Lily

Her eyes, once striking, stare dully into the pool of red around her head. The red soaks her once magnificent head of blue-black curls. Stupid bitch. I told her to be careful. I told her that I couldn’t always be around to make sure she doesn’t snort a hole through her skull, like a botched attempt at mummification. Another line, she said, another line, now just one more, she said… Stupid bitch.

I went home after the coroner took her body away in a black bag and the cops took her stash and other pieces of evidence. My girls saw Auntie’s blood in my eyes when I came in, could smell her death clinging to my skin. They knew. They didn’t understand, but they knew.

“I’ll start dinner soon. Go… play, or something.”

I smacked Darla as I walked past her, grumbling, “asleep on the job, whore?” She merely flipped me off, a smirk playing across her lips.

I throw my jacket… somewhere. Don’t care. I wander into the bathroom, the scent of Lily’s death hanging in my nostrils. The scent makes me sway. Something hangs over my head, chipping away at the crumbling wall, little by little.

Listless, pale blue eyes, a stark white face, and limp, wavy black hair stares back at me. I study my face in the mirror, staring my skeleton right in the eye. Limp. Dull. Lifeless. The drywall behind me is crumbling.

I want to jump into the shower and scrub the scent of her death from my skin, even if I have to scrub it all off. I want to scrub her blood from my eyes so that my girls won’t see it. I don’t have time for that. I have to cook.

Splash some water on your face, the girls have already seen. Darla must know by now, she’s so damn perceptive. Shit, we’ll have to tell Alyssa that her daughter, precious Lily, is dead. I hate that hospital.

I wiped my face dry and pulled my long, limp hair into a ponytail. Last time I cooked with my hair down, I almost burned the whole mess off of my head. It was before Alyssa was thrown in the hospital. She can rot there for all I care, the useless bitch of a mother. My hair burned off to my shoulders, burning my hips, stomach, breasts, and back with it. Thank god I wasn’t pregnant with my girls.

“Mommy?” I hear the tiny voice of one of my girls.

“Yeah, Jack?” She always whines that Jack is a boy’s name, and that she should be called Jacqueline. I tell her that just because Jacqueline is the name on her birth certificate does not mean that is what I’ll call her. After all, I am her mother and will call her whatever I damn well please.

“Mommy, where’s Aunt Lily?”

“Aunt Lily won’t be coming over anymore. Aunt Lily is gone. It’ll just be mommy and Auntie Darla from now on,” I say, refusing to look at my daughter.

I leave Jack in the bathroom, making a beeline for the kitchen. I start throwing food together, barely paying attention to what my hands are doing.

Darla walks up behind me. I can smell her, even over the scent of Lily’s death. Darla’s is a scent of cinnamon and blood, with salt added in so that she can rub it in your wounds as she pleases.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Staring down at nothing, I nod.

“Finally overdosed, eh?” Callous.

Another nod as I continue to do whatever it is that I am doing with renewed vigor.

“Thought so. You should tell Alyssa,” she says, and I know she grinned at the little flinch that I gave.

“Come with me?”

“Hell no. Last time I went to see her, those assholes tried to make me her roommate.” Still grinning, I know it.

“You’re heartless,” I say, not really doing her torpidity justice.

“Why do you think that they tried to throw me in with Alyssa?” With one last evil grin, she disappears to… I can’t really be bothered to check. I have to cook. A few minutes later, Darla calls me into the living room.

“Explain to Jackie and Jade what it means to be dead. I’ll only frighten them,” she says, making herself at home on my couch. I sigh heavily, rolling my eyes.

“Fine.”

After we eat whatever it is that I made for dinner, I sit down on the living room floor with my girls to explain.

“Death is the end of life. Everybody has to die. Sometimes, people die because of someone else, because it is simply their time or maybe because they did something stupid…”

Lily snorted another line of blow, her shiny curls hiding her face as she leaned over the table. Work had been rough that night. She didn’t make much money, and she was starting to gain a little weight… again. The coke was supposed to keep her skinny, wasn’t it? Just like the customers wanted. She sat up, the high taking over… and suddenly, there was blood gushing from her nose.

“…but no matter how it happens, everyone will die. When you die, everything stops. Your heart stops, your brain stops, your lungs stop, your entire body stops…”

Lily pitched forward as she passed out. Soon after, she stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating, and then her brain stopped. Her entire body stopped. Her eyes, once striking, stared dully into the pool of blood as it formed around her, soaking her hair while staining her skin and clothes. She looked like she had just made her way out of the womb, like a stillborn baby or an aborted fetus.

