Eight
Lilith stayed overnight, lapsing between crippling sadness and being numb the entire time. She sat between Cole and Jack on the couch, who took turns letting her rest on their lap. They watched movies until three in the morning, when Cole retired to bed. Lilith and Jack ended up sleeping together on the couch.
When Lilith woke next, it was ten in the morning and her father was calling to have her come home.
His car was in the driveway when Mrs. Zavala dropped her off. Lilith got out of the car with a sullen nod and a murmured, "Thanks," before kicking up a handful of gravel. As Mrs. Zavala pulled out, Lilith looked up at her home and sighed, stomach churning. Cold air nipped at the back of her neck and along her arms.
"I'm home," she announced as she stepped into the living room. She kicked her shoes off and set them by the fireplace. Footsteps sounded from the next room over and at once, a woman with a nose-ring stepped into the room. She only wore a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers.
"Oh, Lilith! I'm so relieved!" Marlene rushed forward, crushing Lilith in a hug. "Your father saw the news and was looking for you... he about blew a gasket until Daniella called." She gripped Lilith's upper arms and took a half-step back, blue eyes widening. "Are you alright? You look like you haven't slept a wink!"
Lilith brushed her hair out of her face, tucking the short strands behind one ear. "I did sleep," she replied. "Just didn't take off my makeup."
"That's for sure! I saw you and thought you were a raccoon for a moment." Marlene clucked her tongue. "Dear... Dear, dear, dear." She looked to the top of the fireplace before turning back. "You need a bath."
She said it in such a nonchalant manner. Lilith smiled, for once actually meaning it.
"Have you had breakfast?"
Lilith shook her head. Marlene reached out and smoothed back Lilith's hair, eyes alight.
"Tell you what. You go have a shower and I'll make you something. Anything you want – okay?"
"Can you make crepes?" Lilith asked. She hunched up her shoulders and shifted her feet, keeping her gaze downcast.
Marlene smiled again. "Anything you want."
Lilith swept past her to the hallway. Her muscles tensed as soon as she was far enough away and once she was out sight, her smile dropped. She whirled and sunk her fist into the wall. Pain shot up her arm. Her knuckles cracked.
#
Marlene wasn't so bad, Lilith decided.
The thought first came to her when she stepped into the shower. The water ran from the spout, chilly and almost unbearable until Lilith managed to turn the knobs the right way. Then warm drops cascaded on her from above, soaking into her hair and into her skin. She raised her face to the showerhead and hummed.
Marlene hadn't been around for long. She'd only been with Lilith's dad for a year and a half, at the most, and had only lived in the house for four months.
Lilith had gotten over the change pretty fast. Her father came home on occasion with new tales and newer women. Lilith never minded; it was never her business what her father did. And besides, Marlene had been nothing but nice to Lilith and Oliver.
Unfortunately for all of them, Oliver's suicide had come two weeks after Marlene moved in.
Lilith poured a generous amount of shampoo into her palm and ran it through her hair, musing all the while. The scent of strawberries grew thick in the air.
She knew that Marlene felt bad about it. She never said his name around Lilith, even if she was on the topic. If Russle brought him up, he was quickly silenced. Lilith was grateful for that.
Marlene was also a good cook. Compared to Russle, who couldn't even scramble eggs to save his life, this was a nice change. There'd been many a night recently where Lilith would come home to one of Marlene's new experimental dishes.
There was also the instances after therapists three and five had passed that Marlene had supported her.
"You don't have to keep going if you don't want to," she'd said. Something told Lilith that Marlene was the only one she knew who really understood the gravity of the situation Lilith had been forced into.
But that didn't matter. Lilith kept going back, again and again and again.
Isn't that insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting something different?
She poured bodywash along both arms before running a stream of it down her chest. As the showerhead continued to pour down water, Lilith smoothed out the soup until she was covered in strawberry suds. Then she rinsed.
Marlene was change. This sort of change was good.
Lilith bent her head and scratched at her scalp, mussing up her short hair under the constant stream of water. When she was satisfied by the amount of burning at the back of her skull, she crouched down and shut off the faucets. Steam surrounded her on all sides, thinning out as she stepped out of the shower and onto the drying mat. Droplets of water fell from her fingertips and the ends of her hair, making pitter-patter sounds on the linoleum.
The towels hung on the rack by the door. Lilith pulled off hers, minty-green in color and unusually fluffy, and wrapped it around herself. Then she went for the mirror. Blackheads dotted her nose and chin when she examined herself and she made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. When she pulled back the mirror, her familiar bottle of facewash was nowhere to be seen.
Odd. She frowned, scanning the three shelves again and again. I must've run out... She swung the medicine cabinet door shut and huffed, blowing wet strands of hair out of her face. She leaned forward and examined her face more closely.
"Hey, sweetheart," said her dad from the other side. Lilith looked to the door, her heart skipping a beat.
"H-hi."
"Don't take too long, alright? Breakfast is almost done."
"Okay." Morning to you, too. "I'll be done soon." She wrinkled her nose and ran both hands over her face, tracing the miniscule bumps with her fingers.
I'll have to remind dad to get me more stuff, I guess.
She left the bathroom and went for her room across the hall, holding the ends of her towel in a death grip.
In five minutes, she managed to get herself dressed and her hair somewhat dry and manageable. There was a knock on the door just as she finished buttoning up her jeans.
"Sweetheart, are you ready?"
Lilith mussed with her hair as she crossed the room, her feet slapping against the floorboards. Her toes dipped into the many puddles she'd created.
