“Mmm… never mind.” My attention drifts to a raven soaring across the horizon, its sleek black feathers shimmering with hints of blue in the sunlight.
It's strangely mesmerizing.
“Come on, let's go to the bookstore. I think we smoked enough. I’ll buy you a book,” Vanessa tells me with a worried tone.
“I won’t say no to that.” I smile, trying to reassure her, but I can tell that she isn’t fully convinced.
We stopfor coffee on our way to the bookstore; it’s not fall yet, but you can feel the shift in the air as the colder weather is making itself known. But with the sun shining bright, I ordered an iced caramel latte without hesitation. We take our time. I, not wanting to spend more awkward moments at home, andVanessa want to avoid her judgmental family. Even if she’s the one saying it, I couldn’t agree more.
The few times we have spent at her house, it has always felt like stepping into a morbid art gallery. Everything was too pristine, too arranged, like the walls themselves were watching.
There was no warmth in that house.
Just silence dressed up as elegance.
Her father, Mr. Hawthorne, was a fixture at the head of the dining table. A glass of scotch always decorated his hand, along with an ego large enough to fill the silence. He had this habit of draping insults in humour as if cruelty became charming once paired with a smirk and a sip of liquor.
“You know,” he told us, swirling his drink like it held secrets worth drowning in, “back in my day, people didn’t get confused about who they were. You were born something, and that was that. Made life a lot simpler.”
The smile that followed was as polished as the silverware and just as cold. “But hey,” he added, aiming his next line like a dart across the table, “some people just crave the spotlight. Like our little Vanessa, still wearing black like she’s in mourning. You’d be so much prettier in something soft. Something alive, darling. Like your friend there.”
And that was the only time he showed me kindness, and it was to belittle his daughter. It made me so angry that I wanted to cut his tongue out just so neither of us would have to listen to the filth he spewed ever again. I did suggest it, but Van hasn’t taken me up on the offer yet.
At that moment, she placed her knife down slowly, then looked up. For a split second, it was like they were each looking into a mirror. They share the same silver hair colour, and she definitely gets her height from him, but their resemblance ends there.
They couldn’t be more different.
“I wear black because it's the only colour that doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It has nothing to prove, nothing to feel, which is what it’s what this house requires,” she said, voice even, almost bored. “But thank you for the unsolicited fashion advice. I’ll be sure to add it to my list of things to ignore.” Then she returned to her meal, as if he were a minor inconvenience she’d already outlived.
For a moment, Mr. Hawthorne just stared at her, his eyes turning almost black with anger, while the smile on his face faltered, melting away to something darker. The clinking ice in his glass was the only sound in the room.
“You think that’s clever?” he spat out, like he’d rehearsed this kind of venom before. “Sitting there dressed like a damn widow, talking back to your own father in front of company?” Slurring his last words, Mr. Hawthorne’s eyes flicked to me, and it was not subtle. The change in tone, the tension in his jaw. I might as well have been a stain on the tablecloth.
“You used to have some sense of pride. Some respect. Now you surround yourself with people who have no place here and speak like they're above us.” Vanessa didn’t move, but the air shifted around her. Calm, deliberate defiance radiated off her as smoke.
“You’re angry because I won’t play the role you wrote for me,” she replied coolly, never raising her voice. “And because the people I surround myself with don’t look like they stepped out of your little country club fantasy.” His face reddened, quiet fury simmering under that veneer of sophistication.
A vein was pulsing at his temple.
And then I understood, this was her revenge.
“You’re an embarrassment,” Mr. Hawthorne spat. “To this family. To your name. You want to act like some tragic little outcast. Fine, but don’t drag the rest of us in disgrace with you.”
Vanessa just smiled faintly. “Don’t worry. I stopped carrying your name the moment you made it clear it was a cage.”
You’d think her mother would have some sense of loyalty towards her daughter, but I think she’s worse. Lydia Hawthorne didn’t have a backbone and seemed to have forgotten what the word mother meant.
Every glance or comment was delivered with a calculated strike. She never said it outright, but the criticism hung thick in the air, always hovering. The way she inspected Van’s every move.
“Hmm, that’s an... interesting choice of makeup,” Lydia would tell her. Her daughter would rarely react; she learned early on that it wouldn’t do anything. They’d never change.
Instead, she’d tilt her head ever so slightly, a calculating gleam in her eyes, and you could almost hear her silently plotting her revenge. As if she were the calm in the storm, holding back a power so sharp it could cut through anything.
Leaving the bookstore,the cool evening air bites at my skin as I clutch three books close to my chest like they’re some form of protection. Van, the picture of gothic elegance, has one book in hand and a piece of paper with a phone number nestled between her fingers.
Glancing sideways at her, I say, “I told you he had a thing for you! Last time, he kept asking us if we needed help.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