“…Aunt Lily’s body stopped. I’ll tell you more when you’re old enough. Now go to bed, it is way past your bedtimes.” My girls groaned and got up. Jack looked scared, her face ashen, but Jade looked fascinated.

“You need a bath, Mommy. You smell like blood,” Jade says before wandering to her bedroom. That girl never wants to kiss me goodnight anymore.


I took the rest of the week off of work. It may be a shitty job, but they do provide paid time off for family emergencies. I went to the hospital first. May as well get it over with.

Alyssa’s doctor tells me about how she’s been doing on the way to her room. I listen passively to the short, balding man, even though I know that it could one day be me, Darla, or one of my girls trapped in this horrible place.

I shiver and pull my jacket closer to my too-thin frame. Lily was just thin enough. I hear screams from one room, loud, demented ramblings from another, and nothing from Alyssa’s doctor. I shiver again and rub my forearms. Goosebumps.

We finally reach Alyssa’s room. The doctor looks at me and asks, “Will you be telling your mother,” I flinch, “anything that may upset her?”

“Yes,” I say, knowing the drill. He nods and pulls a capped hypodermic needle from the recesses of his white lab coat. With a nod, he opens the door to Alyssa’s room.

“Alyssa! How are you today? Your daughter has come to visit!” Not hearing a peep from either of us, he plows on, “I’ll just leave the two of you alone for some quality mother-daughter time!”

I step into her room once the doctor is gone. Alyssa’s stark, pale-blue eyes stare right through me. Her long, thick black hair, now streaked with gray, hangs lifelessly from her head.

“Your daughter is dead,” I state, without preamble and without looking at her once.

“Darla? I figured it would happen sooner rather than later…”

“No, not Darla.”

“You? You’re finally gone? So you’ve come to haunt me, then? You couldn’t do enough when you were alive to torment me-“

“Alyssa, I’m not dead,” I say, interrupting her, “Lily is.” Don’t look at her. Not one look into those almost white eyes, dead as a fish’s.

She gasps, “L-lily? My Lily?” Her voice is tiny, almost child-like.

“Yes,” I state the simple truth, that her precious flower is gone.

Suddenly, Alyssa’s face contorts in ugly fury. “Get out! NOW!” She screams, jumping to her feet with a fiery fury in her eyes. It’s the most alive I’ve seen her in years. I nod and comply with her demand. I didn’t look at her once.

The doctor goes in, and I notice that the hypodermic has lost its cap.


Half an hour later I’m standing in front of the club. Lily used to work here. She took her clothes off for men; some married, but most were pathetic little boys with no hope of bedding someone like Lily. Everyone was in love with the idea of her, so perfect, so beautiful. Lily.

The club is almost empty, which make sense because it’s almost noon, and the filth doesn’t start crawling out until nightfall. There is a man behind the bar cleaning glasses. He’s tall with dirty blonde hair and even dirtier green eyes.

“Lily? What are you- Oh, you’re not Lily. Sorry,” he says, looking embarrassed. People mistake Darla and me for Lily all the time, until they see that Darla is too thick and I’m too thin. Lily was thin too, but in an attractive way. My clothes hang off of my shoulders and hips, and my bones jut out. I don’t have much of an ass to speak of, and my tits are quite pathetic. Lily’s bones only stuck out a little, and her breasts and ass were something to write home about. Everything looked good on her, even Darla’s clothes, which were always a few sizes too big for her.

“Can I help you?” the man asks, snapping me out of my reverie.

“Yeah, I’m Lily’s sister, and I need to get her stuff.”

“Why? She quittin’?”

“No. She’s dead.”

“Oh… I’ll show you to her locker.” He leads me to a room in the back. He breaks the lock on her locker and opens it.

“How did it happen?”

”Coke overdose.”

“That’s a shame… She was so young, and pretty, too.”

“Tell me about it,” I grumble as I start shoving her things into the bag that I brought with me. I don’t really look at any of her belongings; I just take them. I feel silk and lace, and then plastic… She had a stash here, too. I grab the baggie and ask, “Where’s the restroom?” He shows me the way, and I go to flush the disgusting white powder.

I get home about an hour later. I had to stop and get lunch, my stomach insisted. The girls are at school, so I dump the bag containing Lily’s things on the living room floor and sit down to go through it all. It’s all clothes, g-strings, bras, and sarongs. Alyssa would have a heart attack if she were to see her precious flower in any of this.

