38. Lilian
Chapter 38
Lilian
T he ceiling is too white.
Too perfect.
Too clean.
I blink. Once. Twice. The lights hum like they’re thinking about something. The kind of hum that knows secrets but won’t share.
My wrists ache. My ankles too. Something tugs when I shift.
Straps.
I smile anyway. Because that’s what you do.
Good girls smile.
“Oh dear,” I murmur, voice soft as sugar. “I think there’s been a mistake.”
The nurse doesn’t answer. She checks the monitor beside my head. Scribbles something.
Doesn’t look at me.
“Excuse me,” I try again, lifting my voice just a little. Still sweet. Still helpful. “I’m not dangerous. You must be confusing me with someone else. I haven’t even raised my voice today.”
I pause. “Or yesterday. I don’t think.”
My fingers twitch against the straps. “Though I suppose I can’t be entirely sure what day it is.”
No one laughs.
I thought that was funny. Oh?—
What a fucking bitch.
I imagine breaking her clipboard with her teeth.
Maybe then she’ll stop acting like Nurse Ratched if Nurse Ratched had a lobotomy and a Hobby Lobby addiction.
She turns toward the door.
Taps her comm.
“Doctor,” she says, voice flat. “The other one is awake.”
Blink.
Footsteps.
The door hisses open.
“Ah,” he says, too cheerful. “Good morning, I’m Dr. Salinas.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I mutter, grinning like a rabid raccoon in a snare.
“You’re not the one who’s been breathing bleach and cartoon villain energy for twelve hours.”
He doesn’t react.
They never do.
“And who am I speaking with today?” he asks.
Polite. Detached. Already writing her off.
She smiles slowly. Not kindly.
“Oh, we’re playing name games, are we?”
Her head tilts. The smile gets sharper.
“My friends call me Neri. ”
Beat.
“You can call me Nerium.”
He pauses.
“…Noted.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’d feel better if you rolled a gurney in here and let me perform my own exit interview.”
I bare my teeth. “With a bone saw.”
He smiles like I’m an exhibit.
Then, clipboard raised, voice all clinical:
“Nerium, are you aware of the other personalities?”
I blink.
“What, like we’re roommates?”
He says nothing.
“Oh my God,” I groan, tossing my head back against the pillow. “You think I sit in here and sing Kumbaya with a goddamn teacup fairy?”
I laugh. It’s not nice. It’s not sane.
“Who the fuck deserves to be strapped to this bed after all, huh? Doc McStuffins?”
He taps his screen.
“Allow me to introduce you to someone.”
The monitor flickers.
“This is Lilian.”
A feed plays.
The room.
This room.
But not me.
Not like this .
She’s…
smiling.
Like sunshine and vanilla pudding.
Her eyes are huge. Her voice soft. Her whole vibe? Off-brand Disney princess with a brain injury.
“Tea helps,” she says, voice feather-soft.
“I told the night nurse I’d make her a cup. I don’t have a kettle, but I could’ve figured it out. I’m really good at guessing sugar without measuring.”
A tiny laugh. Nervous. Hopeful.
“She didn’t answer. Maybe she was just busy.”
I gag.
Audibly.
“Oh.
So that’s what all the fucking pink is about.”
A man stands near the door.
He’s wearing a lab coat and holding a clipboard. Wire-frame glasses. His eyes don’t quite meet mine—like he’s reading a textbook instead of talking to a person.
“Lilian,” he says.
He says it like it doesn’t fit me. Like it’s too big or too sharp or… someone else’s.
Not Lily. Not Miss Voss. Just… Lilian.
“Please,” I say with a smile. “Call me Lily. Like the flower. I love flowers. Did you know I’m a florist?”
“Interesting. Very well. Lily, I’m Dr. Salinas.”
I smile again. A little tighter this time. “Hello, doctor. That’s a lovely name. Very classical. Are we… are we doing tests today?”
He doesn’t answer that .
“How are you feeling?” He asks instead.
“Oh,” I say, blinking. “I’m alright. Just a bit confused. But I’m sure it’ll all be sorted soon. Tea helps. So does a nice walk. Is there a garden here? Do you grow hydrangeas?”
No reaction.
“Lilian—excuse me, Lily—are you aware of anyone named Nerium?”
My smile grows wide with excitement. “You mean like the oleander?”
He doesn’t answer.
I blink slowly. “You know, the flower? Pretty. Poisonous. Hard to get. But my boy friend, Dominic—he’s very handsome. I’m sure he’ll come and get me. I think. Even though daddy said—Well, anyway he’s so sweet. He always leaves me a single lily and a single nerium oleander. You see, I have a cat named Oleander.”
I gasp. “Oley! Who’s taking care of him? My poor baby must be so scared. What if no one is feeding him?”
“I’m sure he’s fine. If you calm down, I’ll make sure to find out for you.”
