Lily spent the majority of her thanksgiving morning in her room at Phina's sulking. She missed her friends, her family, and her courage. She spent to much time running away from things. She ran away from the Basterds when she felt she wasn't drawing anything from them anymore. She ran away from the BMC when things got a bit over her head. She avoided Wolframite like the plague for fear he might kill her, a very legitimate fear, though it made her feel like a coward.

She sighed looking up as Phina knocked on her door, “Come out Lily. Im going to order some food for this evening and we should clean up a bit if for thanksgiving even though its just us.”

It was a way of getting Lily out of the room, because Phina's apartment was spotless. She had a cleaning service come once a week, it was just the two of them, and Lily was a neat freak. The guess room that had become her room was organized and rearranged and it was very Lily now.

Lily smiled lightly climbing off the bed still dressed in her pajamas and going over to open the door. Her short curls stuck off in ever which direction and when Phina was greeted with the view she frowned and put a hand on Lily's shoulder before stirring her to the bathroom. “Take a shower and please fix those lovely curls, its a shame to see them in such a state. I'll start straightening the dining room and you can help me clean up the kitchen when your done.”

Lily nodded and went into the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day. She did as Phina said and tamed her curls not that it took much, once they were washed they fell right into place. She was tempted to mess them to see what Phina would say, but she much preferred her hair neat. She did have lovely curls and her sister was right, the short curls suited her making her look her age finally.

She smiled slight heading her into her room to pull on some clean pajamas, not wanting to clean in her day clothes. She walked into the kitchen, just as Phina was coming in. Phina smiled at her and motioned to the dishes in the sink before heading to the kitchen closet to grab a broom. Lily nodded and headed over to the sink to wash up the few dishes from the night before and to run the dishwasher knowing it had breakfast and lunch dishes in it.

It took little more than 30 minutes to finished the kitchen up, leaving them with nothing to do. Lily went to grab a bit to eat and noticed they had a few bananas and grinned, “My mother and I would make banana pudding every thanksgiving. Have you ever made it before Phina?”

Phina shook her head, “No I've never made it. I don't think I've ever had it before either. My mom was not much for cooking, we did and still do thanksgiving at restaurants. Our thanksgiving dinner tonight is going to come from a restaurant as well.”

Lily nodded at Phina looking at the bananas, “I could teach you how to make it. It doesn’t take much. We need a few things, but I can make a list if your okay to go get them.”

Phina smiled at Lily and nodded not really want to say no to the girl, “I can run to the store and grab the ingredients. I already order the dinner and it should be done soon, so I can pick it up while I'm out.”

Lily gave Phina a huge grin happy to keep one of her thanksgiving traditions even if it wasn't with her mother. “I'll pick out a movie to watch after dinner while your gone and get out all the pans and things things.”

“Alright Lily, I'll run out now and be back in soon,” said Phina walking out of the living room to get her shoes, coat, purse and keys. Once again it seemed Lily was about to expand her recipe book, she chuckled lightly at how the 19 year old who only cooked a small amount of things herself was teaching Phina to cook.

Lily's grin brightened and she practically bounced out the room to find a good movie for them to watch. Lily had seen tons of movies since she came to stay with Seraphina. The woman had a movie theater in her apartment and Lily was rather enraptured with it. She was just as enraptured with the trophy room with all of Phina's pageant trophies, crowns and ribbons. It had led to many nights of Phina trying to help Lily learn different things to do to her hair, make up lesson, and fashion lesson. All the fashion lessons, even though Phina said Lily's style was very presentable and just darling.

She got all the pans and things together excitedly and of course well before Phina would return so she took the laptop out and decided to watch more of her sister's videos, ones of her and ones of Rose as well. She was startled badly an hour later at the door banging open and Phina coming in with a ton of bags.

“You left your phone in your bedroom,” Phina stated matter of factly giving Lily a pointed look.

Lily blushed and rushed over to help Phina with the bags muttering a small apology which Phina waved off leading the way to the kitchen. Lily went about getting together the ingredients for the banana pudding and Phina set about putting the food on warm in the oven. Once everything was put away and set up Lily ran over to the radio in the living room and turned to her favorite station before running back into the kitchen.

“Alright Phina, lets get started. It's really simple, first you,” she started to explain to Phina putting together the ingredients for the banana pudding. It wasn't hard so Phina caught on fast and Lily didn't have to explain to much so she started to sing.

