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Seeing my eyes go red, Lewis softened his voice.
"This one's on me. It won't happen again."
He reached out and wiped the rain from my face.
"Besides, it's this late and it's pouring. Where else would you go but home?"
He was right. It was the house I'd paid for in full. They were the ones who'd done wrong.
So why was I the one who had to leave?
When I followed Lewis home, Lily was curled up on the sofa in my pajamas, eating fruit.
Seeing me drenched in the doorway, she came over with a show of concern.
"Thank goodness Lewis talked you into coming back. I was so worried you wouldn't have anywhere to stay tonight."
Then she shot a look at Lewis behind me.
"If you hadn't left my legs too weak to stand, I'd have gone after Thelma myself!"
Lewis let out a low laugh, his face lit with a loud, brazen kind of pride.
"So now you know what I can do? And here you were, daring to say I wasn't up to it."
The two of them flirting like no one else existed drove straight into me.
Rage swept through me in an instant.
I stormed into the guest room and threw Lily's suitcase out the door.
"Lily, get out."
Lewis frowned, displeased, his eyes full of blame.
"What are you making a scene about now? Didn't I just explain?"
"You were the one who insisted on taking her in. Now you suddenly want to throw her out? Is your kindness really that cheap?"
I looked at him, cold.
"Lewis, you get out too."
His face went ashen. He opened his mouth to say more, but Lily stopped him.
"Don't make Thelma any angrier. Let's go get a hotel for the night and give her some space to cool down."
For once Lewis obeyed, going back to the bedroom to pack his clothes.
Lily took my hand, her face all earnestness.
"Thelma, we're best friends. I would never try to take Lewis from you!"
"I'm doing this for your own good too. You're buried in work all day and can't take care of him. Sooner or later he'd find someone out there. Isn't it better that I'm the one keeping him satisfied for you?"
Her twisted logic shattered everything I thought I knew about her.
For as long as I could remember, Lily had loved making my decisions for me under the banner of my own good.
She drove off the boy who confessed to me, calling him a toad lusting after a swan.
She kept other girls away from me, saying they were only after something.
Later she tried to change my college applications, and I caught it just in time.
Her excuse then had been all false sweetness. "New York has such a dry climate. I was afraid you wouldn't adjust if you went to school there."
Time after time I'd comforted myself with the thought that Lily just cared about me too much.
So when she came to me for help, I opened my arms and took her in.
And now she lived off my care without a flicker of guilt, and after betraying me she could still declare, righteous as anything, that it was all for my good.
Swallowing my disgust, I said it one word at a time.
"Lily, from this day on, we are not friends."
Lewis came out of the bedroom just in time to see Lily raise her hand and slap herself hard across the face.
Without a word he rushed over and pulled her behind him.
The look he gave me was poisonous.
"Thelma! You know she cares about you more than any friend, and you still humiliate her like this?"
I almost laughed.
"You think one slap settles what the two of you owe me?"
Lily grabbed my hand and tried to force it against her own face.
"Thelma, as long as you're not angry, hit me! I won't fight back!"
I only felt sick of it and yanked my hand back hard.
She let herself fall into Lewis's arms.
His face went ashen at once, and he snarled at me, beside himself.
"Thelma! Don't push it!"
With that, he shoved me hard.
I lost my footing, stumbled, and fell, my lower belly slamming into the corner of the table beside me.
Pain tore through me all at once.
I curled up on the floor, shaking all over from it.
The next second, a warm liquid seeped slowly out from under me.
When Lewis saw what was happening, the color drained from his face.
He bent down and gathered me up, his voice shaking with panic.
"Thelma, don't be scared, I'm taking you to the hospital!"
