Page 30

Lilith had never really kissed anyone.

She didn't count the silly, fast, not-at-all-serious kisses she gave when she was younger—those moments laced with laughter and artificial boldness.

Nor did she count the ones she'd shared with Olivia, those slow exhales of smoke passed between mouths, lips brushing just enough to blur the line between flirting, coughing, and trying to remember whose cigarette it even was.

This kiss—this one with Valentina—was different.

It was meant to mean something.

It was impulsive, yes—so fast it might as well have been nothing—but the intention behind it... it was terrifyingly real.

And then, just like that—it was over.

She pulled away almost as quickly as she'd leaned in, as if she'd done something she shouldn't have, something irreversible. Her body jolted back like she'd touched a wire, and in her mind, the rooftop blurred around her like the beginning of a nightmare.

Valentina's lips had been soft.

So soft that the memory of them haunted her the second she lost contact.

And now, she couldn't tell if the woman had been about to kiss her back—or if she'd just sat there, still and shocked.

Lilith didn't let herself linger on the question.

She knew herself well enough to recognize that her brain, if left unchecked, would pick it apart until there was nothing left but imagined rejection.

She stood up so abruptly it startled even her.

"Oh my God," she burst out, her voice too loud, cracking in the middle. "I'm literally so sorry, I don't know—oh God—"

She looked like someone who had run over a beloved pet and didn't know how to fix it. Her hands fluttered uselessly at her sides. Her face was pale. She felt like she was going to cry or scream or throw herself off the edge of the roof just to escape the unbearable heat rising in her chest.

Just a quick jump, nothing dramatic. Maybe it wouldn't kill her—just bruise her up enough to skip the part where she had to face whatever came next.

Valentina hadn't moved. She was still seated, looking up at her. Lilith wished she had the courage to meet her eyes, to see what was there, to maybe recognize mercy or disgust or something human and nameable. But she couldn't. She was too afraid of what she might find.

"It's—" Valentina began gently.

Lilith panicked.

"No, please just... don't...say anything?" she interrupted, her voice almost breaking again as she shook her head, as if that could somehow shake the moment out of existence.

Immediately, she hated the way it sounded. Like she was begging for silence instead of clarity.

"No, I mean just—I... let's not talk."

That was even worse.

She felt her face twist into something humiliated, her tongue already forming some newer, even more mortifying sentence when—

Valentina stood.

Calmly. Smoothly. Like none of this had thrown her.

"Calm down," she said, and it wasn't a command—it was an offering.

Before Lilith could interpret the words, Valentina's hand was on her cheek.

A soft, open palm, warm and grounding. Her fingers curved gently against Lilith's skin like she was handling something delicate. And maybe she was.

For two seconds—maybe three—Lilith just looked at her.

Her breath was unsteady. Her body was trembling, just slightly, but enough to make her knees feel hollow. And her mind, once again, betrayed her with the vivid image of her just crumpling to the rooftop floor like a badly written character in a melodrama.

It wasn't a joke.

She actually felt like she might faint.

Maybe Valentina's silence was mercy. Maybe it was calculation. Maybe she knew that if she said anything at all, Lilith would jump—if not off the roof, then out of her own skin. It didn't matter. The quiet felt safer than any words could have in that moment.

Lilith squinted against the sting behind her eyes. Her voice, when it came, was barely audible.

"Please don't hate me."

It was the truth beneath every word she hadn't said.

Because if Valentina hated her—even a little—for this, if she saw her as foolish or pathetic or presumptuous, Lilith wasn't sure how she'd recover. The kiss was one thing.

But the possibility of ruining whatever fragile thing they'd been building?

That would destroy her.

"You kissed me. That's not a crime."

Valentina's voice was calm. So calm it felt almost rude. Like someone offering you a cup of tea after you accidentally set their couch on fire.

Lilith squeezed her eyes shut and raised a hand in the air like she was stopping traffic. The universal gesture for please, for the love of god, do not speak another word.

The blush that bloomed across her cheeks was a full-on declaration of war against dignity. In some alternate universe, she'd probably be laughing at this ridiculous disaster—but only if she weren't the architect of the whole chaotic scene.

"Okay, I won't say anything."

