Score: Farewell - Rihanna

Lydia

I stand on the platform with my suitcases by my side, waiting for the doors of the Eurostar to open.

I love taking the Eurostar to Paris. I've always marveled at the engineering put into this facility, for the sole purpose of connecting people. Of connecting entire nations. I love the idea that people decided to dig under the ocean to get closer together.

Yet, I am running away.

After Theodora's friendly visit, I made a major decision. Staying in London is just plain complicated for me now. I'm not getting back to my dad's, and Alex is going to Birmingham for university in a couple of days. Despite what she says, about me staying there, while she's away, I don't feel comfortable with that.

Also, I really miss my mum.

So, I decided to go and stay with her for as long as it takes for me to figure out what the hell am I going to do with my life.

Even if it means never coming back.

I packed all my bags and left Alex's, asking her not to tell anyone, especially my dad and Mark, where I'd gone.

A fresh start. That's what I need. I need to be separated physically from this city, which has the tendency to both ruin and elevate lives.

Going away without telling anyone, but Alex, where I'm going has other pros, too. Like, no more unwanted visits. Because the Casterlys would easily make the trip to come and find me, being creepy as they are.

We were called for boarding, which means that there are about twenty minutes prior to departure now, and I'm standing on the edge of the platform. I take my phone out of my back pocket and open my Instagram.

A pang of disappointment stings my chest, as I scroll down my feed, but see nothing from Mark.

Well, of course, there's nothing from him, because you blocked him, silly, I have to remind myself.

I lift my head up and look left and right, biting my lip, as if worried that someone will catch me doing something that I shouldn't be doing. The platform is fairly full, but nobody seems to be paying attention to me.

So, with trembling fingers, I type Mark's name into the search bar and wait.

His feed pops on my screen and I squint my eyes like I'm looking at something that I shouldn't.

Nothing. His last post is a photo of us from his father's wedding.

My eyes tear up when I look at the photo. We both look so happy and so...in love, in it. My cheeks, burning with the rosy glow that the Greek sun had given me. Mark's head tilted, so that his eyes are fixed on me, and the emotion, streaming from his gaze tangible, even though it's only a photo.

My throat constricts painfully. I need to work to swallow around the lump that's stuck there.

The wedding seems like a lifetime ago, and yet it's been less than three weeks. But I've learned the hard way that hurting someone only takes a mere second. And then their whole life tastes bitter.

I heave a sigh and close the app, before putting my phone back into my pocket.

The indicator next to the door of the train flashes, indicating that the doors are now open, and the door begins to slide, as a robotic voice blares through the intercom, informing the passengers that the train will leave in fifteen minutes. I bend down, shuffling into one of my bags to retrieve my iPad. I want to watch something to distract me during the trip.

As I am bent down over my suitcases, my eyes catch a pair of battered pink Balenciaga sneakers right in front of me. I frown and my eyes move up the toned, cycle-shorts-clad legs of the owner of said sneakers, and then further up a crop top, revealing a strip of flat, tanned stomach, until my gaze is met with Gloria's blazing green eyes.

Her arms are folded over her chest and her hair is braided into two Dutch braids.

I squint my eyes and lift myself up.

"Gloria?" I say, almost expecting her to be a trick of my imagination and to evapourate in a puff of smoke. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm putting some sense into your head," she says, taking a step forward. "What do you think?"

A frown pulls my eyebrows together.

"How did you find out I was here," I say, folding my arms over my chest in turn.

"Alex," she states the obvious. "I told her that I'd never speak to her, or Nate, again, if she didn't tell me where you were," she says and my frown deepens.

Damn it, Alex, not good enough!

"I also told her that, if you went away, you'd be lost for the both of us," Gloria shrugs. "Not just me."

Okay, I have to admit it, she's good.

"How the fuck did you get past the security check?" I snap, stunned.

"I bought a ticket," Gloria says, lifting her hand and showing me the piece of paper. "How else?"

"What, now?" I can't believe her! Last-minute tickets are much more expensive than pre-booked ones, not to mention that there is the chance that there won't be any available at all.

"What are you doing, Lydia?" Gloria asks, unfolding her arms and dropping them by her sides. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to stay with my mum," I say, clutching the handle of my suitcase for emotional support with one hand.

"Great," Gloria says to my surprise. "Greet Aunty Lizzie from me. When are you coming back?"

She's really good.

My gaze drops to my feet.

"I don't know, Glo. I need to figure myself out."

"So, you're running away," Gloria says, placing her hands on her hips.

I flinch as her words echo my thoughts from earlier.

"I'm not running away, Gloria. I need some time."

"And is this 'some time'", she draws air quotes with her fingers in the air, "going to turn into months and years, until you don't know who you are anymore?" She shoots a perfectly laminated eyebrow up.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I shout, not able to contain my anger anymore.

"I think you know what I mean, Lydia. When things don't turn the way you want them to, you just run away," Gloria says, throwing her arms up in the air.

"I do not!" I hiss through gritted teeth.

