◖𓈈﹗ ﹙ capitulo thirty-seven﹚
❛ ▬▬ I LOST A FRIEND . . . ❜
Between Friends and Seinfeld, Lilith loved Seinfeld because she thought she would fit in with that group of friends or simply go out with Elaine. Lilith had been very social during preschool, but gradually that sociability faded as she grew up and ended up focusing on Sam Winchester and -unprofessionally- on her mother. Those had been the people she ran to when something bothered her mind and soul. It was fine for Lilith, dividing the people she shared her deep concerns with from those she went out to have fun and spend a good time with at the ice cream parlor or the mall. Her situation remained constant until she met Bella Crawford in high school.
Bella had come in as a new student. Just moved from California to Cambridge, Bella was a quiet and lonely girl. She twisted her hair between her fingers, pulling at it, and when the last bell of the day marked the end of the day, it took her an eternity to get to her bike and ride home. One day, the wheel of her bike had broken, and her mother had seen her looking very lost.
"Oh, poor girl," her mother said, placing her hands on the steering wheel. "Is she in your class?"
A fourteen-year-old Lilith looked up from the math exam she had on her lap and was redoing the equation that had cost her the A+, understanding the mistake she made. Bella struggled with the wheel of her bike. She was a thin girl with very fragile fingers to hold a pen, let alone have the energy to ride a bike. Her black hair fell straight down her jawline, hiding the view of her face with dark eyes and a prominent nose. She wore oversized pastel-colored hoodies, her whole aesthetic resembling that of a child: there were rainbow, teddy bear, and unicorn pins on her backpack.
"Yes," Lilith replied disinterestedly.
"Do you need help, dear?" Her mother got out of the car and closed the door behind her. Lilith didn't pay attention and continued to solve the equation. She had made a symbol error that messed up the whole equation. It made her nervous! And she checked the answers meticulously before handing in the exam! She would be angry for the rest of the day. "Make yourself comfortable, Bella, I'll take you home. This is my daughter Lilith, she's not very talkative."
"Hi," Lilith said, reacting to her mother's demeanor, which exhibited with severe cerulean eyes that she should be polite and kind to the girl.
"Hi," Bella murmured, sitting in the back seat of mom's car. She lowered her head and played with the hair that fell covering much of her face.
Mom turned around, took out the bike rack she kept in the trunk because sometimes Lilith rode her bike to school, and when she left, her mother picked her up. "Where do you live?" she asked once she returned.
"I usually go to the public library, I don't go home."
"Do you stay at the library all afternoon?" Lilith asked, putting away the things she had taken out to correct her mistake in her backpack.
Bella nodded silently. She was a very quiet and few words girl. Lilith had seen similar behavior in Sam, she remembered seeing him very quiet when he was fourteen and he told her he wasn't having a good time in high school. She tried to remember if the hallways whispered insults to Bella or if any bully had singled her out, but she didn't remember seeing it. Her mom peeked through the rearview mirror enough to engage in a deeper conversation; she would like to ask her if she noticed something she didn't... she sure did, her mother was very good at seeing people's reality.
"Lilith has the afternoon off, you can stay at home and spend time, then I can take you home. No problem," her mom indicated she should contribute something by subtly shaking her head. "I'll lend you my phone to call your parents or guardian."
"Do you like Christina Aguilera?" Lilith asked after seeing one of her pins was from Christina's album that came out last year. "I have it here," Lilith took the CD out of her backpack and placed it in the car's player.
"Yes, I do."
"Do you want to come to my house?"
"Okay."
If you wanna be with me baby there's a price to pay. I'm a genie in a bottle, you gotta rub me the right way. If you wanna be with me I can make your wish come true. You gotta make a big impression. (Oh, yeah). Gotta like what you do. I'm a genie in a bottle baby gotta rub me the right way honey. I'm a genie in a bottle baby... come come come on in let me out
That was the day she had met her best friend, her sister. Lilith and Bella had become inseparable, sisters. That's how Lilith saw her, they practically lived together. Bella would spend up to three consecutive days at her house, riding home from school together on their bikes. A war raged in Bella's home, a storm brewed between her father and mother, custody battles and shattered futures were the daily bread, and the paradise cultivated by the Arduenns was a better place to be. Lilith knew what was happening, and no matter how much she had asked her mother to help in the legal process of divorce, the shouts and insults didn't stop. Mom had told them it was normal, it happened in all couples sadly, and the ones who suffered the most were the children.
