Page 35

Falling out of a window wasn't the kind of thing Lilith ever expected to add to the growing list of moments that made her question her entire existence. It was absurd on every level—something that should belong to someone else's story. Not hers.

And yet, there she was, flailing through the air in a blur of panic.

The ridiculous part of it—what made it almost laughable—was that for a brief second, maybe even half a heartbeat, it didn't feel terrifying.

It felt weightless.

Like she was hovering between something important and something terribly stupid.

And then gravity, like it always does, pulled her back to reality in the most unforgiving way.

The second her body met the cold, damp ground—shoulder first, then hip, then a graceless sprawl of limbs into the half-dead bushes—her mind cleared with violent precision.

Everything that had been fogged over by whatever she'd taken blurred back into place like an image snapping into focus.

There was no soft descent, no cinematic pause.

Just a sharp crack of cold air in her lungs and the unmistakable feeling of wet grass seeping into her clothes.

That was all it took.

And suddenly, everything made sense again.

She blinked up at the sky, hanging above her with an indifference that felt oddly personal—and tried to piece together how exactly her night had arrived at this point.

There were a few things she was immediately grateful for.

The first was that Olivia and Daniel, in their infinite domestic wisdom, had chosen an apartment on the second floor and not the third, or worse, the fourth.

The second was that there had been bushes beneath the window and not concrete.

And the third—and perhaps the one she never admitted aloud—was that someone or something out there always seemed to catch her, just in time, before the fall became fatal.

A presence she couldn't name, some long-suffering angel with a cigarette between their lips and a tired look in their eyes who kept showing up every time she lost her footing.

She lay there for a second longer, limbs sprawled, hair half-covering her face, the scent of soil and the sting of embarrassment clinging to her.

There was a softness beneath her that had once been a patch of flowers—small and fragile things, still trying to bloom despite the season turning cruel. Their petals were crushed now, pinned beneath her weight.

With a low breath, she rolled onto her side, ignoring the dull ache in her hip. Slowly, she pushed herself up until she was on her knees, patting the ground with both hands. Her movements were slow, deliberate—half-expecting the phone to be shattered, half-hoping it wouldn't be.

It wasn't.

The screen still glowed faintly, smeared with a bit of mud, and the call was still ongoing.

She could hear Valentina's voice—barely—crackling against the speaker.

There was tension in it, urgency, something sharp that might've been concern or anger or both.

She was saying something—calling her name, asking a question, maybe more—but Lilith didn't let herself listen long enough to catch the words.

She brought the phone closer to her mouth, her voice low but steady.

"I'll call you later," she said, almost gently. "Sorry."

And with a press of her thumb, the call ended.

For a while, she didn't move.

Not because she couldn't—her body was sore, not broken—but because she didn't know what came next. The cold was settling into her clothes now, the kind that felt deeper than weather.

A man walked past on the pavement. He slowed down, glanced at her, and then looked away like he wasn't sure if she was high, dangerous, or just heartbreakingly lost.

Lilith met his gaze only briefly. She had no energy left to care.

Eventually, she pushed herself up, brushing the dirt from her palms, ignoring the way her dress clung wetly to her thighs. Her muscles complained with every movement, but her body still obeyed her, which somehow made her feel both grateful and humiliated.

She looked up towards the window she had just fallen from, bracing herself for what she already knew she'd find.

Olivia was there, her face pale and stricken, hands pressed to the glass like she could will Lilith back up through sheer disbelief. Her mouth was parted in shock. Her eyes were wide, unblinking.

For a second, neither of them moved.

Lilith just stood there in the dark, soaked, scraped and aching.

Apparently, she'd screamed.

That's what Olivia told her once they were back in the apartment—low and rushed, like she was still trying to believe it herself. And for Lilith, that was somehow the most humiliating part.

Because if she'd screamed, then Valentina had definitely heard it.

Of course she had.

And the thought of that made something curdle inside her. It wasn't just shame. It was the kind of feeling that made her want to disappear in the worst, most final way.

She sat on the closed toilet lid, letting Olivia murmur things softly into the air between them, her fingers brushing across Lilith's knees in a rhythm that felt too tender for the kind of wreckage she'd become.

"I shouldn't have left you alone," Olivia kept whispering, over and over. "Lili, baby, I'm sorry."

Lilith didn't respond.

Because her skin was starting to sting now, in that delayed, crawling way that came with adrenaline wearing off. Pain arriving not in sharp waves, but in slow realization.

There was dirt smeared along her arms, clinging to the cuts that had already begun to dry.

She shifted slightly, and a wet spot on her thigh soaked cold into her skin again.

