november 2019 : 10 months ago

If any of them had an ounce of energy or self-discipline, the Saturday after Thanksgiving would have been an excellent time to catch up on all of their homework before they got thrown into final exams. But they didn't, so a rainy day movie marathon was ensuing instead. As the end credits to The Fellowship of the Ring started rolling, Ezra returned to the living room with a spoon and an entire pumpkin pie and started eating it right out of the pan.

Robin from Liam's music class had invited a bunch of people over for a whole day of movies for no specific reason other than that her parents' spacious house was the perfect place for a get-together. The huge sectional couch was big enough that all ten of them could cram onto it if they really wanted to. Lily already knew almost everyone there – Liam, his music classmates, Katie. There were also a couple of Robin's friends that Lily hadn't met before, but they both seemed nice.

The dichotomy between the guys' and girls' movie preferences was almost comically stereotypical. Once they all arrived at Robin's house, they quickly learned that coming to a decision about what to watch was way more difficult than it should have been. And now that they had made it through the first Lord of the Rings movie, lots of bickering was ensuing about if they were going to continue with the trilogy or put on The Fault in Our Stars instead.

Lily, however, was able to tune most of it out due to the fact that she was half-asleep. With her head resting on Liam's shoulder, she could feel the warmth of his skin through the soft fabric of his shirt and the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing. She didn't actually intend to let herself get so tired so early in the day, but cuddling up to your boyfriend for any extended amount of time was a pretty tried and true formula for making yourself want to take a nap.

The fact that he was practically motionless once she leaned over onto him did nothing to help her keep herself awake. She never understood how he could go so long without needing to shift his position. That was one trait in which they vastly differed—Lily was constantly tossing and turning, but they would fall asleep next to each other and she would wake up hours later to find him in the exact same position he was in when they dozed off.

She forced her eyes back open once she heard The Fault in Our Stars start playing, determined to actually watch at least a solid five minutes of it before she succumbed to nap time. She couldn't even remember the last time she watched this movie, but it had been at least a couple of years.

An unanticipated, peculiar sensation of uneasiness started to settle in the pit of her stomach as she watched. It wasn't too difficult to ignore for the first couple of minutes before she realized what was causing it. And then she did. And once she did, it was impossible to cast aside. The tiny knot rapidly swelled into a giant rock in her core that started pressing against her lungs, encroaching on her airways and bringing tears to the corners of her eyes.

She silently lifted her cheek from Liam's shoulder to get up and slip out of the room, hoping to draw as little attention to herself as possible while she did. She didn't even know her way around in this completely unfamiliar house, but it couldn't possibly be too hard to find a bathroom, right? She just needed a little bit of space, a little bit of time. To separate herself from the others, to breathe, to calm down.

Lily stumbled upon the bathroom after what felt like an extremely long moment of nearly-panicked roaming but surely must have been a rather short one in actuality. She pulled the door shut and sank down onto the floor in front of the sink. The bathroom, tiny and more dated than the other rooms in the house, was significantly colder than the living room, but it was that kind of cold that was somehow refreshing even while it chilled you to the bone.

She brushed an unwanted tear aside, nearly laughing at herself for having this reaction to something as insignificant as a film. She couldn't believe she was crying at a freaking Ansel Elgort movie of all things, but it released an unexpected surge of sadness into her heart.

She hadn't forgotten about Sarah. On the contrary, she crossed her mind somewhat often. Yet in those moments when Lily thought about her, she was only sad on Henry's behalf. She didn't make it about herself—she never thought about her own loss because it didn't feel significant enough to grieve, especially in comparison to his.

But he wasn't the only one who lost someone seventeen years ago. They both did. If Sarah were here right now, she'd be a senior, just two years older than Lily. A few short months away from graduating and moving on to bigger and better things. Lily wondered what she would have majored in, if she would be artsy or sciencey or one of those rare people who was spectacular at both. If she would kick Henry's butt at chemistry like Lily never could. If she and Lily would be friends, if she would be like a big sister to her in the same way Henry was like a brother. If they would have played in the neighborhood as kids and pretended they were going on adventures together and then grow up and do it all for real.

She might not have remembered her cousin, but she wished so badly that she did. She wanted it so badly that it hurt and it hurt so badly that she cried. She just sat there on the floor and cried and cried and cried, unsure of how much time was passing. But she knew it must have been longer than she realized when she heard a knock on the door.

