Page 74 of Her Sloth

I am dreaming.

Not real.

I pinch myself just to be sure.

Lilian laughs, “I’m not joking,” she says. “I don’t joke; you should know that.”

“You did once,” I say, remembering a time when we had a get-together with all of Father’s friends. I was shortly after my fourteenth birthday.

“Did I?”

“Yeah,” I say as my mind wanders back. “That celebration out east? When you and Delilah smuggled that whiskey out of the house, and we sat on the beach. It was the first strong alcohol I ever drank, and when we walked back I vomited on your 5k shoes.”

Lilian’s eyes unfocus.

“You said, ‘Well, you better get on your knees now and clean them. I looked at you completely puzzled, and you said, ‘Just joking’. I was so perplexed back then.”

I laugh, trying to overplay that I just showed too much of myself and that I had a damn crush on her.

“Ohhh, I remember,” she says. “That was a fun night, Delilah and I fucked that night after your dad pulled you away.”

“You what?” I ask incredulously. “I always thought she was straight after she married that Guru—“ I don’t even remember the name. I haven't caught up with news about her in ages. I don’t do gossip.

“Ohhhh don’t even start with him,” she says. “But yes, she did. I guess her father, I don’t know. We haven’t spoken in years. They’re divorced though.”

“Huh,” I say because there is nothing I have to say. All my life I was around two women who also loved women, and it took me all the way to L.A. until I finally kissed one.

L.A.

“Freedom,” I then say. “The price is my freedom and the promise no harm will be done to communities and people.”

19

CASS

PLAYLIST: ALL THE THINGS SHE SAID – T.A.T.U.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I shout at Addy as I get up from my chair and she jumps up immediately. “She fucking blackmailed you and you—you⁠—“

I push her back. She’s ruining the entire plan. Even thinking about doing it! That Lilian is one of the elitists. She is playing her, manipulating her—The entire past weeks she has gotten between me and my plan and is ruining everything. EVERYTHING!

“She didn’t blackmail me,” she roars back at me, now pushing me back. “Calm fucking down.”

Illy and Nikki both just shake their heads. In the planning of what we are about to do, Addy and I have been at each other's throats every ten minutes. Probably because ever since that night in the hotel, things have been as strange and awkward as it can get, and now after what happened in the warehouse⁠—

“I will not calm down! That woman walks in with a picture of your dead father, and you believe her? Did it ever occur to you that she’s a fucking billionaire elitist who tries to get you on her side so she can stay fucking rich?”

“She’s not like that,” she says and pushes me off the rails.

I grab a stack of paper from the table, flap them onto her chest. They’re printed-out screenshots from articles about Lilian.

“Read that shit,” she says. “Greedy billionaire, cares only about herself. And her father⁠—“

She interrupts me, now shouting at the top of her lungs.

“Did you ever read what the press writes about me? Yesterday I was a sure bitch, today I’m their biggest love, last week I was a stupid opportunist. They lie and construct, and you don’t fucking get it because you think your problems are the only real thing.” She is wildly gesturing and so angry that spit drops from her mouth and flies onto my face. And she’s not even done.

“You believe just because someone has money they aren’t allowed to have problems, but you believe in a fucking lie to those who don’t have it so you do everything to get it.”