Page 34

"You bought this? And you didn't tell me?"

Lilith's voice lifted with a mixture of disbelief and something closer to awe, wrapped in the kind of playful accusation that barely managed to hide how touched she actually was. She didn't wait for permission—her hand was already reaching across the space, closing around the small black plushie.

She held it gently, with both hands, like something precious and strange.

The soft fabric yielded to her fingers, warm now from the heat of the room.

It was heavier than it looked. Her eyes flicked between it and Valentina as if needing to confirm, again and again, that this quiet, slightly ridiculous thing truly belonged to her.

And that Valentina had bought it.

There was a beat of silence—so subtle it barely registered, and yet somehow the atmosphere shifted.

Valentina didn't react immediately. She didn't raise an eyebrow, didn't narrow her eyes in feigned offense or amusement.

But there was something faintly unfamiliar in the way her gaze moved towards the toy.

Like she was seeing it for the first time in a very long while.

Like she'd forgotten it was there at all.

It didn't feel like carelessness. It felt like a small, strangely human glitch in a system that rarely missed anything. And that, in itself, was startling.

"I—was I supposed to hold a press conference?" she said finally, voice light, effortlessly dry. There was no edge to it, only that gentle deflection she used when something unexpectedly tender snuck past.

Lilith didn't answer with words. She just looked at her with round, slightly narrowed eyes and pushed her lower lip out in a deliberate pout, the kind that made fun of itself before anyone else could. She turned her attention back to the plushie.

Then, finally—finally—she let herself lie down on the bed.

She hadn't since she frst sat on it. She'd only perched on the edge, legs tucked beneath her, polite in a way that didn't belong to the moment.

But now she lay on her stomach with a long, quiet exhale, sinking into the luxurious mattress, arms stretched out in front of her.

Her feet lifted into the air with lazy rhythm, crossing and uncrossing without thought, her skirt riding up just enough to make her ignore it.

"Yes, just for me."

She pushed herself upright again, slower this time, her weight shifting across the bed as she sat up properly.

Her long hair fell over her shoulder in one smooth curtain, and as she moved, her elbow accidentally caught a strand—tugging it a little too hard.

She winced slightly but didn't fix it right away.

It was one of the things she hated most about having very long hair.

The plushie stayed in her lap, held carefully. She looked up at Valentina again, brows drawn together as if she were studying her.

Then she raised the panther towards her, close enough that it felt like some kind of offering.

Her smile was small, but it lived fully in her face. Her voice, when she spoke, was quieter than before but no less clear.

"Practice your speech."

She lay down again.

This time slower, as if she was folding into herself. The black panther came with her, held gently against her chest. Her arms wrapped around it without hesitation, one leg bent lazily, the other outstretched, bare skin glowing under the amber wash of the bedside lamp.

"Do you sleep with it?" she asked, voice muffled slightly by the soft fur against her mouth.

And then she giggled—quiet and sharp, the kind of sound that broke out before she could restrain it, carried by the vivid image in her head.

The mental picture of Valentina Salvatore—towering and meticulously put-together—curled around a plushie in the middle of the night like a little girl clinging to the last softness in her life.

"It's okay, Miss Salvatore," Lilith murmured, lips curling. "I won't judge."

"I don't," Valentina replied quickly, the words coming almost too fast. Her hand moved before her face could register the expression, flicking—but really more like softly smacking—Lilith's exposed thigh with the back of her fingers.

It wasn't hard.

But it was firm enough to make a point.

The contact left a warm spot blooming across Lilith's skin, and Valentina's eyes flicked there for just a second—then away, like she'd accidentally stared at something she wasn't supposed to touch. She didn't smile. She didn't correct her tone. If anything, she looked vaguely... caught.

As if she hadn't expected Lilith to notice the plushie.

And Lilith—Lilith felt her heart do something strange and stifled in her chest.

She sighed.

But not out loud.

It was the kind of sigh that happened somewhere deep in the body, lodged behind her ribs like a full drawer she couldn't close all the way. The plushie. The drawing. The sweetness. The intimacy.

It should have made her happy.

On another day, it would've made her light up, made her laugh until she buried her face in the mattress and kicked her legs.

But not right now.

Right now, it tangled something in her. The part of her that always prepared for loss before she'd even gotten to fully hold the thing she was afraid of losing. The part that didn't trust warmth unless it came with a warning label.

