I allowed myself to peek into his soul-stealing eyes. “No.” My lips formed the word and my heart stammered in my chest, telling me to take it back, to stop scrawling my death sentence all over the walls like it was nothing.
He leaned back and clasped his hands together, his moustache twitching slightly with irritation. I tried not to take pleasure in it and failed, my own lips rising into a smile.
“No?” he asked, his voice dark and dripping in the ink that would sign my execution.
“Never,” I said plainly. I may have promised to stay alive, but I wasn’t going to kill my friends to do it.
My eyes went to the floor, the safest place, and I noticed his chair legs were higher than mine by an inch or two. Red appeared in his cheeks and his forehead, instantly creasing like a dried riverbed. I winced, awaiting the force of his shouting. But then he took a deep breath and everything dissipated like blowing the steam off the top of a cup of coffee.
“We’ll see, child,” he said shrewdly.
I eyed the butter knife in front of me. It was blunt, but did he deserve sharp and quick? Its silver light promised revenge. I raised my hand to take it—
The door opened, and three people filed in. I paused. I couldn’t fight three people. I wasn’t even sure I could take a man in a wheelchair. Not this one anyway.
A girl about my age, maybe younger, entered, arm in arm with an older woman. A young man held the door ajar until the females had passed, his head dipped, white wires hanging from both his ears. All Kind colored, spiked hair sprayed over his forehead and grazed his ears. He glanced up slowly like his head was weighted, our eyes meeting briefly, then just as slowly he turned away from me.
“Rosa. I’d like you to meet my family,” Grant announced in a voice so warm it burnt me. The polite host switch had flicked inside him. I stood as each member of this monster’s family reached over the table to shake my hand.
“This is my wife, Camille.”
The tall, blondish woman with perfect tanned skin leaned over the table, her ample cleavage bouncing in my face.
“Hello dear,” she confidently greeted me. Dumbfounded, I took her hand. It was sweaty and slick with moisturizer that smelled like jasmine. She took her place at the other end of the table.
“This is Denis, my son,” Grant muttered, watching Denis slowly and warily hold out his hand to me. His tall, lean body bent over the table resistantly, like a sapling being pulled over by a starving deer. I pictured him snapping back into place and covered my mouth before I laughed. He didn’t say ‘hello’, he just let his eyes run up and down my torso until he met my eyes properly, the whole blue eye, brown eye thing causing him to pause. His hand finally made it to mine, too soft, warm. He shook my hand once and then dropped it, nearly landing it in the centerpiece, his caramel brown arm returning to his side. His eyes stared into mine, deep, dark blue like flint reflecting the sky. There was a smile teasing the corners of his mouth as we gazed at each other, but it was a shadow of a smile, his expression still guarded. I tried to stop the blush from creeping up my neck but was unsuccessful. He sat across from me. Dropping down in his seat perfectly, like he’d fallen from the sky exactly over his chair. He plucked the two earphones from his ears, and they dangled on either side of his neck like drops of water.
Grant groaned loudly.
From his seat, Denis tipped his head down and ran his eyes over his cutlery in a curious way. Like he was figuring out exactly how he was going to hold them, use them, before he even touched them.
“Take those off, Denis,” Grant drawled with barely clothed disdain as he pointed to the earphones still pulsing soft music.
Denis nodded, muttering, “Yes, Dad,” in a deep, hindered tone, and pulled the earphones from his green, V-neck sweater, winding them carefully around his fingers, knotting the cord together and placing it in his breast pocket.
Arms came from behind and startled me, wrapping around my shoulders and neck. Arms clad in a blue cardigan that matched my own. “Ooh it fits!” a nervous, almost-desperate voice spoke from behind me. I turned to stone in her arms. The girl released me, swung around, and collapsed in the chair next to me.
Grant’s voice was dripping with sickly sweetness. “This is my daughter, Judith.”
“Nice to meet ya,” she said in an accent that perfectly matched Grant’s, her skirt sliding up her leg as she swung it over the arm of the chair, draping her body over it like a discarded towel. She was small, willowy like Apella, but when she spoke, her voice was not like bells. The twang was like snapping wire, and I cringed noticeably. When she saw my reaction, she straightened up and pulled her hands inside her cardigan, just the tips of her rather orange skin poking through the ends of the sleeves.
Grant’s head snapped to her but then he composed his voice.
“Judith. We have company. Place your hands in your lap like a young lady.” I swallowed my laugh uncomfortably like a ball of air. She sat up straight and put her fingers to her mouth, about to chew on her fingernails. “Hands down,” Grant instructed patiently, his hand slapping the glass table gently, causing the silverware to rattle. Everyone straightened. The atmosphere was light and wafting one minute and cold and frightening the next. They were aware of Grant’s stretching temper, and no one wanted to be the one who made him snap.
Despite this, they seemed like a genuine family. I was in a dream, a painting, a life that shouldn’t exist.
I watched quietly as they talked about their days and began to despise all of them. The chatter was inane, and I found myself wishing I were alone with Grant again. At least then, it was real. I had questions for him too.
Then Denis, who up till now had been slowly carving his food into small pieces and then carefully putting a piece of each type of food on his fork until he had a bite-sized cross-section, spoke.
“What is she doing here, Dad? Is she a replacement?” He looked suspiciously to his father with unblinking dark blue eyes, waiting for his answer.
Judith inhaled sharply.
The cutlery on the table vibrated softly as Grant put his glass of wine down firmly. “No, she’s not a replacement, Denis. She’s our guest.” This word ‘guest’ did not mean what it should. There was a strangling threat behind it.
Denis nodded like nothing else needed to be said.
Everyone turned towards me like I should say something. I poked the creamy mushroom sauce that slathered a pork loin chop with my fork. Everything was ridiculous. They were ridiculous. What do you say when your enemy has you over for dinner?
“These mushrooms taste like dirt,” I murmured at my plate, wishing instantly that I could pull the words back into my mouth. Silence capped over us like someone had placed a glass jar over the whole table. Flustered, I tried to cover my comment. “I mean, sorry. Like a nice kind of dirt. I mean,” I tapped the plate with my fork, “I’m used to dried meat and stale bread…”
Everyone looked to Grant for a response. I got the sense they didn’t breathe without his say so. His face was hard but he laughed, spitting it out like stale milk. When he finished laughing, his family stared at him, waiting for a more appropriate reaction. Camille looked down at her plate and then at her children.
“Poor child. She doesn’t know what real food tastes like.” She spread her arms over the table, and I wanted to plant her face in her mashed potatoes.
Denis watched me, his eyes distant but on my lips as I spoke. I felt like I was being measured.
“Yes. Sorry. You’re right,” I muttered as Denis shook his head minutely, almost like he was disappointed in me. Measured and found wanting. I was trapped in this painting with the rest of them, scratching against the scene and trying to force my way out without them noticing. I wanted nothing more than to yell at them, throw the plate up, and watch the sauce splatter their shocked faces as a slimy pork chop tumbled onto the perfect, white tablecloth. I could imagine Camille’s gasp, Grant’s roaring temper. I wanted to point at their well-fed, tinted faces and scream, I don’t know because you made me this way. You’ve deprived us, tortured us, and controlled us for so long. How can you live like this, you selfish, self-serving pieces of garbage? But I said nothing. I ate my food, sipped my cider, and it felt like acid in my stomach. Not speaking was burning a hole through my insides, my personality leaching out of me and leaving me waned.