Valentina's laugh was low and soft, that rare kind of chuckle that both mocks and endears, as if she found the whole situation mildly absurd but entirely charming.

"I want to go home."

Lilith's face disappeared into her hands like a shy animal retreating from a spotlight. She longed to vanish, or at least fold neatly into some less conspicuous dimension.

"Let's get you home then."

Why force the blonde-haired angel into talking when she clearly wasn't prepared for it?

Would Valentina have preferred to unravel the tangled threads of the kiss? Absolutely. But tonight, she let patience take the lead.

If Lilith wanted silence, then silence was the language they'd speak.

Underneath it all, Valentina's concern smoldered—quiet but intense, like a cat poised in the shadows, ready to spring but content to observe.

Because push too hard, and Lilith might very well have died on the spot—dramatically, of course—and nobody was prepared for that kind of theatrical collapse.

"Call me when you get home, okay?"

The woman simply looked at Lilith the way one might look at a deer already startled, knowing even kindness could make it bolt.

Lilith didn't respond. Not properly. She just nodded, eyes still refusing to meet Valentina's, her stare fixed on some invisible point on the sidewalk like it might open and swallow her whole.

She'd ordered an Uber almost as soon as she stepped out of the building. The idea of being in a car alone with Valentina any longer felt unbearable.

It shouldn't have been that deep.

And yet, it was.

Of course it was.

She knew she had a tendency to catastrophize, to frame every feeling as a life-or-death situation.

Still, she couldn't help it—her heart had always operated at maximum volume.

Everything was always too much or not enough.

Her body didn't seem to understand moderation when it came to emotional weight.

She leaned her head against the car window as the Uber pulled away from the curb.

City lights slipped past in flickers and smears, and she watched them blur into each other like half-finished thoughts.

She tried to talk herself down from the ledge of her own panic, tried to convince herself that Valentina hadn't looked horrified or disgusted.

In fact, she'd been calm.

Almost amused.

Still gentle.

Lilith let out a shaky sigh, eyes closing briefly.

She hated this part of herself—the way she spiraled so easily, how every little misstep became a symbol of her own inadequacy.

And yet, it felt impossible to change. She had never been taught how to live normally.

Her mind only knew how to operate in extremes.

The sadness hit her as she stepped out of the Uber—raw and overwhelming, a twin to the embarrassment still simmering beneath her skin. She didn't even know what it was mourning exactly. The kiss? Her reaction? Herself?

And then she saw the figure on her doorstep.

Her mother.

Lilith froze for a beat, her breath catching in her throat. That particular kind of stillness overtook her—the one that came when the past returned too suddenly, too intimately.

She didn't need to ask how her mother knew she would be coming back home that moment. Oscar. It had to be Oscar.

And for once, Lilith didn't even resent him much for it.

The tears came fast, unstoppable, as if her body finally decided it had held up the dam long enough. She walked up the path, unsteady, and without thinking, stepped into her mother's arms.

"Don't say anything. Please."

Lilith's voice was barely a whisper, muffled against her mother's hair, which was damp now from the tears.

She knew she'd likely be scolded later for it.

But tonight, her mother said nothing.

Some days she did. Some days she didn't.

Tonight, she didn't.

"What happened?"

The question was hesitant, like even her mother wasn't sure she had the right to ask it.

Lilith froze again. It was disorienting—this tenderness from someone who had rarely offered her softness.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd hugged her mother. Five years ago? More? It felt like another lifetime.

And now, here she was, weeping into her arms like a child.

The question felt so strange—foreign, even. Her mother asking her what was wrong?

Lilith didn't have an answer.

"I don't know," she sobbed. And it was true. She didn't know. It wasn't just one thing. It was everything.

Her mother's hand moved to her hair, smoothing it gently. Not warmly, not the way Lilith had always longed for—but neutrally.

She hadn't expected warmth. Her mother had never been warm.

Lilith didn't even know why she wasn't mad.

Why her legs moved before her mind, why she ended up in her mother's arms like it was the most natural thing in the world. It confused her—she didn't want it, didn't need her. Maybe it was just about the illusion of safety, and her mother happened to be the nearest thing to it.

