Chapter 8 – Lily
LILY
Aside from El Gato, who wanders in whenever he wants to eat my food and break my heart, it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a man in my home.
It’s been at least six months, maybe even longer.
I rack my brain for details of the Tinder date I hooked up with after a few coffee meet-ups, but his face is so bland and forgettable I can’t even conjure it.
I have the opposite problem with my new friend, Cassini—a man so good-looking his features are burned into my brain, haunting my thoughts and tainting my fantasies.
He could also be the key to finding what happened to Mom.
I’ve been shoving the thought of actually speaking to her again down for hours, but now it’s clawing its way up.
Part of me wants nothing more than to find her somewhere in the void and ask her all the questions I couldn’t when she was alive.
Then there’s the other part of me that never wants to speak to her again.
The wound she left is still raw, and I’m not sure I could survive tearing it open again.
I bend down to fuss with a book stack on my coffee table and wince when a sharp pain shoots up the nape of my neck.
The headaches are back, returning somewhere around lunchtime today, but I’m pleasantly surprised to find them much duller and more manageable.
If Paloma is right about this, I should be able to stay in control with daily practice.
It’s kind of like a spiritual hygiene routine, as simple as washing your face or brushing your teeth.
I slept late, and for the remainder of the afternoon, I’ve been stressed, trying to make my place look good.
Now I’ve adjusted every trinket a million times.
I think I’m finally ready to let someone into it.
But when I picture Cassini’s tall, broad body stuffed amongst the mismatched cushions on my little lavender couch, I get a pang of anxiety. What if he doesn’t like it?
My place is what my friend Kate once described as “unapologetically feminine and a girlishly macabre.” It’s the kind of home that has never known a man’s touch, and I’m extremely proud of that.
There’s no Lego, no leather, no ugly gaming rigs.
Instead, you’ll find soft fabrics, pastel colors, and a maximalist, dopamine design.
It’s neat but lived-in, with shelves stuffed with thrift store trinkets and walls lined with framed postcards and prints from Etsy artists. In short, it’s my sanctuary.
As I dust the shelves, I adjust the gold octopus candelabra a few inches to the left so it nestles between two phallic mini cactus figurines and twist my Frida Kahlo plant pot so it faces outward.
Good. I like being able to see her ceramic monobrow peeking out from behind my salt lamp. It’s like she’s looking out for me.
We moved a lot when I was a kid. Pat was a touring musician, and Mom was…
well, Mom did what she did, so I never really felt like I had a solid foundation.
I’d spend a few months at a school, only to have to leave as soon as I made a friend.
We’d pack up the apartment, sometimes in the middle of the night, and go.
No warning, no explanation. Someone would carry my sleeping body into the back seat of the car, and we’d hit the road.
No matter where we ended up, we’d never settle.
The temporary apartments all melted into each other—a blur of borrowed furniture and weird fridge smells. Eventually, I stopped unpacking.
When Mom died, things calmed down a lot. Pat got a job teaching music in his hometown and raised me as his own, but I never really had a place to call mine until I moved in here. I made it mine. Every little detail. It was something I finally had full control over.
At 8 p.m. precisely, the doorbell chimes, signaling Cassini’s annoyingly punctual arrival.
I smooth down my cropped denim overalls and check my hair in the mirror.
I’ve pinned it in a short, messy bun with a few layers framing my face.
The vibe tonight is nonchalant with just enough leg to see if he reacts.
The more time I spend with him, the more curious I get about the kind of man he is and whether this spark between us is real or imagined.
“Hey,” I say opening the door, “come on in!”
He pauses for a moment, then tentatively crosses the threshold into my tiny hallway, kissing me on both cheeks as he passes. I’m not expecting the contact, and he leaves a tingle behind in the spots his cold lips touched.
“You mind taking your boots off?” I say, clearing my throat with a little cough. “I kind of have a no-shoes policy.”
He slides his leather jacket off, revealing a pristine white cotton T-shirt that clings to his chest. He smiles as he hangs it on one of the ceramic swans adorning the top of my flea-market coat rack.
“Sure. No problem,” he says, slipping off his boots and placing them neatly next to my row of hospital Crocs. “Is this okay?”