"Do you want some ice cream?" Lilith offered after taking a spoonful of mint chocolate chip.
"No, thanks."
The two teenagers were lying on Lilith's bed listening to Christina Aguilera's new album, Stripped, which had come out just a few days ago, playing on the music player at a moderate volume. Bella was flipping through a celebrity gossip magazine with the latest news about the feud between Christina and Eminem.
"But you haven't eaten anything today, aren't you hungry?" Lilith noticed her getting thinner. Bella said she had a very fast metabolism and genetics that prevented her from gaining weight. Lilith only half-believed her. "Thanks for making me a fighter!" Lilith sang, looking a bit bored at the ceiling.
"Did you hear about what happened with Amanda and Luke?" Bella lay down beside her, adopting the same position, leaving the magazine on her chest.
"No." They were the couple in the class. "What happened?"
"Luke dumped her for getting fat," she chuckled. "Can you believe it?"
"Amanda isn't fat," Lilith said, confused. Amanda was a beautiful girl with curly hair and dark skin, almond-shaped eyes, and was very kind to everyone. Being the cheerleading captain, she spoke well of everyone and was friendly.
"She's not thin enough for Luke apparently," she muttered. "Amanda doesn't look as thin as Paris Hilton, she's a cheerleader, she has really strong thighs. Bodies like that seem more like those of mature women, don't you think?"
"Am I that thin?" Lilith put the ice cream tub on her desk without much desire to finish it and looked at herself in the full-length mirror in the room decorated with Madonna stickers. "I use my mom's treadmill for an hour every day and do weighted squats. Do you think I look bad?"
"You start to look like an adult" Bella's eyes inspected her abdomen. "Your butt has grown, and so have your boobs. Mine haven't," Bella tugged at her shirt towards her chest, and it was true, they had barely grown, but that was normal, it depended on each woman's body. "They're prettier like this; if they grow, they start sexualizing you, it's terrifying."
"Yeah, men will sexualize everything they can. Haven't you seen the PlayStation games? All the girls wear outfits that show everything, and they put them in sexualized poses. Oh! Did you see the disgusting comments that news anchor made about the 'Dirrty' music video? It makes me want to start punching people! What's wrong with expressing her sexuality? What's with all the fuss! Nobody says anything about the rappers' music videos, and they display women's butts up close. But if women do it, they're sluts? How hypocritical! Ugh, I'm so angry!"
Bella chuckled, flipping through the magazine again. "The world doesn't deserve Christina; she's so beautiful," she sighed, looking at a picture of her in the magazine. She grabbed some scissors and cut it out. "I'm going to paste it in my notebook. We have to go to her concert."
"Yes!" Lilith said ecstatically, giving a little jump. She momentarily forgot about the mirror's reflection, but it remained hidden in the darkest corners of her mind for years. "I swear when the day comes, I'll die, I'll faint. Ah!" She threw herself on the bed. "CAN YOU IMAGINE IF SHE HEARS ME SING?"
"SHE'LL THINK YOU STOLE HER VOICE!"
"I'm dying," Lilith concluded, laughing, affirming that's how it would happen, no joking. "I'm dyinggg."
The door opened, revealing her mother. Bella lowered the music player's volume entirely, and the two girls turned all their attention to their mother obediently.
"Bella, your father called asking you to come home," her mother's face had darkened; she was glad to have her home and away from trouble. As a lawyer, she had seen the outcome of many children's lives because of bad parenting.
"Can't I stay tonight?" she asked sadly. She knew the answer, it was always yes, but the ones in charge were her parents. "Can you tell them I want to stay?"
