FicWad

Chapter 8
I'm Screaming "I Love You So"
Seth’s POV
As the week passed, I began to grow attached to Harold, even though I denied it to Lily. She, however, had completely forgotten about the fish by the time Friday came.
She ran over to my table where I was sitting with Elli that day at lunch.
"Let's go to the art museum this weekend!" she squeaked.
Elli choked on her Monster. I gave her a funny look. Lily sat down next to me.
I had begun to tolerate how much Lily talked. I made a show of rolling my eyes. If I didn't agree to this request, she'd come up with something worse to do. "Fine, but on one condition," I answered.
Elli choked again. I glared at her and thumped her on the back.
"What is it?" Lily’s eyes grew wide with excitement. This was the first time I had said yes for the first thing she had suggested.
"You can't ask me to do anything with you next weekend." I leaned my chair back and gave her a challenging smirk. Elli laughed.
Lily sat back and looked thoughtful for a moment. Then she brightened. "That gives me an idea! But," she added, "If I accept, you have to agree to let me teach you sign language." she smiled. Elli looked at both of us like we were crazy.
I groaned. Lily was always teaching or showing or giving me things. Granted, they usually weren't boring, but still. I made a fake retching sound and Elli and I laughed. "No," I said, sobering up instantly.
Lily made a face. Elli smirked.
I put my hands up. "Hey, I don't have to go."
Lily laughed. "Well, if you don't go, I might have to annoy you on purpose for the rest of the week."
“Oh, God,” Elli interjected. “I’m getting out of here.” And with that, she got up and dumped her tray, walking out of the cafeteria.
It was my turn to make a face.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was out and birds were singing. Even the traffic cones were bright and cheerful. I tried to be gloomy and sullen. Fail.
“Seth, I may be your sister,” Elli had told me earlier, “and you might be the only person I like hanging out with, but there is NO WAY IN HELL that I am going to spend four hours with you and your crazy ass girlfriend.” And that was that.
"The best thing about the art museum is its spacious grounds," Lily told me as she drove. She explained how the museum had been built right in the middle of a forest, so there were a lot of woods to explore. "If we can find some place that's secluded, we can have a picnic." She smiled.
When we reached the museum, she got out and unlocked the trunk of her car. She pulled the picnic basket out of the trunk and handed me a rolled-up blanket. I took it without a comment or sarcastic look, which was unusual for me. I was surprised at myself.
We walked for about three minutes before she spotted a seemingly nonexistent opening in the side of a long line of bushes. She ducked through it and gasped.
“What? What is it?” I asked. I went through the bushes, too, and stopped as soon as I could see what it was she was gasping about.
Before us was a clearing in the forest. There was a manmade pond in the very center with a statue of an almost naked woman with a jar. She was pouring the jar into the water. A butterfly floated around the statue, as the bottom was covered in a vine-like plant. Flowers bloomed from the plant, bright red ones that contrasted with the deep green of the plant itself. At the edges of the clearing there were tulips. Great big pink ones, and pink and white bleeding hearts. To top it all off, the sun drifted through the trees so that shafts of light were clearly visible.
She squealed and ran toward the pond. She bent directly over the water in a comical way, and turned to look at me. “Look!” she cried happily. “There are fish in here!”
I laughed energetically. She was just so genuinely excited about every little thing; it was hard not to laugh. She pulled her shoe off and dipped her toe in the water as I walked up next to her. The fish in the pond were koi, great big ones that opened and shut their mouths in a funny way.
We stood in silence for a while, Lily’s toes still in the water. She giggled and shrieked as a few of the fish nibbled her toes.
I spread out the blanket right next to the pond and we sat down. We ate lunch, Lily jabbering away about the things in the museum. I actually listened a little. Mostly I just ate my sandwich, though.
Lily stopped talking for a while and we finished our lunch in silence. I sighed and lay back on the blanket. I closed my eyes and let the sun warm my face.
“Seth?” Lily asked absentmindedly.
“Mhmm?” I smiled at the sunshine. I could smell the sweet scent of the flowers covering the base of the statue, could hear birdsong from the trees.
“'Fain would I climb, but fear I to fall.' 'If thy heart fails thee, why then climb at all?' That's basically your life summed into two lines.” She laughed.
“Do you always speak in quotes? Don't you ever use your own words?”
“When I can't talk sense, I talk metaphor,” she answered without really answering.
We sat, basking in the sunshine.
“Lily,” I asked cautiously, “do you ever think about death?”
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at me.
“Die, my dear Seth! That's the last thing I'll do,” she answered smartly. I laughed. “No, but, everyone has a funeral. However, my funeral will be different from all the others.”
“How?” I asked curiously.
She laughed. “On the day of my funeral, it will be sunny, and the people will sing and dance, and rejoice in my memory, and I, as a ghost of course, will stand up and give a speech. 'Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!' I will say, and the people will cheer as I fly away, and I will be happy.”
I laughed. Her explanations were never serious. “No, Lily, I'm being serious.”
She thought for a moment, and lay back, staring up at the clouds. “I will die, eventually, Seth. I won't have a long life, I can feel it. I'll have a happy life, oh yes, but it won't last nearly as long as yours will.”
This shocked me. “Lily, what? How do you know that?”
She looked up at me and smiled a small, sad smile. “Come, Seth, no weakness!” she chided. “Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.”
“But, but Lily, I-”
“Sssh.” She placed a finger to my lips.
“Forget not what I have said and when I am gone call it often to mind. The words I speak with reverence, and which you regard with ignorance, will help you someday.” She placed a chaste kiss on my forehead, standing and pulling me up with her.
“Come, we have lingered too long. It's time we ventured home.”

I lay awake in bed that night, thinking about Lily and how different she was from Elli. For some reason, I was bipolar around Lily. I was pretty sure I liked her, but I had such mean thoughts about her. Even when I was rude to her, though, she was totally oblivious. I glanced over at Harold. I was and would be eternally grateful to Lily for getting me Harold, as silly as that sounds. I realized that I needed to be nicer to Lily, even if it didn’t faze her when I was mean.
Elli, however. Elli was the problem. Elli was a total bitch to Lily, and I had no idea why. She also seemed to dislike it when I hung out with Lily. I didn’t like it, and I was determined to make her stop, before she drove away Lily for good.
I turned over and went to sleep.