"Your track record speaks different, baby," Gloria says, fanning the fingers of her left hand out in front of her. "You have a fight with Patrick? You run." She folds one finger. "You have a fight with your father, you run. You fail an exam, you run. Your dad goes broke? You run. You get your heart broken by your best mate? You. Fucking. Run." She squeezes through her teeth, folding the last finger.

"I'm not running!" I full-on scream at her this time. We are attracting way too much attention right now, but I can't be bothered. A beat passes before I can speak again, a sob threatening to choke me. "I just want to see my mum."

"Go on, then, go and visit," Gloria says, pointing to the train door behind my back. "But then come back and start fighting, baby. Get your life back. Stand up for yourself for once. Don't just run away and hide in France." She puts her palms together under her chin. She looks like she's praying. Begging me to stay. And Gloria never fucking begs. Ever.

"It's easy for you to say it," I look her straight in the eye, with all the malice I am capable of. "But not all of us are as lucky as you are, Gloria. You and your perfect little life are not exactly what happens to the average person, you know."

Gloria's eyes go wide and her cheeks momentarily blush. She's angry. I know that look.

"Wow," she says, throwing her arms up in the air and letting them drop down to her hips with a loud slap. "Just...wow! I knew you were up your own ass, Lydia, but I hadn't realized how far up."

Another frown scrunches my face. I'm definitely getting wrinkles at twenty-five at this pace. One more reason emotions are fucking stupid.

"Do you realize who you are talking to, Lydia?" Gloria takes another step forward. Instinctively, I step back. She looks pissed off. "My mum just got out of rehab," another step forward. "My dad is filing custody claims for Petra that he's most certainly going to win, because my mum is a coke addict," another step forward. I take another step back, but I'm afraid my leg might get caught up in the gap between the platform and the train. "And that doesn't even cover the events of last year!"

Gloria and Liam had a very messed up relationship in the beginning. They had to sneak around and hide for a long time, because of Liam's double life as a computer game streamer and the son of a member of parliament. Not to mention they hated each other, before...well, before they didn't anymore.

"Patrick was right about one thing, Lydia. You just love the damsel in distress role so much, don't you? Oh, look at me," Gloria's voice rises up a notch, as she goes into a very poor personification of me. "'Look at me! My dad's a drunken asshole! My mum's depressed! My best friend's so obsessed with me that he bet me for fifty grand! On, no, love, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, but I won't fucking talk to you if you don't, either!'"

I shake my head, as the hot sting of tears pricks my eyes. Gloria's words are ringing inside of my head. I need her to stop.

"Please, Gloria..."

But she has no mercy.

"Before you walk around labeling people, Lydia, get your head out of your ass, and have a look around. The real world might actually surprise you."

A sharp sob escapes my lips, as I screw my eyes shut, trying to contain the tidal wave that's threatening to crash over me.

But it's too late for that. Gloria's right. Her words hit exactly where she planned them to.

How could I have been so self-centered? How did I not see that my friends needed me as much as I needed them? I'd been too carried away with my relationship with Mark that I wasn't there for Gloria, while Auntie Dee was in rehab and Matthew took Petra in.

How did I end up like...like my dad? Clingy, yet pushing everyone away by not letting them in? Sticking my head in the sand, and, well, yeah, running away from my problems?

I have grown completely unconcerned with everyone else, but myself, and maybe Mark.

I fucking hate myself for it right now.

"I am so sorry, Glo," I say, my voice trailing off at the last word, as a sob chokes me.

The hot tears roll freely from my eyes and down my cheeks now, blurring my vision, but I feel Gloria's arms wrap around my shoulders.

"Please, Glo...I'm sorry..."

"I know, baby," she whispers into my hair.

"I just...I just don't know what to do with all this pain, Gloria," I sob into the crook of her neck, my body shaking violently. "I've never known what to do with pain. I've always shut it off, locked it away...But now, all it's finally catching up with me, and I don't fucking know what to do with it!"

"I don't know, either, baby," Glo's hand stills on the nape of my neck, and she cradles my shaking body with hers. "But we can figure it out together. We don't have to have all the answers, Lyds. We're eighteen. We are allowed to make mistakes. Better do it now, before we turn into our parents..."

A full-body sob rips from my chest, and then I still in Gloria's arms, reveling in her warmth, in the cloud of Dior Sauvage, enveloping us in our own separate reality.

We stay like this, a mess of arms and hair, and emotion, and tears, until I hear the train leave the platform behind my back.

Weirdly, I feel strangely relieved. Like, along with the train went my self-pity and lack of empathy.

When Gloria and I break apart, the platform is deserted. We are now the only ones, standing there.

I wipe the tears off my cheeks before I lift my gaze to meet Gloria's eyes. Her eyes are now the green of summer grass, a stark contrast to the green flames of hell that were burning there just a moment ago.

"What am I going to do now, Glo?" I ask, defeated.

A wicked smile splits Gloria's face into two. She lifts her eyebrow and points a black-painted nail at my suitcase.

"Pick up your bags, babe," she says, bending at the waist and picking up a bag herself, before flinging it over her shoulder. "You're coming with me."