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Kipperlilly's bed feels completely alien to her. Her sheets are a powder blue, soft and warm with her childhood stuffed animals lining the sides all neatly and perfectly arranged. The floral pastel yellow walls of her childhood bedroom which she had picked as a child, covered in bulletin boards and photo-booth pictures and science posters, resemble a hazy memory more than a real place. On the bedside table sits a myriad of trophies and ribbons from her youth—Seventh grade girls track: Most Improved. Fourth grade science fair: Second place. Middle school dance team: Co-captain. Never first, never the best, always just not quite good enough.
The springs of her mattress creak as she stands, the heels of her shoes tapping on the dusty wood floor covered in nail polish splatters and old pajama shirts. It’s someone else's bedroom—hard to believe Kipperlilly spent 16 years living within these walls. She loathes herself for how messy it became, what once had been a sanctuary of alphabetized bookshelves and neat 90° angles had declined in the manic weeks before her death into a collection of crumpled up papers and stains and the ragged ends of the wallpapers she had torn in a frenzy until her fingers were bloody and raw.
She remembers the feeling of dying all too clearly—the incessant burning away of her skin and sinew and bone slowly and deliberately as if holding a match to a single autumn leaf. If she concentrates hard enough, Kipperlilly can feel the heat of the magma permeating through her flesh like a plague seeking to consume her again. She scratches away at her arms for the relief of a different pain, claws sharp and deadly as she had once carefully filed them to be. She can't place why she even stood, but she supposes it's the animalistic need to move. So she paces, her mind reliving the feeling of falling to her death and knowing she had no one to blame but herself. She does this again and again—a ritual of self-loathing and remembrance for that which keeps her up for days at a time. The scratches begin to bleed as her door slowly creaks open.
Standing in the doorway, beautiful as Kipperlilly remembers and just too tall to properly fit, is Lucy Frostblade in her faded summer camp sweater and a skirt Kipperlilly had gotten for her as a birthday present four years ago. Lucy clears her throat, her face turning a soft purple in some poisonous mix of fondness and fear. Kipperlilly's heart sinks knowing she caused that fear. She can't blame Lucy for feeling it, not when all she can do is bite and kick and scream out of love. She presses her nails tighter.
“Hi, um, your mom let me in,” she says, “I just wanted to check up on you.”
It's such a painfully simple explanation, as though Lucy was expecting Kipperlilly to lash out yet again at her presence. A million thoughts and questions bubble up in Kipperlilly's head before she can fully process any of them. I'm sorry, I did it all for you and What can I do to fix this and I love you all thrash through her neurons and synapses until she can't think of anything at all but her own stupidity.
“Why?” Her voice is hoarse and rough, she hasn't spoken in the week since she had come back, as if doing so would seal her place back in the real world. She almost didn't want to have come back—as if she had deserved to die. She knows she did, at least to some degree. Lucy shrugs.
“She was worried about you, I think. I am. We, um, we all are.”
It’s a lie. Boldfaced. The kind of lie the old Lucy would've never told when she was so saccharine and naïve and kind to a fault. It makes tears well up in Kipperlilly's eyes—makes her want to hide away in shame for turning Lucy into something more bitter, more fitting of sorrow and storms. There is no we. No one else to worry and pity, everyone in her life hates her (For good reason) and her old party members hate her even more (For better reason).
“Don't lie to me, Lucy. Please.”
They sit in that silence. Unbearable silence. Kipperlilly looks away just so she can to avoid having to confront the girlish crush for Lucy that still shakes through her ribcage, gnawing on her organs and making a home where her heart had been burnt and sundered. Her traitorous eyes land on an old picture of the two of them, no older than twelve, smiling awkwardly at the beach as the waves slowly crashed and the sun beat down upon their young faces. Kipperlilly remembers it clearly, remembers the feeling of sand through her toes and the first itching of that feeling, all butterflies and unfulfilled hope deep in her chest. She digs her nails through to where she had punctured the skin and pulls hard enough to deepen the wounds.
“I'm sorry,” is the only thing Kipperlilly can manage to say.
“I'm sorry too, Lilly.”
A flash of rage bubbles up through Kipperlilly's throat and fizzles out sadly as soon as she opens her mouth. No more anger. She can't bear the thought of ever being angry at anyone else again, it was what had consumed her being into something worse. She deserves all the scorn and hatred and fury. It’s the apt punishment for spending her high school years being a horrible bitch to all those who cared about her. For lying, for cheating, for abandoning everything she had ever promised. She didn't have to, she chose to. That’s the nauseating part—she chose to be a bad person, and for what? Some misinformed grab at recognition? A choked sob erupts from her chest before she can stop it, eyes closing tight in a mix of shame and self-pity.
“Lilly, I—”
“Don't feel sorry for me,” another sob escapes, unable to be suppressed, "Please.”