“You would do that?” Dr. Salinas nods. “Oh! Thank you! You’re so kind!”
“Lily, I’m not talking about a plant.”
He swipes a screen. A file opens.
“You see, if it were just you in there.” He laughs, but I don’t understand the joke. In where? “You have a personality disorder, Lily–and, well, let’s just say that it's not you we’re worried about.”
I laugh pretending to get the joke. It comes out too fast. “Oh! You must mean the thing people say about me. I’m too nice, right? That’s what everyone says. ”
His eyes don’t move.
“No, Lilian. That’s not what we mean.”
He taps the screen.
“Meet Nerium.”
The footage starts.
It’s a room.
This room.
I’m in the frame.
Sitting on the bed. Humming.
I always hum. It keeps things quiet inside. Like singing lullabies to the dark.
I’m smiling.
Talking to a nurse. I look… pleasant.
“I don’t mind the restraints. I know you’re just doing your job,” I say, onscreen. “I think it’s important to be gentle with people, don’t you?”
I look so nice.
So harmless.
Then—
A blink too long.
A twitch.
My head tilts. Not the way I tilt it.
Too slow. Too sharp.
Like it’s watching something behind the eyes.
And when I speak again?—
“You’re all going to fucking burn in hell for this.”
My stomach drops.
“I’ll be the one to send you there.”
The nurse onscreen stumbles.
I lunge forward—hard.
Slam into the restraints so violently the whole bed jerks .
“I’ve taken down bigger monsters than you in stilettos and a fucking catsuit,” the thing on the screen says.
“You better pray I don’t get out of here.”
The feed cuts.
Silence floods back into the room like cold water.
I shake my head. Slow at first.
“That’s not?—”
My voice cracks.
“I don’t even own a catsuit.”
I did have that dream…
My knees pull up, but the straps hold them down.
I curl my fingers inward.
My skin feels too tight.
“That’s not… I didn’t… I’m not?—”
“No, leave the sugarplum princess alone.”
What—who?—?
The voice is mine.
But it doesn’t feel like me.
No. That’s not real. That’s not real.
My breath picks up. Heart monitor beeping faster now. It sounds frantic. Like a bird against a windowpane.
“This is a trick,” I say, eyes burning. “That’s someone else. That’s—there’s been a mistake?—”
Dr. Salinas just watches. Like he’s seen it all before.
Like he expected this part.
“We didn’t know how many personalities there are,” he says calmly.
“We still don’t.”
He nods to someone I can’t see.
Personalities?
I don’t hear the footsteps.
I start crying.
I just feel the pinch.
Soft at first.
A needle.
Then harder as fear—I think this is fear—finds its way into every cell of my marrow.
Injected into the crook of my arm.
My breath catches.
I choke on a sob.
“But don’t worry,” he adds, too late.
“We have something—it’s experimental—that can help us find all of them.”
I scream.
It burns.
I never scream.
Hot. Fast. Like fire through a vein.
But I do now.
“W-what…?” My voice slurs. “What did you—what?—”
The room tilts.
The walls shimmer.
The white bleeds into blue.
Hiss.
Gas.
A scream. Not mine this time.
Another flicker.
Glass.
A chamber.
My hands—tiny, trembling—press against the pane.
My mother is outside.
“—Unless you want me peeling back your skull like a Capri Sun?— ”
So are two other people. A man with glasses holds a woman in his arms. They’re shouting. I can’t hear.
My mother turns.
She presses her palms to the glass.
“I love you,” she says.
But I never get to say it back.
Because her face?—
It melts.
“—I suggest you stop poking the girl who draws fucking daisies on her tea mugs?—”
The gas curls through the room like it’s hungry.
Her skin slips like wax.
The man tries to shield the woman.
Then nothing.
“—You leave her alone?—”
Just sludge.
Just bones.
Just blood.
And a memory I’m not supposed to have.
“—You leave my sugarplum fairy the fuck alone?—”
And me?—
Still inside.
“— or I’ll decorate the walls with your face?—”
Still watching.
I’m back in the room, with the small window.
Still strapped down.
Still shaking.
“No,” I whisper. “No, that’s not what happened.”
I close my eyes.
See her burning anyway.
“Mommy died from cancer. She—she was at home. I made her tea. I read to her. I put her favorite blanket on her lap.”
But the chill of the glass box?—
I can feel it.
“No no no no…”
“That’s not real. That’s not real. That’s not real.”
I pull at the straps now. Not gently.
The bed creaks.
The heart monitor spikes.
I cover my face with my hands.
“She died from cancer,” I say, rocking now.
“She died from cancer.”
“Daddy said so.”
But she didn’t.
I know she didn’t.
And Lily tries real hard to protect us from it.
And Neri… she got mad so we didn’t have to cry.
But me…
I’m Lilian.
And I remembered what happened to Mommy.
All by myself.
The whole time.