Mom couldn't do it anymore, and neither could Lilith. Bella's father was annoyed that she spent so much time at home and wouldn't give in to anyone's pleas. Bella didn't want to talk to him directly; she asked Mom to be the intermediary, but that couldn't be done anymore. They wouldn't let her come if Mom kept getting involved in the Crawford family's problems.
"We're going to cause a big problem," Lilith replied. "Maybe if you ask, they'll let you. It's already night, I'll be right by your side all the time. Let's go." Lilith took her hand, and they went down to Mom's office where the house phone was.
"What if something serious happened, and if I ask to stay, will they get even angrier? It's better if I pack my things. See you tomorrow at school."
"But..."
Bella started twirling her hair around her index finger and pulling some strands out. Hesitant between the phone and going to pack her things, she decided with fearful eyes to return to Lilith's room. She never got this far; luck wasn't on her side. Lilith accompanied her in the car to her house, with Mom driving and the two girls sitting in the back seat finishing some friendship bracelets they had been making. They had already made like ten, but they always lost them and had to make new ones. They arrived at Bella's house, a normal and very common one, nothing extravagant.
"See you tomorrow," Lilith hugged her, and Bella wrapped her with a little extra force.
"Yeah, goodbye," she opened the door, adjusted her hair, and hid her hands well in the sleeves of her yellow duck hoodie. "Goodbye, Regina!" she greeted, approaching the window.
"Goodbye, dear."
• • ⛧ • •
Dorian's friends were a group of textbook idiots, each one stupider than the last. None were spared from Lilith's contemptuous gaze, or maybe her spirits were low, and seeing a group of friends having fun drinking beers and playing on the console filled her with so much envy that she was in a bad mood and constantly seeking her boyfriend's attention. Laughter churned her stomach and exacerbated the pain in her heart, stakes piercing her chest like a serial killer. She drank from the vodka bottle, sitting next to Dorian. He didn't even take his eyes off the screen.
"You're almost there, Dorian!"
"Use the damn combos, M.M., you can't be so clueless!"
There were five men in the room glued to a screen playing a combat video game with characters dressed very oddly fighting against DC characters. She had no idea what she was witnessing, and it made her very upset to see them playing with a woman named Sonya and Catwoman, making vomit-inducing comments about how they looked. For God's sake! Most of the male characters were armored to the teeth, and the women showed huge, enormous breasts! Perfectly round and firm. What the hell! She lit a cigarette, snuggling up to Dorian, begging for attention.
"That damn Sonya!" one laughed when they focused on a close-up of her breasts. She didn't even bother to learn their names. "Take that!"
The woman dropped her hand on Dorian's leg. If she couldn't get him to look at her through her presence, she'd do it by arousing him. She just left it there and waited for a reaction. Nothing, he kept watching the screen. Lilith put out the cigarette on his hand.
"What are you doing?!" Dorian exclaimed, dropping the console controller. The screen immediately showed that he had lost. "Lilith!" he said angrily. The friend he was playing with shouted his victory. "You made me lose! Hey, hey, it doesn't count, let's play another one."
"It seems you have a girlfriend who needs you; don't make her mad, Bro, she's the prettiest one who gave you attention."
Like monkeys in the jungle, they coordinated laughter and howls that expressed something Lilith didn't understand because she didn't belong to them, nor had she known them for years. They were supposed to be high school friends. She found it false that he still kept them. Lilith-completely fed up-used her mind control to make something good out of that night: she made the one who had spoken pee himself. Now Lilith was joining in the laughter of the others, sounding hysterical and maniacal.
"You peed yourself, Pol!" One with huge glasses started laughing loudly and contagiously, sounding like a dolphin.
"That's disgusting!"
Dorian got up from the couch disgusted before the pee reached his skin. Between the bleeding from a few months ago and today's pee, Dorian would send the couch to be burned due to contamination and germ nursery. He took her by the arm and led her away from the others' hearing.
"Healed this!" he showed there where she had burned it with the cigarette and a little blood was coming out. Lilith rolled her eyes, "Call Judas if you're bored, heal my hand."