Lily’s clothes bring no comfort. Not many people who knew her actually knew her, and I am no exception. Yeah, I knew about her addiction and her job, but that doesn’t mean that I knew my sister. I doubt Darla knew her any better than I did…

There’s a hand on my shoulder. I jump and whip around, my hair wrapping around my face and whipping lightly against Darla’s legs. “Fucking hell! You startled me, you worthless whore!” I snarl, more startled than anything.

“Yeah, whatever… Is all of that Lily’s?”

“Yeah, this is her stuff from the club. We’re going to have to clean out her apartment, too.”

“We? I’ll supervise.”

“Lazy whore.”

“Yeah, like you didn’t know,” she says, leaning against the wall. I can’t believe that she’s going to make me do this all alone.

“I suppose you’re not going to help with the arrangements, either.”

“What arrangements?” She looks confused, but she isn’t. She knows exactly what she’s doing, deliberately rubbing more salt into the wound.

“The arrangements… for Lily, y’know?”

“No, I don’t know,” she says with a little grin playing across her lips. Her eyes are darkening a little, from almost white to an icy baby blue.

I roll my eyes. “Darla, I don’t want to play these games with you. You know damn well what I’m talking about!”

She sighs and pushes away from the wall. She kneels next to me and says; “Make the funeral arrangements yourself. You know I’ll only mess it up.” With that, she kisses me on the side of my head and leaves.


We left the morning after I got Lily’s stuff from the club. It’s Thursday, a pretty cold one at that. I shiver when I feel Darla’s cold, bare arm brush against mine, chilling through my coat, shirt, skin, muscle, and blood all the way down to the bone. The car is even colder.

Her apartment is still tidy, except for the coffee table. I can see where her blood stained the fake wood, causing the particle board to rise and undulate. There is still some blood on the table and floor, and there are some curly, blue-black strands mired in the coagulated mess. I can almost see her eyes.

After giving the front room another once-over, I decide that Darla can have this one and I’ll take the bedroom. I start by looking for the things I may want to keep. She has pictures of various combinations of herself, Alyssa, and Darla. Her nightstand has the normal things in it: chapstick, hair binders, lotion, a bottle of KY, a small comb some money, and… a journal? I pick the small notebook up, take a closer look.

“Hey, what’s this?” Darla comes up behind me and easily pulls the journal from my lax grip.

“It was her journal, I think,” I reply, which doesn’t deter her one bit from opening the slightly battered book and starting to read from it.

“Stop! It’s probably private.”

“Oh? How do you figure?” she asks, looking up. Her cold eyes bore into mine, sending a chill through my body. I wrap my arms around my thin torso, trying to keep some heat in.

“Well, she never told us about it… maybe she never wanted us to know what’s in there. They’re her secrets.”

“What she wanted in life doesn’t matter in death.”

“Maybe not to you, but it matters to me!” I snap, rage ripping through me and I can barely feel it.

Darla simply shrugs and flops back on Lily’s bed, picking up where she had left off in the journal. I go back to going through Lily’s things. Every once in awhile she would read an entry aloud.

“I got that job at the strip club. I know that it’s supposed to be degrading, but I love it. It’s so exhilarating. I think this is what I have been looking for.”

“I guess I need to be skinnier, so one of the other belles gave me some cocaine. It’s supposed to help me lose weight. The high was great. Not as great as being on stage, but still pretty fuckin’ awesome. Maybe when I get skinny I’ll be pretty like my little sister… of course, Darla’s kinda chunky and still gorgeous, but she’s also tall. I’m too short to carry it like Darla can.”

Darla takes a look down at her chubby body. She looks better than I do, at least. I’d rather be chubby than be as emaciated as one of those neglected animals that you see on Animal Planet. Lily was as skinny as me when she died; I could see her collarbone threatening to rip through her skin, her clothes hanging from her body in such an attractive way.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve seen your name in here once,” Darla says, startling me a little.

“Really?” I shrug. Lily didn’t call me by name that often. Normally, people only do so when they really need to get my attention.

“Yeah… Look, I know that you’re uncomfortable with this, but I just want to get to know her better.

I nod mindlessly, not looking up from the box of photographs in front of me. There are a lot of photos of Lily, Darla, Alyssa, and various other people in her life. I feel something hard and smooth, probably glossy, toward the bottom of the box. I press my hands deeper into the colourful snowbank of photographs to unearth the object. It’s a shoebox, and the cover is taped to the box itself. I grab the razor in my back pocket and slice through the tape.

“Hypocrite,” Darla grumbles from the bed.

