted off the top, tipping it to my lips.

  The liquid fire burned its way over my tongue and into my belly, instantly warming me. “Oh God. That’s so gross.” The fun of drinking had worn off but I took another swig, desperate for the calming to take hold.

  “Slow down,” Kaden cautioned as he stepped on the gas. “You don’t want to overdo it. You need to be able to think.”

  All I could think about was something bad had happened to my brother and I wasn’t there to help him. Not that my brother had ever needed me to protect him. But he had always been there for me when I needed him, like tonight. The only reason he was out was to help cover up my lie.

  “Keep going past the Army base.” I took another drink and stared out of the passenger window, tears beginning to form in my eyes. Bridget hadn’t responded and I felt like I was falling apart.

  “He’s going to be alright.” Kaden’s voice was quiet, unconvincing.

  “You don’t know that.”

  He didn’t try to reassure me because he knew better than anyone that it might not be okay. Life didn’t always have a happy ending. Sometimes bad things happened.

  ELEVEN

  KADEN

  August 6, 2015

  I wanted to promise Lila that everything was going to be alright but my mind kept slipping back to the night I’d lost Taylor. I wasn’t with her when it all happened either. That was the worst part. I wasn’t able to comfort her and let her know it was going to be okay. That I was going to be okay.