When his eyes did hit her, it was worse than she imagined. He looked the same as he always did, her beautiful, stoic Rafael, but he knew. Of course he knew, what did she expect? For Theo to keep her sins a secret? Of course the whole Jabberwock organization knew. They probably all discussed, mostly gossiped about, the entire situation. It made her wonder, what did Rafael have to say about it all?
Lilliana could not tell you of a time in her life before Rafael Gracey because he had always been apart of it in some form or another. From the time she was ten years old, it seemed like her gaze followed Rafael wherever he went. He then being mature seventeen year old boy, she kept her heart full through doodling nothings in journals, hearts with their initials, and tracing the words Lilliana Byrne-Gracey in her diary over and over to see how it looked on paper. While time went on, Lilliana never forgot about Rafael. Her school girl crush followed her into adolescence then womanhood. At twenty one, she decided to finally go for it with Rafael in the way she did best. Gentle touches, cheeky smiles, and flirtatious eyes. She got bits and pieces of what she wanted from him, but never fully. She took the bits he gave her and clung to them. If friendship was all that he’d give her than she would take it. In the meanwhile, she tried to show him she was worthy of more. She did this through the way she looked, always tailored and perfect. In the way she spoke, always thoughtful and articulate. In the way she listened, deeply and intently. In the way she loved him, from a distance because she knew that’s what he wanted. In the end, she was never able to convince him. Even so, for a long while after, she still sometimes looked in her old diary, to see if she still liked the way Lilliana Byrne-Gracey was spelt.
This past year, she had thought of Rafael very little. She had finally moved on from him, from whatever didn’t happen between the two. Now, she stood before him because she was desperate, she needed some sort of knowledge of what was going on with Theo and the Jabberwocks. Some sort of intel. She would have saved herself the trip if he had answered when she called. All she had gotten was a disconnected number robot on the line.
Lilliana tried her best to wedge her foot in the opening, to give herself sometime, but any force of Rafael’s part would easily push her away. “If you have ever cared about me at all,” she started in a rushed whisper, “You won’t turn me away.”
If Lilliana had gotten what she wanted out of Rafael all those years ago, they would have still been spending tonight together, but it would have gone so much differently. They’d be a couple, married by now, living in a house not a flat. They have a baby, it’d be a boy, she would have just put him to bed. She’d be jumping into the shower, Rafael would be following her in shortly. They’d go to bed to do it all over again tomorrow. They’d be happy. They’d be whole. They’d be together. But Lilliana didn’t get what she wanted. It seemed like she never did.
“Please, Rafael,” she said again. “I need my friend.”
The version of Lilliana that stands before him now is little more than a stranger, a changeling, at once achingly familiar and entirely divorced from the girl he’d known. There was a time, not so long ago, that Rafael would’ve observed the small differences in her appearance with the kind of discernment that only comes from the sincerest of affection. The lightness of her hair, how thin she seems, the smattering of freckles across her nose where she’s been touched by the Spanish sun - these are the things he would've noticed simply because he cared about her, and now they only serve as a reminder of all that has transpired, the distance between them that can never be reclaimed.
Lilliana catches her foot in the door, and Rafael immediately stops trying to pull it shut - he would never hurt her, even now. It seems the sentiment is not mutual, and though his expression doesn’t change, his blue eyes flash when she has the audacity to invoke his feelings for her in such a way. Does she truly believe he didn’t care about her?
He loved her. Cold as he may appear, Rafael isn’t in the business of denying his feelings, and though he had never allowed the thing between them to truly progress, that didn’t mean it wasn’t real. When Lilliana made her intentions towards him clear, he’d allowed himself to entertain the idea of their future together, of marrying her, of having a partner to share his life with, but... the timing wasn’t right. So he put his feelings away, tucked into some secret drawer inside himself to be brought out and looked at later - but there never was a later. There was always something else that demanded his attention, and then it was too late. She found somebody else.
“Your friend?” He repeats, the quirk of his eyebrow dismissive and incredulous. “Any friendship between us was concluded the moment you chose to abandon your family and pursue that girl. How little it must have meant to you, to have discarded it so easily.” In Rafael’s eyes, it’s the ultimate betrayal, an unforgivable stain on her character. What she did to the Liddells, to Theodore, to Weston, makes him sick to his stomach - family is everything to Rafael, and it seems clear to him now that their core values were never truly in alignment. It appears as though he may have dodged a bullet, so why isn’t he relieved? Why does it hurt? Why does he still love her?
None of this matters. He knows what he has to do and, god help him, he will do it, no matter the personal cost. “Coming to my door was a mistake, Lilliana. There is nothing for you here.”
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