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Liliana couldn't have been a reincarnate. She says so herself with a idiotic pun somewhere in the middle of it, as she sips her fourth lemonade.
There's a part she doesn't talk about. She would've been the most boring incarnate ever. Too quiet to be liked, not quiet enough to be liked, and just quiet enough to be picked on. That wasn't great.
She's surprised she managed to get friends. Though, if she's being honest, they aren't her friends. Maybe just mutuals. She doubted they really liked her at all.
It is funny how her name was similar to the first president's niece, and how her uncle George shared the same name as the first president. But they're long gone— dead and shriveled and probably rotting too.
Liliana lives in a bubble, suffocating in her own thoughts. Angelica swears she's trying to protect her.
She'd break. It was inevitable. Yet Angelica didn't expect it to happen now. Not when they were flirting at her cafe.
The conversation halts as Liliana falters. Her eyes flicker. Down to Angelica's nose. To her eyes, the ones that saw a version of her that neither of them could see again. To the creases on her forehead. To her lips. She faintly remembers. Remembers hers meeting hers.
The room's deafeningly quiet now. All eyes are on Liliana, though she doesn't seem to care. Angelica's friends. Friends. Some.. Alex guy. And Aaron. Oh. Oh, gods.
She can feel Aaron's eyes at the back of her head. Waiting. Burning a hole through them.
And then it clicks. Not the gun Aaron used to kill Alexander. No, though that does come to mind. But everything else. Aaron doesn't like her. All she remembers is an argument. Something about Alex?
Faces flood Liliana's memories. Can she breathe? Is she breathing? She doesn't know. With horrification, her eyes widen. Dances at a ballroom. Warmer nights with Angelica. The whispers passed after the Reynolds Pamphlet. The looks of pity she got when George Washington died.
The sobs that had evened out after her heartbeat turned slow. Someone's grip on her hands had tightened by her deathbed. A shot to the leg became deadly. The quiet moments with Alexander, when she taught her once mentee how to shoot a bow. When he got married to Eliza. How drunk Angelica, John, and her had gotten.
Liliana stumbles, order forgotten. She never skips a chance to flirt with Angelica the barista. Why now?
Her throat closes up. Bile climbed it's way up her throat with it's claws. No. No. Her gut twists. It's disgusting. She wants to puke. She wants to throw up until she can't think. Until stomach acid is the only thing she can taste. But somehow, her next words are more bitter than the acid.
"You."