I coughed, wiped my mouth, and handed it back. “Wasn’t planning to talk,” I said, my voice rougher than intended.
“Not planning to hook up either?” she teased, but there was no real threat behind it. She was just watching me, seeing what made me squirm.
Ishrugged. “I just didn’t want to be at home.”
She stared into the dark corner above her desk, where a string of fairy lights had half-burned out. “You want a drink?”
“Sure.”
She got up, winding her way through piles of laundry and books, and came back with bottles. She handed me one and watched me drink, then poured herself the same in a cup. “To bad decisions,” she toasted.
The burn was glorious. Sweet, just enough to drown out the static. I felt my whole body loosen, my limbs buzzing and my mind going white at the edges.
Everything in the room softened, lost its angles.
Except for Lillian, who somehow, through the haze, became clearer.
She perched on the bed across from me with her legs curled underneath her, swigging vodka like it was nothing more than water. “You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?” she said.
I shrugged, not trusting myself to speak. I was tight-wired, jittery; the inside of my head buzzed with the beginnings of a migraine and the clamor of everything I’d tried not to feel.
The joint spun between us, a slow spiral from her lips to mine, and I took it each time with fake nonchalance, holding the smoke until my lungs crackled.
The room was hot, but the booze and weed made my skin tingle, brought every nerve to the surface.
Lillian watched me with a smirk, like she was waiting for me to break and didn’t even care if I did. “You’re not very fun, you know,” she said. “I thought you’d be all brooding and rage. You’re famous for it.”
I ignored the bait, knocked back more vodka. “I’m just tired tonight,” I said. “Tired of being angry.”
She shrugged, and for a moment she looked almost childlike, hunched there, drinking with a stranger and pretending it didn’t matter.
“So what’s your deal?” she said. “You always look like you want to punch the world. Or maybe just yourself. Which is it?”
I didn’t answer. I just drank and let the warmth spread from my chest to my fingertips.
“It’s complicated,” I mumbled.
Lillian laughed. “It’s always complicated. That’s what everyone says before they do something stupid.” She leaned in, close enough that I could see the tremble in the hand that held her glass. “You ever try just letting it out? Not the hitting. The talking.”
I rolled the bottle between my palms, thinking how stupid it would sound to spill my guts to the sister of the girl I’d spent years tormenting.
I was supposed to hate her, and everything about this house, but instead it felt weirdly safe, almost comfortable. Like I’d stumbled into a parallel reality where nobody expected shit from me.
“What about talking it out with my sister?” Lillian cocked her head and studied me. “Resolving whatever anger you have toward her.”
A bitter laugh pushed out of me. There was no way I could explain the origin of my hatred, how it all came back to my father, and the abandonment of my mother. “I don’t know,” I said. “Amelia gets under my skin. Always has. She’s weak, but she’s not. Makes me feel like shit just by existing. There’s no fixing it.”
Lillian’s smile faded. She took another hit. “She’s not as delicate as you think,” she said. “You think you’re the only one walking around with splinters inside?”
She let the bitterness hang there, then shrugged it off. “You two are more alike than you know.”
That scraped something raw inside me. I didn’t respond. I drank instead.
“It’s easier,” I muttered. “To numb it.”
I drank until the room began to spin.
“Maybe I just need to get her out of my head. Beat it out, fuck it out, whatever works.”