Every movement lit up something new: the scrape along her ribcage, the bruise blooming under her knee, the tacky warmth of blood crusting at the base of her throat.

When she finally caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she froze.

Not because she looked bad.

But because she looked like something had happened.

There was a thin cut across the bridge of her nose, faint but angry red, and a deepening bruise beneath her left eye that would no doubt darken by morning.

Her lower lip looked swollen. Her neck—god, her neck—was a mess of shallow scratches and red spots, some of them already turning the color of plum flesh.

It was almost funny.

If she were someone else, she'd laugh.

The blonde haired girl said nothing.

Olivia kept talking, her voice a blur of guilt and nerves and soft hands trying to help.

Daniel stood in the doorway, visibly trying to remain calm. He looked like he wanted to say something—ask a question, name the elephant in the room, shake her into some kind of normal reaction—but he didn't. He just watched.

That's when Lilith finally spoke.

"Could I use the shower?" she asked, turning her head towards him with a smile so forced it almost hurt. "Please."

Her voice was syrupy, polite, completely detached from the blood on her collarbone and the dirt under her nails.

Daniel blinked.

Then, silently, he turned away to grab her something clean to wear. He returned a few minutes later with an old hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. He handed them to her without a word.

They smelled faintly of cologne—sharp, masculine, the kind she would usually scrunch her face at in playful disgust. But in that moment, she didn't have the strength to joke about it.

She locked the bathroom door behind her.

At first, she didn't do anything. Just sat on the floor, cleaning the dirt from her phone with shaking fingers and taking long, shallow pulls from her vape like she was trying to settle something in her bones. Anything to keep from looking up. From catching another glimpse of herself in the mirror.

Because seeing it once was enough.

But she couldn't sit forever.

Eventually, she stood, even though her legs felt like they didn't quite belong to her.

There was something wrong with her knees—maybe a sprain, maybe just the aftermath of impact—but they wobbled when she moved.

She couldn't even tell if it was the drugs wearing off or the fall itself that made her body feel this foreign.

Maybe it was both.

The water took too long to warm up, and when it finally did, she stepped into the spray like someone bracing for punishment.

She washed harshly—more than she needed to—scrubbing the dirt from her skin with the kind of pressure that bordered on violent.

The shallow cuts burned, stung, screamed at her to stop, but she didn't. Not until the last trace of mud was gone and she didn't feel like something that had been dragged across pavement anymore.

And still, the mirror waited.

She kept thinking about the cut on her nose. The bruises. The scratch on her cheek. Her voice echoing through the speaker before the fall. What it must've sounded like to Valentina.

What the fuck was she supposed to say to her now?

?

Eventually, the calls started.

Not one or two.

But a steady, pulsing flood of them.

Valentina's name kept lighting up Lilith's phone screen like a heartbeat she couldn't match. Call after call, sometimes with only seconds in between, sometimes a full minute apart—just long enough to leave space for dread to settle before the ringing began again.

Lilith didn't answer.

Not the first one, not the fourth, not the eighth.

Not even now, when she was curled up on the corner of her own couch, a blanket barely draped across her thighs.

Daniel had driven her home without a word, only a few sideways glances in the rearview mirror that she pointedly ignored.

Olivia had lingered in the car the entire time, wringing her hands like she'd done something unforgivable.

But in Lilith's opinion, she hadn't. She hadn't pushed her. She hadn't told her to climb the window.

Still, her guilt hung in the air like smoke.

And Lilith couldn't quite bring herself to say anything that might make it disappear.

She sat stiffly, cradling her phone between her palms like it might burn her. Her face still hurt. Her shoulder throbbed. There was a spot on her leg that felt like it might be swelling, and her mouth tasted like metal.

She stared at the lock screen, watching the rhythm of Valentina's attempts begin to change.

The space between the calls grew wider.

Then they stopped entirely.

And somehow, that made her even more nervous.

Valentina not calling felt louder than Valentina calling.

She wasn't even sober yet. Not fully. Her brain still felt too soft in places, like she hadn't quite come back into her body. But she was trying to think, to piece together something—anything—that she could possibly say when they finally spoke. Something that didn't sound insane.

She was mid-thought when the doorbell rang.

And Lilith didn't need to check to know.

She already knew.

It was the kind of certainty that bloomed in her stomach and went tight behind her ribs. Her body tensed as she stood. Her legs still ached. The air felt heavier all of a sudden, like her apartment had filled with something too dense to breathe in.

She padded towards the door, not quiet enough.

Valentina had heard her.

"Let me in."

The words came through clearly, low and firm and threaded with the kind of command that didn't leave room for negotiation.

