Page 25 of Creeping Lily

LILY

I never thought it could get worse.

Then my phone starts buzzing—low and angry—across the coffee table. It rattles against the wood like it’s trying to crawl into my lap.

Mom.

I just stare at the screen, my hand frozen in midair. Pick it up or let it go to voicemail? Both options feel exhausting.

The vibration cuts off, leaving the room thick with silence. Two seconds later, the screen lights up again. Same name. Same insistence. She won’t quit until I answer.

With a sigh that feels heavier than it should, I snatch the phone and press it to my ear.

“Hey, Mom.” My voice sounds flat, like all the warmth’s been drained out of it.

“Lily! Oh, good, you picked up this time,” she chirps, her voice bright, sugar-sweet. She’s in that mood again—the one where her life is all sunshine and roses, where she has no clue about the darkness gnawing at my edges.

But the darkness doesn’t need her invitation.

It rushes in, sharp and cold .

I see him again. The faceless man.

His weight pinning me against a wall, brick scraping my cheek. But last night was different. The air felt heavy. Intentional. Like a shadow that had chosen me.

I flinch before I can stop myself.

“Lily? Are you listening?” Mom’s voice snaps like a twig.

“Yeah. Sorry. Just… tired.”

She sighs like she already knows the script. “You’re working too hard again. College is supposed to be fun, not just grind, Lily.”

Fun. Sure. If “fun” means catching movement in your peripheral vision and wondering if it’s real. If it means plastering on a smile while something ugly coils in your gut and refuses to let go.

“Are you sleeping, Lily?” Her voice softens now, careful.

“Yes. I’m fine,” I lie.

She hesitates. “You sound different. Maybe it’s just the connection.”

I almost tell her. Almost. The words burn at the back of my throat— I think someone’s following me. I think I’m in danger. But what would she do with that? Tell me I’m imagining things? Or worse… believe me?

Instead, I let her talk. I give her half-answers, enough to keep her going. Her voice is warm, easy, and miles away from the landmines we used to trip over before I left home.

My eyes drift to the window. The campus outside glows soft under the streetlights, the air still as glass. But I can’t shake the weight of eyes on me, watching from somewhere just out of sight.

“Lily?” Mom snaps me back again.

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

She huffs, but there’s no heat behind it. “Anyway, I’ll let you go. Just make sure you’re eating. And sleep, okay? ”

“I will,” I say, and we both know it’s a lie. “Love you.”

“Love you too, sweetheart.”

The call ends. I drop the phone beside me. The silence rushes in, but underneath it, my nerves hum like exposed wires.

My phone chimes again.

Mom: I almost forgot. Read this article. It’s important.

Weird. She never sends me articles.

I tap the link. It’s a grainy newspaper clipping. The headline swims before my eyes until I force myself to focus:

Michael Skemp, son of Senator Michael Skemp Sr., has died following a horrific car accident.

The twenty-six-year-old sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene after veering off the freeway and into a ravine.

He is survived by his father, the Senator, his mother Judge Susan Lawson, and twin sisters, Aria and Adelaide.

The picture is small, blurred with age. But I know that uniform. I know the school. Bentley and Lincoln went there, too.

It has to be him. Why else would she think I’d be interested in such a random article?

A slow, cold tide rises inside me. My throat tightens, and the room feels smaller.

I thought I’d buried my past in a locked box, far enough away that it couldn’t touch me. I told myself I’d risen above it. Moved on.

But Michael Skemp? He’s out of time. No redemption arc. No apologies. No making it right.

And somehow… I’ve already forgiven him. I made my peace.

But peace is useless to the dead.

I drift through my days like I’m stuck inside someone else’s nightmare, half-awake but never fully conscious, every movement heavy and slow.

The weight of unseen eyes follows me everywhere—down hallways, across crowded sidewalks, even in the privacy of my own room.

It’s more than just a feeling now. It’s a presence.

A pressure. A low, constant hum in my bones that says you are not alone .

It’s worse than before. Sharper. Like whatever is watching has moved in closer, close enough to breathe the same air.

My every step feels monitored, my pauses measured.

I’ll catch myself halfway through reaching for my coffee and think, Someone just saw that.

A laugh will die in my throat because I’m suddenly aware of how loud it is, how much attention it might draw.

I’ve stopped looking people in the eye—not because I’m shy, but because I’m terrified I might accidentally meet the eyes. The ones I’ve been feeling for weeks.

Some mornings, I don’t get out of bed. I lie there, staring at the hairline cracks in my ceiling until they start to look like veins, pulsing with the same dread that’s in me.

The sun creeps across the wall, changing the shadows, but not enough to make me move.

My body feels like it’s made of lead, but my brain… my brain doesn’t stop.

It replays moments in a constant, dizzying loop—the flicker of movement in the corner of my vision on the way to class, the echo of footsteps that matched mine just a beat too long, the way the alley behind the club swallowed a shape I couldn’t quite see.

I try to find connections, patterns, anything to make it make sense, but every thread slips through my fingers.

The harder I think, the more it unravels, leaving me with nothing but a tighter knot in my chest .

If I’d stayed in Quarter, this never would have happened. The thought is poison, but it keeps dripping into my mind.

Quarter was quiet. Predictable. The kind of quiet that was so deep you could hear your own heartbeat in it. Nothing ever happened there—and I liked it that way.

Here, the city is loud even when it’s silent. It has a pulse, a fever that seeps into your blood if you stay too long. It winds itself around you, slips under your skin, digs its claws in until you can’t tell where it ends and you begin.

And maybe that’s what scares me most—the possibility that the city isn’t just making me paranoid. It’s changing me.