open up my hands (and find out they're empty)
Title: open up my hands (and find out they're empty)
Characters: Lily, Lily/Owen.
Rating/Word Count: G / 940.
One-Line Excerpt: Is this the part where you fall in love with me?
First love only happens once.
Unfortunately, she’s still too young to realize the magnitude of that statement.
Their first meeting is unplanned, not choreographed like the rest of her life.
It’s refreshing, albeit frightening, so she takes his offer and his hand.
Is this the part where you fall in love with me?
They almost-kiss at the least opportune time.
His smile is crooked, his dancing is awful; she’s wearing her sister’s clothes, her hair looks like a mess - not to mention they’re crashing some party.
Not so many hours before, the thought of even being near a boy like him repulsed her. But now, with his face leaning closer to hers with every passing second, she thinks he’s not so bad.
Yet she’s glad when it’s interrupted.
She’s not supposed to want boys like this - ones who wipe counters for a living or wear leather jackets or drive beat up cars - but a part of her wants to.
(A part of her already does.)
Oh, it is, isn't it?
It's fast and furious, their relationship. She falls hard and ungracefully, watches him do the same.
Their love is simple and uncomplicated despite their vastly different pasts.
You’re totally falling in love with me.
She never thought it wouldn't last.
All that money comes with strings attached, people treat you differently.
Even though she wants to be just like her big sister, she’s terrified of running headfirst into the unknown; of walking down a path that she doesn’t recognize, one she hasn’t known her whole life.
It’s nice to be on her own, living her life spontaneously as it comes. Being a teenage girl instead of a prop for her parents to fight over or a trophy for them to show off.
But sometimes she wants to be Lily Rhodes again: she misses getting her way and never being afraid of what she’d end up like.
Yeah, better.
As much as she used to hate it, having her life planned made everything so easy. Sometimes she wants all that back, even if it means losing what she’s never had before.
But then Owen smiles at her and kisses her, and the world stops spinning but her heart doesn’t stop pounding.
Do you have any idea how much you sound like mom right now?
Her mother meets Owen a few months after they start dating.
(By accident, of course; Lily would never let that happen on purpose.)
Cece takes one look at him - in his leather jacket and with his untidy hair - and tosses him a glance she usually saves for staff.
And when she looks at Lily, it’s even worse. There’s disappointment there, seeped into every yet un-Botoxed line of her face.
She is not the same girl anymore.
It’s over soon after.
She doesn't know the how or the details, but her mother puts an end to it easily, like she does with everything that wasn’t part of her plan.
Lily cries herself to sleep for a week; Carol’s comforting hand on her back, soothing away the hurt of first heartbreak.
It doesn’t help. Lily can barely remember what was before Owen, she doesn’t want to either.
She doesn’t want to be Lily Rhodes anymore if he means she can’t have him.
That's the thing, mom. Those are your dreams.
When she finally realizes that that she cannot hold onto the past anymore, she stops crying and tries to moves on.
Lily wipes the tears away, looks at herself in the mirror - really looks, long and hard at the reflection staring back at her. It takes a few moments, but eventually she finds the girl she once was.
She closes her eyes tightly, takes a deep breath; she promises herself she will not make the same mistakes, will not be that girl again.
When she opens her eyes, she doesn't recognize herself.
(But that's the whole point, isn't it?)
Not mine.
She doesn’t return any of her parents’ phone calls, relies on her sister to tell them that she’s alive and (relatively) well.
Lily thinks of calling Owen, leaving him dozens of messages filled with desperate pleas of I-love-you's, I'm-sorry's, I'm-not-that-girl's.
But she never does.
I never wanted to turn out like my mother.
Eventually there’s another boy - after Owen, between others - who manages to steal her heart.
This love is powerful, stronger than she ever imagined; creeping up on her, finding it's way into her very bones and staying there. It makes her heart race and her breathing still - she hasn’t felt this way in years.
She puts thoughts of anyone else behind her, and leaves Lily Rhodes in the past.
(But sometimes the feelings gnaw at her, tug on her heartstrings. Sometimes with each chord of a guitar string or boom of bass matching perfectly in time with her heart, she swears she hears his voice.
Sometimes she even really wishes she did.)
I'm just doomed to repeat my mother's mistakes.
On her wedding day - her first and last and every one in between - she thinks of him. Wonders where he is and what he’s doing. She wonders if he still has that crooked smile that lit up her whole world, or that unkempt hair she loved to push away, or the leather jacket that fell around her shoulders.
(She wonders if he’d use those ridiculous dance moves at their wedding.)
As she grows older, the wrinkles deepening and the hair graying, she thinks of him less often.
But he’s always there, lingering in her fading memory. He'll always be a part of her, taking up space inside her heart and mind: the boy who first stole her heart, who taught her how to be free.
She wonders where that boy is.
(Even though it’s been more years than she can remember, he’ll still remain the same boy in her eyes.
And maybe, sometimes when she closes her eyes, she can still see that smile and it still lifts her heart.)