Lilith hesitated for half a second, fingers hovering above the lock, head bowed as if that would shield her from whatever was coming next.

And then, slowly, she unlocked the door and stepped back, eyes still downcast.

Valentina stepped inside without needing to be asked. The door clicked shut behind her.

There was only the sound of soft fabric shifting, then footsteps approaching.

And then Valentina's hand—warm, sure—slipped beneath Lilith's chin and tilted her face upward.

"What happened—" she began, her voice already laced with quiet urgency, the kind she only used when she was trying not to panic.

But her words cut off the moment her eyes fully registered the damage.

"Oh God," was all she said.

Lilith shut her eyes instantly, like that would make it easier somehow. Like she could brace for this moment by refusing to see it.

She wasn't embarrassed. That would've required energy.

What she felt instead was exhaustion. The kind that came from watching herself, over and over again, becoming someone who always needed to be saved. Someone who never got through a single month without unraveling in front of people who didn't deserve it.

One day in a hospital.

One day crying in the back of someone's car.

Now, this—falling out of a fucking window.

It was almost comical how relentless her life had become.

And yet, here she stood.

"What the fuck happened?"

Valentina's voice didn't rise, but it didn't need to. The words landed with such startling weight that Lilith's breath caught before she could think.

It was the first time she'd ever heard her speak like that.

And Lilith didn't know what scared her more—that Valentina was swearing, or that she was doing it because of her.

She stood still, blinking like she was trying to stay awake in a dream she hadn't meant to fall into.

The oversized hoodie hung off her like a wet towel, the sleeves swallowing her hands.

The sweatpants had to be rolled twice at the waist to stay up, and even then they threatened to slip.

Her hair clung to the side of her cheek where it hadn't dried properly, and her face felt like a mask she hadn't been given the chance to remove.

There was something about Valentina cursing that shook her more than she expected. Not because it was loud. But because it wasn't.

Like everything she felt had been simmering for hours, just waiting to surface.

Lilith opened her mouth, then closed it again.

There was no way in hell she could say the truth out loud.

So she gave the most useless answer she could possibly offer.

"Nothing."

It sounded even worse when she heard it aloud. Like a lie a child tells when they don't yet understand that some silences only make things worse.

Valentina didn't move.

She simply looked at Lilith—really looked—and in that gaze, there was so much stillness it felt louder than yelling ever could.

Then came the sigh.

Not sharp.

Just long.

Like she was trying very hard to breathe around something she hadn't decided whether to let out or hold in.

"Lilith."

The syllables settled between them with a heaviness Lilith didn't know how to carry. She looked down, catching the soft sound of Valentina shifting on her feet—the faint click of heels against the apartment floor. The last time she saw her, she hadn't been wearing heels.

The older woman looked pretty.

"Valentina," Lilith said, trying—somehow—to sound playful. Maybe it was an attempt at levity, maybe a distraction, maybe just a desperate reach for a crack in the moment.

But the response came faster than she expected.

A slight motion of Valentina's hand, just a subtle lift of her fingers, and the narrowing of her eyes. It wasn't aggressive. It wasn't even annoyed.

It was a warning—a quiet signal that the girl shouldn't even try to make jokes.

"I won't ask again."

The finality in her voice didn't come from anger. It came from precision. And that, in a strange way, was even worse.

It made Lilith's chest tighten with something unnamable. Like she was being held accountable for something she hadn't figured out how to process herself yet.

For a second, defensiveness rose in her like a shield. But before the words could form, the wall cracked.

"I fell out of a window," she said.

It came out quickly and bluntly. Almost absurdly.

As though if she said it fast enough, the sentence wouldn't have time to exist in the air before disappearing.

Valentina didn't speak right away.

She didn't have to.

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, not in horror, but in the way someone does when they're trying to understand something that has no logic.

She looked at Lilith's face again—but not with the same sweeping glance as before.

This time, her gaze moved slowly, calculating.

Not just observing, but mapping. Her eyes traced every mark, every bruise, every red scrape, as if she could piece together the trajectory of Lilith's fall by reverse-engineering the damage.

It felt like being dissected with a steady hand.

Lilith tried not to flinch.

But there was something unbearable about being looked at like that.

Instead of comfort, or even the cold edge of concern, Valentina's voice arrived with something clinical in it.

"Are you sober right now?"

She didn't ask it cruelly. She didn't even say it sharply. But the weight of the question came all the same, as if Valentina had already decided how to measure the answer before Lilith had a chance to respond.

Lilith narrowed her eyes instinctively. The defensiveness bubbled up once again, her arms folding tightly across her chest, like her body was bracing against something larger than the moment.

"Why?" she asked, and though the word was small, it landed harshly.