"Lilith?"
"Coming."
She swung the door open and leaned against the doorframe, cocking her head to the side. Her father pressed his lips together and smiled, but Lilith could tell that it wasn't sincere.
"You called?" she asked.
"Er... I..." Russle Johnson sighed and stepped back. "Breakfast is ready."
"That's good." Lilith pushed herself away from the wall and stepped past him. When she walked, she expected her dad to follow, but she stopped again when she didn't hear his footfalls.
"Coming?"
"Yeah..."
They stepped into the living room, passing the fireplace. Lilith fought the urge to look at the pictures that were above the mantel. The pictures her father still hadn't taken down. The ones that featured Oliver.
She'd asked him to remove the photos several times, but she understood why he didn't. Oliver had been the pride and joy of the household – something Lilith had never minded – and continued to be so even after death. It had never been an issue. What was an issue, however, was the uncomfortable feeling Lilith got whenever she saw her dead brother's face. It was almost like he was trying to say something when she met his eyes, something she could never figure out or hear. It was these times more than ever that she wished she could talk to him.
The reverie was broken when her father placed a hand on the small of her back. He grabbed her wrist with his other hand.
"Listen, sweetheart..." He coughed, moving his hand from her back. "I... I know all this loss is hard on you."
She didn't look back. "I can handle it." Lilith's toes curled. Her nostrils flared. Let me go, she silently pleaded. Please just let me go.
Marlene stuck her head out from the kitchen.
"Oh! There you guys are!"
Lilith heaved a sigh of relieve and jerked her hand away. They headed for the kitchen.
Breakfast was, put simply, incredibly awkward. Lilith sat at the head of the table with Marlene and her father on either side of her. Russle barely said a word, even when Marlene tried to initiate conversation. Lilith kept her gaze on her plate and cut her crepes into small sections with her fork.
"Well... this is nice," said Marlene.
Lilith speared a crepe and cream cheese square with the tip of her fork and stuck it in her mouth, chewing several times. Russle gave an awkward cough beside her, dabbing the corners of his mouth with an embroidered napkin.
"It is," Russle replied. "Thank you."
"Thank you," Lilith echoed. She scraped up a strawberry and bit into it. Miniscule seeds split between her teeth.
"Lilith, do you like it?"
Lilith nodded. When she snuck a glance at her father, she saw the crestfallen look in her eyes.
Deep down, she knew that giving off a semi-silent demeanor would eventually do more harm than good. Yet at the same time, she couldn't find it in her to say a word.
And so she drifted, somewhere between complacent and melancholy. She couldn't have produced a coherent thought if she'd tried.
It's quite interesting, the state I'm in...
Lilith stabbed at another crepe square and chewed it until it was nothing but mush inside of her mouth.
It was only when she finished breakfast and was back in her room that she realized that she hadn't turned on her phone in almost a day. The last call she'd gotten had gone through to the Zavala household, meaning her father had either tried beforehand or knew she'd go awol and called the house phone first. In any case, Lilith half-expected to turn on her phone and confront a barrage of messages.
She was not disappointed.
"Four calls from my dad," she murmured, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a pillow underneath her. "Three from Marlene. Ten calls from Michael, the last one being about an hour ago... Also a bunch of texts from him. That's new." Michael never texted Lilith unless he deemed it an emergency. "And a call from Jack. Hm. Never thought I'd get so popular."
Lilith hit the power button on her phone, shutting it down all the way, and threw it to the end of the bed, watching it bounce off the mattress with mild amusement. Her friends could wait. For now, she just needed to think.
Unfortunately, such a task was not coming easy to her.
Lilith groaned and fell back with a look to the ceiling. Her thoughts continued to dance inside her head.
#
The next morning, Lilith had ten more phone calls and fifteen text messages. The brunt of these were all from Michael in both respects, the majority of his texts being some variation of call me, followed by an irritating amount of exclamation points. Lilith grit her teeth and wondered what he'd say if she never responded.
The most recent text message in her inbox was from Jack.
Jack Z: Hey, you might want to text Mike back. I know how you are, but he doesn't and he called and he sounded pretty frantic.
Fucking fantastic. Lilith raked a hand through her hair and, before she could convince herself otherwise, thumbed over Michael's contact and pressed call. He answered after the second ring.
"Lilith! Thank God—"
"You need to take a chill pill, I swear." Lilith balled her free hand into a fist. "Seriously. I want time to myself. Stop calling so much. I'll reach out when I want to, not when other people want me and especially not if they're going to become irritating about it."
Just as Michael sputtered out a response, Lilith hung up. Then she shut her phone down. She felt a small inkling of guilt as her screen turned black once more, but she quickly shrugged it off.
A knock sounded on the door.
"Come in!"
Marlene stepped in, her lips pressed together into a flat line. Her eyes glimmered with worry.
"Hey, Marlene," Lilith said, stomach swirling.
"Lilith..."
She paused when she heard the tension in Marlene's tone. "...Yes?"
"The ah..." Marlene clasped her hands in front of her and looked to the floor. "The police are here. They want to ask you some questions."
Lilith swung her legs over the bed. "What about?"
"About Ms. Longsly, Dear... they didn't say much, just that they want to ask questions." Marlene bit at her fingernails and sighed. "I told your dad. He's on his way home... But they want to see you now."
Lilith rose to her feet and folded her arms, her phone clutched in one hand. "But I'm not in any trouble?"
"Well... no."
Marlene didn't need to say anything else for Lilith to figure out what they were both suspecting.