"Fuck me and I'll heal you" she needed him to show her that he loved her more than those little games, that her attention belonged to him.
She was pushing Dorian's patience to the limit,she would love to know how far he could take it. Lilith was prepared to keep pestering all her friends, she would get them out of the house thinking a ghost was haunting them. It was great fun to intrude on the minds of others and if she was naughty, she would pull everyone's hair out and by the time one o'clock in the morning rolled around she would have some voodoo dolls to play with. Dorian kissed her as ordered and Lilith kept her promise; the deal also included putting her arms around him and not stopping to feel him close. He tried to get away and she wouldn't let him go.
"I'm going to fuck you in front of everyone if you continue to be so annoying, call your friends"
Suddenly, she no longer wanted to be with him.
"I don't have any friends! Stupid."
Weeks after Mandy's birthday-having reflected on the friendship she had with the witches-she decided to meet at the downtown Salem café where Mandy had invited her for tea when she first arrived in town. She thought it would be a nice gesture on her part and, moreover, would show the intentions of her heart to regain their friendship.
Lilith lit a cigarette, checking the time on her phone for the fifth time and fearing a message canceling their plans. Mandy's responses had been very short and dry, monosyllabic messages that expressed little enthusiasm for spending an afternoon together. Galilea would also come, and Lilith was terrified to face her. Time passed, half an hour of waiting, and she was starting to think they wouldn't come when they walked through the door and the sound of the bell shook the powerful woman's heart. She put out the cigarette and smiled when she saw them. Mandy and Galilea, both bringing an aura of light into Lilith's cloudy path.
"Hi!" Lilith tried to appear clean; substance use wasn't part of her original plans, but the anxiety she was suffering led her to take a line of cocaine. She felt more comfortable in her mind that way. "Thanks for coming."
"Hi Lilith," Mandy was the first to greet her without her usual good vibes. Galilea smiled courteously. "How's it been going?"
Both witches sat opposite her, leaving Lilith alone against the wall.
"Same old," she said quickly. She didn't know how to handle the meeting; she hadn't thought it through very well. She just wanted to indulge in the melancholy and the evil in her chest after being ignored at the party. "It's been a long time since we caught up; I don't know anything about what's happening in your lives. I want to know. Shall we order?" Damn, she was starting to show her excitement quite a bit.
A waitress took their order, quickly jotting it down in her notepad and giving them an indifferent look.
"I have a girlfriend," Mandy commented, and finally, the sparkle returned to her face. "I met her right here; she works the night shift. She must be resting at home. She's amazing, isn't she, Gali?"
" Yes! Teresa is the funniest person I've ever met, even more than you, Mandy. She's so kind to everyone, even those who don't deserve it. The other day they were on a romantic date in the square, you know, at night so that people wouldn't bother or ruin everything, and still, someone started insulting them for kissing."
"Oh yes," said Mandy, recalling with a sarcastic laugh.
"And Teresa tried to explain to them with the patience of a primary school teacher without losing her cool or letting them ruin her night. She's the coolest."
"Gali, she's my girlfriend, not yours. You didn't let me praise her," joked Mandy, sharing laughs with Gali. Lilith hadn't been able to make a genuine one. "Gali got her first power!" She hugged her proudly, like a mother would.
Gali showed her wrists, where a reddish pearl had appeared, the power of fire.
"I'm happy for you," she said automatically, her thoughts scattered. "I've missed out on a lot of things."
It took Lilith a couple of interactions to regret inviting them, a serious mistake that had resurrected one of the deepest and hidden pains, stored under sixty seals of iron. Mandy and Galilea cultivated a powerful friendship, just like the one she had with Bella... and they didn't include her. Could she blame them? It wasn't the same to maintain a long-distance friendship as it was to live in the coven.
"In fact, you met Teresa at my birthday; you probably don't remember, I think you were too high to realize I was introducing you to my girlfriend."
