𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐓 ❅ (𝐠𝐱𝐠)

17| sanguine

Only once during the night had Lily aroused from her deep slumber, and as she had groggily searched the couch for her phone with lethargic hand movements, the early hours of the morning were displayed to her at the top of the screen.

The sudden brightness of the light flashing in the blackened room had strained her freshly wakened and hazed vision to a squint. Complete silence environed the apartment living area and as Lily had vaguely lifted her wearisome body to sit up, she looked around and out into the hushed darkness at the murky silhouettes of furniture clouded by its tragic veil.

Using the flashlight on the back of her phone, she had slowly searched down across the soft blanket that enshrouded her legs up to the eerie apartment space, panning it slowly around and down to the coffee table where it highlighted a small pile of neatly folded up clothes that she had easily recognised as her brothers.

Lily had quickly realised that she was still dressed in her school uniform when she had removed the deliberately placed blanket from her lower body, revealing the black skirt that had become scrunched up around her hips whilst she slept and the creased material of her navy jumper. After pulling herself from the couch, she had locked herself in the bathroom and stood under the warm light that constantly emitted a small electrical hum to change into the excessively large band t-shirt and sweatpants, having had to tighten the strings of the waistband around her hips so they wouldn't fall

Her reflection in the mirror as she brushed her teeth with the spare toothbrush that Caleb kept in his apartment bathroom along with a small selection of other toiletries, had continued to appear timorous no matter how many times she had tried to rub it completely of its subtle distortion. Every breath; every blink was narcotised, and things only appeared clear to her view if she focused on one part of her body or one small section of the reflection whilst all above and around it seemed vague and unruly. The exact way the world looks and feels when one has a hangover.

As her gaze had flicked from her thin shoulder—the protruding collar bones exposed by the stretched neck of the shirt, to the warm light above that executed a low hum and to the skin underneath her eyes that was tinted with years sleep debt that she could never pay back, the movement was rapid—almost as if her all her senses were on overdrive.

And that had become even more evident from the excessive beat of her heart that she could feel strongly pound its rhythm against the ivory cage, and the irritating pulsation of it that she could faintly discern in her ears. Her whole being had felt like it was burning up all over, and the disturbing sensation of her humid blood streaming underneath her skin had always been her least favourite side effect of her hangovers.

But any other stable human would have been more cautious to not take so much after a long and tiresome day after not having any at all. So, she had no one else to blame but herself for her misdemeanours.

Lily was impulsive though, and often particularly naïve to her emotions and desires.

So as she had snatched her bag from the living room and locked herself back in the bathroom, her hands shook with sporadic tremors as she held it up in front of the mirror to inspect the small plastic bag of Xanax she had come to revere so much as she did over the past few years. Her face had dropped into a small frown by what little she had let.

Her eyes had searched the bathroom incessantly as she moved around with apprehensive haste and urgency—ripping open the doors of cupboards and draws whilst small droplets of perspiration began to seep from her pale skin. She had been sure she probably looked crazy whilst she whispered to herself incorrect reminders to get some more of the drug whilst doing such.