The Dead Crime (Draft)

Chapter#9

"Mom, look I got a haircut, just like you." Emily danced towards Diana who was setting the table for breakfast. She had gotten a bob cut.

"Wow, you look so pretty" Diana spoke looking at Emily with sparkles in her eyes. She went near and seated herself on the table with a glass of milk that Diana prepared for her, in front of her.

"Now we really look too much alike, though children at school always tell me I resemble you a lot." She sipped the milk touching her lips to the brim of the mug, "why doesn't sister look like you? Is she really adopted?"

"What are you saying? Who said so." Diana recoiled towards Emily and saw Camille standing behind them. Her legs trembled and she rubbed her eyes trying to make them ready to stare into Camille's brown eyes.

"Kids at our school say so...that she might not be my biological sister."

"That's not true at all. She is your biological sister." She belowed moving towards Camille,
"Oh dear, you're awake. Come have some milk." She cringed her hands around her shoulders, trying her best to smile as brightly as she could.

"Why do you always just pretend to be nice to me" Camille told her, staring back into her eyes. 'I'm not that 8 year old kid you think you can control.' She wanted to say this to her face, to make her realize that she knew the truth and that she's not a pushover whom anyone can look down upon but she didn't do that instead she stared at Diana quietly.

Diana's eyes widened and she tensed,

"What nonsense are you saying dear. It really hurts if you say it like that."

Camille could feel the disgust of her words plunge into her. She already knew all the truth but she still couldn't hate Diana, she was like a mother to her and she only wanted to be loved by her. She wanted her to stop lying and pretending and do it for real. To trust her and love her like Emily.

"I'm really sorry mom. I know you care about me so much." She smiled hugging her, she thought it was best to just let her feel happy that she can still control her by her stare. She ran towards the chair and sat beside Emily with her fake smile still on her face. Diana who thought her stare had worked again sighed in relief heading towards the kitchen to make breakfast for Kevin. The next morning Camille styled her hair beautifully with braids while getting ready for school. She smiled at the mirror looking at her image expecting Diana to look at her with sparkling eyes and tell her how pretty she looked.
'you look pretty with long hair.'
She remembered the time when Diana had told her. 'would I still be pretty in her eyes?' she thought lowering her expectations. She bounded down the stairs to the kitchen table where Emily already had her breakfast and was sitting on a chair in front of Diana who was combing her hair. She stood there for a while trying to get her attention but then went to school heartbroken.
                              
                               ★   ★   ★

"Woah, you styled your hair today" A boy with hazel eyes, his rough brown hair curling along his brow to the back of his ears, spoke sitting beside Camille. It was Ethan , the only class fellow who had ever paid attention to her. She had no friends at all but she didn't try to befriend anyone either. They all thought she was an attitude person and didn't try to involve themselves with her. But Ethan would always butt in even though she'd send him off rudely. She hadn't expected anyone to notice a change in her nor had cared about it.
Not even her family had noticed her hair beautifully styled when she had come down for breakfast. Diana had been too busy dolling Emily because she had a function at school.

"You noticed?" Camille spoke, not paying heed towards the boy

"Of course I did, is it something unnoticeable?" He replied looking at her turning the pages of her textbook. "But why all of a sudden, are you meeting a boy today?" He smiled weirdly trying to tease her hoping her to get annoyed and blush. She shattered his hope of getting close to her by saying,

"That's none of your business." 

The displeased tone in her voice and that stinging glare made him flinch. He laughed nervously,

"Oh god, why so cold? I literally thought I was gonna freeze." He thought he had made a funny comment that'll make her laugh. But Camille looked at him with her exasperated glare. The silence seemed more scarier than her dark coffee eyes glaring at him.

"Alright, am sorry. I'll just mind my own buisness." He said humourously after getting no response. He got up from the chair he was sitting on and didn't get his eyes off Camille who had put her sight back on the textbook, "you sure are a rude bitch, but you look really pretty today." He said, "Though you look pretty everyday." He spoke under his breath wanting her to hear.

Camille's heart raced for a moment, those words she really wanted to hear were said by someone. 'Did he really mean it...I look pretty..?' She tried to shake off her thoughts and stomped her pen on the table sighing in exasperation, and looked up at him furiously. Ethan gulped his saliva and quietly rushed away from her. He settled on his chair, his eyes still fixed on Camille, thinking of a valid excuse to come up with for talking to her. He was really curious about her, like why she never speaks or smiles, why she was always alone, why she acted so cold, why she looked so sad in her deep brown eyes. Camille had never noticed it, but Ethan had always been beside her. He was always at a distance watching her and wondering about the loneliness he saw in her eyes. 'does she not have parents? Is she an orphan?' he would think about all different things that would make a person cold and lonely but didn't find the answers to his curiosity because he was always ignored whenever he'd try to talk to her. At some point he had thought of giving up but his heart wasn't able to give up yet.

Although Camille didn't socially interact with her class fellows, she was a good student with respect to grades. Her teachers praised her but the person she really wanted to get praised by didn't even ask her about her grades. Even though her grades were always better than her little sister, she was never congratulated. Diana would buy Emily whatever she wanted when she got second position in school. This was also one of the reasons Camille had hated Emily for.
'second position? I got first and she doesn't even care because I'm not her daughter?' Camille always had it in her mind. It made her feel sad and depressed every night thinking what she had done wrong.