Colin has no idea I’m here and I’d like to keep it that way (Cain to lilah)
Nowadays, Lilah lived alone in the old Knowles estate, having moved back in after her parents vacated it. Dad's death hit her pretty hard--Denise had come to her the day of the funeral as a hallucination to tell her she always knew the old coot would eat himself to death. "It was the drinking, you insensitive bitch," Lilah had said at the time, to no one, in the wine cellar, while draining the last of her third bottle that night. Mum had tried to overdose no fewer than six times in her grief, but survived every time, until she decided to retire to Australia and, in her words, "get out of everybody's hair." Lilah told her again and again that she was there to understand her--hell, Julius had departed this world years before. But maybe she just didn't want her only surviving daughter to see her like that, a grieving wreck. A grieving wreck. Those words described Lilah all too well these days. Booze. Pills. Really nice opium from that doll Liesel Kutner from the last time they'd hung out (in complete secret, in a backalley dumpster no less.) Lilah had lost track of all what was in her system or what day it was. She was sitting up in bed, nursing the onset of a migraine with yet more whiskey when the door slowly opened and a familiar voice reached her ears. Even though she lived alone, it wasn't uncommon for her to hold a conversation. "Oh, I think Colin knows. He's heard me talking to myself, he knows just how crazy I--" That's when she looked up. Even in a drunken delirium, she knew she wasn't hallucinating this time. Every time she talked to someone who was dead, she knew they were dead. Her mind got tiny details of her loved ones wrong, as if to tip her off, keep her at least somewhat aware and functional. But she knew her son when she saw him. The room spun when she stood, every nerve ending in her body felt like it was firing, everything was everywhere at once. When the bottle fell out of her hands and shattered against the hardwood, she didn't even hear it. Somehow--she couldn't have discerned how--she stumbled up to Cain and then...then essentially fell on him, arms wrapped around him as she sobbed into his chest. For several minutes, she couldn't think at all. She couldn't remember what he asked her to do. Everything in her head was too loud, and there was just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. Eventually it registered with her how happy she was, how very grateful to see Cain alive, and after a few heaving breaths she finally found the power of speech. "I thought you were dead," she croaked softly. "Everyone thinks you're dead!" Still clinging tight to him, she waited for an explanation.
