Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
DIORA
Diora
“Please get through this dinner for me, Dee,” Juliet pleads as we stand in front of our childhood home. The tan-colored house is bland compared to the new black and white builds around it, but Juliet loves it. This house represents a time for her I will never understand.
I know, deep down, that her childhood wasn’t perfect. That no one’s childhood is ever perfect. But I also can’t help the urge to burn this house down. I can’t help the mask that slips when I’m in these four walls. I can’t help the memories stuck in my brain that took place in this house.
Her memories are different. She rarely knew what was actually happening here. In the shadows of the Moss’ family home. She’s the good one. She’s their good one. She can’t help that, and I don‘t want her to change that. She doesn’t remember. Not like I do.
I remember the sharp pains, the blood, the cry, the tears. The resentment, the fear that laced each parent’s eyes. I’ll remember the day she gave up on me. I’ll always remember that my mother tried to kill me. I’ll remember the way my dad rushed to her instead of me.
I also remember the way Juliet ran to me.
Hugged me. Cried over me. Despite getting dirty, her arms and dress soaked in my blood.
She still hugged me. She didn’t care that I was different.
Evil. She didn’t think I was a monster. She loved me.
She ran to me. Not our sobbing mother. Not behind Dad’s strong legs. But to me.
After calming my mother down, all those years ago, my dad took me to the hospital. It was written off as a suicide attempt. It was the only way to explain how the kitchen knife got into my room and so deep into my hand.
Elliot’s offer earlier today floats through my mind, and a sudden realization jet-lines through my limbs. Elliot didn’t have a Juliet. He has an Enyo, whatever that may mean for him, but not a Juliet. Not when he needed one.
I turn to watch my beautiful sister. She’s 3 inches shorter than me and far curvier than my rectangle frame.
Her long curly hair is twisted up in a clip, her cream, soft sweater and warm brown skin.
Elliot could’ve used the love I get from Juliet.
The safety and warmth she provides to even monsters like me.
Those missing Strays don’t have a Juliet. They don’t have someone to save them through the deepest, darkest moments of their lives. Instead, they meet someone like Mrs. Jay. Someone who takes that darkness and makes it darker. Twists it up and forms it to create her own army of monsters.
I don’t know why Elliot cares about the missing Strays, or what Mrs. Jay has to do with the missing Strays specifically, but if killing her will save them from whatever dark, twisted fate Mrs. Jay has planned for them, then… I should do it.
I plaster a forced smile on my face as I nod encouragingly to Juliet. It’s not like I haven’t done this song and dance before. We do this dinner once a month. I can handle three hours with my parents if it’ll make Juliet happy.
More like, all they can handle with me is three hours.
Our dad, a tall Black man, with weathered skin and tired brown eyes, opens the door with a smile so wide his forehead wrinkles deepen as his gaze lands on Juliet.
He welcomes her in by wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
He asks about her day as they walk inside, leaving me on the porch.
I watch their relaxed posture and their closeness from behind, wondering for a moment what it would be like to have this kind of attention. Would I even like it?
That is, until Juliet’s hand reaches out behind her to mine as she smiles at Dad and answers his question. It’s a deep reminder that, while I’m on the outskirts of this family, Juliet hasn’t forgotten me. Or ignored me. Or wanted me gone.
Whatever. I don’t need their attention. I need her. I have her.
“Your mom made pasta tonight. I hope you are hungry,” Dad says excitedly, ushering Juliet to the dining room, as if she hadn’t lived in this house for twenty years.
“Gosh, I’m starving. Are you, Dee?” Juliet asks with a light laugh, as I follow slightly behind them. Questioning if my presence is really needed.
“Yeah, starved,” I say as I slide off my jacket, though the only person to hear me is Juliet, based on how my dad hasn’t even glanced at me since I’ve gotten here.
The shine on the brown table glares at me as we sit and my mother comes in. The air always thickens when I see her. It’s as if I’m frozen in time, analyzing every movement she makes. It’s always been like this.