“Perfect,” I say, leading him toward the living room. I glance back over my shoulder at him. “Nice to see you clean and showered for a change.”
“I thought it was time,” he replies, and I can hear the laugh in his voice.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” I say, gesturing for him to sit on the couch.
He shakes his head. “I’m good. Thanks.”
His eyes dart around the space, and those nerves bubble up again as he surveys all my things, surveying them with a hint of amusement playing across his face. I drop down awkwardly next to him and try to follow his gaze, wondering what he must be thinking about me. About my things.
“I really like your place,” he says eventually. “It’s very…you.”
I don’t know what that means, but I choose to take it as a compliment. I mutter a thank you and suggest we get started by lighting a few candles on my coffee table. I click the safety lighter and turn to face him, gesturing to the items I’ve bundled together.
“I think this is everything, right? I have the bolsita Paloma gave me and a little bowl of salt there. It’s Maldon. Is that the right kind? Wait, does it even matter? I think I might have some of that pink Himalayan salt in the back of a cupboard, but I’m not sure—”
“This is perfect,” he interrupts, grabbing the bowl and thumbing through the flakes. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention it sooner, but I have to leave in an hour. I have somewhere else I need to be.”
Why am I so disappointed by that revelation? What was I expecting? That he’d stay for a few hours and maybe rail me after? Maybe a few hours of spontaneous, no-strings passion with the world’s most beautiful man?
Sure, Lil. That’s gonna happen. For fuck’s sake. Get a grip.
“Con permiso, espíritus de luz,” he says, sprinkling pinches of salt around us.
The room stills, and my eyelids become weighted. My body sways involuntarily as I’m enveloped by a blanket of heaviness, but I don’t fight it. I close my eyes and let myself sink deeper into the familiar trance state.
The living room fades away—the soft cushions beneath me, the scent of blown-out candles, even Cassini’s presence. In its place, that empty room materializes around me, just like Paloma taught me. My bare feet pad across the cool floor as I drag myself toward the window.
This time, instead of just pressing my ear to the glass, I reach for two brass hooks screwed into the sash.
I know what to do—it’s instinctive. I loop my fingers under them and push up gently, staring out into the swirling night beyond the window.
An endless sea of black punctuated by a blizzard of silver trails that loop and twist in frenetic patterns across the sky.
The window cracks an inch, and a deluge of voices pours into my head. It feels like hundreds of them, all talking at once. Whispers jumbled with yelling and speaking, singing, crying. So many voices. So much joy. So much pain.
Cassini’s voice is somewhere in the distance. He feels far away, but the sound anchors me. “Focus, Lily. Follow one. Just one.”
I concentrate on blocking out the other sounds and trying to follow a single thread.
One calls out to me from the dark, and I chase it.
Locking on to it through the tangle of chaos.
As I grasp it, the fuzzy edges firm and pulsate, bathing me in warmth and familiarity.
I am safe here with this one. I know it.
A fractured voice echoes in the distance, getting gradually louder and clearer as it edges closer to me. “Hey, look. It’s Blondie! Hey, Blondie, over here.”
“Hello?” I call back into the void. “Is someone there?”
“You remember me, kid?” it replies. The intonation is gruff but kind. It’s a man’s voice, laced with a heavy southern charm.
I suck in a slow breath, and the other voices melt away until I hear only him.
“Blondie,” he echoes.
“Harold?” I breathe. I don’t have to think. I just know.
“That’s right, darlin’. What are you doing here? Never thought I’d see you again.”
Harold Overton. He was a patient. I remember him now. He died a few months ago after a massive heart attack. We stabilized him, but he was DNR and very adamant about it. In a lucid moment, he told me, “When it’s my time to go, it’s my time.”
I was with him, waiting for his wife to come when he closed his eyes and slipped away.
I sat with him for some time after, marking time until she arrived.
Holding his cooling hand whilst I shared mundane details about my life.
I squeezed his fingers and told him how blessed I was to have met him. No one should be alone when they pass.
“Harold? Where are you?” I ask, tears pricking my eyes.
“Somewhere in between.” His voice sounds amused. “Listen, Blondie, I need you to do something for me. Can you get a message to my Irene?”
“I… I think so. What do you want me to tell her?”
