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It’s too late to turn back the clock now, but it’s not too late to put things right, should we have to. This is my story.
seventeen-and-a-half, an ordinary teenager,
So u were 12 when u started dating owen?! 12 is absoulte crazy work
Three months ago, I was so deep in love with my boyfriend, whatever definition of “love” I thought was real. I thought Owen was a part of me, that I needed him to survive. We were so comfortable with each other that his presence was just a given, his support inevitable. I loved him; he loved me. And now? You'll find out, I guess. But back to the body.
Top tip: don't get a boyfriend when you're twelve. And if you do, make sure you don't still have that same boyfriend when you're seventeen. Even if it lasts, it'll only end in tears.
If it wasn't for Owen, Lilz wouldn't exist today. Owen made me. He shaped me, twisted me from the meek blonde girl at the back of the classroom into someone sharper, tougher. The kind of girl who could stand up for herself, who was strong, snarky, mean, who didn’t care what people thought, who held respect for her. Still a good person, at heart – with a solid moral compass, great incentive – but a hardened version, a nice girl with a not-so-lovely shell.
That sounds healthy…
Owen was everything to me, an extension of my soul.
He always liked to remind me of that, too. That however much I complained about my family, his would always be worse. It's true.
Owen didn’t know how much I disliked his mum, and it was an unspoken rule that none of us would ever disrespect her.
Until he killed her???
I felt comfortable around Owen, like I didn't have to second-guess myself, our relationship. We could lapse into silence for hours without it feeling awkward, and almost all our spare time was spent together, in my room or his, or down on the beach, in the park. I'd never really had the chance to feel insecure.
I'd never had the chance to care what people thought of me, because Owen liked me, and Owen liking me was enough.
I really did think Owen's soul was made for mine, that we were meant to be together.
But that was why it worked so well. She was the extrovert to my introvert, the pink to my blue. She'd paint my nails crimson while I updated her playlist, and take my Instagram photos while I edited hers. We were total opposites, but that was why it worked. It was why it always had done.
Teenagers, eh? We act like it's the end of the world when minor things happen, when our childish relationships fail. We can't cope with anything bigger until the worst is overtaken by worse, when our brains are forced to stretch out and deal with actual tragedy, crime. Until then, we push the bad stuff out. Pretend… pretend it never happened.
I'll never forget what he said next, how he said it. With such trembling satisfaction, relief… But with the fear of a little boy caught shoplifting, eyes glassy and enraged. “She's dead,” he said, just like that. “We did it, Lilz. Mum's dead.”
We?! Babes who is we?
only tried to do it to make her – her – easier to transport,
I dont know...
Did it cross my mind for even a moment that holding someone – let alone your parent – underwater as they struggled, kicking up a storm, gasping for air, might suggest a lack of empathy, psychopathic tendencies?
My boyfriend was a murderer. We couldn't tell anyone about this, about this day. And we were going to have to try our very best to hide the body.
He could saw his overweight mother in half, but had no idea how to dice or fry an onion. It was almost laughable.
In hindsight, he said that all too quickly. He didn't need a minute or two to think of a plan, figure out where to turn next. He'd… thought about this, thought about how to hide a body, where. Was that just a coincidence? How was I to know? How was I to know anything? I’d never killed anybody before. I’d never hidden a body,
You overestimate how much the world cares about people like us. If anything, Mum's situation makes it easier for us to just… erase her.” Erase her. Like she never existed in the first place.
“Well… it wouldn’t matter, would it? We committed a murder together, and I have evidence of that. So you’re tied to me. I have the power to frame you, dear Lilz. You can’t get out that easy.”
UM GIRL RUNNNNN
“Not all humans. Lilz-shaped humans aren’t bad.” I smiled, I couldn’t help thinking, Little do you know…
but still had on a pair of horrific fake-eyelashes, hanging from each corner.
Lilz is a hater lol
It hit me, then. All of it. The things Mum had jokily tried to get through to me my whole life so far, things she knew I had no interest in hearing. That Vibbington wasn't the be all and end all. That one day, I might wish I'd tried harder in school, applied to university, travelled somewhere new and exciting, met new people, found new opportunities. Maybe… maybe find a new boyfriend, or girlfriend. She never said this out loud – she loved Owen, obviously – but she meant that maybe, just maybe, Owen wasn't all there was for me. That maybe, one day, I’d discover something outside of the
...more
Genuinely my biggest fear. I never want to have a realization like this.
because I was Lilz, and Lilz of June was stupid. Very, very stupid. Maybe the most stupid of them all.
Oh lilz
cried. I don't know why I cried, but I cried. Loz cried too, and we stood outside her building hugging until her mum beeped the horn and they shot off down the road without a look back. I stood there for a while, unsure of what to do, until her dad pulled me in for another hug and offered to get us both a pizza. He understood. He understood what we'd both lost, knew as well as I did that once Loz started her fancy new life in the city, she wouldn't want to come back to crummy Vibbington any time soon. I didn't want to believe it, but I won't pretend our friendship was fairy-tale perfect,
Owen Sharpley was soft, mellow, though he acted calm and collected on the outside, would never show if he was nervous, unsure of himself – apart from with me. Owen Sharpley was my best friend. But he didn't feel like that, now. He felt like a stranger. A cute boy I liked, but would never truly know.
Call me boring, whatever, but I stand by the fact it was my place to judge. They were my friends, and I could see what was unfolding right before my eyes. It was only going to end in tears, and we'd end up even more disjointed than we had been when Loz first left.
I was thinking about Owen in that moment, of course. About Owen, and how devastated I'd be if we ever broke up. How much it would change everything, ruin my life for good. Owen was a part of me. I wasn't sure if I could exist without him by my side. That was the first time it really hit me that losing Owen was a possibility. I'd taken his company for granted my entire life, sure that he'd never leave me, but now, watching Loz and Ethan split up, I could see how two people could grow and change, morphing from a couple into a couple of strangers. It was a hideous thought.
I'd been torn up inside, left for dead. I wasn't the same person who'd gone along with Judy's murder because I had no other option, because loving and supporting Owen was the only thing that made sense. I was more paranoid than that girl, a shell of my former self. I was no longer Lilz, but… Lily. That was who I was becoming. Fearful and fragile, and so terrified of losing my boyfriend that I clung onto him more than ever.
We'd known each other as far back as my memories went; everything started with him.
We'd become the same person, growing together instead of apart.
I'm broken, Lilz. A line. A line, like one from a movie or book. An excuse, and an embarrassing one at that.
took a few for my own memories, of course, silly pictures of him curled up on our sofa bed, laughing at Dizzy for falling in a stream. There was even a photo of him sat in a beer garden, beaming and waving, freckles dark from the sun and hair the perfect shade of floppy dark blonde from a week of highlights and sun-bleached scandal. He looked good in that photo. Good, and not at all like a murderer. Because that's what he was, really. A murderer.
Oh lilz :(
And it gave me hope. Constant hope. Hope that there really was more to life than Owen Sharpley and the love we'd once had, the love I had no idea how to replicate.
They knew, and it made me feel like the most stupid person in the world.
“Oh, don't be a bitch, Lilz,”
Oh the audacity. Pmo so bad
But Owen just smiled and shook his head, and blew me a kiss. “No. We're not.”
Im fuming
Are you surprised?
Um yes
“I gave you the best years of my life, Lilz.” His voice sounds like it's going to crack in half, so I take that as my cue to leave. “And you took mine.”
