chapter 49 ⚚
late, sweet, happy christmas! i'm a little sad
that this chapter couldn't be as sweet as the
christmas i hope you guys had and are still having.
please check out the announcement i posted that i couldn't fit here, and enjoy!
love, admi?
All Lilith had done her entire life was wonder.
That was, more or less, everything.
It was an unfortunate gift—a brain that never truly rested, a mind that worked overtime in every situation.
Sometimes anxiously, sometimes more simply.
In the end, it never really solved anything.
But what else could the girl do, when everything the world placed in front of her felt unthinkable to hold?
"Hi, sorry, I can't talk," she said quietly, already hoping her mother would give up and end the call on her own. "I'll call you later."
She sat down on Valentina's office couch, her hand drifting to the ends of her hair, playing with it in a small unconscious attempt to soothe herself.
"I know," her mother said.
It wasn't sharp.
It wasn't biting.
It was, unexpectedly, sad.
Lilith wanted to tell herself it sounded like it always did—that it was manipulative, practiced and full of something false. But maybe she was wrong.
"I just wanted to hear your voice," the woman continued, her tone hoarse, as if she had been crying only seconds ago and might start again at any moment.
Lilith's soft brows furrowed. "Did something happen?" she asked.
It was strange how, in that moment, she forgot that a woman—Valentina Salvatore—was in the same room. Close enough to hear her every word and close enough to watch everything.
She couldn't bring herself to care. Not when the woman who had brought her into this world, who had shaped her into who she was—cruelly or not—sounded genuinely upset.
"It'll be okay," her mother said, in a tone so defeated it made Lilith sigh softly. "I wish I could see you."
Lilith didn't answer right away. What could possibly be going wrong in that woman's life? Even if something had, Lilith was certain her mother would manage it somehow.
She always did. She switched people and places with ease, rearranged her life whenever it suited her, survived things that should have slowed her down.
"I don't want to," Lilith said calmly.
Talking to her mother was a little like talking to a child. A deeply unpleasant one, capable of throwing a fit the moment it heard it would not get what it wanted. That was why, after so many years, Lilith tried to keep her voice steady, reasonable and controlled whenever she could.
"Just for a second," her mother said quickly.
She sounded desperate. And that was what always undid Lilith.
She was just like her, after all. Hopeless in the same aching way.
Lilith imagined how cruel it would be to say it again—that she would not see her, that she did not want to—when the woman on the other end sounded so unusually fragile. She imagined someone else rejecting her like that, imagined the hollow feeling it would leave behind.
It was not desperation itself that broke something open in Lilith.
Bad people felt and sounded desperate too. But there was a particular kind of desperation Lilith would never fail to notice in others—especially in her mother. It felt too familiar to simply leave it be.
But as Lilith drifted in her thoughts, unsure of what to say, she heard her mother again.
"Please, Lilith."
And that, somehow, always proved how weak she still was.
"Do you want to come over?" Lilith asked softly.
She exhaled as she stood up, turning towards Valentina. Moving to the desk, she picked up her jacket with one hand and draped it over her forearm, the other still holding the phone to her ear.
Her gaze lifted to Valentina's face.
She would have expected attentiveness. Maybe curiosity. Maybe that quiet, focused look that meant Valentina was listening even when she said nothing. Maybe even a subtle pull for her to come back, to sit on her lap again, to stay.
But the expression on the brunette's face was not that.
Lilith's brows drew together slightly.
"I can," her mother said on the other end of the line.
Lilith leaned closer to Valentina and quietly murmured, apologetically, "I need to go, I'm sorry."
She meant for it to sound casual.
Temporary.
It was a soft interruption, nothing more. She hated when anything disturbed the small, fragile peace she and Valentina built together—especially something this unpleasant.
That was why she already thought of making it up to her. Of softening it. Of maybe leaving on something gentle.
She leaned in, shyly, to press a brief goodbye kiss to Valentina's lips.
Instead, she was met with a firm grip around her wrist—the one still holding her phone—pulling her back.
Valentina did not look angry, but she very clearly did not approve of whatever this quick goodbye was meant to be.
Lilith understood that, somewhere. She would probably think about it later, turn it over in her mind, try to name it properly. But in that moment, she did not need to be corrected. She did not need to feel humiliated.
She huffed softly, not unkindly, and carefully removed Valentina's hand from her wrist, mindful not to let her jacket slip. She gave the woman's fingers a brief affectionate squeeze.
"Bye," she said quickly, and turned towards the door.
