Lillian was practically rushing to reach the tunnel until she, yet again, ran into another distraction.
"Lillian!" The voice shouted out.
"Huh?" Lillian halted as she had no choice since this person was blocking her way.
"Why such a hurry? Don't you want to enjoy this fine day?"
"Oh, Dirk, I should have expected you'd be the one to stop me. Well of course I would love to enjoy this fine day, but I'm in a bit of a hurry-"
"No excuses," He interrupted unwilling to hear her reason, "you can't just ignore this great day for anything that's why I hurried out of this tunnel so I could stand out here and enjoy the sunlight like I've been doing these past few minutes. I learned that once you know, and do you know who taught me that lesson?"
Lillian let out a huge sigh, of all the advice she'd given Dirk, he'd choose to let that one sink in and now of all times, "...me.."
"Yep, so let's slow down and enjoy this beautiful day together."
Slightly unaware of his hidden intentions Lillian innocently pointed out, "but don't you have to deliver mail right now or are you just trying to use me to wiggle out of doing your job?"
"Oh," Dirk was earnestly surprised. He had almost forgotten he was on duty right now. "Catch you later Lillian, got a job to do right now."
As Dirk ran off Lillian only shook her head and said to herself, "Honestly Dirk, sometimes you're just a little too much like Phillip when he was young." Lillian imagined all the times Phillip had tried to weasel his way out of farming by making up excuses and the worst part was when he tried to involve her in his convoluted lies.
In one memory of hers Phillip was in charge of watering the plants and he didn't want to so he just said, "But I can't-I um, I, I-" He was trying to think up a reason until Lillian just happened to pass in front of him, "I have to help Lillian. Lillian wants to start her own rock band you see, yeah, and she needed someone to play the triangle for her.
"Huh," Lillian popped in at the sound of her name.
"Yeah Lillian, tell our father about that new rock band you wanted to form."
"Um yeah, I want to form a rock band and it-it requires Phillip's help at this very moment because he's going to be our backup player."
"Backup player?! You-you" he tried to maintain his composure, "you mean your front man for the triangle right?"
"Um yes, that's actually what I meant."
"And that's why the band is called "The 3T" for the three sides on a triangle.
Lillian was criticizing all of these absurd lies in her head, "'The 3T,' really Phillip? Narcissistic much? We would be better off calling ourselves "The Geometrists" at least then there would be a reason to have a triangle of all instruments starring in the band," but on the outside she was just trying to back him up for reasons even Lillian doesn't know.
The skeptical voicing of an "Uh-huh," was all the man said before picking up two watering cans and handing them to the children.
"Thanks a lot Phillip, you got me involved with your lies again and now I'm being punished too."
"Come on Lillian, I already said I'm sorry. I just can't help myself besides you never deny any of it so it can't all be my fault."
"Well-whatever, it's not like I want to lie, but I can't just leave you to fend for yourself. And what do you mean our father? He's not my dad."
"Don't be silly Lillian, of course I would expect my future wife to be comfortable calling him our dad."
Lillian threw the watering can at his head missing by only a small margin. "I already told you I don't want to marry you."
"But why?" He whined.
"I don't want to marry a guy who spends half his day lying to get out of things. Have you ever thought about how your lies hurt others? If you don't do your work Phillip think about who has to do it instead? And even now take for example, you still ended up having to do the work but so do I. I can't even have friends other than you because I'm labeled an untrustworthy liar..."
"Lillian I-"
"It doesn't matter Phillip, as usual, you'll just get over this sulky attitude you're giving me right now and go back to your selfish ways so why bother I'm just here to bail you out like I always do."
Back to the present Lillian rethought her earlier statement, "Never mind, Dirk isn't like that. Dirk doesn't like to lie. Oh no, I don't have time to reminiscence I promised Cheryl!"
Wow, Lillian seemed so much cooler as a kid, what happened to turn her into this naive person and why does that 3T look so much like ET? Does Phillip secretly love ET or something? Well he sure does seem that way (keyword seem). And also if any of you have read another story of mine called "Try being Optimistic" this does not take place in the same universe so this is a completely different Phillip, he is NOT related to Lillian by blood.