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Medicine- daughter ————————————————————⚠️Tw for this chapter- s.h, mentions of e.d, mentions of domestic abuse⚠️————————————————————Lilith had never truly gotten used to the way her life would spiral at any inconvenience. The way that she'd be happy one day, have a riff with someone, and suddenly everything would be melancholy and blue again.

She truly hated it. She hated the fact that she relied so heavily on ashtray to make her happy, that the smallest falling out between them would push her into the worst vertical drop she could experience.

She'd relapsed. That was a given- of course she relapsed. It was Lilith, she was weak. She acted strong, sure, but oh dear, she was the weakest person she knew.

When someone says they relapse, they could mean a plethora of things.

"I started to cut myself again." "I took drugs again to drown it all out." "I started counting my calories and shoving my fingers down my throat again." "I've stared to starve myself whenever I can again."

And so on. The list could be endless. A relapse isn't always just one solid, a relapse could imply multiple relapses at once.

And, Lilith had relapsed in ways she thought she'd finally moved past. She thought she was strong enough to get over her old triggers and the things she used to do to herself, she thought she was finally grown out of her childhood mental health problems.

Well, clearly fucking not.

It wasn't her fault, and anyone would kill to be able to make her see that. But, in her shoes, it's not as easy as that. Anyone who has dealt with her mindset, knows that no matter how hard you try, you will blame yourself for every little mishap in EVERYONES life.

She sat cross-legged in front of her full length mirror smoking a cigarette dully while staring at her reflection.

Messy unwashed hair, mascara and other makeup products sticking dry to her pale skin, cuticles and skin bitten and picked away, lips chapped and cracking, she was a whole mess.

She sighed, looking over at her phone as it buzzed, ashtrays contact lighting up the screen.

You may be wondering how long it'd been since their argument.

Lilith wasn't really sure. All the days had began blending into themselves to create one long, suffocating loop, so time was sort of unrecognisable to her by now. But, it had for sure been at least two days.

Her boyfriend had left countless messages, calls, FaceTimes, voicemails, snapchats etc apologising, telling her he loved her, telling her he didn't know why he reacted the way he did, telling her to come over so they could talk it out and order a pizza or something.

But Lilith, being Lilith, didn't have the energy to pick up the phone. She couldn't answer ashtray. Not because she was angry or hurt, simply just because she couldn't give two fucks anymore.

She loved him. She loved him with her whole heart, with her entire being. Everyone that knew Lilith and ashtray knew that the girl would do absolutely anything to keep ashtray safe. But, the side to him she'd seen days beforehand, may not have been extreme, but it scared her.

The side of ashtray that Lilith had previously seen reminded her of her uncle. Her uncle was like that too when she was younger but it progressively got worse and the small grabbings turned into harsh beatings, and years of mental and physical abuse whenever he came to the family home or vice versa. This was an often occurrence, since their family was very close due to the businesses.

She trusted ash, but she was extremely terrified of such a loving relationship turning into something like Maddy and Nates relationship.

Speaking of which, Lilith didn't take notice of the countless attempts to get in contact from ash, she took notice of the fact that her so called "best friend" hadn't spoken to her once.

Not on Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, iMessage, heck, not even a fucking email.

Lilith wasn't surprised. Maddy was brainwashed by Nate. She knew how it went by now, she'd witnessed it once and she'd been told many Maddy and Nate horror stories from her friends. She knew this wasn't set in stone, but it wasn't going to be the last time either.

She took another deep inhale of the cigarette in her hands, before looking down, pulling up her shorts slightly, and bringing the burning cigarette butt down to the exposed inner side of her thigh.

She hissed at the pain, but continued until the cigarette was fully put out, simply lighting it again and continuing until her legs were in agony and there was no cigarette left to burn.

A small sob left her lips as she shakily stood up, shorts falling back onto her thighs as she stared at her frame in the mirror.

She hadn't eaten much at all since the huge argument, and if she did, she'd do the only thing she knew how to do as a child. She'd stick her fingers down her throat and bring it all back up again.

See, the starving herself wasn't much to do with her appearance. Sure, she hated her body with every fibre inside of her, but the puking and the starving was more serving as a punishment.

Punishment for being so weak, being so naive as to let someone in again, being so vulnerable around absolutely anyone.

Granted, she hadn't hurt herself like this since she was 12 and her uncles contact was fully cut off by her parents, but it didn't take a lot to push her back into her old mindset.

A small tear rolled down her cheek, she wiped it away fiercely trying to be strong.

Stop being so fucking weak. She thought to herself, grabbing the hairband and hairbrush from her nightstand and pulling her hair back into a ponytail before burying herself into her bed and covering herself fully with the blankets.

She wasn't planning on staying here forever. Just until she'd figured out what she wanted and what she wanted to do about everything.

Code words for: another depressive episode. Just different this time.

Old habits die hard, right?

Authors note: More depressing chapter for u because 1. I'm depressed which means my writing is depressed too and 2. I feel like I don't talk about mental health enough in this story and I want to tackle a lot of struggles, especially Lilith's as I feel her character needs to be expanded on and people need to know that if they relate to her then it's all gonna b okay and there is always support for them.

I am aware that some of this chapter may be choppy and probably doesn't make sense lol cut me some slack is fuckin midnight bruh.

Anyway, don't be a ghost reader, comment where applicable and like vote n stuff ly ‼️❤️

Word count: 1160