"Lils?" Liam's voice asked quietly. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she croaked back, rubbing at her puffy cheeks.

He must have picked up from the direction her voice was coming from that she was sitting on the floor. She could hear him kneel down to her level before he asked, even more quietly this time, "Can I come in?"

"It's unlocked," she sniffled.

He cracked the door just wide enough to noiselessly slip inside, carefully closing it behind him and sitting across from her. "What's wrong?" he murmured.

She opened her mouth to briefly explain that watching a cancer movie made her think about Sarah, but the words needed to do so were yanked out of her reach. She froze with her mouth still dangling open as she stared at Liam, noticed how utterly confused he looked, and then realized precisely why that was.

"Oh my God," she whispered.

His eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"I never told you."

All this time together and she hadn't once brought up Sarah with him. It wasn't completely unintentional, either, although no part of her enjoyed keeping him in the dark about anything. But it had always felt like Henry's secret to keep. His story to tell. So she didn't tell.

Liam was hesitant, understandably so. She was being vague – not to mention ominous – but he was observant. He knew her. He had spent enough time studying her that he could read between the lines of her words and she had spent enough time studying him that she knew what even the slightest changes in his expression meant. So even though this was one of the few chapters of her that she hadn't let him read, she could see that he understood that it was serious.

"Told me what?"

She remained silent for another moment, watching those worried brown eyes and wondering how you were supposed to go about suddenly revealing such a massive piece of information to your boyfriend of over a year. He waited patiently. Her throat felt raw, but she swallowed and took a breath.

"I...when I was a toddler," she managed to say. "I had another cousin."

He frowned, his bewilderment temporarily drowning out all else. "What?"

"Henry had a little sister."

Liam didn't surprise easily. Usually, if she came to him upset, it took very few words on her part for him to understand what she was feeling and why she was feeling that way even better than she did. It was like he had figured out how to access a part of her brain that she couldn't get to, the one that collected all her chaotic thoughts and somehow made sense out of them. As soon as he was aware that something was bothering her, it was straight to comforting her or talking her through it or whatever would help. She was so accustomed to this way of existence that she didn't know how to react now that he was looking at her without any words to offer her, stunned to the point of speechlessness. She could see a million questions dangling at the tip of his tongue but refusing to budge and knew that she had to keep talking.

So Lily swallowed a metallic taste in her mouth and began to explain, puncturing the silence so heavy it felt tangible. She recited it all as facts. For some reason, that made it a little easier to handle.

"She was just a year younger than him. And she, um, she got sick when she was four. She only made it a little past her fifth birthday. I was three. That's why-"

She swallowed again, her eyes stinging, and made herself breathe. Her composure was threatening to further unravel if she succumbed to her emotions, but she forced herself to keep herself together just a little longer. She couldn't focus too much on Liam's face, his reaction. She kept her eyes locked on the wall next to him instead.

"That's why he and I could never get along before high school. It was too much for him and he wished she was there instead of me and I just...I didn't try to understand him," she finished.

Her eyes cautiously drifted back to his face—she knew she couldn't put off seeing his reaction any longer now that she had said what there was to say.

It was hard to read all of the emotions drawn in the lines of someone's face – even Liam's, which she knew so well – when there were dozens of them there. Definitely surprise. Disorientation. Concern. Sympathy. He was maybe even a little bit hurt. He was trying to put all the pieces together, but they wouldn't all fit.

"Why...why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't trying to hide anything from you," she blurted, guilt tugging at her heart despite the fact that he didn't sound in any way accusatory. An acidic prickle rose in her throat and she scrambled to get all her words out before she inevitably burst back into tears. "I just- I don't like talking about his life behind his back and I don't remember her so it doesn't usually make me like this but something about the stupid movie-"

She pressed her lips together and clenched her jaw to hold back the sound that wanted to accompany the tears that trickled down her cheeks, but Liam did what he did best and scooted over to her side to wrap her up in his arms so that she wouldn't feel so helpless. Lily leaned against his chest and tried to focus on her breathing, scared of closing her eyes and seeing that image of the little six-year-old Henry clutching onto his sister's teddy bear and crying because they took him away from her.

Liam faintly, tentatively asked, "What was her name?"

"Sarah," she whispered back.