Already, she was murmuring into the phone again, louder now, "I should be home in thirty minutes."
Did Valentina Salvatore truly know Lilith Hawthorne?
She felt like she did. At least from one side of her—one she believed should exist only for her, and had, in some muted way, already been reserved.
But Valentina could not hide, could not lessen or soften who she had always been, even when she allowed the blonde girl the comfort of thinking she had some control.
The time of taking things slowly, of drawing what she wanted out of Lilith in careful increments, was coming to an end.
Situations like this unsettled her. They alerted her. They reminded her of certain needs she preferred not to name aloud.
Some matters had to be placed back into her own hands.
For herself.
Almost like an act of self care.
And as soon as Valentina would have a moment alone, she would go home, into her office, open the drawer she had dedicated to Lilith, and take care of herself.
And, in a way she could not fully explain even to herself, take care of Lilith too.
?
"I'll be better. You'll be proud of me," Lilith's mother said.
Lilith wasn't sure how to react. Or what to think.
Especially after hearing that her mother was moving out of her partner's house—months of mental abuse, and now left without money, without a job, without a place to call her own. A divorce in progress, endless arguments over financial assets and stress.
Lilith had never liked that man. But who was she to judge when she also didn't like her own mother?
Did she feel bad for her? Part of her did. Part of her didn't.
She was as critical of her mother as she was of herself.
And in the past weeks, she had felt, in a strange way, closer to her than either of them might have imagined.
No one had ever felt bad for Lilith when she acted out in ways that were messy, irrational, or harsh. Not that it was justified—but the world was harsh. Or rather, the people closest to you were. At least she understood that.
So admitting she wasn't a good person came naturally. And with it, the weight of ten years' worth of her mother's mistakes seemed, in some unspoken way, to rest on her shoulders.
Both of them could feel the misery of shame and guilt, mixed together, if they wanted. But now was not the time for that.
"Stop crying about it," Lilith said softly, nodding to the woman. "It won't help or change anything."
Lilith was unnerved by her mother. Unstable adults terrified her.
Her mother had never known stability. From parents who were ill suited to the role—her grandfather cruel and controlling, her grandmother helpless and dramatic—there had been no peace, no security, no steady home in which Lilith's mother could grow.
Then came her relationship with Lilith's father. They weren't a perfect match, but at least he wasn't a bad man. And yet, he had been left—to navigate heartbreak, the absence of his wife, and the weight of raising two children. Cheating and abandonment shadowed it all.
Her mother's friendships were no different. All
about intense moments, lavish trips, laughter and chaos, but no lasting happiness. And now, her most recent relationship had ended the same way.
Lilith felt queasy just thinking about it. Sometimes it made her sad—to see the grown woman reduced to the little girl she had once been, or the young woman who had carried herself with so little support. But lately, that sadness had been rare.
Until now.
Lilith would rather die than live a life so chaotic, so tragically unmoored. No matter what happened, she vowed, she would never become that kind of woman.
"You can't make yourself look like a victim... even if you are," Lilith said, raising her brows softly. "That's pathetic."
"I know," her mother said, smiling weakly. "You're right." She nodded.
And maybe here, Lilith was wrong. The toxicity they fed each other had never been healthy. But perhaps, in the way they had both learned to cope, it was the best they could do.
Lilith had never received a hug, a soft word, a gentle reassurance from her mother when she needed it most. She wasn't sure how to give it now, when it was the grown woman needing support.
And deep down, she knew it wouldn't help. Her mother needed affirmation of her strength, of her control—the same control she had always insisted upon.
"I was thinking we could spend Christmas together... I rented a nice apartment," her mother said.
"I'm not sure yet," Lilith answered, careful to avoid giving her a specific, clear answer.
"How's Oscar? Maybe he'd like to come too?" her mother asked.
"He's alright, but... I don't think so," Lilith said, her face neutral. She sighed. "I don't know. Call him and ask."
She hated when her mother asked about Oscar. He was a grown man. Her mother could speak to him herself.
"I could make tiramisu. Your favourite," the older woman said, her face genuinely bright with excitement at the thought of spending time with her daughter.
"It's not my favourite," Lilith winced softly, tilting her head.
"Oh... then it must've been Oscar's," her mother corrected herself.
It felt strange that now, Lilith's mother couldn't even name her favourite. Not that she had often cared when Lilith was a child, but now it felt different—awkward almost.
