The Story of Lily

Part II

Out of breath, the man Lily noticed as she stepped into the intersection, continued to run toward her about a few blocks behind. His heart beat rapidly as he chased the wind, making invisible footprints, more faint with each step. He lifted his black well-polished pointed dress shoes off the sidewalk. He bumped into the young jogger, knocking him to the ground, pursuing Lily as quickly as he could. The 6’ 1’’ light skin – toned African American carried his 220lbs flawlessly as he saw Lily enter the intersection.
“Lily!!” he yells as loudly as his lungs would allow.
Lily stepped into the intersection, somewhat panicked, when an SUV made an illegal U-turn, making its way in Lily’s direction. The vehicle came so close that the right taillight brushed against her t-shirt. She stood still in the middle of the street and gasped. That one second seemed an eternity as she gathered herself and swallowed her anger and disgust.
“Lily!” the man shouted again as he got closer. She heard her name being called. She took her eyes off the SUV that kept moving, the driver unaware of how close he had come to killing someone. She frantically made her way across the intersection and snatched off the watch she was wearing while rapidly pacing, dropped the watch on the ground, made an immediate right turn and started running. She looks back but did not see the man anymore.
Her red high heels in her hand and bare feet to the pavement, “You are miserable. You are nothing like I imagined. Can you at least support me better and be home at a decent time? And for the last time, stop calling my phone all times of day!”
All the thoughts she heard him telling her daily. She ran as fast as she could but all she could remember were  the vocal mental needles of words he used to penetrate her mind, taking from her every single day. The thoughts kept attacking her mind while she ran. She was emotionally overwhelmed.
“How could you be so stupid? Huh? It makes me sick. You and your mother are just alike. You’re pathetic!”
The thought became so prevalent and strong that each foot she raised off the ground to run, would overwhelm her thought processes. They overshadowed her judgment, her thinking and reasoning.
“I want you to love me! Can you do that, Lily! Jesus, please can you just stop crying? I am not hurting you. Go upstairs in the bedroom! Now! Lily”  
Her grandmother’s necklace bounced against her lower chin as the thoughts, one after the other, plagued her brain. She did not care about dropping a shoe. She did not care that the sky was so filled with precipitation. The air became warm.  The wind whistled and blew steadily. It almost knocked her off balance as she slowed to turn around and look behind her. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her white t-shirt as she came to a slow jog.
“Yet, you want to be married!”
She could still hear him laughing after he said that. ‘There is no modeling agency that would WANT a weak pathetic human…”
(BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.) Lily ignored the horn someone was blowing and could hear echoes of him saying “human” in the forefront of her mind. She stopped running and stood in someone’s driveway, preventing them from exiting.
(BEEP. BEEP.)  Lily ignored the horn.
(BEEP. BEEP. BEEEEEEEEEEP.)  She ignored it still. Lightning struck the lining of the sky but made no sound. Raindrops splashed on the shallow, resentful, defeated Lily. Her anguish and tension swelled inside and turned into rage.
(BEEP.)
The driver got out of his sportscar, simultaneously hitting the button to activate the sunroof on the two-door convertible that looked like something out of an outer space museum. He saw Lily standing behind his car, like a stalker awaiting revenge in a horror film. She stood there, turned around and made eye contact. Her eyes were filled with the color red. The rain began to fall heavily. The tiny raindrops began to redo her makeup. It was water based, running down her cheeks and chin.
“Get out of here,” the guy yelled, a short, stocky, bald but confident male with an animated voice, projecting in Lily’s direction, to get off his driveway.
Not saying one word, Lily just stood there, breathing inward, then outward.
“Call the cops, Honey,” the husband told his wife.
His wife was sitting in the car.
“Honey, I said call the cops!” he says again.
His wife looked in the rearview mirror and saw Lily walking slowly up the driveway, breathing heavily. Panicking, she got out the car. “Babe let’s go inside. Let’s go inside now!” she shouted to her husband.
“No! This is my property! This is my house!” he shouts back.
“Now! Let’s go, babe!” she shouted again to her husband.
The husband saw the desperation on his wife’s face…and listened. He quickly turned around, almost as if he was now fearing for his life and took the keys out the car. He turned to look at Lily as it poured down rain. She just stood next to the back of their car making a deadly blank stare. The husband walked backward up the steps, carefully watching Lily.
“Call the cops,” he again told his wife, but she was already in their house. His wife grabbed him and pulled him inside. “I know her,” she whispers.
“What?” he asked.
“I know her. I know who she is,” his wife told him as she slam the front door shut.