Not a Fairy Tale

Leilani keeps staring at the smoke spiraling out of her mug on the front table in her living room. She wants to throw thousands and millions of

questions at the silent Nevan who's been sitting on the couch opposite to her for the last half an hour. She wants to get out of this mess that's her head.

Writing could help but nothing, not a single word is coming to her tumultuous canvas of a mind right now.

"So, you wanna talk about it?" Nevan finally decides to break the eerily loud silence.

"About what, exactly?" Leilani still refuses to look directly at him. "You know what, Leila."

"Don't call me that." Her jaw slowly tightens.

"My bad! Leilani, quit dodging off the huge-ass elephant in the room." He sounds irritated and edgy.

"Nevan, I don't remember a damn thing." she squeezes her eyes shut. A series of horrible flashbacks invade her mind at once...sirens...screams...hysterical sobbing...whispers....scared faces...red and blue lights flashing.....

"That's what I'm trying to talk about. Do you think you're having those..."

"Those what, Nevan? Those fucking what?" She shoots him a fiery glance.

"See, that's your problem. You don't wanna confront the truth..." He stuffs his hands in his pockets.

"Confront the truth? What do you know about confronting, Nevan? You think you know it all because you've known me since childhood? You're wrong! You still don't know about a hell lot of things..... so please, cut me

some slack and don't feel bad for me or my life. Something you're amazing at doing." she snorts.

Nevan sharply exhales before responding, "Look Leilani, what happened between us back in college doesn't have to do anything with

what's happening now. And yes, I'm pretty sure I know you better than all the guys at work. You have no idea if you tell them about your dissociative disorder, how badly things can go.. on top of it, that stupid Ilona saw you

with Raya that night.. "

"So?"

"So?" Nevan lets out an annoyed laughter, "Mr. Albert Landon would do anything to burry this mess under one of our names..... you might even get arrested if things go too far."

"Do you think I've killed her?" Leilani's voice is quiet this time.

Nevan uncomfortably shifts to the other side of the couch as he moves his hands through his slightly, and no doubt, endearingly disheveled hair.

"You think that, don't you?" Her voice is still levelled and void of emotions.

"No.. no, Leilani. I don't think you're capable of hurting a fly let alone a

human. I do know you have feelings for Alvis and his, well..... his preference-

slash-interest in Raya might have riled you up.. "

"Shouldn't it? Shouldn't it rile me up, Nevan?"

He doesn't dare to look directly at her, "Leilani, I told you before, it's not either your fault or Alvis's for that matter. You are just in different

places in terms of.. interests!"

"Yeah, I see and you know what? You can be a good shrink. Ever considered that for a potentially successful career?" She smiles wryly.

"How long would you hold that against me, Leilani? And I have no clue what went so wrong..."

"You think I'm holding anything against you? How ridiculous." "Then why can't you just let that go and pay attention to the important

stuff that we have to deal with RIGHT now?"

"WE have to? Please, Nevan! If I had anything to do with Raya that night, I'll be happy to get arrested for it. There's no WE."

"I heard you saying 'I'm gonna kill you, bitch' to Raya before you left the living room." He gulps hard clenching his fists briefly before unclenching them.

"I did?"

He nods at the scared, confused and devastated face of his friend.

Suddenly, he feels a twinge of pain in his chest, the pain of letting this girl down 5 years back when all she had was him...when her whole reality was changed within a blink...when he could stay by her side to help her go through the mess that her life turned into.

Two tear drops find their way down her cheeks as Leilani slowly shakes her head, "Nevan, if I really killed Raya over a guy, I'm a monster."

Nevan gets up from the couch and reaches for her arm, "Hey, look at me. I would never believe you could ever do such a thing...don't doubt yourself. Let's talk with your psychiatrist, ok?"

She lazily looks him in the eyes, the same eyes that looked at her with the same kindness, pain and concern when her world was turned upside down. What went wrong?

Nevan inches forward to touch a hand to her face, "You didn't do anything." he manages a whisper.

"How can you be so sure? Remember what I did to my own father?" she starts to sob.

Nevan gulps the lump in his throat before wrapping his arms around her to pull her in a hug. He should never have left.

The raindrops start to pour in the usual London pace before turning into a huge hydrological avalanche. Leilani calmly whispers without moving out of the hug, "You better stay until the rain dies down."

"Yeah, I already decided to..." Nevan knows he should stay for a while. It was raining like crazy that day after all. Leilani doesn't seem to be in the position to handle the flashbacks of heartbreaks and emotional scars alone. He left her once, he'd be the worst friend to do that again.

"Ah shit! I forgot my umbrella." Oriana squints to look through the thick curtain of rain.

"Me too. We should stop falling for the weather forecast again and again." Fabian stuffs his hands in his pockets making Oriana smile.

"Yeah, that's right. Can we run to the tube station really quickly? Gosh!

I feel like a blind person...how can rain look this fierce and extreme!" "Welcome to London, in case nobody officially told you so."

Oriana lets out a brief chuckle, "Yeah thank you."

"That cafe looks closer than the station. We could wait there for a while.

Looks like others are taking shelter there...the owner looks so excited though."

"Of course, he would. Only heartbreaking thing would be if nobody buys anything."

Fabian laughs in reply, "So? Should we?"

"Seems like the only reasonable option, yeah."