1. Lilith
CHAPTER ONE
H e rolled off me with a grunt, peeling his sticky body away from the fabric of my T-shirt. The mattress dipped under his weight as he shifted, half-heartedly throwing a corner of the blanket over me before leaning back with one arm behind his head.
“That was really good,” he said, the glow of his phone screen lighting up his face as he started scrolling.
Was I supposed to agree? Say thank you?
The thought sent my brain scrambling as I tried to figure out what the right response even was—the one that would piss him off the least.
“Look,” he said, turning the phone toward me.
A picture of him sat at the top of the screen, standing in front of a camera, mic in hand.
LOCAL REPORTER CLARK THORN SPARKS BACKLASH AFTER CONTROVERSIAL SEGMENT: VIEWERS CALL COVERAGE ‘INSENSITIVE AND MISGUIDED.’
“Critics,” he said, spitting the word out as he turned the phone back to himself and began frantically typing into the search bar. “These people don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.”
“Well,” I said softly, “you know how people are. They’ll always find something to pick apart.”
It was the right thing to say. I knew that before it had left my mouth.
“Lunch tomorrow, angel? My treat,” he said as he stood, grabbing his clothes up from the floor.
“Yeah, of course.” I nodded, even though my chest was tightening at the sight of him rushing like he couldn’t get away fast enough.
He smirked faintly as he pulled his shirt and trousers on. Then his gaze dipped, flicking down my body for a brief moment, lingering just long enough to make the hairs on my skin stand up.
“You know,” he said, buckling his watch and adjusting the strap, “if you stopped wearing that shirt every time we fucked, and maybe did a little… work… on yourself, it might be good for you too.”
He raked a hand through his bleached blond hair, shot me a wink, grabbed his keys, and left.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Moving just for the sake of it, maybe. Chasing some kind of relief from the restless energy buzzing under my skin.
My reflection caught my eye in the mirror across the room, and I immediately wished it hadn’t.
I tugged at the hem of my T-shirt instinctively, trying to smooth it out, but it didn’t help.
The fabric clung stubbornly to my hips like it had a personal vendetta, outlining every curve I desperately wanted not to see.
Sour breath burns behind my ear. “You’re disgusting. Look at yourself. You don’t need to eat any more.”
My thighs pressed together awkwardly, the soft flesh spilling out in a way that made me want to smash every reflective surface I’d ever come across again.
My gaze travelled up, landing on my stomach, and my fingers twitched at my sides. A sick, familiar itch. I knew better. I knew if I looked. Really looked. I’d spiral.
Fuck. I hated it.
I let out a slow breath, tracing the ink on my body with absent fingers, following the curves of skin I’d spent years trying to make unrecognisable.
Flowers, books, intricate designs etched into my skin. They were beautiful, but I hadn’t gotten them just because I loved tattoos. I’d gotten them to cover myself. To disguise the softness beneath something deliberate. A form of destruction dressed up as self-expression.
Maybe he was right to some degree. There were definitely some parts that needed work. There had to be a new diet I could try. Or maybe I could download a tracker again—
“Nope, not tonight,” I said aloud, shaking my head as if it would physically erase the thoughts, like a neural version of an Etch-A-Sketch.
I shuffled toward the bathroom, flipping the light on with a groan. I instantly regretted it. The overhead light was blinding, highlighting every shadow under my eyes, every line of exhaustion carved into my face.
The steam rose as I turned on the shower, and I stripped off my shirt, stepping into the water. The second the hot spray hit my skin, I winced, sucking in a sharp breath.
“ Clark—ow,” I say, twisting slightly to pull away from him.
He laughs, loosening his grip from my ribs. “Oh, come on. Don’t be dramatic.”
I rub the ache blooming under my shirt. “ I’m not being dramatic. That hurt.”
“You’re fine,” he waves his hand. “Fuck, you’re so sensitive.”
He’d grown real fond of those words over the last few months.