Phina's jaw dropped not knowing the girl in front of her could produce such melodious sound. It made her smile, knowing it meant Lily was probably really happy at the moment. She grinned joined Lily in her happy singing using a wooden mixing spoon as a mic and making Lily laugh. It went that way until the banana pudding was set in the fridge to chill.

“Might as well have an early dinner,” said Phina, “that way we can have the banana pudding as soon as it is done.”

Lily laughed and smiled, “yeah might as well, if dinner is all ready why not, right? I didn't have breakfast either so I'm starving.” It was only 2:30 in the afternoon, but Lily didn't care at the moment. She felt lighter then she had in months and even though she wasn't with her family she wanted to enjoy her thanksgiving, Phina had been so nice to her, no need to ruin it.

The pair set everything up and sat down to thanksgiving dinner, saying what they were thankful for as was Phina's thanksgiving tradition which Lily really liked and decided she would do as well. They ate enjoying the food and talking about Phina's work and Lily's non existent love life which Phina couldn't help, but to poke a little fun at, saying Lily was a lovely girl so she didn't understand it. Lily simply replied that she had a busy life and she was focused on her future career.

After dinner the girl's grabbed a bowl of banana pudding each and headed into the movie theater to enjoy a movie. It was turning out to be a good thanksgiving for both of them and only promised to end well. However, the feel good movie, filled with family and friends made Lily really miss her traditional thanksgiving and though she didn't wish to leave Phina she really felt she should try to see what Alex was doing.

As the credits rolled she turned to Phina, “Im going to go out for a while, okay. I want to see what my friend Alex is up to today. We haven't seen each other for a while and I miss him.”

Phina nodded, “Okay, I'll see you later then. I'm going to call Noah and see what he is up to this thanksgiving day.”

Lily grinned jumping up and running into her room to change into something girly and appropriate for thanksgiving. If she was going to have thanksgiving with Alex she most certainly wasn't going to go dressed as a boy. She put on her favorite pair of floral tights, khaki shorts, very pale soft pick dressy shirt with a bow and white lace up boots.

After she was all dressed, her curls pushed over to one side of her head and pinned in place she headed out.

The drive to her house was short, not many people were out at 5 in the evening, most having already reached their destination, so Lily made it in record time. She parked on the street and ran excitedly up to the front door, knocking because she didn't really feel like rummaging through her purse to find her keys. When the door open she didn't even check to see who it was, instead just launching herself at the person before realizing this person was taller than Alex which made her pull back and flush realizing she had hugged Johnathan and not Alex at all.

“Sorry,” she mumbled and shuffled off hearing Alex calling to know who it was and going straight to him to give him a big hug. “Happy thanksgiving Alex. I’ve missed you so much. I just had to come even risked dressing as myself.”

Lily grinned pulling back from her best friend and spinning to show off her lovely outfit, “what do you think?”

She laughed lightly, “totally forgot about Johnathan and hugged him think he was you. I guess I should have looked before I leapt huh?”

She barely gave time to let Alex answer her before she sniffed the air, “mmmm what is that smell. I just ate and it's making me hungry again. My friend and I had thanksgiving from a restaurant but we did make mom's banana pudding. I brought some with me.” She looked down and frowned, “but oh I left it in the car. Let me go get it, its not really chilly enough right now to keep it good and cold in the car.”

Lily scurried off out to the car to grab the banana pudding she had grabbed before she left Phina's earlier. She was greatly looking forward to thanksgiving dinner with Alex and Johnathan. She really needed to get to know the boy if she was going to live in the same house with him. She grinned walking back to the house and thinking over the day. It hadn't started out the best and she still missed her family even if she was still mad at them and not totally ready to bare her secret to them. Phina had great cheered her up and now she was going to spend the evening with Alex and probably stay and watch movies or just chat. She missed her friend and didn't really want to go back to Phina's tonight. She also thought the woman could use a bit alone time.

As she walked into the house she grinned calling out, “got the banana pudding. Hope you like it, we tried to make it just like mom does. It's good, but I'm bias since I made it. It's the best thing I make since I've been making it with mom forever.” She headed back towards the kitchen wanting to put the pudding in the refrigerator.

“Johnathan,” she called out, “come tell me about yourself seeing as we will be living in the same house together soon enough.”

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