Strawberries & Cigarettes

Chapter Twenty

            Moet comes home to an eerily quiet house. It’s about nine o’clock at night and her hands are trembling out of fear of Mother’s wrath. The minute she closes the door, the lights flicker on in the living room and she turns to see Lily’s ice-cold eyes staring back at her. And all it took was the slight clenching of Mother’s jaw to break down any new-found strength Moet had from her earlier encounter with Dylan. Once again, she is reduced to a weak, docile, obedient kitten in the face of a fierce, cold-hearted lioness.

            Moet is lucky tonight, though. All the horrific images flitting through her mind of what Mother would do to her were all thought in vain.

            “I will tell you this once, and once only, Moet. You know how I don’t like repeating myself,” Her words come out clipped and harsh as always. “I don’t care where you were, who you were with, or what you do with your life. But if you miss one more practice, I will knock you down before you even make it through the door. Am I clear?”

            Staring wide-eyed with horror at Mother, Moet nods slowly.

            “I said,” Lily steps so close to Moet that there was nowhere left to hide from the malicious fire burning beneath her pale blue gaze. “Am. I. Clear.”

            “Y-yes,” Moet replies shakily. Lily slowly backs off and whirls around towards the stairs without a word. Moet can’t move. She can’t think. What was she doing chasing lost dreams? Dakota was never coming back. They’d never run off into the superficial sunset with their broken dreams. It was too late for all of that.

            She walks towards the window and looks out at the pretty white flowers on their Victorian-styled front porch of their pretty, perfect home that looked so happy on the outside but was so screwed up within. So many lies covered up. And there was nobody more tired of covered-up lies than Moet was. Just at that moment, she looks up and sees a pair of blue bloodshot eyes staring back at her from behind the cover of a maple tree. She blinks and they’re gone.

            No more lies. A whisper runs through her mind. And that is what makes Moet’s mind.

            She was going to solve this murder if it killed her, and anyone that stood in her way could just go to hell.

            “You alright?” Quinn asks Moet as they head out of the school to the parking lot for lunch.

            “Yeah, I’m fine. She didn’t do much, just lectured me,” Moet replies. She knows he was asking about her mother. Everyone knew how terrible her mother could be. Quinn slowly nods to himself while looking at the ground, his hands in the pockets of his distressed jeans. The weather’s starting to clear up, giving way to spring. It seemed like it was just yesterday Moet was hugging Leighton for the first time after her winter performance. She smiles to herself with thoughts of Leighton’s blush running through her mind.

            “Anyone else on your list of suspects?” Quinn asks once they’re on the road, heading to their diner. It was sort of odd how the diner had become their special meeting place.

            She sighs. “I have no idea. Is there anyone that could’ve possibly had any motive to kill Dakota?”

            Quinn purses his lips in thought as he pulls into the parking lot of the diner. “There was always that one girl… with the black hair that she used to hang out with.”