The truth was obvious. She wasn't sober, not really, and they both knew it. Her pupils were still dilated, her gaze slightly unfocused, and her eyes were red too—glassy and irritated. But something in the way Valentina had asked, made her feel instantly like she was being inspected, not spoken to.

And that kind of scrutiny—especially from Valentina—made her want to pull away.

But the next question came before she had the chance to process the first.

"What are the pills you've been taking?"

Lilith blinked.

Then, as if something inside her snapped tight, she took a full step back.

Her brows furrowed, and the space between them grew colder and sharper. For a second, Lilith wasn't even sure she'd heard her right. The question felt too specific, too rehearsed. Like Valentina had been holding onto it for longer than just the last few minutes.

Her voice, when she responded, was sharper than before. Not quite angry—but deeply uneasy.

"What pills?"

It wasn't a real question. It was a reaction, a shield, a way of saying don't go there. The tone of her voice had changed too—less wary. More like someone who had just been cornered and didn't understand how or when it happened.

"The ones you took twice at my place," Valentina said calmly.

There was no accusation in her voice.

That made it worse.

Because it meant she didn't need emotion to confront her—just facts. Just evidence.

Lilith stood there, her mouth slightly open, trying to connect the dots that were now forming too quickly to keep up with.

"How do you know that?" she asked, the question quiet but edged with disbelief.

Valentina never lied.

Especilly with Lilith.

"I have cameras," she replied plainly, her words resting on the air between them like they were nothing more than another fact on a list of facts.

Without waiting for an argument, she added, "Not all around. Just near the door."

As if that detail would soften the admission.

As if that would make it better.

But it didn't.

Lilith scoffed under her breath, unable to stop herself, the bitterness creeping into her voice like it had been waiting all night to be let out.

"Fantastic."

The word was low, drawn out with a touch of sarcasm she didn't bother to disguise. It wasn't just the camera that bothered her—though it did, deeply—it was the ease with which Valentina had said it.

And worse: the implication that she'd already been watching.

Because of course she had.

Why wouldn't she?

Why wouldn't Valentina watch the blonde-haired girl when the access was so easy, when the footage was just a password away, when curiosity and control dressed themselves in the same skin?

Lilith could feel the burn behind her eyes—not from tears, not yet—but from the feeling of being seen too clearly.

And the more Valentina moved through the conversation with such ease, the more trapped Lilith began to feel.

It wasn't just what she said.

It was how she said it.

As if this entire thing had already been figured out, and Lilith was just catching up to her own mistakes while Valentina quietly, almost graciously, offered her the space to confess.

The more Valentina spoke, the more Lilith felt like she was being interrogated.

Not shouted at, not accused—but questioned, slowly and thoroughly, as if she were a case being solved instead of a person being understood.

Each inquiry landed with surgical precision, deliberate and calm, like Valentina wasn't reacting emotionally at all.

And somehow, that made it harder to breathe.

Lilith shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her arms still crossed loosely over her chest. Her eyes darted anywhere but at Valentina's face. The discomfort had already rooted itself beneath her skin. But Valentina didn't stop. She didn't adjust her tone or soften her stance.

She simply looked Lilith up and down—and asked the next question without blinking.

"Whose clothes are those?"

Her gaze dipped to the oversized hoodie, the hem of the pants dragging slightly at Lilith's ankles. Lilith could see her eyes flicker—just once—before her nose crinkled almost imperceptibly, as though catching the faint trace of cologne still clinging to the fabric.

"Daniel's," Lilith said with a shrug, like the detail didn't matter, because it really shouldn't have. Valentina didn't even know him.

But the follow-up question came almost immediately.

"Is that who you take all that stuff with?"

Valentina didn't use the word drugs.

She didn't need to.

The deliberate omission somehow made the sentence sound worse, like she was holding the word hostage just to make Lilith say it first.

"No," Lilith huffed, her voice tight with exhaustion and rising irritation. She was getting tired of this—of the pattern and of being dissected.

Then came the next blow.

"Then with who?"

The question was soft, not aggressive—but it didn't need volume to be cutting.

Lilith felt herself fold inward, her energy curling around her frustration like a second skin. She didn't even want to be angry—she wasn't supposed to be angry—but the emotion was there anyway, twisting her ribs.

There was a part of her that just wanted to bury herself in Valentina's chest, ask her to stop speaking and start holding her instead. She wanted to smell her skin, hear her laugh, see the edges of her mouth curve into something other than suspicion.

But that part didn't get to exist tonight.

"Olivia," she muttered, her shoulders lifting slightly in a limp shrug. The word left her lips like it didn't belong to her.

Valentina didn't comment.