Characters: Lily, Lily/Owen.
Rating/Word Count: G / 940.
One-Line Excerpt: Is this the part where you fall in love with me?
First love only happens once.
Unfortunately, she’s still too young to realize the magnitude of that statement.
Their first meeting is unplanned, not choreographed like the rest of her life.
It’s refreshing, albeit frightening, so she takes his offer and his hand.
Is this the part where you fall in love with me?
They almost-kiss at the least opportune time.
His smile is crooked, his dancing is awful; she’s wearing her sister’s clothes, her hair looks like a mess - not to mention they’re crashing some party.
Not so many hours before, the thought of even being near a boy like him repulsed her. But now, with his face leaning closer to hers with every passing second, she thinks he’s not so bad.
Yet she’s glad when it’s interrupted.
She’s not supposed to want boys like this - ones who wipe counters for a living or wear leather jackets or drive beat up cars - but a part of her wants to.
(A part of her already does.)
Oh, it is, isn't it?
It's fast and furious, their relationship. She falls hard and ungracefully, watches him do the same.
Their love is simple and uncomplicated despite their vastly different pasts.
You’re totally falling in love with me.
She never thought it wouldn't last.
All that money comes with strings attached, people treat you differently.
Even though she wants to be just like her big sister, she’s terrified of running headfirst into the unknown; of walking down a path that she doesn’t recognize, one she hasn’t known her whole life.
It’s nice to be on her own, living her life spontaneously as it comes. Being a teenage girl instead of a prop for her parents to fight over or a trophy for them to show off.
But sometimes she wants to be Lily Rhodes again: she misses getting her way and never being afraid of what she’d end up like.
Yeah, better.
As much as she used to hate it, having her life planned made everything so easy. Sometimes she wants all that back, even if it means losing what she’s never had before.
But then Owen smiles at her and kisses her, and the world stops spinning but her heart doesn’t stop pounding.
Do you have any idea how much you sound like mom right now?
Her mother meets Owen a few months after they start dating.
(By accident, of course; Lily would never let that happen on purpose.)
Cece takes one look at him - in his leather jacket and with his untidy hair - and tosses him a glance she usually saves for staff.
And when she looks at Lily, it’s even worse. There’s disappointment there, seeped into every yet un-Botoxed line of her face.
She is not the same girl anymore.
It’s over soon after.
She doesn't know the how or the details, but her mother puts an end to it easily, like she does with everything that wasn’t part of her plan.
Lily cries herself to sleep for a week; Carol’s comforting hand on her back, soothing away the hurt of first heartbreak.
It doesn’t help. Lily can barely remember what was before Owen, she doesn’t want to either.
She doesn’t want to be Lily Rhodes anymore if he means she can’t have him.
That's the thing, mom. Those are your dreams.
When she finally realizes that that she cannot hold onto the past anymore, she stops crying and tries to moves on.
Lily wipes the tears away, looks at herself in the mirror - really looks, long and hard at the reflection staring back at her. It takes a few moments, but eventually she finds the girl she once was.
She closes her eyes tightly, takes a deep breath; she promises herself she will not make the same mistakes, will not be that girl again.
When she opens her eyes, she doesn't recognize herself.
(But that's the whole point, isn't it?)
Not mine.
She doesn’t return any of her parents’ phone calls, relies on her sister to tell them that she’s alive and (relatively) well.
Lily thinks of calling Owen, leaving him dozens of messages filled with desperate pleas of I-love-you's, I'm-sorry's, I'm-not-that-girl's.
But she never does.
I never wanted to turn out like my mother.
Eventually there’s another boy - after Owen, between others - who manages to steal her heart.
This love is powerful, stronger than she ever imagined; creeping up on her, finding it's way into her very bones and staying there. It makes her heart race and her breathing still - she hasn’t felt this way in years.
She puts thoughts of anyone else behind her, and leaves Lily Rhodes in the past.
(But sometimes the feelings gnaw at her, tug on her heartstrings. Sometimes with each chord of a guitar string or boom of bass matching perfectly in time with her heart, she swears she hears his voice.
Sometimes she even really wishes she did.)
I'm just doomed to repeat my mother's mistakes.
On her wedding day - her first and last and every one in between - she thinks of him. Wonders where he is and what he’s doing. She wonders if he still has that crooked smile that lit up her whole world, or that unkempt hair she loved to push away, or the leather jacket that fell around her shoulders.
(She wonders if he’d use those ridiculous dance moves at their wedding.)
As she grows older, the wrinkles deepening and the hair graying, she thinks of him less often.
But he’s always there, lingering in her fading memory. He'll always be a part of her, taking up space inside her heart and mind: the boy who first stole her heart, who taught her how to be free.
She wonders where that boy is.
(Even though it’s been more years than she can remember, he’ll still remain the same boy in her eyes.
And maybe, sometimes when she closes her eyes, she can still see that smile and it still lifts her heart.)