Lily, the Brave - By Katherine Hodges Page 0,1

over she tried, but it was no use. The dream was over. The morning had come, and she had to face the reality that her parents were gone, and they wouldn’t be coming back. It was a dream. That was all. Blinking back the tears that refused to go away, she hoisted herself into her second-hand wheelchair and began the second worst day of her life.

Chapter 2

By the time Lily was dressed and ready for school her Aunt Jenny was already pouring pancake batter onto a sizzling pan. She stood hovering over the stove in her striped robe with curlers still in her hair. Lily wheeled herself up to the table to pour some orange juice.

“Lillian Harrison, you’re running late again. Today was your morning to make breakfast. Now I won’t have time to get ready,” her aunt said clearly annoyed.

Aunt Jenny seemed to be annoyed a lot lately. The anniversary of the divorce was in just a few days, so Lily wasn’t too surprised. Jenny had married Uncle Max after a whirlwind romance her last year of college. It seemed like a perfect match and the perfect timing. Max was handsome, charming, and everything else Jenny wanted in a man. Everyone thought he was kind and sweet, and he was, but only in public. Max was a salesman by profession, and he did a brilliant job of selling himself. After they were married, he had fooled almost everyone into believing he was a devoted, loving husband and father, but he wasn’t. Nothing was ever good enough for Max. And he made sure his wife and children knew it. He demanded perfection, and if he didn’t get it he resorted to blasting everyone with insults until he was blue in the face. Lily thought that anyone with a shred of self-respect would have left him by the end of the first year, but Jenny loved him and truly believed he could change. She had been so sure that after the children came, things would be different. She had hoped that maybe he would change after the next vacation, party, or anniversary, but he never did. If anything, he got worse. He was never challenged by Jenny, or any friends or family, because everyone was either afraid of him or they didn’t really believe he was like that at home. A couple years ago Jenny showed up at the Harrison house with her two children and a few overstuffed bags. She never went back to him even though at times she wanted to. After all that time, Jenny had finally come to realize that he wasn’t going to change. A month after she moved into the Harrison house, Jenny filed for a divorce. Even though she would never go back to her life with Max, she still seemed to get irritated at every little thing at this time every year. Lily knew it wasn’t really personal, but sometimes it felt that way.

“It looks like I’m going to be late for work again. I really need you to be on top of things. I have a hard enough time getting Jackson and Ruthie out the door. I need you to take more responsibility for getting yourself up and ready in the morning,” Jenny said as she accidentally burnt her finger on the frying pan in front of her.

“Sorry, I’ll try to do better,” Lily said sincerely as her aunt ran her hand under the cool water flowing from the faucet. Sometimes Lily felt like such a burden to her aunt.

“It’s okay,” Jenny said with a sigh. She turned off the water and put her unburned hand on her hip as she stared at Lily.

“I’m definitely not an expert at raising teenagers,” she said patting her hand dry. “I may be expecting too much out of you. I know you try to do everything I ask, and I know it’s hard to get around in your condition, but it would really help me out if you could just be on time. When you’re late, everyone else is late too.”

Lily nodded her head as she stared at the floor. She knew her aunt was right, but whenever she had a dream about her parents, she had the hardest time getting out of bed. She just wanted to go back to sleep and dream it all over again. Lily probably should have told her aunt the reason why she kept getting up so late, but she didn’t want to bother her with it and she

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