She just said, "Okay."

That was it.

For a brief second, Lilith thought that might be the end of it.

But then Valentina stepped closer.

Not much. Just a few inches. But it was enough to fill the space between them with heat.

Her perfume rose with the movement. And when she spoke again, her voice had changed. It was quieter, but firmer now. The kind of tone people used when they wanted their words remembered.

"Listen to me carefully now, Lilith."

She leaned in slightly and suddenly the apartment felt much smaller than it had a second ago.

"If you think calling me when you're not sober and slurring that we should go on a date is how this is going to work—you're wrong."

Suddenly, the defensiveness that had flared in Lilith moments ago collapsed into something else entirely.

Panic.

Because the one thing Lilith didn't want—couldn't handle—was Valentina misunderstanding that part. Not the date. Not the wanting.

She stepped forward slightly, her voice tripping over itself as it left her mouth, desperate to undo whatever damage she'd caused.

"I swear I didn't mean it to sound like that," she rushed out, her breath uneven now, hands trembling just slightly at her sides. "I've—I don't know..."

"I know I want to go on a date with you when I'm sober too."

It was like being stabbed with something quiet when all Valentina gave in response was,"But you chose to say it when you weren't."

Lilith's lips parted, her body still leaning forward from her last confession, but no words came. The sentence hit with more force than anything Valentina could have shouted.

And it was that restraint that made it unbearable.

She felt herself sink into a kind of internal silence. Even after everything—after the window, the panic, the bruises—this felt worse.

She hadn't even noticed she was holding her breath until Valentina spoke again.

"And if you think I'm going to tolerate this—you're wrong, once again."

That should've been the end of it. Lilith knew that. Her instincts told her to nod, to take it, to let the moment close with whatever dignity she could gather. But she couldn't.

Her eyes were already glossing over, the sting of tears impossible to blink away. She didn't want to cry. Especially not in front of Valentina. Especially not like this. Not when it could be mistaken for guilt-tripping. Not when it might look like manipulation instead of what it actually was.

"I don't think that," she whispered softly.

But Valentina didn't answer.

Instead, she turned.

Her coat swayed gently as she moved, and Lilith felt her heart leap into her throat. She wasn't ready for this to end—not like this, not with Valentina walking away like she hadn't just pulled the ground out from beneath her.

"Wait—no," Lilith breathed. She reached out without thinking, her hand landing lightly on Valentina's forearm, desperate for contact, for pause, for something. Her eyes widened as her voice rose.

"Are you leaving?"

There was a quiet pause—only a heartbeat—but it was enough to make Lilith want to scream.

"Yes, I am," Valentina said softly, carefully removing Lilith's hand from her arm like she was removing lint from her coat.

"And don't even dare to take more than you're prescribed," she added, her voice still low, but more gentle.

Lilith stood frozen for a moment.

"No," she said, almost in disbelief. "You can't leave."

The words spilled out before she could think. She wasn't even sure what was happening in her brain anymore—only that this, this, felt like the end of the world.

She shook her head, frantic, not caring how she looked anymore. Her hands trembled slightly as they hovered in front of her like she was warding off something invisible.

"You think I owe you that right now?" Valentina asked. She wasn't trying to hurt Lilith—but she also wasn't indulging her.

Because she wasn't immature.

Lilith had acted recklessly. The tall woman had pointed it out clearly, cleanly.

And Valentina—who rarely asked for space—was asking now. In the quietest, most human way.

But Lilith couldn't accept that.

She took a step forward, her expression cracking open, a tear slipping down the edge of her cheek.

"You don't get it, Val."

Another tear followed, this one dropping from her chin.

"You don't get it, really, please..."

She didn't know how to explain what she meant. That her own mind had already been a cage tonight, and being left alone in it would feel like punishment. That she didn't want Valentina to fix anything—she just didn't want her to go.

Her body dropped slightly before she even realized she was lowering herself to the floor. Her knees bent with the pull of something desperate.

If being on her knees would make the woman stay, Lilith didn't mind it. Not one bit.

But she didn't reach the ground.

Valentina's hand rose swiftly, her hand pressed lightly against Lilith's shoulder, firm enough to stop her descent, but gentle enough not to startle. She forced her back.

"Rest," Valentina murmured, quiet now in a way that wasn't unkind, just resolute. "And take care of yourself."

Then she turned again—this time for good.

And the door clicked shut behind her.

The night closed in fast.

And Lilith, left standing in the middle of her apartment with nothing but the echo of Valentina's footsteps still ringing somewhere in her bones, already knew that the rest of this night wouldn't be kind.

It wouldn't be easy.

It would be a long, quiet sort of brutal.