Mandy adopted a relaxed posture against the chair, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the food in the waitress's hands. On the other hand, Galilea had withdrawn, forming a shell with her shoulders, but leaving her hair clear of her face. She put distance between them by not looking at her; with Mandy, it was different, their skins touched comfortably. The middle finger started tapping the edge of the table.
"I'm sorry," she said, coming from her lips. "I was acting like a complete idiot."
"Lilith?" They both noticed how her anxiety was growing in loud tapping of her finger against the table. "Did you come drugged? Can't you even have a quiet evening with us?" Galilea exclaimed, her parsimonious, angelic face shattering in disappointment. Further away, they moved back inches.
"I'm sorry again."
"You can't expect us to apologize for everything Lilith," Mandy said sternly this time. "We understand what you are going through, it is not simple to lose a mother. We understand Lilith and we want to help you, we don't mean to leave you behind, to turn our backs on you. But there is something you need to understand, we can't do anything, we can't help you if you don't want to help us and there is no way to communicate with you. You live high, so high that you go, you don't listen and you don't see. You can't talk to you and when you can, you insult us and tell us we are bitches. Did you forget that you threatened to kill us for trying to get you off drugs?"
"Supposedly, you're my friends..."
"I might not be the best person to talk about friendship," Galilea came out of her shell. "I didn't know what it was like to have friends until I came to the coven. Mandy helped me integrate into a new world; I knew nothing, and everything seemed dangerous to me. I was terrified of being a witch, and she helped me overcome my fears, but I could never have done it if I didn't want to from the beginning. You see? We can't help you if you don't let us; you have to be willing."
"Are you staging an intervention?" Lilith's breathing had become unstable.
"No," they responded. "We just want to show you that you've been doing strange things. How did you get new powers? And so quickly? Is someone helping you?"
"I'm not doing anything wrong!" she raised her voice furiously. "What's the damn problem with having powers? Did Pandora send you to ask? I just got them, that's it. I worked hard and studied as if I were in the coven! Do you think I don't realize I'm a damn addict? I know, so what. Are you going to blame me? My mom is dead, how the hell am I supposed to react? I don't know! I'm doing the best I can. I didn't ask for any of this; everything would be much better if the damn bastards of angels would let me die. Do you understand that? I can't die! I can't die, think about it. No matter what I do, no matter how much drugs I take, they won't let me die, there's a damn angel watching me all the time. What am I supposed to do? Please tell me!"
"Start by burying your mother," Mandy said. "My mother and father died when I was a baby; I don't remember anything about them, absolutely nothing. It's not the same situation, but I can understand you. You'll miss her for the rest of your life, that's what happens to everyone, whether you're human, a witch, or a god, death is inevitable. Let your mother rest in peace and continue with your life."
"Easy for you to say," Lilith held back tears and the knot forming in her throat. "You've literally just killed my desire to be with you. I didn't call you here for an intervention; I wanted to know how you were."
"Lilith, wait," Galilea tried to stop her. "Sam is..."
As she left the café, she bumped into Sam.
"You're the worst friends I've ever had!" She turned towards them, both standing as if the police were about to arrest them.
Lilith's anxiety had skyrocketed to infinity with her best friend in front of her after so long. She knew the drug was stirring her emotions, shaking them from left to right like the movement of a washing machine, and they constantly changed with a predominance of anger, and after all, all she wanted was to hug him, forget the words spoken, and the pain caused.
"Hello," Sam whispered, bowing his head; he was as different as she was. She felt he had grown taller, his muscles had grown and hardened, powerful. He had changed his hair; it was longer and styled now.
"Hello," she greeted him. She felt her whole body itch, a chill scratching her back.
"Can we talk?" he asked, pointing to the park two blocks away, indicating that he wanted to take a quiet walk. "I owe you a huge apology, Lilith, please."
She wiped away a few tears that had fallen.
"Make it quick," she replied dryly but agreeing to walk with him, motivated by the memory of Dean in hell. Mandy and Galilea said nothing; Lilith had seen them for the last time under the café doors.