“She’s been tearing the house apart looking for some papers.
Tell her to check the wooden chest in the attic—the one with my daddy’s war medals.
There’s a document in there she needs, for the house.
And Blondie? There’s a letter for her too.
I wrote it a few years back, just in case. It should bring her some peace.”
The emotion in his voice makes my throat tight. “I’ll tell her.”
“Thank you, darlin’. You’re a good one. You take care of yourself, now.”
His presence fades, and before more voices can find me, I grab the edges of the pane and slam the window shut.
I back away from the glass, watching the swirling lights spin and twirl.
Paloma said to take it slow, and that’s about the limit for me.
The further I get, the more frenzied they become, and some peel off and begin to hurl themselves against the window as if they’re trying to get my attention, filling the room with tiny pitter-patter sounds as they make contact.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “No more. Not tonight. I’ll come back.”
I take three paces back, and the floor vanishes under me, causing me to fall through nothingness until I violently jolt back into my body.
It feels like being ripped between realities.
I blink and adjust to the light, my breathing hard and heavy.
When I touch my hand to my face, I realize it’s soaking wet with tears.
Cassini is watching me with gentle curiosity, his head cocked a little to the side. He offers a small smile as he blows out the candles. “How was that?”
“That was amazing,” I say breathlessly. “I met a patient of mine. He asked me to give a message to his wife, and it felt so clear. So real.”
“You feeling okay?” he probes. “How’s your head? Do you need anything?”
I place my hand over my heart and feel it thudding in my chest. “I’m fine. I just feel weird. Like I’m not really here yet.”
“Try grounding yourself,” he says, picking the bolsita up and placing it in the palm of my hand.
I weigh it there as he clasps my other hand in his.
“It helps with maintaining contact with reality. You just need to breathe and count. Find three things you can see, three you can hear, three you can touch. Count them and say it out loud for me.”
I look around the room, searching for the familiar. “I can see a Dolly Parton vinyl. A golden pineapple and a black candle,” I say between breaths.
“Good,” Cassini soothes. “Keep going.”
“I can hear the cicadas chirping, a car backing up outside, and uh…my breath. I can hear my breath.” My body is starting to calm down, and when I gaze into Cassini’s eyes, he nods for me to continue.
“I can feel the soft cushions of the couch under my body, the gentle breeze from the air con on my face, and…” I reach out and grab Cassini.
“I can feel your hand and it’s…it’s ice-cold. ”
“That’s great. You did great,” he says, pulling away, but I grip his wrist and yank him toward me.
“Seriously, you’re freezing. Is this unusual for you?” I ask, cupping his hand between mine and rubbing it.
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, not to be a buzzkill, but you should get yourself checked out. Maybe ask your doctor about Raynaud’s syndrome. Poor circulation can be a sign of underlying—”
“It’s not that.” He pulls his hand away gently. “Trust me, it’s fine.”
He glances down at his watch, something with a worn leather strap and an elaborate gold face, and mutters something about leaving.
I know for a fact he hasn’t been here an hour, but he’s visibly anxious to get out of here.
I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, maybe grabbing him? Being too nosy about his health?
Before I can apologize, he’s already up and walking toward the door. “We can try again tomorrow night. This was good progress.”
I walk him out in a daze, feeling strangely reluctant to let him leave. At the threshold, I turn to face him.
“Thank you,” I say softly. “For all of this. I know it’s a lot, and I’m probably getting all this wrong, but…I really appreciate it. It’s just gonna take me some time to get used to the new normal.”
Without really thinking about it, I rise up on my toes and kiss his cheek, returning the kiss he gave when he entered. But this time, he doesn’t just accept it. His hand comes up to cup my face, and he turns so that when I pull back, we’re gazing directly into each other’s eyes.
The air between us shifts as he leans down and presses his lips to mine, holding them there for a few seconds. It’s not a passionate kiss—no tongues, no moving, just the pressure of his cold mouth against my warmth. Soft and careful and perfect.
As he pulls away, his eyes half closed, his lips still pressed together, there’s that voice again. Clear as if he’d spoken aloud: Dolce come il miele.
I hear it. But not in the room—it’s inside my head.
I pull back, breathless and confused, staring up at him, searching for answers.
What the fuck?