Chapter 30 #3
For a moment, I don’t even know where I am. The air is thick and warm, the blankets twisted around my legs, and then there’s that noise—a deep, gurgling sound, like someone slowly deflating a balloon through their nostrils.
I turn my head.
Lilia is dead asleep, sprawled across the bed—her mouth slightly open, her face squished awkwardly into the pillow. That sound—the one I had the misfortune of listening to all night—escapes from deep in her throat, a snore aggressively loud.
I blink at the ceiling. We’d fallen asleep watching Divergent but didn’t even finish it. Somewhere between Tris being stuck in a glass box, and Four finding out the truth about her, we both passed out.
I groan internally, rubbing my eyes. I should get up.
But then reality hits me.
My options are… limited.
I can’t just walk out—this isn’t my house. And going downstairs isn’t an option. What if her parents are back? What if I run into them?
No. Not happening.
Until Lilia wakes up, I really can’t do anything.
I turn to her, sighing. “Lilia,” I whisper, nudging her arm.
No response.
“Lilia?” I try again, a little louder this time.
She groans and rolls onto her side, her arm flopping across her face.
I poke her shoulder. “Lilia.”
Another grunt. Then—nothing.
Okay. This is going nowhere.
I grab my pillow and, as gently as possible, drop it onto her head.
Lilia squeaks.
She jerks upright, blinking wildly. “Huh—wha—”
I sit cross-legged on the bed, watching her. “You weren’t waking up,” I say and she groans, rubbing her face.
“What time is it?”
I glance at the clock. “Almost nine.”
She collapses back onto the bed. “Oh my god. You could’ve let me sleep.”
“You were sleeping,” I point out. “Loudly. Like, concerningly loudly.”
Lilia peeks at me through one barely open eye. “That’s rude.”
“It’s the truth.”
She mutters something under her breath, then, with all the grace of someone still asleep, she rolls off the bed and onto her feet. She stretches, arms above her head, before shooting me a look. “Alright, let’s go downstairs.”
I hesitate.
“What if your parents are back?” I ask, voice lower than before.
Lilia shrugs, already walking toward the door. “They know you’re here. They’ll love you.”
I’m about to say something, but she doesn’t even give me the chance to argue because one minute she’s right in front of me, the next she’s bounding down the stairs.
With much reluctance, I follow.
As expected, her parents are in the kitchen—smiles and all. Dawn is there too, sitting comfortably at the table and stuffing a blueberry pancake in her mouth.
Lilia slips, heads straight for the table and drops into a chair. She’s already reaching for a plate before her parents can say anything.
“Ooo, extra chocolate for me,” she says, grinning at no one in particular. “Please tell me you bought the Nutella.”
Her dad lifts a new tub from the counter with an expectant smile on his face. She claps once, before yanking the jar toward her and practically hugging it. No one says anything about it. No one blinks at the chaos.
And I hang back. Just inside the doorway, close enough to smell pancakes, far enough to run if I need to.
Her mum notices me first.
“Adeline, dear,” her mum says with a smile, and it’s just like Lilia’s. “Come sit down.”
I glance toward Lilia, hoping she’ll throw me a bone. But she’s elbow-deep in her Nutella pancake. No acknowledgment. Not even a side-eye.
Cool.
I move slowly, not wanting to draw attention, which of course draws more attention. I pull out the chair across from Dawn. She gives me a small, polite nod and cuts her pancake neatly. I sit. My shoulders go up by instinct and don’t come back down.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Adeline. I’m Ruth, this is Mark,” her mum says, gesturing to the man at the other end of the room who I assume is Lilia’s dad. “And Dawn tells me you already met,” she looks at me expectantly, settling at the head of the table.
Her dad hums in agreement, grabbing a blueberry from the bowl in front of him. “Lilia speaks highly of you.”
I side-glance at Lilia, unsure whether to feel surprised or guilty. I don’t know what she’s said. I don’t know what she thinks. She’s still not looking up.
I manage a quiet “Thanks,” but it comes out tight. Weak. Pathetically so. I’m not even sure it’s heard.
Then her mum pushes a plate in front of me.
One pancake. Golden, soft, steam curling from the edges. Blueberries on top.
Arranged in a smiley face.
I stare. Stare at it dumbly.
And I don’t know if Lilia’s mum meant for it to look like that or if it was purely accidental, but the effect is the same. Something folds up quietly in my chest, and I sit there, spoon untouched, feeling like a fraud in someone else’s morning.
The table is messy, the room smells like toast and cinnamon and overripe bananas, and everyone is smiling.
For a split second, I find myself envying Lilia.
And I hate it. Because what kind of person looks at their friend—kind, smiley, generous Lilia—and thinks, Why do you get this and I don’t?