She didn't know why she was suddenly full of so many emotions.

And worse—she didn't know how to stop them from coming all at once.

?

Eventually—after far too long spent arguing over genres, scrolling through endless synopses, and accusing each other of having terrible taste—they settled on something.

It didn't matter what.

The kind of film you forget halfway through watching, just comforting enough to fill the silence. Background noise for a kind of closeness.

They lay together, not touching, but close enough for the air to blur between them. Pillows tucked behind their backs, limbs draped loosely over the bed's soft folds.

Lilith checked her phone without thinking.

The screen's brightness flashed too harsh in the dark. Her brows furrowed as her thumb hovered over the time.

"It's pretty late," she murmured, not fully expecting a reply.

"Mhm," came Valentina's voice, low and quiet, half-lost in the shadows.

Lilith turned her head, slow and unsure. Her heart picked up in that tiny, useless way it always did when she had to say something that left her vulnerable.

She wasn't going home.

There was no world in which she'd leave now and take that lonely, humming metro back to her apartment in the middle of the night. But she wasn't sure how to say it out loud. Not in a way that didn't feel like asking for too much.

"If I go now," she began, trying for casual but failing miserably, "there's a good chance I either get murdered..."

She paused, twisting a strand of her hair between her fingers like she could spin the nerves away.

"...or end up murdering someone on public transport."

The sentence barely made sense, but she kept going.

"Which would be tragic. For everyone involved."

She smiled—lightly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

She meant it as a joke. But under the joke was something real, and she hated that Valentina always seemed to know how to hear both at once. The soft panic underneath the humor. The plea disguised as commentary.

She wanted to ask properly. Gently. Sweetly.

But Valentina had been playing with her all evening. Teasing her without lifting a finger. Glancing, replying just a second too late, keeping the air always charged but never saying anything definitive.

The sick woman wasn't sick enough to stop being infuriating.

"It indeed would be tragic," Valentina said, finally glancing over at her.

Her tone was neutral, but her mouth twitched like she was holding back a smile.

Lilith sighed with dramatic flair and tilted her head.

"Could I stay? Please?"

Her hands folded in front of her, palms pressed together like she was about to recite a prayer—or beg for candy.

"Your guest room looks really nice," she added quickly, too quickly.

Then—almost like she had to prove she wasn't asking for much—

"I can even sleep on the floor."

The words left her mouth before she could stop them, and as soon as they landed, she regretted every syllable. Her expression shifted instantly, a small, crumpled frown forming between her brows.

She sounded ridiculous. She knew it.

And that's why—when Valentina let out a low, raspy laugh, the kind of laugh worn down by overuse, frayed at the edges from speaking too much all day—Lilith didn't hesitate.

She reached blindly for the black panther plushie still sprawled across the bed, gripped it tightly—

And launched it directly at Valentina's face.

Valentina retaliated.

The plushie came flying back at the blonde haired girl's face with shocking accuracy, soft but determined, catching her mid-smile. Lilith gasped dramatically and fell backward onto the mattress like she'd just been mortally wounded.

She landed sprawled across the bed, mockingly offended—but also a little breathless.

And then something shifted.

The mattress dipped.

And before she could even lift her head, Valentina moved, slow and smooth, until she was suddenly above her—leaning in just enough to cast a shadow over Lilith's flushed face. Her body didn't touch her, not really, but the closeness made Lilith's pulse stutter all the same.

She tilted her head slightly, dark hair falling in one perfect curve, eyes calm and assessing.

Lilith forgot what air was for a second.

And then Valentina's robe shifted.

It wasn't dramatic—just a fold of fabric slipping gently from one side, revealing the line of her collarbone, the soft, unfair curve of cleavage barely exposed beneath dark silk. But Lilith saw it.

Lilith saw everything.

And suddenly, she had no idea where to look.

Her eyes darted up to Valentina's face, down again, then back up—guilty and wide like she'd been caught in a church thinking things she shouldn't.

It wasn't fair.

The fact that Valentina looked that good.

It was not fair.

"You seem to like throwing things at people's faces," Valentina said, voice quieter now, the low hum of it skimming across Lilith's skin like velvet drawn slowly over something breakable.

