Numbly, I get to my feet, still staring down at Mom. She barely looks like a person from the neck up, and dimly I realize Dad should’ve heard. He doesn’t drink like Mom, and he isn’t so far gone that he wouldn’t have come to check on so much yelling.
My steps take me down the hallway and up the stairs toward the bedrooms. My room is just as pristine as it was before Mom made me leave, with all the belongings I was no longer allowed to touch. But I pass it, as if it’s just a guest room.
Maybe Mom was right,I think, as I barely glance into what used to hold my memories and my life.Maybe I’m not Sierra Morwen.
The light is on in my parents; bathroom, though the door is cracked. Curious, I walk toward it, and an acrid smell hits my nose as the light flickers.
It smells familiar.
It smellswrong.
But I push the door open anyway, to see the bathroom lights sputtering as if they’re on the edge of giving up. My gaze follows a black cord plugged in by the sink, across the white floor, to where it’s draped over the edge of the full tub.
Mom’s bulky hair dryer floats in the tub, looking innocent, as if it’s simply there by accident. As if maybe it just fell in. Yet Dad’s hand wrapped around it, fingers locked and frozen, shows me that’s not the case.
Of course, he didn’t come to check on us.
Of course, he didn’t hear the noise of me beating Mom to death.
How could he, when he’s lying here in the cooling water, his body electrocuted and his life having fled probably before I ever struck the first blow?
Dad’s as dead as Mom, and something in me simply…goes.
Maybe I hoped he’d forgive me. That we could be happy with Mom gone.
Maybe I hoped he’d hug me like he used to, and fix me pancakes while we problem solved the situation.
Maybe after all of this, I thought he loved me enough tostay.
I barely realize that I’m leaving, that I’m moving, until I’m standing on the porch of my house and staring at the moon.I don’t belong here,that sharpness, that heat, inside of my chest tells me.
Sierra Morwen belonged here.
But Mom and Dad were right.
She’s gone.
And I’m the thing that lives in her body now.
Chapter
Two
The feel of Yoichi’s scales across my bare shoulders still makes my skin prickle, even after owning the black rat snake for over two years now. He barely pays me any attention, choosing to encircle my shoulders with his head draped down my back, where I can feel him on my skin since I’m only wearing a sports bra for this particular activity.
Our top news story: a body was found beside a local walking trail, near the bay, by a pair of hikers early this morning. Currently, investigators are unaware of?—
Snip.
Hair falls to the floor, littering the hardwood in a small arc around me. The scissors in my hand probably need to be sharpened, and I know Esme will fuss about this later, but seeing my black hair brushing my chest in the mirror this morning had set off a visceral, nauseous reaction inside of me. Work ended up crawling by, and I was miserable any time I accidentally caught sight of my reflection in any available shiny surface. Even now, with my legs curled up under me on the living room floor and scissors in my hand, it’s hard not to just keep going, like I’vedone before, until my hair barely brushes the bottom of my chin and routinely escapes its ponytail.
Snip.
Only the memory of my senior pictures is enough to stop me from doing it. I don’t have the face for hair like that, and I’d looked…unfortunate to say the least.
Currently, the death is being called an accident, but I’ve been told that’s likely to change, given new information. Though we aren’t sure of that at the moment, and?—
Voices outside make me blink, and I can feel the scissors shift a little in my grip just as I close them around another chunk of hair. Thesnipfeels off, and I grimace as a bit too much hair falls to the floor by my right knee. Even Yoichi stops his shifting, and I swear I can feel his judgmental, beady black eyes on my face as his tongue flicks out to taste the air.
