Page 167 of Liberating Lily

“Hush. I want to talk to Lily. What’s this bullshit about you not being strong?”

“I’m not strong. I’m not like you.”

“Do you know how many people would have given up after what you’ve been through?”

“I just told you that I nearly did.”

“Yeah, nearly. But instead, you bought a bus ticket, traveled across the country by yourself to come talk to me. How’d you get the money to do any of this? Did you steal it from Harvey?”

“Of course I didn’t. I still had some jewelry and my handbag. I pawned them for a surprisingly good amount of money. That meant I could buy a bus ticket, stay in a couple of motels, and afford that car.”

“Have you got any money left?” Jaret asked.

Hmm, she didn’t really want to reply to that.

“Enough.”

Clem let out a small bark of laughter. “That means you’ve got nothing.” And then she pointed at Lily. “You’re staying here. No arguments.”

“Clem, you really don’t have to do that. All I wanted was to see if maybe we could think about building a relationship, if perhaps you might think about forgiving me.”

Clem wiped her hand through the air. “Nope, nope, none of that.”

Disappointment flooded Lily, even as she told herself that she deserved that reaction.

“No forgiveness needed, and we’re not building a relationship, we already have a relationship. You and me, we’re sisters. We might be different, and there might be things in the past that we wish we’d done differently, but now, we look to the future.”

“Clem, you can’t just forgive me just like that,” Lily told her. “There were things that I did years ago that I shouldn’t have.”

“I grew up in the same household as you did, Lily. I know it wasn’t easy to get through it, and you did what you could.”

“When I could, I’d try to keep her attention off you and on me, so that she wouldn’t pick on you as much. But I could have done more. I should have done more, Clem.”

Clem nodded. “Yeah, well, I should have done more too. So we’re even.”

Lily didn’t think they were in the slightest bit even, but if Clem was going to forgive her, then maybe she should just accept that and move forward.

Lily wiped at her eyes. Clem walked over and stopped in front of her. “We didn’t do much touchy-feely stuff as kids.”

Lily snorted and then covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, I’m so sorry about that.”

Clem snorted. “Don’t worry about apologizing for that. That might be the first thing we have in common.”

“Did we just both snort?” Lily asked her.

“Yep. Got a problem with that?”

Nope. She had no problem at all with that.

“There were no hugs from our parents when we did well or fell over and hurt ourselves.”

“Which you did a lot,” Lily said with a small smile.

“Still do,” Clem told her with a smile back. “But I was wondering if you wanted a hug now.”

Lily stared up at her for a long moment, blinking.

“Or not,” Clem said, taking a step back and her face shutting down.