"I'm sorry, Lilith, I didn't react well to losing Dean. I should have behaved differently, I didn't do anything right. I... It's not easy not having Dean, I thought I would take it better, that things would work out. He's my brother," Sam's voice broke, and he needed to take a breath to compose himself. "I miss him, and I took it out on you when I shouldn't have... I'm sorry, Lilith, you're my best friend, you didn't deserve how I treated you. I'm so sorry, I should have been there for you at the funeral. I'm so sorry."
"I really needed you, Sam, I needed a friend, a real one."
"Forgive me."
They arrived at a bench in silence. Lilith was the first to sit down, feeling her legs weaken, on the verge of collapsing, both spiritually and physically. She looked up, pleading to see beyond a pair of green eyes combined with the serenity of chocolate. Sam wouldn't allow her to see.
"I miss both of you," Sam unburdened himself, seeing his hands stained with tears. "I wanted to tell you that I've loved Regina like a mother; I've always been very grateful for everything she gave me. I appreciated a lot that she tried to give me a life like yours, or at least that she tried. I... I should have told you before, Lilith."
Lilith took his hand.
"I miss you both too," both hands had a slight tremor born from love and addiction. "I...," Lilith thought about telling him the truth. Telling him absolutely everything: the angels, the demons, the apocalypse between heaven and hell, her classes with Lilith, and that she had visited Dean. "Did you forgive me?"
"Yes," he replied confidently. "I understand now, you just seized the last resort. I shouldn't have been surprised or as upset as I was; I think I'm in your position: the end justifies the means, right?"
"Well... the means will always be judged by the results."
And so, their friendship became false, they hid secrets. She couldn't speak about the first woman or her trips to hell when the thirst for revenge was irresistible. She only promised him that Dean would eventually come out; he would, Lilith was sure of it, and they would turn him into a human with their plan that would give him the power to create spells. Lilith's assurance was necessary for Sam to agree and hug her.
She would never have a friendship like with Bella, her sister. Many nights she spent thinking about how she could have saved her. Bella had led her to a dark place, dragged her into anorexia nervosa, mixing her thoughts and principles. Both were doing the same thing, but for very different reasons.
"My dad told me I look like a girl," Bella said, combing her hair sitting on Lilith's bed. "Can you help me braid it?"
"Sure," she agreed. "I've lost two kilos; I think I'm already at my ideal weight. Don't you think?"
"Yes, you're beautiful, Lilith," she braided her hair carefully; it fell out very easily. "Use these star clips."
The problems in Bella's home didn't seem to end after two years; her parents threw bombs at each other while living within the same walls, and days later, they would be a normal couple again. Amidst all the torment, Lilith discovered that Bella's anorexia stemmed from her parents' problems and the idealized memory of a happy childhood life; her parents treated her better the more childlike she was, and Bella had created a bubble around herself. Lilith couldn't help her get out of there; she fell into the same hole, fearing to lose her beauty. At that time, in the midst of adolescence, she wanted to be perfect: the best student, the best daughter, and the most beautiful. Her ideals of beauty were poured into the unhealthy fashion magazines.
"Turn up the volume!" Bella said, standing up to sing Avril Lavigne's "Complicated."
Bella was her sister, her best friend. It was very different from her relationship with Sam. Bella understood her at a deeper level, similar to her mother's. They shared school, forming a clear routine of waking up in the morning and getting ready in front of the mirror listening to their favorite songs and talking about what they would do in the afternoon: whether to go shopping or learn to play the guitar, they watched the MTV awards and the Grammys. Lilith did the homework, and Bella used her creativity and childlike face to convince the teachers to put them together for projects, and the nights of deep talks, of the few times Lilith dared to express her feelings about not having a father. It was absolutely everything that made their friendship special, the closeness and the sincerity.
If she had been smarter, maybe Bella would still be alive today.
📬！▬ author's note.
here's the chapter that explains lilith's traumas with friendship and how weird they turn out to be for her after bella's death :(
the next chapter is coming back dean!!!!
what do you think so far? i'm very happy with how this book is turning out.
vote and comment, it doesn't cost you anything <3