What kind of person feels envy over something so basic, so ordinary, like a seat at the breakfast table and a mum who smiles and means it.
I’m sitting here in her home, under her roof, being given food and kindness and a place to sleep—and all I can think about is how unfair it feels.
And it isn’t unfair. Lilia deserves all of this. Every messy, loud, loving inch of it. She deserves the laughter and the family inside-jokes and the burned toast and the blueberry smiley faces.
But a small part of me—a part I don’t like, a part I wish I could bury and never touch again—wants it for me, too.
Stop it, Adeline. What did you just say? Perfect doesn’t exist. Don’t be so envious of something you don’t know a thing about.
Nothing real ever looks perfect up close.
I glance at Lilia. She’s laughing now, syrup dribbling down her plate, and I think—god, I’m awful.
I force myself to breathe. To blink the burning away from behind my eyes.
I will not cry at a pancake. I won’t be that person.
But there’s this small, ridiculous moment where I feel like I might.
“Are you alright, darling?” her mum asks me gently, looking at me like she feels… sorry for me.
And I want to tell her she shouldn’t. I want to tell her that I don’t belong here at this table, not really. That the warmth she’s offering, the help she’s giving—I haven’t earned it.
That I don’t know what to do with someone calling me darling and looking at me like that. With such honest, genuine kindness.
I want to tell her she shouldn’t waste it on me.
That I’m not worth it.
“All good,” I say. And then I smile.
The kind of smile I’ve worn a hundred times in a hundred rooms where I didn’t know what else to do.
But inside, I want to disappear.
Lilia looks up, mid-bite, her eyes narrowing slightly. But her mouth is full of toast and probably half a jar of Nutella, so she doesn’t say anything.
Her dad, oblivious, points at the toast. “That’s going to break the toaster. Again.”
“It’s not going back in the toaster,” Lilia replies through a mouthful.
“You say that,” he says, leaning back with a sceptical sip of coffee, “and yet a few days ago, I pulled a croissant out of there that was literally on fire.”
“Science is about risk,” Lilia says cooly.
Dawn, sitting at the corner of the table with her knees now pulled up to her chest, speaks without looking up. “Last week you put a Pop-Tart in with the foil still on it.”
Lilia waves her off. “That was Tuesday. Ancient history.”
Her dad points his coffee mug at her. “You nearly electrocuted yourself.”
“Yeah, well. It was a low point.”
“That toaster cost me eighty euros. From Italy!” her mother says with absolute seriousness.
“I said I’m sorry!” Lilia says, though she looks anything but sorry.
Ruth turns toward me then, mug in hand, eyes settling in that too-neutral way people have when they’re trying to seem casual but are definitely weighing you up.
“So,” she says, “Lilia tells me you’ll be staying here for a while.”
I nod, even though there’s something stiff in the motion. “Yeah. Just need to grab my stuff from my house.”
That part alone makes me more nervous than I’d like to admit.
Because going back means facing my sisters. And after what happened, the thought makes my palms itch. There’s a knot in my stomach that hasn’t gone away since I walked out the front door. I’m not sure if I’m ready to see them again. I’m not sure I’ll ever be.
Ruth hums softly. “Of course. Lilia will take you after breakfast.”
“Cool,” Lilia says, slumping further down in her chair. “We’re meeting some people after that, too. That alright?”
Ruth takes a sip of her coffee and raises an eyebrow over the rim. “Who?”
“Bea, Will, Kai, Liam, Christian.” Lilia shrugs, already halfway done with her juice. “You know them.”
I assume she means that Lilia had gone to school with them. Or, at least Kai and Will.
“Whose house?” Mark cuts in, and he sounds casual, but there’s a flicker of something in his eyes. Like he’s suddenly alert.
Lilia hesitates, then reaches for her juice. “The Steeles’.”
Mark is pouring more cereal into his bowl, but I watch him still. Barely, but enough. He lowers the cereal box, and the crease between his brows appears before he says anything. “Is that a good idea?”
Lilia lets out a soft groan, slumping in her chair dramatically. “We’ve already planned it. Please.” She hits him with her wide-eyed puppy dog eyes, and I know she’s won.
When Mark sighs into his coffee, I’m guessing Lilia figures that out too.
“Besides, what’s wrong with the Steeles?” she throws in, voice light with faux innocence.
Mark shakes his head slowly, the corners of his mouth pulling down. “There’s a lot of things wrong with that family.”
I suck in a breath.
Well. That’s… blunt.
But not entirely surprising.
The Steeles are intimidating. In fact, intimidating might even be an understatement.
I almost peed my pants when I first met Gabriel.