Even after the clock struck witching hour, Lilac refused to cut it short. She read every page and recited every detail, only pausing when Milla asked for the meaning of a word. Lilac didn't dare curtail anything Carol had written.
Week one.
Milla just sat on the treehouse floorboards, occasionally shifting her arms and legs. She was quick to put an end to her snickering when Lilac eventually got to the silly parts of Carol's journal. Lilac didn't laugh, she didn't even smile. Milla wanted to know why.
Week two.
Milla began asking Lilac about what Lilac found important in all this, mostly because she really didn't understand her friend's facial expressions.
"You care about Carol, right?" She'd say.
Milla nodded.
"Then… then let's keep reading."
So for the first time in what seemed like forever, Milla allowed herself to forget about how late it was.
Week five.
It was at this point that Lilac was reading through pages she didn't recognize, over words and activities that she didn't get to skim before. Each sentence resonated with something deep inside of her, like Lilac had always known what the words were, but not what they meant.
"Carol…"
Milla perked her ear.
Lilac was calling out to the journal's author after every other page, Milla intently shut her eyes.
Week nine, page fifty nine.
Lilac bit her trembling lip before turning to her last stop. Her friend took notice of her pause.
Page sixty.
When the words hit her ears, Milla's eyes shot open and became wide as if she'd seen a ghost. Lilac kept orating them even after her lips began to coat with salty tears. Lilac felt nauseous again. Milla wanted to cry, but didn't. Maybe there was still a chance she would.
Lilac couldn't believe that she missed it. The words felt so wrong, but Lilac couldn't deny the reality she was in. Even after she saw what seemed like Carol's darkest moments, her own inner demons was something that never crossed her mind. The way Carol always was made her feel calm, safe and able to disarmingly unravel any crisis or heartache... It was all fake, Lilac thought. It was all a facade.
This journal wasn't just a reflection of Carol's anxiety, it was a reflection of Lilac's too.
As she read the last word, on the page Lilac shut the journal shut and looked to Milla.
"Milla… what are we supposed to do?" Lilac wiped away her tears. "What… what am I supposed to do?"
"Y-you're asking me!?" Milla said, eyes bloodshot but not yet wet, "Why does Carol want to die!? I don't even know why someone would want to do that!" Her words crumbled with despair.
"I don't know, I don't know!" Lilac sobbed, hands quivering with every word, "I'm getting really tired of saying these words, Milla, but I don't!" After her sentence sunk in, Milla threw herself onto Lilac and collapsed onto the floor.
Lilac let her friend cry until her body was weak and numb, but she couldn't tell whether she was out of tears or she just felt hollow. When she lifted her own head, she saw that Milla's eyes were pools of emotion. There was a small comfort in Lilac knowing that Milla understood the gravity of Carol's feelings. Then she grabbed Lilac's hand and gripped it.
"Carol wouldn't!" Milla said, tears still flowing from her eyes, but she was still able to speak, "I… I don't want her to hurt herself, Lilac!" Milla shivered, her free hand clawing her chest and then her neck.
Lilac whispered over her friend's hysterical sobs before wrapping an arm around Milla's shoulder and embracing her tight.
"Carol's not supposed to die! She's… she's not supposed to kill herself! Carol's supposed to save other people from dying!" Milla sniffled. "It's not fair!"
Milla was right, Carol was supposed to save people from dying. To Lilac, Carol was her life giver, the beacon of hope, the light in the darkness. She couldn't help but wonder what life would be like if she were to miss Carol so much. Would she be able to live with herself?
As Milla started to calm down, something clicked in Lilac's head.
"Milla, there's something we need to do."
Milla calmed down a bit and wiped her eyes. "Yeah?" She sniffled and looked to her friend, "Do what?"
"We need to go to sleep," Lilac said, "We're too depressed and exhausted to... fight this right now."
She lowered her head so that their eyes were level. Her eyebrows furrowed and she looked down at Milla, "This sickness… whatever it is, it's taken over Carol's mind. She's… she's tired, of all of this." She gently brushed her friend's hair from her face and patted Milla's hand.