She carries the food she made on gingham potholders, and a small smile appears on her face as her eyes set on Juliet.
My mother is a beautiful woman. She has dark hair and deep brown eyes, and yet all the warmth that radiates from her turns cold at the sight of me.
She can’t hide the dip in her smile or the squint of her eyes as they fall on me.
If I wasn’t so used to this, it’d upset me.
If she hadn’t stabbed that knife into my wrist, this’d upset me.
“Diora, dear, how nice of you to come,” she murmurs as she sets the food pan down in the middle of the table. She comes around the table toward me, and my body involuntarily tenses with each step she takes. She does this every time, and yet I can’t get myself to relax around her.
We pretend that night never happened. We pretend the nights that follow didn’t contain my dad having to lock my door every night in case the urge, the itch, overcame my mother again.
She wraps my head in her arms as she kisses the top of my head. Her cheek rests against the top of my head, and I can almost pretend I didn’t see the disappointment in her gaze moments ago. I can almost pretend there is a world in which my mother loves me.
I can almost pretend we are normal.
“Dee got a new job!” Juliet announces. Her excitement tingles my cheeks as I smile slightly.
The lie I told Juliet about my strange hours and increase in income stings, but the satisfaction her happiness brings me soothes it.
“Don’t be shy. Tell ‘em, Dee.” My mother lets me go, and I can breathe normally.
She sits down in her spot across from Juliet, my dad next to her.
My parents stare at me with questioning gazes. They don’t smile or nod in encouragement. They only stare. As if they are waiting for me to speak, not to listen, but so they can get back to worrying over Juliet.
“I’m an assistant florist down at, um, Sadie’s Flowers,” I say. Sadie’s Flowers also happens to be a front for the Society. It’s one of many they have almost everywhere, it seems like.
Sadie’s is a real flower shop in Detroit, the closest major city in Michigan. The Society works out of the basement. Any time a member nearby needs supplies, the Society drops it off at Sadie’s.
“Dee’s always been good with plants, and she’s moving up in life. Maybe she’ll open her own shop one day,” Juliet rambles as my parents switch their attention off of me and back to her. I can breathe normally as the attention drifts away and they ask about her and how her job hunt is going.
Juliet hasn’t had a job since her incident.
Supporting the both of us on my cashier’s job was more than tough, but I’d do it if it meant the one person who ever cared for me was safe.
“Juliet doesn’t need a job,” I murmur as I take a sip of water from the glasses already set up before we got here.
I hate this argument. I hate the attention it draws, but it doesn’t matter.
“I make enough for the both of us.” Even more so now, since Mrs. Jay pays a salary twice what I’d made before.
I’ve yet to go on a kill for the Society, but we also get a commission based on the part played in a kill.
“Yeah, but Juliet, honey, you shouldn’t rely on someone like Diora. You should be independent,” Dad says, scooping some pasta into his mouth.
“That comment wasn’t necessary,” Juliet innocently says as her eyes shoot to me, then back to our parents.
“It’s not safe—” Dad says.
“I’ve kept her safe for the last six months. We are fine,” I snap, setting my fork down. They anger me to the point I can’t eat. Every. Single. Dinner.
“No, I should be the one taking care of you, Dee,” Juliet says as her smile dies. It pisses me off that they’ve had to ruin good news with this shit. I have it under control. If I, the one taking care of all the bills, doesn’t mind, then neither should they. She’s my sister.
“You both should be independent, living and taking care of yourselves on your own. How much does a florist assistant even make, Diora? How can you possibly be housing and feeding the both of you?” my dad argues.
“It makes enough,” I say, keeping my gaze on the noodles, sauce, and cheese plopped on my plate by my mother, who hasn’t said a word about this yet.
It didn’t always make enough, though. Not when I was a cashier. They are right to a point, and that pisses me off more. I barely ate, Juliet barely ate. Hell, after rent and utilities, and phones, and everything else, we are in more credit card debt than I am comfortable with.
