Playlist: Lily Two by Matt Pond PA.
Snow Ivy: A Lilly POV for you!
Disclaimer: Yeah, no. Just borrowing.
Lilly snapped the phone shut. What the hell was she doing? She and Kite were over, and if she was going to start making life changes, she didn't have to inform her of her move. Like he'd want to listen. Like he'd care.
"Crap." Lilly leant against the wall for a minute, her eyes closed. The sudden sobriety made her head spin; nothing like drinking on an empty stomach then having it evaporate at the surprise of hearing a voice on the other end of the line. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, putting the glass on the ground with the remaining alcohol left in it. Her cell rang in her hand and she jumped, nearly sending it clattering down the cold cement steps. She looked at the screen, saw Kite's name flashing in bold. Shoving the phone deep in her pocket, Lilly moved out of the car park. She was sure her mother had already told Jackie that she'd come down with a sudden stomach bug. Ellen had always been good at making up stories. Remember when you broke a jaw?
Lilly pulled her phone out of her pocket, ready to turn it off, but it rang again. She cursed any key answer as she waited for it to stop ringing. As soon as it did, she switched it off, knowing she couldn't answer his questions now, couldn't tell him what he wanted to hear; that she was fine. He'd always overstepped her boundaries, invited himself further into her life than she'd wanted him. She didn't need him asking her about her mother and why she hadn't mentioned her before. The subject had come up once, briefly, when they were still together. They'd been lying in bed together, quietly contemplating their own thoughts, gently breathing on each other's skin. He'd asked her why she didn't have any family pictures out, why she only had pictures of people she didn't know. She'd felt his voice rumble through her, had ached to answer the question with reasons; her mother had never really been a mother and her sister was a train wreck who'd slept with her ex-fiancé three months before the wedding. But too many years of carefully kept boundaries had made her turn, look up into his eyes, tell him they were never a family of photographers. Then they'd made love; the easiest way to stop him asking questions, before they'd walked to work, his arm heavy on her shoulders.
Now they were miles apart, and sex wasn't going to shut him up this time. Lilly flicked some hair out of her eyes, walked down a short cut side street. She didn't owe him anything; he'd ended it, and she'd heard that he was happy in his new job, and supposed he was probably seeing other people. She doubted he'd given her a thought since the night she'd come home to find a message on her answering machine from him. It was after George, after she'd been talked at all day; by Stillman, by the department psychologist, by the internal shooting squad… She'd given them all the answers they'd wanted to hear and had avoided her other colleagues' eyes, aware they were all waiting for her to crack; with a break down, the way to handle her would be clearly defined. They'd close ranks, offer her sympathy, give her time off and filing duties. Instead, she'd stayed together, kept her thoughts away from how good it had felt to kill that man, to kill his evil intent, and his destruction but most of all his link to little Lilly. Ignoring protocol, she'd pulled her own 49 after he'd mentioned it; hadn't trusted Scotty or Vera not to do a little sleuthing of their own, only to find out she hadn't been a virgin since she was ten because of a dark night and a mother who couldn't get her own alcohol.
She'd come home after all that, her 49 tucked safely in her bag, to a message asking her if she was okay, if she'd been hurt at all, how she was feeling. Just hearing his voice, the familiar tone, had started the trickle of tears that she couldn't stem until the next morning. She'd neglected the message, deleted it with the same pride that, she remembered, always came before a fall. Three days later, she'd opened up her 49 and reread the interview notes, to convince herself that she didn't need him, or anyone. That little Lilly was a long time ago and that she'd survived just fine. She'd called him back at a time she knew he'd be at work and left a short message, telling him she'd appreciated the call and that she was okay.
Lilly passed a take away shop and the smell of chinese beckoned her inside. She had considered the thought that they might be able to make it through dinner; that her mother might not act like herself for once. Instead, she'd acted as expected, and Lilly had come away from the dinner hungry and with the same nonexistent faith that there would ever be much of a relationship between her mother and herself.
After ordering, Lilly walked back out into the cool air outside. Her head was clearing more each minute, and she was left with the question of why she'd needed to justify herself against her mother to anyone; and why to Kite? He'd only known as much as she'd let him; if there was anyone who would have known what she was talking about, it was Ray. He'd seen where she'd come from, would know what she'd had meant without her having to explain anything else. Instead, she'd left a mess of words on Kite's machine, opening herself up to his endless questions. If he chose to ask them. If his new girlfriend didn't just delete her off there, annoyed at her intrusion into their domestic bliss.
Lilly's order number was called and she got her noodle box and kept walking. She wondered if her mother had unwittingly intruded upon her drunk dialling decision; she'd never liked Ray, especially since he'd stolen Lilly and, more, importantly had taken away the wage she'd made from a waitressing job that her mother had spent on alcohol. I want better for you. Like her mother could suddenly expect more just because she'd found a man she could pretend to be well adjusted with. She wondered whether she was trying to prove something; that Kite wasn't too good for her. That she could hold onto the good, or could grasp at it at least, clutching the thin threads of what they'd had. That reaching out in the dark, over distance, through alcohol drunk for the wrong reasons, past him not wanting to live in the shadow of her job… That somehow, she was justifying her life. Look, Mom, I called the good one. Somehow, even though her mother would probably never know, it made her feel better.
She could only stomach half the noodles before she put them in a trash can, filled almost to overflowing on a corner. They'd had a meet and greet with the alcohol in her stomach, and she could feel the vague stirrings of nausea starting. All she needed was a hangover tomorrow, confirming her colleague's suspicions; that if you wanted to crack Lilly Rush, it wasn't a sadistic serial killer you needed, it was her mother.
Under the next streetlight she checked her watch. She was only fifteen minutes from home, from the safety of her apartment where there were no pictures of her mother, no reminders of Kite, nothing but the safeness of the darkness and her cats.
So this isn't as lyrical as Kite's part… But I don't think Lilly thinks in as much prose. She's straight forward and no nonsense. And, even if you don't think so, I believe she might walk down the street and psychoanalyse herself, especially after a meeting with her mother. Besides, what else is there to do while you're eating noodles?