Work Text:
Lily Reynolds is many things: smart, determined, ambitious, pretty, spoiled, and mean; but most of all she is a liar.
It isn’t particularly positive, but it is the truth.
Lying, both to herself and others, is something that she’s always been exceedingly good at—weaving a web of pretty little words to trap people into, keeping her face perfectly sweet and her big eyes so innocent. It comes naturally to her, feels it thrumming through her veins and clinging to the iron in her blood; sometimes, it feels like the only thing she’s truly good at is deception, the only thing she could never fail at.
So she lies about it all.
She lies about boarding school.
She lies about having an internship for which they would probably not even look at her twice.
She lies about being paid by Amanda’s mom to hang out with her.
She lies about the fact she thinks all her stepdad is good for is to give them money.
She lies about her stepdad's death being necessary.
She lies about not knowing anything about her stepdad’s death.
She lies about Amanda being the one who killed her stepdad.
She lies about not thinking about Amanda.
She lies about not reading Amanda’s letters.
She lies about not dreaming about her.
The first time it happens, Lily’s twelve.
She’d just spent the day riding horses with Amanda. Lily doesn’t enjoy riding as much as she used to—she’s outgrown it, and she knows it—but it’s something they’ve always done.
Besides, those times they’ve been around horses are the only times Lily’s seen her show a hint of genuine happiness, or a hint of any emotion, really. In a way, it fascinates her, she likes going riding with her to try to figure out what it is about horses that elicit responses from her otherwise closed-off heart.
She had fun with Amanda, even though riding horses doesn’t bring her the same excitement as it used to and even though Amanda is sort of weird. All her oddities make Lily want to spend more time with her, pick apart her brain and study her so only she could understand her.
That night, when she falls asleep, she sees Amanda in her dreams.
She’s wearing her riding clothes, her hair out of its helmet and falling over her shoulders in thick and messy light-brown curls. She’s towering over Lily in her dream, which she quickly realizes is because her lower half is that of a horse—four brown legs and hooves.
Amanda doesn’t spare her so much as a glance before she trots away, galloping in the wind as her hair fanned out behind her, a wide smile overtaking her face.
Even though it’s a dream, this is the happiest Lily has ever seen her.
When she wakes up the next morning, she’s disoriented and a part of her is looking for Amanda’s hair swinging behind her in the wind.
She never tells Amanda about her dream, even though she would probably like it, because she doesn’t want her to know how much she thinks about her when Amanda probably doesn’t care for her at all.
She’s not about to give her a glimpse into her mind, not if she can help it.
It happens again years later, the night after her dad’s funeral.
On the car ride back, Lily starts crying, which it’s all she’s been doing recently anyway so it’s not like it’s surprising. But what is surprising is that Amanda cries with her too.
Despite being friends with her for years, Lily had never seen her cry before. She honestly thought that Amanda might be incapable of feelings or something, like her heart was under lock and key and the key had been lost years and years ago, never to be found again.
Yet there she is, crying with her, sharing her grief. It’s the first time since her dad died that she doesn’t feel quite so alone.
When she goes to sleep that night, eyes heavy from all the tears, she sees her.
It’s just like the scene in the car—with both of them crying and clutching each other’s hands. Only, in her dream, Amanda leans forward and kisses her tears away, lips pressing softly on her skin and tasting salt.
When she wakes up, her heart is pounding against her ribcage. She pants, trying to catch her breath, as the dream comes back to her.
She can’t shake the dream away even days afterward, recalling how Amanda’s lips had so tenderly pressed against her cheeks.
She doesn’t talk to Amanda for a whole week afterwards but Amanda doesn’t ask her why.
Years later, once they’ve somewhat reconciled and are tenuous friends at best, Lily dreams of her again.
She's learned of who Amanda truly is, past the rose-colored glasses of childhood nostalgia: unfeeling and off-putting; she thinks of the off-handedness in which she suggested killing her stepdad, like an easy remark about the weather.
When she goes to sleep that night, she dreams of Amanda with her wild untamed hair looming over her. Lily is looking up and cowering in fear from the sharp point of a puntilla.
The scene follows how it’s supposed to and Amanda kills her.
She’s still in her dream even though she’s dead. She feels Amanda brush her hair and press her lips softly on her.
She knows Amanda’s only showing her tenderness because it's a dream; that could never actually happen in real life.
It makes sense that Amanda would only show her tenderness in a dream, after all, it’s not like either of them is made for it—both of them are made of sharp insides and sharp teeth, bloody hands and defective hearts; feeling too much or nothing at all is the same when you’re this wrong.
The night after she murders her stepdad, once she’s scrubbed the blood off her body, leaving no remains of what she’d done, as if it’d never happened, she falls asleep in the bed of the luxurious hotel she’s staying at—the police weren’t letting them stay at their home, seeing as it was the scene of a crime and all.
She dreams of Amanda, covered in blood on her couch but awake.
Amanda says, “This is how it's meant to be.”
The dream morphs and Lily’s holding the knife in her hand again, only, her stepdad is nowhere in sight.
Instead, it’s Amanda, there’s a spot of red blooming on her grey shirt. The blood rushes on that spot and it doesn’t stop—Lily stabbed her. She collapses and Lily catches her in her arms, bleeding and eyes growing too heavy to keep open.
She wakes up with a gasp, her heart beating so fast she wonders how it’s keeping up with itself.
Everything comes back to her: how it’s her stepdad she killed and not Amanda; drugging Amanda and making her take the fall.
She does something she would have never expected: she puts her head in her hands and she cries.
She sobs, Amanda’s name stuck in the back of her throat.
Ever since that night, she has dreamed of Amanda constantly.
It’s a mix of all the dreams she’s had of her before, a swirling mess of them all together until they’re nonsensical; a supercut of everything that encompasses Amanda in her head.
Sometimes, Amanda’s the horse but she kills her anyway. Sometimes, Amanda helps her kill her stepdad. Sometimes, Amanda kisses her on her mouth instead of her teary cheeks. Sometimes, her mouth is bloody but Amanda kisses her anywhere.
No matter what, Amanda is always there—fraying the edges of her brain and marking her territory inside of Lily.
She reads Amanda’s letter.
Her fingers caress her messy fat script, and feel the words under her fingertips.
Amanda dreams of her.
She’s never told Amanda of the dreams that have plagued her for years, has never given her a glimpse into the darkness of her mind but here Amanda is, dreaming of her too and sharing it willingly with her—placing her unfeeling heart on Lily’s open palm for her to see and pick and probe at.
Lily’s in Amanda’s mind as much as she is in hers, taking space in every crevice and marking her territory within her. It feels like a victory, more so than getting away with her stepdad’s murder did.
She thinks that her and Amanda must have some symbiotic relationship of sorts. Bonded together, through blood and gore and everything in between.
Always and forever.