Still, it would be something she'd probably sit with for hours, turning over and over in her head like a question without a clear answer.

?

Lilith hated nightmares.

They felt like betrayal—like the universe had seen her sob herself to sleep and decided she hadn't suffered enough. As if rest was something she hadn't quite earned.

And tonight, it pissed her off more than usual.

She'd fallen asleep with the weight of her mother's arms still lingering on her shoulders, tears drying sticky against her cheeks, and the dim ache of embarrassment still curled somewhere under her ribs.

She'd hoped for unconsciousness, for blankness.

But her brain had insisted on playing horror movies at full volume.

Now she was sitting upright in bed two hours later, cotton pad in one hand, tired eyes blinking slowly at the soft lighting of her room.

Her movements were slow, mechanical. She dragged the pad gently over her eyelids, watching as mascara, eyeliner, and glitter came away like ink bleeding from paper. Somewhere in the process of wiping away her day, she remembered—Valentina had asked her to call.

She expected herself to overthink it but it didn't happen.

All she felt was a quiet longing to hear the voice of the woman who, for some inexplicable reason, made everything feel a little less awful.

She clicked the call button before she could second guess it.

"Sorry I fell asleep," Lilith said softly, wiping beneath her eye with the edge of the cotton.

"Did you?" Valentina's voice came through, accompanied by a faint clinking sound—glass on counter, maybe the pour of some drink. She sounded like she'd just gotten home. "How do you feel?"

Lilith hesitated for a second before answering. "I feel alright," she said, tone neutral. But the moment she said it, something tugged at her—familiar and unwelcome.

It was a feeling she hated. And Lilith had a very well-curated list of hated feelings.

Once, during a long lecture, she'd nearly made a tier list in her notes app of her most hated emotions and states.

This one—this craving for something sharp, something familiar in its cruelty—was a special kind of loathed.

She'd felt it earlier, too. That strange ache for a reaction, for a bite, for something cruel and cold that would give her shape again. Her mother hadn't given it to her. And maybe that was what unsettled her the most.

She sighed softly, like that might dismiss the thought.

"I had a nightmare, though," she said quickly, almost as a distraction to herself.

"You were chasing me with a knife," Lilith deadpanned, tossing the used cotton pad into the trash.

Valentina hummed, amused. "I hope I looked good while doing that."

Lilith laughed, the corners of her mouth tugging upward despite herself. "Very pretty," she murmured.

She got up, moving through her room barefoot, phone on speaker in her hand. The domesticity of it all was quietly soothing.

"I need to wash my face," she said, pushing the bathroom door open with her hip. "Can you stay?"

Her voice was lighter now. Not emotionless, but...quiet. The kind of quiet that comes after the storm has passed and all that's left is the gentle clatter of debris.

"I can."

Lilith set the phone on the bathroom counter, propping it up between a candle and a half-empty hand cream. The water ran cold over her fingers as she reached for her cleanser, her reflection soft and a little smudged in the mirror.

Halfway through scrubbing her face, she spoke again, the sound echoing faintly off the tiles.

"Would it be really annoying if I apologized?"

She wasn't sure if she meant for the kiss, or for reacting weirdly after it, or for calling, or for being herself. Maybe all of it. Maybe none.

"Annoying? No. Unnecessary? Yes."

Lilith stared at herself in the mirror, foam clinging to her cheeks like clouds.

"If you don't want to talk about it, we won't."

Valentina said it with a tone that didn't sound like dismissal, but rather like a hand offered without pressure.

Lilith kind of wished she could read Valentina's mind in that moment—just peel back a corner of that carefully composed silence and see what lived underneath. Maybe not talking about the kiss was convenient for her, too.

Or maybe—just maybe—Lilith's annoyingly loud brain was doing what it always did: spinning too many versions of reality at once. Because what if the truth was simpler than she thought? What if Valentina was just giving her space... because she cared?

"Stop stressing over it, angel."

Lilith froze. The cleanser in her hand slipped from between her fingers and dropped into the sink with a dull thud, like the punctuation to a sentence she hadn't expected.

"Fuck," she whispered—too soft for anyone to hear, but sharp enough to echo in her own head.

Angel.