Lilith swallowed, heat creeping from her ears down to her chest.

And then—

Just as quickly as she'd leaned in, Valentina pulled back.

She shifted away with a quiet sort of grace, never rushed, but clearly deliberate. Gathering herself like a shadow folding neatly back into its place.

The absence left Lilith blinking.

"Stay," Valentina said simply, adjusting the edge of her robe, voice smoother now—calm, no longer teasing. Then, after a small pause, as if she needed to make herself perfectly clear—

"Just not in the guest room."

?

The night felt strange.

Not in any obvious or dreamlike way—just unfamiliar in how quiet it was, in how the air held itself too carefully around Lilith. A kind of silence that made her feel like she had woken up inside someone else's life.

Lilith stirred slowly, the remnants of sleep clinging to her skin like damp fabric.

She was in Valentina's bed.

The realization moved through her like warm water poured into a cold cup—slow, almost reluctant, then sudden. She blinked at the dim room, her vision adjusting, and only then did she turn her head to the side.

Valentina was there.

Asleep.

Curled slightly on her side, her face turned just enough that Lilith could see the outline of her lashes, the looseness of her lips parted faintly with each breath. Her hair, usually so composed, had shifted across the pillow in loose strands.

She looked peaceful.

And Lilith didn't move.

Not at first. She just lay there, soaking in the quiet, the weight of the blanket still draped over her like a spell she wasn't ready to break.

She remembered the moment sleep had taken her—somewhere between a half-finished sentence and the sound of the movie still playing.

She hadn't planned to fall asleep. But it had felt safe.

There was no thought of going home, no edge of urgency pulling at her.

Just warmth, and the slow, quiet realization that she didn't have to leave.

Eventually, though, she sat up.

Her limbs felt heavy, like she'd slept underwater. Her muscles resisted, aching in small, strange ways, as though the sleep had been too deep to come out of cleanly. She moved as quietly as she could, slipping out of bed with slow, measured effort, careful not to wake Valentina.

The floor was cold.

She crossed the room in silence and when she reached the top of the staircase, she paused—because she remembered something important.

The lights.

They would react as soon as she stepped forward.

Sure enough, the moment her foot touched the first stair, a warm golden glow bloomed beneath it. Each step lit up as she descended, soft and beautiful—but jarringly bright in contrast to the darkness she'd just left behind.

She squinted, lifting a hand to shield her face from the sudden light.

And just as she reached the third step, one of her lashes—glued on a little too hastily earlier that day—began to unstick at the corner.

It stabbed her directly in the eye.

She stopped mid-step, muttering a curse under her breath as she rubbed at it in frustration, eyes watering from the sharp, petty pain.

It was ridiculous.

And for some reason, that tiny annoyance cracked something open in her.

By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she wasn't just irritated with the lash.

She was annoyed with everything—herself most of all.

Annoyed that she had taken the water without asking.

That she didn't know how to exist comfortably in someone else's space.

That she needed pills. That her brain wouldn't leave her alone, even now, even here, even in this beautiful penthouse with someone who made her feel wanted in the quietest ways.

It was the kind of annoyance that didn't have a clean name.

It lived in the base of her skull.

She opened the cupboard too quietly, like the noise might shame her. Found a glass. Filled it. Drank.

Then she crouched down in front of her bag, back the entrance door, her back slouched against the shelves. She reached inside and found the white pills. Two landed in her hand. She took them dry, out of habit, before finishing the rest of the water in a single slow gulp.

She scowled, thinking briefly of her last psychiatrist appointment. Of the condescending smile. Of the way the psychiatrist had said "this should be enough for now."

It wasn't.

She peeled off her lashes one at a time, still seated on the floor, her fingers moving with tired precision. She put them inside of her bag, knowing she wouldn't use them anymore.

And then she heard footsteps.

And a presence.

Before her brain had time to catch up—before her body could remind her she was safe, that this was Valentina's home, that nothing could hurt her here—

She screamed.

The scream could've easily belonged in one of the horror films she loved so much—bloodcurdling, guttural, echoing off the walls like something unholy had been summoned in her chest.

She yelped mid-scream as her back jerked and her head cracked directly into the edge of the wooden shelves behind her. The sound it made was sharp, dull, and humiliating all at once.