Lilith was a grown woman now, and in the past ten years, she had changed so much that her mother could see only the surface, hair grown even longer, bleached every few months so the shade shifted slightly, her body changed, too.
That was all she could see.
Lilith wasn't sure if she should feel comforted or unsettled that her mother still saw pieces of her as she had been at ten.
Did the fact that her mother still saw her as a little girl make her want to crawl back to Lilith?
"I'm going to therapy now," her mother said.
"Nice... I came back to my old therapist too," Lilith answered, awkwardly. She wasn't sure what else to say, knowing that one wrong word could spark an argument between them.
"You look much better," the older woman added, smiling. She put her hand on Lilith's cheek, then smoothed a strand of hair back.
Lilith's hand burned—not from anger, not to slap the woman away—but perhaps it wasn't that bad.
Would therapy do anything for her mother? Maybe. Hopefully. But Lilith wasn't hoping for anything.
And once again—over and over—she found herself thinking about her mother's rare admissions of fault, her fleeting regrets. And then, sometimes, she still saw herself as a victim.
Just as Lilith often did.
?
Lilith definitely needed therapy after her mother.
But maybe in a different form.
That was how she found herself in a cozy, almost empty bar, Vivienne by her side. Lilith had called her right after her mother left, overly dramatic and spiraling enough for Miss Lockhart to suggest meeting—but in a softer way.
Something looser.
Lilith felt strangely close to her, forgetting that the woman had other matters to take care of that evening, which was why their meeting had been moved to earlier in the day. Still, Vivienne had rearranged things the moment Lilith called. And Lilith felt more grateful than she knew how to express.
So they sat there, indulging in drinks. Or rather—Vivienne sipped white wine, which made Lilith wince in open disgust, while Lilith ordered whatever was cheapest and looked like it might soothe her just a little.
She had texted Valentina too, of course. Bombarding her with messages—asking if she was mad, or busy, or if the blonde haired giirl should come over later, promising she would make it up to her, adding far too many sad faces.
She knew Valentina would probably smile at them. Maybe even laugh quietly.
And Maybe that was wrong. Lilith liked celebrating the good things with Valentina, keeping them close and warm between them, while pushing the bad things just a little out of her reach.
It was clear she was tipsy now. And dramatic.
"That's fucking crazy," Lilith whined, finishing her monologue, her cheek pressed flat against the small table between them.
Valentina would never allow that. She would probably lift Lilith's head immediately, frown at the surface, maybe place her own forearm down instead so Lilith could rest against it properly.
Lilith liked imagining things like that. Little gestures. Predictable tenderness from the brunette woman.
"We'll have to talk about it. Whether you like it or not," Lockhart said gently, looking down at her.
"What if I don't want to tell you about... certain things?" Lilith lifted her head, her tone playful now.
"Then you'll be sitting here like this, whining," Vivienne replied, attempting the same playfulness.
It didn't come as naturally to her—she preferred wit in others rather than performing it herself—but she managed well enough.
And even at thirty three, with a demanding job, she carried something youthful in the way she stayed engaged.
Still, Lilith couldn't help comparing her to Valentina.
She always did.
Not unkindly—just noticing how different the woman was in the smallest ways.
"My job is to make you talk, though," Lockhart added, more seriously.
"Are you good at your job?" Lilith asked suddenly.
She knew bits and pieces already, but this wasn't a session. It wasn't even pretending to be one. It was something else entirely—looser, stranger, less defined than the meetings that almost looked like sessions but weren't quite either.
"I wonder if the people I passed in the hallway a year ago, when I used to come to the clinic... are they still coming? To you, I mean," Lilith added, genuinely curious.
"Most don't," Vivienne said with a soft smile. She wasn't wearing her glasses, her brown eyes bare. "But don't let that discourage you."
"Oh no, it's okay, I'm... much, much better than them," Lilith said lightly.
She smiled at the memory of the people she used to pass in the hallway—everyone looking like frightened deer, unsure where to stand, while the therapists waiting for them looked like shelters made human.
"Was I your favourite patient?" Lilith asked then, smiling widely.
"One of," Miss Lockhart admitted with a small nod.
"Thanks," Lilith said, winking softly before taking a sip of her drink, which was far too bitter for her liking.
"I feel bad for making you talk and think so much about your job," Lilith added, tilting her head slightly, as if trying to catch a glimpse of exhaustion behind the woman's eyes.
Vivienne exhaled and let out a quiet chuckle. "If this is your way of getting me to talk about my personal life, it won't work, Lilith," she said, tapping her wine glass lightly.