Lilith felt her breath hitch, the word wrapping around her like something foreign.

She looked at her own reflection in the mirror, mascara still clinging to her lashes in streaks, lips slightly parted in disbelief.

If only Valentina knew.

If only she knew how far Lilith felt from anything angelic.

Trying to gather herself, she muttered under her breath, "Lilith wasn't exactly an angel."

Valentina didn't hesitate. "They didn't exile her for being ordinary, did they?"

A pause stretched between them, and then Lilith smiled—a real one this time, touched with a softness she didn't know she had left tonight.

"I guess not."

She tapped her face dry with a towel, her skin stinging slightly from too much rubbing.

Back at her vanity, she sat down with a sigh.

Valentina picked up on it immediately. "What is it?"

"My hyaluronic acid is ending."

She pouted at the bottle like it had personally betrayed her, tipping it to get the last few drops and patting them delicately into her cheeks.

"It's honestly criminal how expensive this one is."

There was a pause, then a self-deprecating laugh.

"Time to get a job again."

The word tasted bitter in her mouth. Job. She rolled her eyes at her own melodrama.

"Again?" Valentina asked, a touch of curiosity in her voice. And something else too—something warm, almost amused.

It made Lilith's heart ache a little, in that strange, unexpected way the quiet hours sometimes do. There was something about the way Valentina said it that made Lilith imagine her in bed, phone resting against her cheek, one leg probably draped over her blanket, a glass of something in her hand.

"I've probably had more jobs than you."

She tried to make it sound flippant, but her tone still wavered—half defense, half performance.

Valentina didn't miss the chance.

"I'm not sure if you should be proud of being fired that many times, sweetheart."

Lilith gasped, indignant.

"I wasn't fired."

She lifted her chin, like a cat bristling at being underestimated.

"I was a very good employee."

There was a pause, and then Valentina's voice came again, silkier this time, low and amused.

"What jobs did you have?"

"Just typical student ones," Lilith muttered, already bracing herself for the memory. "Being a waitress really made me feel like I was in hell."

She cringed, visibly, even though Valentina couldn't see her. That chapter of her life came with aching feet, fake smiles, and customers who thought snapping their fingers was a form of communication. The humiliation of balancing trays with trembling hands never quite left her.

"I started working when I was seventeen," she added. "And now I'm taking a break. For at least a year."

The pause after her declaration made it sound almost noble—like she was recovering from a war, not just a string of part-time jobs.

"Such a poor girl," Valentina hummed, almost indulgently.

Lilith rolled her eyes, but there was a smile tucked beneath the motion. She pressed the last of her skincare into her skin with slow, tired fingers, then slipped beneath her sheets with a yawn that caught her by surprise.

Outside, the wind snuck through the edges of her ever-open window. It nipped at her skin, making her instinctively curl tighter into herself. That chill was familiar, almost comforting. It was how she always slept—tucked in, half shivering, like she was training herself to need less warmth.

"Are you going to sleep?" the blonde haired girl asked softly, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

"I might soon."

A pause.

"Do you want me to read you a bedtime story?"

Valentina's tone was playful, but not unkind. Teasing, light. Lilith could tell it wasn't serious—but still, something in her chest twisted the way it does when someone jokes about something you secretly, desperately want.

It would be nice.

So, she did what she usually did with her softer truths—she laughed them away.

"No," she said, the word a bit too sharp before she softened it with, "but... you can just... talk."

And then, quieter.

"I like your voice. It makes me sleepy."

The line lingered in the air, more vulnerable than she meant for it to be.

And Valentina simply started talking. Glass of wine gently clinking in the background.

Something about a childhood summer in Sicily, a quick story about work, then a few lines in Italian that Lilith didn't catch.

Not that it mattered—she wouldn't have understood even if she were awake.

The woman's voice was too warm, too lulling.

Lilith drifted off with the image of her playing gently behind her eyes, like a scene she didn't want to end.

And even as she drifted, her mind gently brushing against the memory of the kiss, of how badly she didn't want to talk about it—she also knew the silence wouldn't last forever.

The conversation would come.

Just... not tonight.

And that—

That felt like a gift.

Because if there was one thing Lilith had mastered, it was the art of running away from her problems.