Still crouched awkwardly on the floor, she clutched the back of her skull with one hand and stared up with wide, watery eyes.

Valentina stood there in the faint golden light from the stairs blinking down at her like she'd just walked into a crime scene.

She looked, impossibly, both woken up and somewhat impressed.

"Who knew I could be this terrifying?" Valentina said, dryly, like she was making a casual observation about herself in the mirror.

"Jesus," Lilith muttered under her breath, rubbing the spot on her head again.

Then, still slightly breathless, she added—

"I think I actually saw him for a second."

Valentina's mouth twitched—whether into a smile or a smirk was unclear—but her gaze didn't move away.

There was something almost... pointed about the way she looked at her now. Not unkind, but puzzled. Like Lilith had disrupted an unspoken rule without realizing it.

"Why did you leave the bed?" she asked, her voice deceptively level. But it wasn't a soft question. It carried a note that felt oddly like offense, a trace of something proprietary under the surface.

Lilith blinked.

Something in Valentina's face shifted—barely.

Just a flicker. Not scary but unsettling.

Lilith wasn't sure if she was imagining it, but for a second, the woman looked almost like a demon—one that had followed her out of something intimate, offended that she'd dared to escape its grasp.

Like leaving the bed had broken something sacred. Like she wasn't even allowed to leave.

The tone made her tilt her head slightly.

"Sorry, I... can't sleep?" she replied, though it came out more like a question than an answer.

She stood up slowly, still holding her half-empty glass of water. Her limbs felt awkward again.

"Haven't been sleeping well lately."

She moved to return the glass to the kitchen, trying to appear casual, though her body still buzzed from the scream and the sudden tension that had followed it.

Valentina didn't say anything for a moment. She only glanced towards the far end of the kitchen, then walked over to the smooth dark wooden wall—an unassuming panel of matte that hid a row of nearly invisible buttons.

Lilith watched her with tired curiosity.

Valentina pressed one of them and pointed.

"Here, you turn on that one," she said, motioning towards the built-in lights that glowed along the inner edges of the wall—warm, diffused amber, like candlelight trapped behind glass.

Then she clicked the first one off, and pressed a second.

"And here. That one," she added, now illuminating the baseboards along the floor. A dimmer, golden hue stretched out across the floor like liquid morning, less obtrusive than the first.

Lilith couldn't help but smile at the way she explained it. So matter-of-fact. So precise.

It wasn't about light.

It felt like instructions for the future. Like she expected her to return. To know where the switches were.

Valentina moved past her again, her footsteps silent, her presence drifting like something made of silk and sleep.

"Let's eat," she said.

It wasn't a suggestion.

?

"I needed this," Lilith sighed, the kind of sigh that used her whole body as she leaned into Olivia's arms.

The hug was tight, lingering just long enough to root her into the moment. Olivia's hands patted her back in that familiar rhythm, soft but steady.

The street was alive around them—buzzing with heat and motion, voices spilling from the open doors of nearby bars and the rhythmic thump of bass trembling through the pavement.

People stood in messy lines, waiting for entry, half-tipsy already or pretending not to be.

Taxi lights blinked in slow motion. Someone nearby laughed too loudly.

Everything glowed slightly under the gold of the streetlamps.

"Something happened?" Olivia asked as they inched closer to the club entrance.

Lilith blinked, then gave a pout so exaggerated it almost bordered on satire.

"Yes," she said solemnly. "Very tragic. I broke my nail."

Olivia snorted.

But beneath the joke, Lilith meant it—the I needed this.

She hadn't realized just how tightly her nerves had been pulled until she was here, outside and surrounded by life again.

The week had unraveled her in slow, invisible ways.

She had gritted her teeth through lectures, blinked back emotion in elevators, swallowed too many words that scraped against the inside of her mouth.

She'd barely managed not to snap at anyone.

And she knew—knew—she couldn't think about Valentina right now.

Not while sober.

The thought of that night a few days ago still clung to her like a second skin—when Valentina had stayed up with her in the kitchen, making pizza from scratch while soft jazz played quietly in the background.

The blonde haired girl's expression shifted as her eyes caught something new.

"New piercing?" she asked, eyes narrowing with mock suspicion.

She nodded towards the small, clean silver hoop in Olivia's nostril—barely noticeable in the blur of movement, but catching just enough light to matter.