Lilith rolled her eyes. "You're opening your own place now, right?"
Miss Lockhart was probably the only person she genuinely enjoyed making small talk with.
"Yes, but there's a lot of... trouble with it," Vivienne said.
"Why? It looks great," Lilith murmured.
"Only the room you've been in. The rest is just white walls and... more white walls."
Vivienne sighed.
"I actually need to reconstruct everything. Some rooms are too small. Not functional. I'm not letting people sit and cry in spaces like that," she added with a small giggle.
The moment walls and empty spaces were mentioned, Lilith lit up.
"I know someone," she said too quickly, then softened her voice. "An architect. She also likes interior design... everything."
"Isn't your brother an architect too?" Lockhart asked.
"Oh... yeah. He is," Lilith laughed softly.
It was silly, really—that now, whenever architecture came up, she thought of Valentina before she thought of her own sibling.
"But she can do much more. I could give you her contact?" Lilith asked.
"I'll keep it in mind, okay?" Lockhart nodded softly.
"Okay," Lilith said, and she wasn't entirely sure why a small ache formed in her chest. Maybe it was because the woman hadn't fully accepted the offer. Or maybe because she hadn't accepted Valentina through it.
"I didn't say I don't want it. I just have a couple of other offers," Vivienne added immediately, reading her expression with unsettling ease.
Lilith decided to play with it, pouting softly.
"Don't do that," Vivienne said, her head tilting slightly. "I have some kind of weakness when my patients look upset."
"You make them upset often?" Lilith laughed.
"Not often, but... I do make mistakes that sometimes lead to—" Lockhart paused.
"Things," Lilith supplied mysteriously.
"Things," Vivienne repeated, nodding.
"What things?" Lilith asked genuinely curious, trying to fish out anything.
Miss Lockhart exhaled, searching for an easy example to offer the girl. "Breakups?" she said or rather, asked.
"Well... obviously breakups are sad, but if they're for the better, how is that bad?" Lilith murmured, scrunching her nose slightly.
"If you tell me, for example, that your partner said something hurtful," Vivienne said, her focus sharpening, "but you don't tell me what you said back, then I don't have the full picture."
"Mhm," Lilith hummed.
"Therefore I might think your partner was attacking you," Lockhart continued, calmly and precisely, "when in reality you were arguing."
"I get it," Lilith nodded quickly. "That's why I'll tell you everything, so you don't accidentally ruin my life," she added brightly, smiling.
"Thank you, Lilith," Vivienne murmured.
"But even if I didn't tell you something," Lilith went on, shrugging as she finished her drink, "you already know pretty much everything about me."
"Do I?" Vivienne murmured, more to herself than to Lilith, a genuine question slipping through her voice.
"Considering how many poems you write about me every session, yes, you do," Lilith said, stretching her legs under the table, a faint ache blooming from the awkward position she had been sitting in earlier—at Valentina's feet, hours ago.
"Poems?" Vivienne chuckled, as if it were a joke, and Lilith had to bite back a playful remark about the woman clearly getting old if that was what amused her now.
"You didn't let me read them... when we were saying goodbye," Lilith frowned.
"Do you want to see them that much?" Miss Lockhart asked, her hand already moving towards the pocket of her pants to pull out her phone.
"Yes," Lilith said immediately.
"Here," the woman murmured, scrolling for a moment before opening a document titled Lilith. Beneath it were many others—dated, some from over a year ago, some from just a week back—neatly arranged and carefully named.
She handed the phone over.
Lilith scrolled slowly. Some entries were clearly transferred from the iPad Vivienne usually kept during sessions, the handwriting familiar—fragmented, uneven, made of names and half sentences, reminders rather than thoughts.
But others were fuller.
Longer.
"What are those?" Lilith murmured, tilting the phone slightly towards her.
"I spend a lot of time on you and other people, at home," Vivienne said calmly. "I like keeping my thoughts and informations organised." She tapped the screen lightly, scrolling past the document, her annotations neat. It was clear she cared about this system.
Lilith imagined they must resemble the annotations inside the book she had once been given.
The phone was taken back from her hands a moment later, gently but decisively, and Lilith couldn't help the strange feeling that rose in her chest. She had expected more protection around something like that.
The lack of it was almost funny. Something to giggle about later.
But what didn't make her smile was how many of the entries mentioned her mother or were even titled after her.
It only reminded her, once again, how much of her was wrapped around that woman.
And of how much of what lived inside her had grown in response to her mother.