Lillies, Vol. 2

It was six o'clock in the evening. We were standing inconspicuously next to an old stone building. It was used as an boutique shop, selling upmarket bags and trendy clothing. I had never been inside, yet in a way I owed a great deal to this shop for being here. I checked my watch, it was five past six, and like clockwork the lights inside went off, the steel shutters went down and the door locked. Just to be sure I waited five more minutes then signalled to Lily that we should get moving.

We were dressed almost entirely in shades of black. Black t-shirts and grey hoodies, black leggings and black jeans. As we entered a secluded alley that entwined the back of the shop, I wrapped a black scarf around my face. I didn't bother with such antics when I usually came here, but for Lily's sake, I thought some theatrics wouldn't hurt.

The back of the shop told a much different story than the contemporary, stylish front. Bags of discarded and unsold clothes lay sprawled out on a squalid floor filled with bubblegum and cigarette stubs. Some of the bags were tied up, but in some the ties had come undone and the clothes spewed out like some regurgitating monster.

"Jesus this place is grim" Lily said, her hand covering her nose. I mumbled in agreement as I took a long, thin wire out of my pocket. The wire was wider at one end to allow a firm grip, and thinned at the other end to no more than the width of a pencil tip. At this end the wire bent itself at right angles into a hook. The device was simple, yet effective. It was a lockpick.

Lily stood a few steps behind me. Although my attention was fixed on the lock of the door, I knew she had her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, and that she was scrutinising me. Lily's scepticism was completely reasonable, for I had sent her a single text message two hours ago asking her to meet me along that street at six in black clothing, and had not let out a word of explanation since.

The lock turned with a satisfying click. I opened the door with a kind of carelessness you'd not expect from someone who just had to pick a lock, but I knew no one was in the building, and that no one apart from Lily was watching. "Did you just break in to a shop?" Lily asked, her voice quiet but obviously amused.

"Yeah, time to reveal to you my big secret. I'm actually a master thief. All the presents I get you? They all come from here" I say, turning to her.  Lily raised her eyebrow, not believing a word of it.
'Master thief who can't even keep a straight face, uh huh' she says, smiling coyly.  Lily takes the few steps between us and ushers me through the door.

"I'm surprised you're so okay that we just broke in."
"You broke in, I'm just a helpless witness" she says. She pauses and looks me in the eyes. "I trust you have good intentions." I nod eagerly, a huge smile on my face.
"Follow me."

The door that I picked did not lead to the shop directly, but to a small entrance way. Another door, one more securely bolted, separated us from the contents of the shop. The entrance way was not entirely pointless however. Aside from being another place where bags of clothes were dumped, a small staircase led to the top of the building. It was long, spindly and creaked under our weight. We ascended slowly with careful steps.

At the top was another door. "No one apart from me ever comes up here. They don't even bother locking this door." I say, pushing it open. As I step out onto the rooftop the cold early autumn air greeted me. "Welcome to my little secret spot" I say. Lily stood there, mouth agape and eyes wide. She looks at the pile of books tucked under tarpaulin. She looks at the hammock tied between the chimney and the wall. She looks as the speakers hidden under plant pots, the portable gas cooker and the two cat beds. She walks to the edge of the rooftop and looks out onto the city we lived in. The sun was low on the horizon and painted the sky with a gorgeous regal red. The people down below, oblivious to our watching, were no more than blots of ink along streets that looked like valleys and fields like canvas. You could watch each individual dot as it weaved itself through the city or you could watch the ebb and flow of crowds like blood trickling through veins. I joined Lily by the edge and together we stared at the view until she broke the silence a minute later.

"This is fucking amazing." she says. I burst out into laughter.
"Lips of an angel, mouth of a brute" I say and she smiles. I take off my rucksack and lay the contents of it on the floor of the rooftop. Sandwiches wrapped in clingfilm. Sushi and dumplings in plastic containers. Tea and hot chocolate in thermos flasks. As the last rays of sunlight for the day fell onto the city, we sat, and we ate in silence.

It had been years since I had felt uncomfortable in silence with Lily. With others, I would begin to feel an ache in my stomach or a lump in my throat. Maybe my face would go red as the blood rushed to my brain, thinking how unequivocally awkward this was. Not with Lily. With her, it felt like another type of being alone, like there was no one there to please or impress - I didn't have to keep my guard up. It wasn't as if we had nothing to say to each other, we just enjoyed the silence once in a while. Being up in our heads, surrounded by our own thoughts, it was peaceful.

It was eight o'clock and we were lying together in the hammock. The light breeze rocked us gently from side to side. Lily laid on top of me and I could hear the beating of her heart slow as she slipped into layers of sleep. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and pushed herself further on top of me, using my chest as leverage. She looked at me with curious, cat-like eyes.

"Why now?" she said.
"What?" I said.
"Why are you showing me this place now?"
"I thought you'd like it"
Lily smiled, letting out some air onto my face. She knew that I was dancing around the question, and I smiled back. I knew that she knew.
"I do like it." she says. "I love this place in fact, and I'm so happy you showed it to me. But why now, and not yesterday? Why now, and not a year ago?"
"This was always my personal place. I didn't want anyone to take it away from me, or to taint it in any way. Believe me, I wanted to show you it. Every birthday, every valentine's, I would think 'why don't I just show her?' But this place became an intimate part of me." I paused for breath, not really knowing what would come out of my mouth next. "I guess I didn't want to make myself vulnerable, because I always doubt my relationships. It takes a lot of time for me to get comfortable around a person. It's funny, I was absolutely over the moon about you, but still there's always some doubt in me. I'm not a very trusting person I guess."
"Relationships are built on trust though." Lily says, her voice firm but gentle.
I let out a sigh. "I know, I know. I guess it's why I could never rush into them. Not that I didn't rush my fair share of relationships... but they crashed and burned as quickly as they started."
"Is this why you waited so long before asking me out?"
"Yeah I suppose so. I mean, at first I didn't really even see you as an interest. You were kinda out of my league and like ho-" I paused. "Hang on, you asked me out."
"What!" Lily said, laughing. "I definitely did not."
"You definitely did, remember you made me take you out to dinner for finding Coffee."
"Uh huh, you took me out for dinner. Seems fairly cut and dry to me."
"You basically guilted me into it" I said, stifling giggles. "You know, to this day I still think you kidnapped Coffee."
Lily grinned. "Oh don't flatter yourself you weren't worth the effort. What about when we decided to become official then?" she said, changing tack.
"Yeah what about it?"
"You were the one that brought up the topic."
"You were so gonna bring it up any day though."
"Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't"
We stared at each other for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. It was that kind of ridiculous laughter that surprised you because you didn't know you could laugh like this. It was that kind of laughter where you had to stop mid-way to catch a breathe to continue laughing. It was the kind which lasted full on minutes, and when you stopped your ribs hurt  and everything felt a bit too serious.
"So..." Lily said, after we had composed ourselves. "What does it mean then, the fact that you showed this place to me?"
"It means I don't doubt this anymore."
Lily looked at me. Her green eyes shone in the dark night sky, reflecting the glow of the city below. The wind had picked up and it blew her crimson hair across her face. She had a smile on her lips.
She laid her head down on my chest and muttered into the inside of my hoodie. "Only took you two years". I took my hand and ran it through her hair.
"Told you I was a slow one."

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