Lucy slowly walks over, carefully, as though the slightest pressure would cause everything around them both to shatter, and sits on Kipperlilly's bed just as she would when they still needed each other. Kipperlilly turns away, her back facing Lucy, arms cradling themselves with her head down and a failed attempt to suppress the tears and cries. Her nails and wrists are stained with tiny drops of rust-red blood. Part of her wishes for Lucy to walk over and drink the blood from her wounds—an act of devotion. Kipperlilly would do it for Lucy in a heartbeat.
“I don't feel sorry, Lilly, I just—I don't know. Maybe I could've done things differently. And maybe you could've too but…that's all done now either way. There's no need to dwell on it.” Kipperlilly hears the way Lucy's voice shakes a little when she says you . She notices every lilt and pitch change in that beautiful song of a voice. It’s like a prayer the way she took in every little part of Lucy's manner and likeness. She wants to consume it and have it consume her. She wants to burrow into Lucy's stomach and swim in her bloodstream. It makes her nauseous to think about—It reminds her of when she killed Lucy and a sick, animalistic part of her brain told her to kneel at her side and consume her flesh and heart and body until they were one.
“You did everything right I just—you deserved someone better. I should be sorry. Let me be sorry, Lucy,” a ragged breath, “Let me be fucking sorry !” Kipperlilly doesn't mean to lash out again, but suddenly her arms aren't in that self-soothing position, her fists are slamming hard against her childhood dresser. The cabinets, once filled with neatly folded button-ups and pleated navy skirts, rattle with the ugly sound of I told you so . Her fists hurt in a way that makes her want to slam them until either her bones or the cabinets break.
“It doesn't matter how sorry you are now, you can’t undo everything you did to me. Everything you did to Ruben, and Oisin, and everyone else. You can be sorry but it doesn't change things, Lilly. You’re smart—you know that. You don't need to beat yourself up.”
“Since you know all the fucking answers what am I supposed to do now? No one fucking believes I can do anything but hurt, and—and maybe they're fucking right, Lucy. You waste your time on me.”
“It's not a waste, Lilly. You can't undo the past, but you can be good in the future. You just have to make the choice to.”
In the back of Kipperlilly's mind, a memory of the two of them their freshman year resurfaces. Kipperlilly remembers sitting in her room with Lucy as outside a rainstorm shook the windows and blew trees onto the ground. They sat on the floor as vanilla scented candles illuminated their faces and a shitty pop song echoed from Lucy's crystal. Lucy held Kipperlilly's hand close to her face as she carefully painted her nails a soft blue to match her own. In that moment all those years ago Kipperlilly recognized with a hint of self-pity that she was in love with Lucy Frostblade and that the feeling would kill them both. It was horribly pessimistic, and unfortunately true.
With a shaky breath Kipperlilly slowly turns round to face Lucy—her eyes all red and her cheeks pink and tear stained. It’s an ugly and pitiful sight, she knows it.
“I love you. I have loved you.”
“I know.”
“No you don't. I loved you and I killed you.”
“I loved you too, Lilly.”
The words hit Kipperlilly like a hammer to the ribs. If she concentrates hard enough on them, she can feel where her bones shattered at the sound. Part of her hopes that they would spear into her heart and kill her again. A howl of a sob breaks from her throat, becoming sore and scratchy. She knows she’s a pathetic sight with hair sticking to her forehead and a face that’s all red and puffed up with tears, crumbling to the floor without a trace of her signature poise or polished elegance. She remembers practicing that careful posture in the mirror, making sure the heels of her Mary-Janes would clack as she turned away. What a waste it all seems. She relishes the pain of the silence.
“It was my idea—the whole president thing. I—I didn't know it would matter at first I just…I wanted to be special.” The admission is a whisper. A confession of sin as Buddy would've called it. How she hated that kid, wanted to kill him more than she wanted to live—because he was in her spot but he wasn't her and he never could be. All his whining and play pretend kindness paled in comparison to Lucy. She was glad to slit his throat, she only wished she could have done it again.
“I know,” says Lucy, her voice all harmonic chords, “But you've always been special to me.” Lucy rises, slowly and beautifully like a goddess on earth. She’s the only divinity Kipperlilly would truly kneel to—Porter was nothing but a shameful grab at power, a perversion of everything she wanted with a mouthful of sickeningly sweet honey. She hates how much she believed him and how little he believed in her.
Lucy's arms wrap around her shoulders, her skin the cool surface of a lake. Kipperlilly feels the shame of clinging to Lucy in return, but the feeling of her face pressing into where Lucy's precious heart beats slows her breathing down. It's the resurfacing of a memory—and the beating of her own heart again.
Perhaps she will be okay. Perhaps she will make amends and play nice and stay out of trouble. Perhaps she will never be forgiven and, perhaps, that will be okay.
Kipperlilly floats in the space between Lucy's arms as long as she can, breathing in her dark wintery scent and treasuring every mark and divet of her body. Lucy lets her.