‘You’re overreacting.’
‘You’re so sensitive.’
‘You’re so dramatic.’
I pressed my forehead against the cool tile, closing my eyes as the hot water pounded against my back.
We’d just been playing. Roughhousing a little. Harmless, right? Except his hand had gripped my side, fingers digging in a little too hard. Hard enough to make me yelp, hard enough to leave a bruise that was now blooming like a Rorschach test under my ribs.
I rubbed at the purple and yellow mark, wincing again as the words echoed in my mind.
Maybe I was being dramatic. Maybe if I hadn’t played back, or maybe if I…
Evelyn’s voice rang in my head. “ God, you’re so dramatic, Lilith. You act like the world’s ending when you don’t get your own way.”
Then Wayne’s. “ You need to stop being so sensitive all the time. Nobody likes a girl who cries at everything.”
My jaw clenched, stomach coiling tight.
Dramatic.
Sensitive.
Overreacting.
It spun and spun, faster, louder, crushing, suffocating—
My breath hitched. My fists curled. My nails bit.
My pulse pounded against my ribs, climbed up my throat.
Building and building and building.
With a sharp slap, my palm smacked against the tile wall, the crack of impact shattering through the bathroom like a gunshot.
“Fuck!”
I let my hand rest against the wall for a moment, the sting in my palm grounding me as the water poured over my skin. I needed to breathe.
In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.
The sting dulled, but the tension didn’t. I peeled my hand away, flexing my fingers, watching the faint pink bloom across my palm. I focused on the sensation, the burn, the way my skin pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
Exhaling long and slow, I willed myself to let it go, to let the questions, the doubts, the voices in my head all wash away with it, swirling down the drain in foamy spirals .
It didn’t work. Because no matter how hard I tried, one thought wouldn’t leave me. I’d become the one thing I’d sworn never to become.
I didn’t even know how it had happened.
Eight months ago, I’d packed up my tiny life and moved across the country.
It wasn’t some bold, cinematic move. I didn’t dramatically throw a dart at a map or torch the town on my way out as a final fuck you .
It was a quiet, awkward escape. I’d stuffed what little I owned into a rental van, blasted a playlist I pretended was empowering (but mostly made me cry), and drove until I was convinced my old life couldn’t catch up with me.
All I’d craved was distance. Silence. Maybe a shred of safety, wrapped up in the idea that if I put enough miles between me and my past, I’d finally be able to catch my breath and feel like a person.
It’d taken years to get out. Years of scraping by, working awful jobs, living in homes that were never really homes, and making vague promises to myself that someday I’d leave.
Two months after I’d landed in Seattle, Clark had come into the bookstore I’d miraculously landed a job at. He was browsing the horticulture section and had asked something about indoor plants and soil pH levels. I’d made some sarcastic remark, and for some reason—we’d clicked.
It was so intense. So easy. Maybe that should’ve been the first red flag.
I gripped the sink harder, staring at my own blurry reflection through the fogged mirror.
I wasn’t Evelyn. I wasn’t . But the longer I looked, the more I saw. Not just my own face, blurred by steam and exhaustion—but her.
It wasn’t in the shape of my eyes or the curve of my mouth.
It was in the poisonous apology wrapped in flowers in my kitchen.
It was in the gold necklace sitting untouched on the counter, still curled in the velvet box it came in.
A gift, waiting. Like the vanilla and amber candle on my nightstand, unlit.
Like the beige sweater, folded too neatly on the chair, soft and warm, waiting for me to slip into it.
Each one after a fight.
Each one after an apology.
Each one after something I wasn’t allowed to call what it really was.
I used to watch her stand in front of the mirror in the same way, adjusting a necklace she didn’t pick, spritzing a perfume she didn’t like, folding sweaters she never would’ve bought herself.
And I used to think, how did that happen?
How do you let someone change you so slowly, so carefully, that you don’t even notice until you’re looking at a stranger in the mirror?