7

LILIANNA

Lily had never met her biological dad. Her biological mom was a piece of work who couldn’t keep her own shit together long enough to care, or notice, that she had a daughter or two. Her grandparents had tried to make up the difference with a strict Lutheran upbringing, but by then it had been too little too late. Lilianna had a rebel soul and would sooner die than be a sheep in a flock she didn’t believe in. That being said, right about now, she would have given anything to be in catechism class or church choir practice.

She sat, silent, almost stunned, on one of the two well-worn beds in the hotel room. After multiple nights in the luxury suite at Caesars Palace, any motel would have been a step down. This particular one felt closer to eight steps down. Meanwhile, Jacob, her Jacob, sat on the bed opposite her, oblivious to her inner crisis. The demon skank was draped over his shoulder, watching as he checked, cleaned, and prepped gun after gun.

Lily didn’t know much about guns, except that she really didn’t like them. So far, Jacob had cleaned two smaller guns and a shotgun. He was working on another medium-sized hand gun, his whole concentration on it. She hoped the duffel bag he kept pulling the guns from was empty. Four guns for the three of them already seemed like four guns too many.

Dizzy was talking to him, whispering into his ear. Lily couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she knew that face she was making. It was fear and that confused Lilianna all the more. What did a demoness have to fear? And if she was afraid of what was to come, what chance in Hell did she or Jacob have of surviving it?

Lily just sat and watched, traumatized. She wanted Jacob to stop what he was doing and come over to her, comfort her, tell her it would all be okay. At the same time, she thought she might scream if he tried to touch her. Nothing was right in this place. Whenever she thought she was finally used to nothing ever being right in her life, she started to hope that just maybe things would get better. And then the hole got deeper. She wondered if she could grab one of the prepped guns, put it up to her head, quick enough, fast enough, that she could get away with pulling the trigger before the others could stop her. At this point, that seemed a better alternative than continuing in this gradual stepwise descent into Hades.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and spun to look. Behind her stood Jacob, though somehow looking older, more ragged. She looked back to the bed opposite to make sure Jacob was still there. Sure enough, he was still underneath the demoness. She reversed toward the other Jacob, only to find he was gone. Instead, a folded piece of paper sat next to her hand. Nervously, gingerly, she picked it up. She had expected it to vanish away to dust, but it seemed solid enough.

The words on the paper were in Jacob’s handwriting. She would have known it anywhere, having seen it in the notebooks they passed back and forth on their dates. He would write and she would write, quick poems to say things their tongues couldn’t quite dare to say out loud. It was Jacob’s writing on the paper, not Reverend’s or David’s, clear as a bell.

Someday and Always

I know that it still hurts you,

With too-cheery smiles and toothy false grins,

THEY say that time heals all.

But now still feels like then

And then was several calendars ago.

Maybe you're not doing it right.

 

Someday, you will be better,

Someday, you will be fixed.

But someday is not today

And today you're wondering if

Someday you might just give up.

 

I know that it still hurts you,

I know, because it still hurts me too.

And that's okay.

Pain has a way of reminding us

That we're still alive

That the darkness hasn't won yet.

 

Always I will be here

Not to make you better,

Because I never thought you broken.

Always I have loved you,

Because you always have deserved it.

 

She read it over, again and again, trying to memorize it, trying to tune out everything else that was going on around her. She was going to make it. She was going to survive this. The darkness hadn’t won yet. When the night grew late and Jacob lay down on the bed beside her, she snuggled up to him without a second thought. Someday, somehow, this was all going to be okay.