I was depressed. Lilian Harris-Taft was depressed. It was a ludicrous thought, one that I nearly laughed aloud at. Never had I been reduced to such a miserable state. I have always had a preference for morbidity, delighted even in my youngest years by everything macabre in nature, but I had never been anything as pathetic as depressed. It was pitiful. I curled my lip in distaste at the yellowing light of the empty refrigerator, as I stood infront of it, staring in dead silence.
It hummed to life at me, it's shelves barren and utterly useless to my cause. The sole thing that inhabited it, was the clear, half-empty vodka bottle laying on the top shelf. It was tipped over on it's side, clearly forgotten by my cousin and his retinue of society-boy bachelors, who inhabited this inferno. It was this miserable place that had originally prompted Dante. I rolled my eyes, slamming the door shut harder than necessary.
It was not my refrigerator. My refrigerator had been delightfully stocked with figs, and salmon, and bottles of imported blossom water, and blueberry honey cakes, and homemade meals in acacia-wood tupperware, scribbled with love notes from Henry. I realized, with a start, that I missed Henry. Or I missed living with him, at least.
Henry Cantor. Professor Cantor. He had been my home for the past year. Or his home, in his university-funded apartment, had been my home for the past year. He made me homemade meals, and woke me up with breakfast in the mornings, in his fresh-linen bed. Omelettes with greens and cherry-tomatoes, or warm fig-honey pancakes made from scratch. He made me breakfast that I alone would eat, sometimes sitting on the kitchen table, in one of his comically large button-ups, as he graded papers peacefully.
Now I was reduced to this indignity: barren fridges and half-empty vodka bottles.
I was enraged anew. I growled, opening the fridge door, and slamming it again once more, excessively loud.
"What is wrong, Lil?" Ivy, my cousin yawned, stumbling drowsily into the kitchen. The hardwood floors creaked with his clumsy footsteps, warning me of his arrival long before he appeared. Ivy's soft hair was wild, sticking up at odd angles. He looked frazzled and groggy. William Harris IV, most commonly known as Ivy, had the nerve to look confused.
"What's wrong, William" I hissed at him, using his full name, the way his mother did when she was displeased with him, "is that we have no food. You wish for me to starve"
I gestured to his fridge wildly. There were four boys inhabiting this place, and yet no food was stored in the refrigerator.
"Well go out and buy some then" He groaned at me, sounding all the more agitated to be roused out of his slumber. It was nearly three in the afternoon, and he had still been sleeping. All of his friends were. They were out last night, late into the evening, doing God knows what, slinking about campus. I heard them return at an ungodly hour to our dormitory house.
Their shadows skulked past the stained glass windows, exactly half-an hour till four. I knew because I had been stalking them, out of boredom during a particularly horrid spell of insomnia.
The only one that was not sleeping all day, was Cain. Achilleus Cain. He had risen early in the morning, and gone about his day quietly. I had seen nothing of him since.
"You are useless" I hissed at Ivy. I could not just go out and buy some. I hardly knew how. Never in my life had I been in a position where I was forced to provide for myself. Before school, it was my family, with nannies and governesses and a handful of Au Pairs, that cared for me, and at school, it had been Henry. I had always been cared for, always considered, always pampered. I did not know what to do with this new found indifference the world held for me.
My bottom lip curled up into a pout at the thought, and said aloud to Ivy, attempting to keep the waver out of my voice, "My own blood, turning against me"
First my parents, who discovered my entanglement with Henry, and forced me to move out of Henry's university residence, and into Ivy's horrid dormitory house as punishment, and now Ivy himself, who refused to take on his fraternal responsibility of caring for me.
Henry was gone. He had resigned, when my parents threatened to expose us.
They were never going to go through with it. They adored Wallace Vair University. My mother was a legacy at the Ivy-League adjacent university, as was her mother, and the dean regularly attended her Christmas soirées. Wallace Vair blood ran thick, watering the roots heavily of my family tree.
My parents were never going to tarnish the family name, one that had been on the alumni lists for generations, by exposing my inappropriate relationship with a professor. They just made sure to scare Henry enough to believe it. He did. He fled.
My undoing had been loving a coward. Now I was being punished for it.
"Lil, I have class soon. And you have to go to the library" Ivy sighed, leaning back against the marble kitchen island. The kitchen was old. The entire building was old.
The residence hall was originally a church from the 1890's. You could see whispers of its past piety throughout the old, shadowy building, if you looked close enough. You could see it in the structural bones, through the dramatic arches, the towering, high ceilings, the candle-lit, iron wrought chandeliers. The worn, dark-wooded floors were scuffed with age by the feet of pilgrims and devotees and disciples. There was a perpetual heaviness in the air, solitude weighing down the atmosphere of the residence, making it near suffocating at moments.
The only thing visible detail that survived the churches convergence into a dormitory residence, was the windows. Stained-glass windows, with vivid, colorful panels, decorated every room. The largest one was in the common room area, taking up nearly the entire far wall with arching, Palladian windows, painting the room in reds and pinks during sunset hours. The rooms were always bright with an abundance of airy sunlight.
Even my room had a small, circular panel, making my room seem all the less miserable. Sometimes, in the long hours of the night, I would wake to find my room painted in a blood red. I would blink, and the gory shading would be suddenly gone.
Upon my silence, Ivy ventured forward, "I will get Benny to run to the store when he wakes up"
I scoffed at that, "Bennett is a fool"
Ivy's childhood companion, Bennett Saadi James, was an oaf. I had seen enough of him growing up, to be certain of this. I wished to have seen less of him, in actuality, even if it meant I had to sacrifice my confidence in his stupidity.
"Benny will get you food" Ivy confirmed, satisfied with the resolution he had made. I rolled my eyes at him.
Benny would do it. He would sulk and complain and pout, but he would do it, diligently following orders like a subordinate. Thats what they all did: follow orders. They had an arcane, obsessive code of conduct. One that made them unanimous, one whole. They all were slaves to their strange customs and rituals, all their rules and devotions self-inflicted. I did not care enough to delve into it.
"It better be here before I return from the library" I demanded, before slamming the fridge door one last time for emphasis, and sauntering out of the kitchen to my room. I heard the vodka bottle crash to the fridge floor, shattering within.
I was depressed, I realized. So miserably depressed.
