Lilith (rewrite)

Chapter 4

Lilith

I wake up and I think, "again, really? I have to do this again?"

3:09pm and Lilith's classes have finally finished. She decides to walk to the shops to get the bottle of whiskey she's promised her dad and the shampoo she needs. It's only a 10-minute walk, and it's not dark yet. She makes sure to walk as far away from the road as possible to avoid the cars that keep splashing puddle water onto the pavement. Although it hasn't rained all day, the heavy rain from yesterday still hasn't been absorbed into the ground.

One of the only fond memories of her and her mum was from a day where it had previously rained so heavily it left massive puddles everywhere. She was so young at the time, probably around six, that the puddles seemed like lakes to her eyes. The next day they were walking through a countryside lane and came across the biggest puddle she'd seen that whole day, and there was a small family of ducks swimming in it. They were so cute and friendly, and she begged her mum to let her go home and get some bread for them but she refused. She's sort of grateful now that she didn't let her grab that bread for them, considering she's since learnt they can die from it.

She gets to the shops at 20 minutes past on the dot, and she welcome the warm air coming from the automatic doors at the entrance. She doesn't have an ID with her but she never has an issue in this shop, it's why she comes here. It's cheap and they only have two regular workers who know her well by now. It's also convenient because it's so close to her college. She grabs the cheapest whiskey she can find and then gets her regular shampoo; honey and vanilla. It's only £1 per bottle, which is the cheapest she can get, especially since sometimes it goes on offer for only 79p. When it does, she always make sure to stock up, but it hasn't been on offer in a while.

She goes to pay and asks for a bag of loose tobacco and some more papers and filters. Pre-rolled cigarettes are too expensive considering you can roll your own for half the price. Sometimes if she's lucky people leave out their packs of cigarettes at the bar, which she always happily takes. It's inconvenient trying to roll at the same time as walking home, and it feels like a present to herself when she gets to smoke a pre-rolled one.

She pays and leaves, feeling anxious about the amount of money she spent for non-essential items. The issue with money for Lilith isn't that she spends too much of it, in fact she barely spends any money on physical items. She uses her shampoo and conditioner sparingly and only eats when she's truly hungry. But no matter how strict she is with her monthly spendings it's the bills that create such a strain. Even with the lights off as often as possible and rarely turning the heating on, her job just simply doesn't pay enough to relax about money even just to buy a pack of tobacco. Now she has to deal with the extra worry that dad will get mad it's only the cheap whiskey, not Jack Daniels.

She sticks her thumb into the road as the bus comes along, and again sits in her favourite seat. It's a nice ride home, the sky is dark and her music flows through her earbuds. Ever since the song at the club she's been obsessed with Ellise and it's all she's been listening to. She folds herself into her sweatshirt more and closes her eyes, the vibrations of the bus calming her. By the time she's home it's fully dark and it's only 4:30, but it's to be expected at this time of year. It gets dark so early and it's almost always raining; today was a lucky exception.

She gets off the bus and enters the house, her dad isn't home. Again, silence consumes the house. The only noise comes from Lilith as she takes off her sneakers. Her shift starts at 5pm, earlier than most days, but it still ends at 4am. A whole 11 hours of awfulness. She hopes the music is good tonight because she's going to need something to pull her through the shift without literally killing herself.