"We need to live for each other and be happy. That's the only thing that will truly keep Carol alive," Lilac whispered. "Because if we don't believe that we can be happy together, this… this is what happens."
She raised her head and stared at her friend with incredulity. "Y-you don't… you know?"
"Do... I know?" Lilac asked, "Do I know what?"
"You don't know what's going to happen, Lilac. Do you?"
"We'll figure it out," Lilac whispered, "After all, this is… my fault anyway." Lilac said, with an eerie sense of conviction, "It's my fault Carol wants to die." She croaked, with more confidence in her words.
"Y-your...? You can't…" Milla grinded her teeth, unable to finish her sentence. "Lilac!"
"Carol can do a lot of really stupid things, but this... this is my stupid thing."
A wave of shock and disbelief painted Milla's face a redder shade. For better or worse, her sadness faded away for just a brief moment.
"H-how? How can you say something like that!?"
Lilac shifted her weight onto her feet and slid the journal back inside Carol's pillow before tossing it back onto her bed. The floorboards creaked as she rose from the ground. "I just... know, okay?"
Milla sniffled. Her tears returned and she watched them careen onto the floor.
"You asked if I could share this with you, and well... I did." Lilac said, "You're right, Milla. Carol can't take her own life. I won't let her."
"Well..." Milla trembled, slowly gathering herself before feebly rising from her earlier position, "I think... I think… you're wrong!"
"Milla," Lilac continued, "I asked you to let go of me, please..." She said. Milla let out a small gasp before apologizing and quickly shifting her hand back to her side.
"Let's just go to bed, alright?"
"Lilac…"
"I'm sorry... Milla."
The night in the treehouse went by a lot slower than the basset hoped it would. The night sky refused to stay dark in the face of the bright moon even after it fell below the horizon. Thanks to yesterday's events, Milla always felt like a light outside was ready to burst into the room at a moment's notice. Her heart wouldn't stop racing.
To mitigate this, Milla fumbled around in Carol's bunk. The top of her sheets had some rough and tumble crumbs of snack dust, but if that's how it had to be, then that's how it had to be. After all, Carol's bed was certainly a lot comfier than her own; She didn't even feel the journal she and Lilac put back inside the pillow. But despite being snug, her body rejected the notion of sleep. She creaked her eyelids open and counted the planks of wood that boarded the bunk above her instead.
The treehouse normally provided a sense of freedom for its inhabitants that they would have never experienced otherwise. It was a place responsible for building the bonds that kept each friendship so inseparable. But now, everything seemed so frighteningly unpredictable.
Milla realized she had lost the reassurance she came to the treehouse to get.
On the bunk above her sat Lilac, who was also having her fair share of trouble getting Z's. However, she didn't pace or fumble around like Milla did. She'd grow feverish, angry and distraught.
Every ten minutes, she'd speak into her pillow. Rehearsing questions she'd never want to ask, like pleading for forgiveness or the occasional "Why, Carol, why?" Lilac seemed to forget that the occupant of the bottom bunk would hear her muffled sobs when she did it.
Every fifteen, Lilac would cry a soft, muted, creaky cry. A cry that made her grab her own horns like screwdrivers and twist her hands around them, yanking on her head twisting her hair in the process.
Every hour, she'd make a visit to the bathroom and sit with her back beside the door, expecting herself to vomit or get dizzy again, but she never did. She would just return to bed after the sickness faded away.
Milla didn't truly fall asleep that night, but she would always sense that Lilac was bearing her sickness to check that she was. Whenever Lilac decided to leave the room, she spent a couple seconds inside before stepping out. Milla would pretend, Lilac would leave. Milla would pretend, Lilac would return. That was the routine.
Eventually, there wasn't a peep in the house anymore. Milla was finally comfortable in her spot, and Lilac had managed to sit still long enough to make any sort of movement uncomfortable. When the clock hit six in the morning, Lilac cracked her eyes open again.
Not even a second of sleep. She wasn't expecting any of that, anyway.