He softly exhaled and kissed the top of her head, his breath fluttering against her skin. "I'm so sorry, Lils."

"Me, too."

They stayed there for a few minutes while she cried into his shirt, attempting to muffle the sound so that she wouldn't be overheard by the rest of the house. The ache started to fade the more she was able to focus on him, the longer his fingers delicately stroked along her back and kept her warm. He was here. She was okay. This wasn't anything new, anything she was incapable of handling. She was okay.

"I can tell them to turn off the movie if you wanna come back to the living room," he offered quietly.

"I don't wanna cause a scene," she mumbled as she lifted a hand to rub at her eyes.

"It's not causing a scene," he gently assured her. "But you don't have to. Do you want me to drive you home?"

"I think..." What did she want? After a second of quiet contemplation, it dawned on her that she could always go to the one other person who was so great at comforting her, who could understand. "I think I wanna call him."

Liam nodded. "Text me if you want me to come back, okay?"

"I will. Thank you."

He placed one last featherlight kiss on her temple before getting up to leave. After he gingerly shut the door behind him, she stared at her phone for a long moment, thinking that she was about to sound so stupid calling Henry because a movie made her cry. And in a way, she felt stupid for feeling stupid because literally the whole point of those movies was to make you emotional. But the knot in her stomach hadn't fully subsided. She wasn't sure how she felt about something so gruesome being so romanticized. About claiming there was anything noble or poetic about the disease that tore Henry's life apart and kept him away from her for years. But she supposed it was just a sad story like any other sad story and if you were one of the people who had too much proximity to the subject matter then you could simply choose not to watch it. She just didn't comprehend before today that she was one of those people.

Lily opened the recent calls tab and clicked on his number, hoping he wouldn't be busy right now since it was a Saturday and he didn't have to work. She couldn't say that catching a glance at herself in the front-facing camera was a highlight of her day—the bright light from the bulbs over the sink combined with the sheen on her pink, puffy cheeks wasn't a good look. Luckily, his face popped up on her screen after a few seconds and she no longer had to look at herself.

Henry patiently listened as she explained why she looked like a member of the undead at the present moment. To her relief, he didn't seem to think that her reaction was particularly surprising or silly.

"You're not the only one," he promised once she got through her story. "Between you and me, I didn't handle it particularly well when that came out and I didn't even watch it. I think I was on the verge of mental breakdown after a couple of months of constantly seeing the ads for it everywhere."

Now that she was thinking about it, Lily could distinctly remember how much hype there was around that movie building up to its release. All the girls her age were literally counting down the days until the midnight premiere and swarming to Hot Topic to buy tee shirts and posters with Ansel Elgort's face plastered on them. She probably would have been right there with them had that not been the same summer she was caught up in her mental health crisis, but now she was grateful that she had been too preoccupied to care about chick flicks. Henry would have let her ramble on about that dumb movie as much as she liked and maybe even dragged him to see it and not told her that it was bothering him.

Lily felt a tiny bit better knowing that her feelings weren't ridiculous, but regret tugged at her heartstrings.

"I just- I don't know anything about her, Henry. My...my parents aren't like yours. They never treated me like I could handle hearing hard things even when I deserve to know because it's the truth-" More words were spilling out of her than she meant to dump on him right now, but it was dawning on her how much pent-up resentment she felt about always being left in the dark. "-I didn't get to know the truth. No one ever even acted like she existed around me."

"I guess I-" she wiped at her tears and let out a small, bitter laugh. "I know I have it so much easier, but I guess sometimes I get jealous that you got the chance to know her."

Even through the subpar camera quality of a video call, she could see her words spark something sad in his eyes. Like he had never considered that side of her story before. He was completely quiet for a long moment, struggling to find the right words for her just as Liam had.

"She really liked box mac and cheese," he piped up softly. "And purple everything. She was obsessed with drawing with purple crayons and purple crayons only." A tiny wistful smile started to form on his lips. "She was so stubborn, just like you are. And she loved to play astronaut, so when they needed to put her on oxygen we all pretended that it was to get her ready for her space mission. She said she was gonna go to the moon someday. I like to think maybe she did."

As he finished, Lily realized that her cheeks were damp with fresh tears. "Thanks," she managed to whisper, her throat tight and her voice wobbling.

It both broke and healed her heart to hear him tell her some things about his little sister. And to hear that she was right—Sarah totally would have kicked his butt at chemistry.

