Our message thread is full of green bubbles and not a single gray response. It seems like all my communications nowadays are one-sided and are related to the dead.
Brit pulls the chair out and slumps down onto it, defeat written all over her. The cafe has been understaffed for the past two weeks with practically everyone out sick. So we’ve both been working extra hours, which is good, because it means I don’t need to rely on Letum leaving me cash in my bag—though it hasn’t stopped him from spoiling me.
“Christ,” she groans. “I’m going to need to see a fucking chiropractor for all the weight I’m pulling here.”
I huff, and my lips pull up in a half smile. “Ask the big boss instead. He seems to be good at walking all over you.”
She gasps. “Lili! Did you just use humor?”
I almost slipped into an easy grin. “It’s payment for having an open bar last night.”
Letum’s rather aggressive shove to get me onto my feet was like getting water poured on my face to wake up in the morning: it feels like shit, but you’re definitely awake now.
I’ve stopped mourning the girl that I once was and everything in my life that came before the accident. I won’t say I’ve healed, but I’m on the path to recovery, and I think that’s what really matters.
Hell, I even left my house to socialize last night for the first time in almost two years. It’s a milestone, even if all I did was sit there and listen to everyone else talk.
Even after everything, I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something. Someone. I happened to text Letum in great detail about last night after I had one too many glasses of wine. Not much of my message was comprehensible, but he must have understood what I was saying because when I got home there was a sandwich on the counter, toothpaste on my toothbrush, a glass of water next to my bed, and an extra lily on my pillow.
I’m trying to remind myself that actions speak louder than words, but it’s hard to think that when I haven’t heard a single word from him.
Even though life is finally shaping up, it doesn’t feel like this is the right life for me. I’m not just meaning life in a cafe or this city. Something deeper and more intrinsic that I don’t have the necessary words to explain.
“Honestly, I don’t know how you’re even upright today,” Brit grumbles.
The truth is, I’ve had a little more energy every day. I’m not sure if I can owe it to the lack of medication or the fact that I’m not crying myself to sleep anymore.
“I stayed away from the tequila,” I point out.
The door to the cafe swings open, and my coworker sticks his head around with a frantic yet unimpressed look. “Brit, there’s a lady that wants to speak to you about the taste of her scone.”
She groans into her hands and looks up at me with her bloodshot eyes. “If you hear screaming, don’t call the police.”
I nod and grin. “Noted.”
Chapter thirteen
Lilith
I grab my phone as I walk to my apartment the next day and see the last two texts that I sent him during my lunch break, still unanswered.
Me: There’s a candlelit piano concert coming to town that I think you might like.
Me: I saw a dress online, and the concert would be the perfect occasion to wear it. I’m just not sure whether to get it in forest green or sage green.
Maybe it is a bit pathetic that I’m texting someone who isn’t texting back, especially when the texts are so mundane. But it makes me feel like I’m connected to him, even though I’m certain he’s still watching my every move.
Me: I’m going to make spaghetti aglio e olio for dinner if you’d like to join. I can’t promise it will taste as good as what you make, but nothing is wrong with striving for ‘edible’.
I let out a half laugh as I sent the latest text. He’s never taken me up on my offer but I haven’t given up trying. Honestly, he probably already knows that I am going to make the dish when I bought all of the ingredients for it yesterday.
I haven’t stopped trying to coax him out of the shadows. I’ve walked around my apartment practically naked, used his money to buy lingerie, put on a good show with my fingers, and moaned his name for added effect in the hopes that maybe he’ll take me by surprise again.
One might say I’ve gone to extreme lengths in my desperation.
Still, he hasn’t so much as left me a letter. I’m disappointed, to say the least. And sad. I miss him.
Me: And we can watch Ghost Rider after dinner, then you can tell me whether it’s fact or fiction.
My heart skips a beat when my phone vibrates in my hand.
Letum: Fiction.
The smile that spreads on my face stretches from ear to ear. After three months, he responds with a single word. Finally.
Childlike giddiness fills me from seeing his name on the screen. I have no control over the butterflies that spur alive in my stomach.
Me: It’s fact until you come over to convince me that it’s fiction.
Letum: Soon, my Lilith.
The weirdest part about the past month is that with each passing day, I feel closer to Letum. Not physically, of course. And not because I’ve realized the method to his madness. But because in the back of my mind, bits and pieces of information are sitting beneath the surface of rippling water, and occasionally, I can see what it says.
For some reason, I can say with utter confidence that Letum has raven black hair and eyes of plain white. Just as I can confidently say that he has a dimple on his chin, thick curling lashes, and a short horizontal scar on his cheek. I’m not sure how I might know this, but I would bet everything that I have ever known on these simple facts.
I make enough dinner for two. To no one’s surprise, he doesn’t show. Does death eat (something other than me)? Probably not.
He shouldn’t have responded to my text, because all it did was make me yearn for him even more. His touch, his voice, his taste.
The wooden floor is a welcome discomfort as I sit in front of the drawers in my bedroom. The last time I opened the drawer with all his notes and extra gifts was three months ago.
A pink lily looks down at me from my desk, perched on a glass. Stargazer, botanists call it. Out of all the kinds of lilies that he’s brought me, the Stargazer is my favorite. Its hot pink spots lighten my otherwise dull room. The vibrant color is the complete opposite of both Letum and me. It’s meant to symbolize prosperity and abundance.
All the lilies have found a home somewhere around my apartment. If they aren’t hanging onto life soaking up some water, then they’re hanging on a string upside down. Just because it’s dead, it doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful.
Too weak to hold it back, I grab my phone and send another text.
Me: I miss you, Letum. ‘Soon’ isn’t soon enough.
I stare at the green bubble, waiting to see more gray ones pop up, but nothing comes.
Sighing, I try to bite down my disappointment. Two texts don’t mean that he’s coming. Neither does two lilies.
I wrap my fingers around the metal handle of the drawer and try to pull it open. When it doesn’t budge I use far more force than necessary, and the whole drawer lands on my lap, spilling brown parchment all over the floor.
I blink.
I blink again.
The whole thing is filled to the brim with rolled-up brown parchment. It’s no longer kept together tidily in a box. Rolls of paper fall into the box of feathers, and make their way into every nook and cranny of the drawer.