Normal people make plans. Normal people have friends. Normal people aren’t haunted by what they’ve done.
I stared down at the jar in my hand—three-cheese, I’d decided—and whispered, “I guess I can pretend to be normal for one more day.
***
The clinking of silverware and low hum of conversation filled the small diner as R&B music hummed through the speakers. Thatwas normal stuff I used to dream about when my nights were made of cold floors and locked doors.
Talia sat across from me, swirling a straw through her drink, eyes wide and still trying to process everything after I’d just disclosed to her about the killings, the hospital stay, the silence, and the pieces of my life I hadn’t shared with another soul in forever. Talia was someone I once trusted, so I felt she deserved the truth, especially if we were easing back into each other’s lives and I was trying to change.
“Wow!” Talia shook her head. “Girl, I hate you had to go through that. I can’t even imagine how your mental state must’ve been these last ten years. But you’re better now? Right?”
I smiled too perfectly. “Yeah, girl. I’m fine… really.”
But in my head, I wasn’t smiling.
A voice whispered,Fine doesn’t mean fixed; it just means quiet.
I blinked twice, steadying myself as the chatter in the diner seemed to fade, replaced by the soft hum of fluorescent lights; a sound that always reminded me of Willowgate’s hallways.
Talia leaned forward. “You ever think about…Dottie?”
My expression hardened as I lifted my palm, signaling for Talia to stop.
“Don’t,” I said quietly. “Just… don’t.”
But the damage was done. My mind had already gone back there… back to that house.
Dottie was our foster mom, and she ran that house with the strictness of a prison warden and the judgment of a church mother. We were up by five every morning for prayer, and breakfast was eaten in complete silence like talking over grits was a punishable offense.
“Idle tongues breed demons,” Dottie called herself preaching while smacking her wooden spoon against the counter.
No TV was allowed unless it was gospel, no music unless it was hymns, and no food unless it was earned. Baths were timed, sheets were inspected, and smiles were optional… but obedience was mandatory. And when we disobeyed—oh, when we disobeyed—she had that little closet in the hallway that was dark and damp with tons of bible verses taped to the walls like wallpaper.
“Read until you remember who you belong to,” she would say before locking the door.
Talia and I would sit there for hours, whispering verses we barely understood, voices shaking, and stomachs growling. Sometimes Dottie forgot us in there overnight. Then there were other times, I don’t think she forgot, she just wanted us to think she did.
The woman was evil wrapped in holy words… but she was sloppy, too.
The house had a big rat that ran throughout the kitchen every night with the confidence of a man late for absolutely nothing.
Dottie kept a box of rat poison on the top shelf and would always warn us, “Touch that, and I’ll feed it to you instead.”
One night, while we listened to the rat knock over something in the pantry for the third time, I whispered, “Maybe we should stop trying to kill the rat and start aiming higher.”
It started as a joke, then slowly turned into a plan…myplan.
Where Dottie’s stupidity came in was makingusfix her coffee every morning. So, every few days, I’d add a little something extra: a spoonful one morning, then a tiny sprinkle another day. Never enough to raise suspicion, just enough to make her body start waving the white flag little by little… and it worked.
I was the mastermind behind all of it. Talia had nothing to do with actually killing her, but she still went along with the plan. That made her just guilty enough to keep her mouth shut too.
We watched her shrink right in front of us. Dottie’s skin turned pale, her voice grew weaker, and her coughing worsened. She blamed stress, age, even bad meat from the grocery store… anything except the two girls standing right in front of her stirring her coffee every morning. Then one day, she didn’t wake up. Neither of us panicked. We just sat at the table eating breakfast in silence while the fat rat dragged a piece of bread across the floor as if he was celebrating too. In that moment, we also made a vow to never tell another soul.
Eventually,we picked up the phone and called 911. Our voices trembled just enough to sound believable. Me and Talia put on our little performance draped in borrowed grief, forcing out sniffles, blank stares, and sad expressions we didn’t actually feel. The tears never came, but apparently, neither did suspicion.
No one questioned a thing.
When the detectives asked about Dottie, we painted her into a saint. We stated that she was a loving, patient, and God-fearing kind of mom who’d give her last to help somebody.