"I felt sad," Olivia said plainly.

Then, with a small toss of her hair, she added, "Looks great, right?"

Lilith didn't answer, just let herself follow Olivia through the darkened threshold as the club doors opened to swallow them whole.

?

Lilith had never been against mixing—alcohol with drugs, weed with alcohol, drugs with weed—everything with everything.

She had always done it without consequence, except for that one time she ended up in the hospita.

This time, it hadn't seemed like much, just a small, careless indulgence.

But how cruelly wrong that assumption was.

As soon as the LSD coursed through her and the smoke from the weed curled around her mind, she slipped beyond the edges of the world she knew.

At first, it was a gentle drift, like waking into a lucid dream, where colors bloomed brighter and seconds stretched and folded like frames of an old film.

Words tumbled from her lips in nonsense, while Olivia hovered nearby—an indistinct, laughing shadow caught between this world and another.

They made their way back to the apartment Olivia shared with Daniel—a space suddenly foreign and constricting despite its familiarity.

Daniel mocked their unsteady forms, his voice sharp and amused, but his teasing felt distant, like echoes in a cavern Lilith barely noticed.

Then the shift came—the subtle fracture in her perception deepening into something darker.

It felt like some kind of paranoia. She couldn't tell anymore.

If before she had been in a different world, now she was trapped in a warped dimension, where colors bled like wet paint and time unraveled, seconds breaking apart and reforming in jagged, disjointed scenes.

At first, this distortion was not frightening.

But when Olivia began to speak again fear blossomed inside Lilith's chest.

Because in her eyes, Olivia didn't look like Olivia anymore. Her face seemed stretched, subtly wrong, almost frightening in its unfamiliarity. Her wide, darting eyes looked too bright, too frantic, like they didn't belong to her at all.

And when she laughed—a sharp, fragile sound—it hit Lilith's ears like something demonic.

It made the tension inside her spike violently, made her want to cover her ears, to scream, to run.

Daniel had disappeared into his room, leaving the two girls alone in the living room.

The coffee table was pushed into a corner, the couch shifted back, as if the room itself were shrinking around them.

The windows were open wide, letting the night air in, but the coolness did nothing to steady Lilith's racing pulse or ease the tightness squeezing her lungs.

"Okay, Liv, no—I don't even know—wait," Lilith slurred, her words tangled and stumbling over one another as she grasped at something solid, something real.

But the panic rose like a tide pulling her under, and words slipped away like sand through trembling fingers.

"Chill," Olivia said softly, a single word echoing in the growing silence, almost like a command.

Lilith could not listen.

Because when the breath caught in her throat and the world spun too fast, every inhale a struggle, she could not chill—not with the immediate fear pressing down like a weight she might never lift.

"I feel like I can't breathe," Lilith murmured, laughter threading through her voice like a fragile tether to reality.

"What if I actually... like, I actually can't breathe, and I'm not just imagining it?"

She lay on the floor, the coolness of the floor pressing against her cheek, words slipping out in slow, stumbling waves.

"I don't want to end up in a hospital again," she whispered, the memory of sterile white walls closing in like a shadow she couldn't shake.

Olivia moved closer, sudden and unrestrained, throwing herself onto Lilith with a wild softness that only made the weight on Lilith's chest grow heavier—like the air itself was folding in, tightening, refusing to fill her lungs.

"You won't," Olivia said, laughing lightly, but the sound was brittle—an attempt to lighten the room that failed to pierce the thick fog inside Lilith's mind.

"I wouldn't even dream of calling anyone."

But her words felt distant, floating somewhere beyond the reach of Lilith's spiraling panic, unable to anchor her trembling heart.

Time slowed, stretching, and then Olivia's voice softened to a murmur—"I missed you."

The confession hung between them, fragile as spun glass, before she added, almost too quiet to hear, "You're so busy lately... does Gabrielle actually hate me that much?"

Lilith shook her head, her thoughts heavy.

She tried to form words, to climb back towards the solid ground of the real world, but her voice faltered, as if she were a character trapped inside a film reel, watching herself from the edges of a fractured scene.

"No—not at all," she began, voice rough and slow. "I mean... you know how it is."

"I'm not busy because of Gabi."

A small, almost sad smile curved her lips as her gaze fixed on the ceiling above.