Not that they need to know that. No. Not when it’ll be all my fault because I couldn’t get a better job, or more education, because I creep everyone out with my silence and stares.
As if it doesn’t take everything in my power to keep my urges at bay.
To make sure all blood stays inside of people’s bodies instead of under my nails.
I failed her once, six months ago, but that will never happen again. And it damn sure won’t go unpunished.
“Juliet—” my dad tries again, but Juliet cuts him off.
“Can we talk about something else? How was work, mom?” Juliet tries to be the peace in the midst of this storm, and as the golden child, it works.
It works on all of us, as Mom smiles and lays her head on her hands as she goes on about whatever it is that she does.
She works in corporate for a toy company.
It keeps her young, she says. She loves the fun nature of the office, but also the stability that comes with working in a corporation.
I can’t blame her. I get it, having a family and all, but her kids just can’t seem to make the same decision. And I know it kills her inside.
“Honey, it’s been good. We’ve got this new toy and—” Her words go in one ear and out the other as Dad’s hard pressed stare drills in the side of my head.
“Diora,” he says in a low voice, a voice meant for just me, and I let my head snap to face him.
He thinks I baby Juliet. That she babies me.
What he doesn’t understand is the babying he devalues is what I call loyalty.
I’m loyal to her, and she’s loyal to me.
“Don’t hold her back. She’s made for more. ”
Mom and Juliet’s conversation goes on. It’s only him and me in this conversation.
I respect my dad far more than my mother.
Though he gave up on me, it wasn’t in the same way mother did.
It’s a strange kind of acceptance that my dad has over me that made sense to a point.
He accepted I am what I am, but he also accepts that doesn’t mean he has to love me.
Which I don’t understand, either, because he loves mother and she’s a monster like me. It wasn’t until I failed Juliet that I could understand my father’s anger toward me.
He failed to change me, and I failed to keep Juliet safe. We’re just a bunch of angry failures waiting for a chance to right our wrongs.
I hum as his glare sets deeper. It brings a smile to my face. “I can do what I want.”
“Diora,” he growls, as if they ever affected me. “You’ll corrupt her, Diora” And here this bit goes again. I roll my eyes. Juliet can’t be corrupted. Not if she doesn’t know.
I nearly giggle from the accusation. “Only, then, she would come crawling back home.”
“Diora Rose Moss, you will take this seriously. Let your sister go,” Dad nearly shouts as his shoulders rise in tension. It’s the same song and dance every month.
I refrain from entertaining him any further, which makes his face turn about three shades redder. I give him a half-assed shrug, picking up another forkful of my pasta. I am getting a free meal out of this, that’s for sure. I hear Dad grumble my name again, and that’s when Juliet’s had enough.
She’s pretty sensitive to energy, to the atmosphere. The more tense or uncomfortable an energy is, the antsier she gets. Yet another reason I don’t understand why she forces these family dinners.
“I think it’s time for us to leave. Mom, Dad, thank you for dinner,” Juliet says, shooting up from her chair.
“We’ll see you soon, yeah?” Mom says as we walk toward the door. The cherry red door does nothing to soothe our tension, and I can practically see Juliet’s stress creeping up my back as she stares me down.
The car door slams, and Juliet turns to face me, huffing as the keys jingle in her hands. Her eyes bore, and I wish I had a sliver of guilt at my behavior at tonight’s dinner, but there isn’t. Dad starts the same argument every time. It’s not just my fault we can’t argue like normal people.
My eyes gaze over the stitching on the dashboard. I really didn’t want Juliet to be mad. I can’t get myself to say sorry and mean it. She hates that even more.
“I have work tonight. Can we go?” I murmur, keeping my view on the outside world through the window and nowhere near Juliet.
I didn’t want to see the disappointment of another failed dinner.
Another chance failed to bring this family closer.
She doesn’t even know what she is asking of us, and when she looks at me with that frown of disappointment, I almost tell her everything.
She sighs and turns on the car.
“I don’t understand why we can’t all get along for one night.”
If it was up to me, she’d never figure that out, either.