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.”

            “She could be dead for all we know.”

            “Why should we care? She’s a fucking drug whore.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “I should know. I was involved.” Moet recognized the cold, toneless voice now. It was Kimberly, Dakota’s past best friend while she still attended the school.

            “Kimberly.” Moet remembers. How could she forget the conversation that started it all?

            “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Quinn says as they’re shown a table. They sit down, pick up their menus, pretend to glance over them, and order their usual. And as always, Moet takes the precaution to organize her side of the silverware according to size and to angle all knives away from her person. She feels the anxiety that was starting to build up in her chest rush as she exhaled a long, deep breath.

            “Why do you do that?” Quinn asks. “Is it part of your… condition thing?”

            Moet shrugs. “Yeah. Part of the reason, anyways. The other part is that when I was a kid, I always had vivid hallucinations of knives flying at me. I get really anxious if I don’t do it.” She starts messing with her fingers. “Anxiety’s the worse.”

            “Really?” Quinn is listening to Moet like what she’s saying is interesting. She thinks he’s just being polite. Why would he listen to a teenage girl spout about her meager hardships and woes? Moet thinks she might as well humor him.

            “Yeah,” she continues. “Sometimes it gets so bad that you don’t care what damage you do to yourself, you just want something to distract you from it because that’s the least you can do to protect yourself from it. Somehow, these little compulsive behaviors help the anxiety go away for a little while. It always comes back though.” She purses her lips in thought. She wasn’t expecting to let out so much. On second thought, she did feel lighter in spirit. Maybe all she needed was someone to talk to.

            “Sounds terrible.” Quinn says. Their waitress, Tammy, makes her way over to their table.

            “Yeah,” Moet sighs sadly.

            “Here’s your Double-Double Hamburger with grilled onions and here’s your Mexican Omelette. If you need anything else just holler my name or wave your hands or something and I’ll come right over.” Tammy hurries off to the next table while Moet picks at her omelette and Quinn wolfs down his food.

            “Did Dakota tell you anything yet?” Quinn asks.

            “No, she hasn’t come by ever since that time she stormed out.” They eat for a while in silence before Moet lets out a frustrated huff, “To be honest, I don’t think Kimberly did it. There’s just no way. There’s no motive. I just don’t know what to do.” The pair stare forlornly at their food in miserable agreement and ate in silence for the next ten minutes.

            “We better start heading back, lunch will be over in seven minutes.” Quinn states. Moet nods in agreement and the pair split the bill and get back on the road. “Don’t worry, Moet. Something’ll come up. It’ll happen,” He reassures her as they pull into the school’s parking lot.

            “I hope so,” she says, looking down at her hands.

            “Who knows? Maybe you’ll get to kick another low-life drug-dealing asshole in the nuts before all this is over? I’d surely love to see that again.” Quinn cracks a smile which makes Moet grin in return. She climbs out of the car and looks up only to meet a pair of slate gray eyes that make her heart lurch.

            Leighton regretted it. Almost as soon as he turned around to leave her at the hospital, in fact. Which is why he’s still standing in the school parking lot, waiting for a particular girl to appear when there’s two minutes left until the late bill rings. He had checked her usual spot underneath the shade of a big tree but she was nowhere in sight. Looking up, he hears the roar of a truck that’s seen better days park two rows over. Spying a familiar blonde head in the passenger seat, he straightens his posture and is prepared to walk over there when he notices the person in the driver’s seat.

            He watches as Quinn saunters over to Moet’s side and leans in to tell her a joke, which she gleefully laughs to. Moet looks up and locks eyes with Leighton who wordlessly turns around and starts heading towards his Calc class with a dull ache resonating throughout where his heart should be.