"I think there are some pictures of you two together if you want to see them," he offered. "I can ask my mom if she knows where they are."

Lily nodded. "Sorry to put such a downer on your day."

"Don't be sorry," he consoled her. "I'm glad you told me. I've spent enough time thinking about all of it that I kind of understand my feelings. It's a lot harder when you don't understand yet. So if you ever need to cry or rant or just be confused about it, I'm here and I'll try to help how I can."

The tight grip of grief on her heart slackened significantly at his words and she took a steady breath. "Thank you."

"And, um..." he added a little more timidly. "I've always been able to see you comparing yourself to her. I don't know why I haven't said anything about it before now, but I don't want to keep sitting here and let you think that I'd choose her over you if I could. You're not an object that can be traded, Lily, you're so much more than that. You're you. And I love you because you're you, not because you remind me of her. I wouldn't trade you for anything. You should know that."

Her heart swelled at his words and her eyes watered with tears again, but they were happy ones this time.

"I love you, too."

After splashing some cool water on her face and patting it dry with a hand towel, she felt ready to return to the living room. She slipped back in as discreetly as she had left, curling back into her spot at Liam's side and putting her head back on his shoulder. She didn't actually watch the movie—she wasn't interested in torturing herself now that she had been assured that her aversion to it wasn't unwarranted. But hearing it as background noise didn't set her off again, so she considered that a win. Liam's hand held onto hers the whole time, a silent reminder to her that he was there for her.

She didn't think that anyone else had given much thought to her prolonged absence until it was time to leave Robin's house that evening. As everyone got up from the couch, stretched their limbs, and started saying goodbyes, Katie discreetly pulled her into the kitchen.

She could tell from her friend's concerned expression that she had pieced two and two together. In the midst of her tempest of emotions, Lily had forgotten that there was already another person in the room who knew about Sarah.

"Are you okay?" Katie asked, making sure to keep her voice low. "The movie..."

Lily nodded, affirming both Katie's suspicion and the fact that she was alright. "I'm okay," she echoed. "Thanks."

Katie gave her a hug, which she gratefully accepted. There was something different and special about hugging your best friend, especially one who you had known for so long. That light perfume scent on her sweatshirt was the same one that had been there since high school. She was Lily's person, the one she would always return to like the tide to the shore no matter how much their relationship ebbed and flowed.

Once they finally broke apart from their long hug, Lily saw Liam leaning against the doorway.

"You ready to go?" he asked her softly.

She nodded and headed out with him after giving Katie another quick goodbye. As they stepped out into the cold, the frosty grass crunching under their footsteps, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket a couple of times.

Once she had climbed into the warmth of Liam's car, she pulled her phone out. She felt herself start to smile when she realized what the notifications were.

"What is it?" Liam murmured from next to her, evidently having noticed her grinning.

"Henry sent me some pictures..."

There were a couple of them. The first appeared to have been taken at a park or maybe the zoo. Lily, probably around two years old, was being carried on her dad's shoulders and next to them was Uncle Robert with Sarah on his. She looked tiny, tinier than someone two years older than Lily should have been, and the knit beanie that covered her head was such a stark contrast to Lily's poofy hair with a giant bow in it. But Sarah had the biggest, toothiest toddler grin on her face like she was having the time of her life. They were all smiling. She could imagine their moms huddled behind the camera, Henry tugging on Aunt Jenny's hand and whining that they were taking too long.

The next one was of the three of them together. This one must have been taken at least a year before the previous one—Sarah had a full head of curls and Lily didn't look any older than one. She stared at Sarah for a moment. She really did look a lot like both Henry and Lily. Her hair was darker than Henry's, the same almost-black shade as Lily's, but curly just like his. Yet what struck her the most out of the whole picture wasn't Sarah at all. The siblings weren't glued to each other's sides. No, little four-year-old Henry wasn't focused on his sister or the camera, but on Lily. She was plopped in his lap and staring up at him blankly, as babies do, but he had his arms around her and was looking at her like he was fascinated with this teeny tiny human he found and wanted to hold onto her.

Lily saved the pictures to her phone, unable to stop herself from feeling happy that she knew for certain that she and Henry were friends all along.

It wasn't, as she had thought for so long, a story of enemies becoming friends. It was a story of two old friends finally finding their way back to each other. 

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