"No way you're seeing someone," Olivia murmured then, a note of disbelief threading through the words, as if imagining Lilith with someone was some absurd joke.

"What do you mean?" Lilith pouted, the playful tilt in her tone belying the heaviness settling beneath.

"I'd make a nice girlfriend, right?"

And in that hazy moment, Lilith's mind drifted, slow and sure, towards one person—Valentina—the only name she could imagine holding that space.

"I can't."

Olivia's laugh slipped out—light, almost musical—a fragile, otherworldly sound that seemed to float far away from the tangled storm inside Lilith's chest.

It was as if Olivia lived in a better place, one where the weight of the world didn't press so hard, and where laughter came easy, without the edge of panic beneath it.

Lilith scrunched her eyebrows, and suddenly her mind swirled with vivid, scattered images of what a relationship might look like.

She could see herself there, maybe.

"I don't know how to date," she murmured, the words slipping out more like a question.

"Don't. It's not worth it."

Olivia's voice wove the words into a teasing melody, a soft warning sung with an almost cruel sweetness—like a lullaby meant to keep Lilith from getting too close to something she might not survive.

"God, I think I'll throw up."

Without another word, she rose, her movements unsteady but determined, slipping away towards the bathroom and leaving Lilith alone with the quiet that came after.

And in that silence, paranoia crept back, slow and cold, curling around Lilith like smoke in an empty room.

Why hadn't Olivia answered her?

When she'd asked if she'd make a good girlfriend, why had Olivia stayed silent?

Lilith thought she would be—maybe.

But right now, the ache of missing Valentina felt sharp and raw, twisting into panic and desperation, stripping away any hint of excitement or joy.

She pushed herself up, the room tilting beneath her as she reached for her phone.

She knew she should think.

She had promised herself she would sit alone, quiet and steady, and think a little about it.

Because some things—no, a lot of things—meant everything.

But how could she be sure?

She didn't want to be a coward, even if, at this moment, that was exactly how she felt.

Still, without fully understanding why, she pressed the call button.

The ringing stretched on, too long and too slow, tightening nerves that felt like they were fraying at the edges.

She settled on the open window ledge, the sharp bite of the cold night air slicing through her.

Narnia, she thought—half-smiling through the tremble—imagining a reindeer, soft and calm, and how nice it would be to reach out and touch it.

But the moment Valentina's voice came through the line, Lilith shook her head, pushing the daydream away, grounding herself in the present.

"Hello?"

Valentina's voice slipped through the phone—clearer now, smoother than it had been just days ago, the raspiness softened, hinting at something better.

Maybe she wasn't sick anymore.

Lilith perched on the window ledge, the cold bite of the glass seeping through her fingertips as her hand moved absentmindedly over the surface, tracing invisible lines.

She wasn't even sure why she had called.

The phone felt heavy and light at once as she rested it on her thigh.

"Lilith... sweetheart?"

Valentina's voice softened, wrapped in concern that felt like a warm echo in the quiet room.

Lilith didn't answer right away.

Her chest tightened, breath catching, her mind scrambling to catch a word, a phrase—anything to hold onto.

And then, as quickly as she could, she forced the simplest sound out, "Hi, Val."

Her gaze dropped to her hands, watching them twitch nervously, absurdly out of sync with her thoughts, like they belonged to someone else entirely.

It made her want to laugh.

Like it was funny, somehow—how ridiculous it all looked. Like a joke no one else could see.

Then, without warning, the words tumbled out, escaping before she could catch them.

"We should date."

The silence that followed stretched, taut and fragile like a thread ready to snap.

Lilith wasn't sure if Valentina had spoken—if she had replied—or if the quiet simply swallowed the moment whole.

Panic flickered in her chest.

She hurried to clarify, voice uneven, fragile with uncertainty.

"I mean... we should go on a date—yes. A date."

Her leg shifted beneath her, careless but consequential.

The phone, forgotten, teetered on her thigh, a delicate balance undone.

Time slowed—stretched and warped—as if the world held its breath.

The phone slipped—first a subtle slide, then a sudden, sharp descent—cutting through the night air like a fragile comet falling from the sky.

Lilith's hand shot out instinctively, clumsy and desperate, grasping blindly for something already gone.

But the phone wasn't the only thing that fell out of the window.