I toss an absent-minded “fuck you” over my shoulder while I pull the top off of the box. The matte sides of several pieces of photography paper, all of which have been scribbled on, greet me. I pick one up; my name and 18-8-02 are on the back. I flip it over to see… a picture of me? Duh, my name is on the back.

I don’t like this picture at all. It was a really hot summer, so I swallowed my sense of vanity (can ugly people be vain?) and donned a tank top. The burn scar covers my chest, shoulders, and the exposed tops of my breasts before disappearing under my bra and shirt to cover both breasts, my stomach, and some of the skin covering my hips. What possessed Lily to take such a hideous photograph? Maybe that’s why she hid it.

All of the pictures in the box are of me. Some are from before the accident, some are from when I was pregnant, one when I was in the hospital after giving birth to my girls. A few pictures had obviously been cut out of other pictures. Each picture was face down with my name and the date on it when I came across it. Lily was always the only person to put the accent on my name.

I hear the bed creak, then Lily’s journal is in front of my face. Darla’s arm rests on my shoulder and her finger serves as a makeshift bookmark.

“You should read this, Renee.”


Planning Lily’s funeral flew by. Darla and I arranged for Alyssa to be release from the hospital for a short while so that she could help with the plans and attend the funeral.

I let Alyssa dominate the planning of Lily’s funeral. When I got home from Lily’s apartment (Darla went to her own home for once), I was just… lethargic. Disconnected. Almost disassociated. I paid the babysitter, put my girls to bed, then showered. I grabbed some pajamas from the hamper, donning the raiment mindlessly. Sleep did not come easily. I simply lay in bed, my wet hair soaking my shirt, pillow, and sheets. Sleep took me eventually, but I couldn’t escape what I had read in her journal. It hung in my mind; white paper splattered in black ink clouded my dreams. Her secrets permeated everything while sealing me in its thick, dense fog.

It took Alyssa two days to plan her funeral. When my girls, Darla, Alyssa, Alyssa’s “just in case” entourage of nurses armed with hypodermic needles, and I got to the church, I was shocked from my fog courtesy of the sheer amount of lily bouquets decorating the hallow hall. I have never seen more lilies in one place in my entire life.

After the service, all of the mourners left lilies on her chest. When I got to her, I leaned down to kiss her forehead. Her hair was in loose curls framing her face, and she wore a green silk dress. She never did like green or silk.

“I have your journal, Lily. Don’t worry, love. I’ll keep your secrets safe.”

Silent tears started to stream down my face. I pulled three roses from a bouquet that I had bought for her. One rose is red, another white, and the third is peach. I lay the bouquet on her chest, the stems leading a thorny path between her silk-clad breasts to the vibrant blossoms that touched and tickled her collarbone. The three other roses were carefully cradled to my chest.

I needed to leave, badly. Tears were streaking my face, bringing black mascara with them. Soft, choked sobs were forming in my throat, getting ready to burst from my lips in a harsh, bestial explosion. The scent of her death mixed with the sickening scent of the lilies hit me hard, making me sway dizzily. I had to get out of there, away from Lily’s corpse.

Suddenly, a hand tangled itself in my hair and pulled hard, bringing more tears to my eyes.

“Roses?! What the hell is wrong with you?! Her name was LILY and you were supposed to bring her lilies!” Alyssa screams.

“She liked roses, Alyssa.”

“I don’t care! I told you to bring lilies, Renee!” With that, she let go of my hair, roughly spun me around by the shoulders, and backhanded me. The force of the blow sent me back a few steps. Blood started to trickle down my cheek. A nurse saw what had happened and came to take Alyssa away. I watched her leave, struggling against the nurse’s arms.

“I hate you! You ruined her funeral! I hate you!” She screamed, and she probably screamed long after she was out of earshot.

After taking some time to recover, I got up and walked to Lily’s now closed casket. It was drenched in lilies; the scent of them threatened to overpower me. The roses were still held close to my chest, though a little crumpled from when I fell. I set two of them down, holding the third in my hand. The thorns pressed through the skin on my palm and fingers, letting some blood out to flow over the stem and drip drop by drop onto the dirtless lilybed adorning my sister’s coffin. I pulled the blossom free of the stem and then lay the blossom on her coffin. I let the stem fall to the floor, then repeated the process with the other two roses, blood dripping from my hand to fall on the lilies all the while.

Once the blossoms were arranged to my liking -placed on a small space cleared of lilies- I turned to leave, glaring with contempt at the lilies dripping from most surfaces in the church, seething at the meretricious display, silently snarling at the rape of my sister’s wishes.

She hated lilies.