Chapter 8
The next day, after my hair makeover and creepy incident, I figured I’d get dressed and do my makeup after months of walking around Ma’s house like a walking zombie—anything to take my mind off the night before.
I needed some kind of normalcy, which seemed impossible in my world lately.
I wondered if all this madness was due to some planet being in retrograde.
I didn’t get much sleep last night after my weird day yesterday, and sitting around the house and sulking for the last couple months wasn’t doing me any good.
I needed to get back to living, even if it meant at times I felt like I was secretly dying inside.
I caught a glimpse of my dark red lipstick in the mirror.
A memory flashed through me like a cinematic movie.
Except this was no movie, it was a painful memory.
Rather more like a horrible nightmare. I rubbed the onyx crystal between my fingers, my skin going raw.
Eight months ago-
It was a quarter past four p.m. and I was getting dressed for another antagonistic family dinner.
A dinner with a family I knew secretly despised me for all that I was; a small town nobody, who came from nothing.
A family dinner where I would have to endure sly demeaning comments.
Vadon and his family were spoon-fed and wealthy.
We were from two different worlds that clashed and collided constantly.
Vadon came up behind me and caught me in the mirror.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” He asked. I looked at my black dress up and down, rubbing my palms along the seam, as if to ease the instant anxiety that rippled through me.
“Yeah, I just bought it last weekend. Thought I’d give it a try tonight.” He glanced at me as if to suggest I looked like a disappointment. A look I had gotten to know all too well.
“What’s up with the red lipstick? Only whores wear red lipstick.
” He spat at me, his words slicing me open.
His sister, Devina, laughed from the dining room.
That squeaky fucking laugh that sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
In that moment, I felt a cave in my chest, I could feel the tears building.
Tears that I promised I wouldn’t show. I wiped the red lipstick shade off and applied a light pink one instead.
I gave Vadon a quick spin. “Is this better?” I asked, wearing my best fake smile. Vadon grabbed my chin, as if to inspect me. As if I were a pet.
“Yeah, that’s better. You’re a wife now, Faye, a mother. It’s time you act like it.” His words burnt my interior. I was a shell of a person I once was. She was gone. I was now a doll, a puppet, a maid, a chef, a nice fuck. That’s who I was. I was nothing but his arm candy and property.
I slowly phased myself back into my reality and caught the wipe at my lips.
“Mommy, you look pretty.” Birdie stood at the edge of my doorway.
“You think?” I asked her.
“Yep, like a princess.” I grabbed the wipe and threw it in the tiny tin trash bin I had in my small bathroom. I smiled at myself in the mirror.
“I think so too, Birdie. Wish me luck.”