**ENJOY **
Dinah couldn't remember a time she'd said no to Normani. But then, she also couldn't remember a time Normani had said no to her.
Dinah hadn't put up any sort of fight the time Normani asked her to camp out in front of a store in freezing weather the day after Thanksgiving, the two of them shivering and nursing cup after cup of hot chocolate as they huddled together in the wee hours of the morning.
Normani hadn't immediately shot her down the time Dinah asked her to drive two states over, to drop her off at what would end up being a failed internship, the two of them staying up all night, listening to the radio, singing along and getting every single lyric wrong.
Dinah hadn't said no when Normani asked her to edit her papers, even though it was finals and Dinah had a great deal of studying to do.
Normani hadn't said no when Dinah asked her to stay the night after she came down with a bad case of the flu and felt miserable, even though Normani had a big exam the next day.
Normani didn't say no when Dinah drunkenly suggested they get matching tattoos (a star on the inside of their right wrists).
Normani didn't say no when Dinah called her in the middle of the night to complain about one of her classes.
Normani didn't say no when Dinah was hurt over the girl in their Economics class and needed someone to hold her.
(Dinah didn't say no when Normani asked her to take Arin home, didn't say no when she asked her to pretend to be her girlfriend.)
(It was only now that Dinah wondered if perhaps Barbara was right after all—that perhaps it was time to say no.)
//
He was big, burly, and boisterous.
John Hamilton had his mother's eyes, his father's sandy hair, his brother's cheerful disposition, and his sister's attitude.
"So you're the girlfriend," he said the second he set eyes on her. His children—a boy of about eight named Peter and a girl of around fifteen named Ellie—stared dolefully at her, uninterested, unlike their father. His wife, Kate, was rubbing her temples tiredly.
"I am," Dinah said, shaking his offered hand, tightening her grip when he tightened his.
" Derrick said Normani liked girls too. She never actually struck me as bi though. You, on the other hand, definitely give off the gay vibe," he said with a grin as he let go, flexing his hand repeatedly.
"John. Shut up," Elizabeth said, rolling her eyes. "He's not trying to be rude, Dinah," she explained, putting a hand over her brother's mouth. "He just doesn't have a filter. Says what he's thinking. Obviously, we all love you."
"Who said anything about not loving her?" John demanded, pulling away from his sister. "I just said she was gay. I'm stating a fact. Like, the sky is blue. You think by calling it blue, I'm accusing the sky of being sad? Or by calling her gay I'm accusing her of being bad?" He shook his head, giving Dinah a look, as if she was his confidant and he was telling her a secret. "Gotta say, I like you better than that other guy."
"Thanks. I think"
"Yeah, he was a jerk. God, Dad hated him, right Lizzie?"
"I can't talk to you," Elizabeth muttered, shaking her head. "Now Dinah's going to think we're all homophobic or something."
"Are you still on the gay thing? Dear lord, woman, give it a rest. Dinah, are you offended?"
"Not yet." His grin widened.
"Oh yeah, I definitely like you better." He clapped his hands together, looking around for his kids, both of whom had already escaped to sit in front of the television, Ellie leaning back on the couch with her phone in hand, texting furiously. "I'm going to go find my niece. And congratulate her."
"And maybe have a glass, or three, of wine," Kate muttered behind him, smiling softly at Dinah as if she was in on the joke. And considering Dinah just met her husband, she supposed she was.
She watched as they headed towards the kitchen and took a deep breath. Eight days with the Hamilton family no longer seemed as easy as it had before, and half of them hadn't even arrived yet.
//
Barbara was there to help her.
It was a good thing too; had she been on her own, she would have failed miserably, falling back on old habits. But she had Barbara, staring her down, arms crossed, lips pressed in a thin line.
"No." Normani blinked, staring at Dinah for a moment before turning and staring at her grandmother.
"Why are you grinning?" she asked, still looking at her grandmother. Barbara shrugged.
"The girl has backbone."
"I just asked if we could share her slice of cake." Dinah felt a surge of guilt, made to push her plate over, but Barbara shook her head, giving her a quelling look.
"She doesn't want to share, Normani."
"That's not the problem," Normani said, frowning and turning back to Dinah. "I just don't understand why you two are acting so weird."
"It doesn't bother you that she said no?" Barbara asked innocently. It was anything but innocent; her eyes held a mischievous gleam.
"She's at perfect liberty to say no, Grandma. I just don't get why you seem to think it's such a big deal. What's going on with you two?"
"Nothing," Dinah said, the same time Barbara shrugged and exclaimed:
"Respect the candy!"
"Respect the what?' Normani looked between them, her frown turning into a look of worry, but when it became clear that no answer was forthcoming, she threw up her hands. "You know, whatever you two are doing, I don't want to be involved."
"Respect the candy!" Barbara shouted after her as Normani walked away, shaking her head the entire time. "Do you think she got the message?" she asked Dinah. Dinah merely pushed her slice of cake away.
"I suddenly don't have an appetite."
"No one said it would be easy, hon." Dinah looked up at Barbara, unable to help the pleading expression she knew was on her face.
"Hurting her won't wash away my pain, Mrs. Hamilton. And she's hurt. Hurting." Concern flitted over Barbara's face as she considered Dinah's words but she shook her head after a moment.
"It's just a slice of cake."
"The cake wasn't what hurt her, Mrs. Hamilton. And you know it." She swallowed, stood, and shook her head. "I think...I think I do need to stand up for myself. But you can't help me. You can't side with me." Barbara blinked, mimicking Normani's reaction from earlier, before her eyes narrowed.
"You're missing the point, Dinah."
"Mrs. Hamilton—"
"No. You listen to me. The two of you are blindfolded idiots, fumbling around in the dark, desperately searching for the goddamn exit, when all you need to do is grow the hell up and call out to each other." She picked up the plate and held it out for Dinah, a hard set to her shoulders, a vulnerability Dinah had not yet seen from her in her gaze. "I'm not choosing her over you, or helping you rather than her. I'm the idiot who's trying to get you idiots to call out to each other, or at the very least, pull off the blindfolds."
"I have been calling out to her."
"Have you told her how you feel? Have you shouted at her? Let her know you're angry and hurt? Have you bothered to sit down and make sure she knew she did wrong by you?"
"It was my fault—"
"We're not discussing Arin, Dinah!"
"No, but it always comes back to him, doesn't it? The reason Normani and I are so lost is because of him."
"You two were lost way before he came into the picture."
"She abandoned me because of him! She told all our friends to abandon me! When I needed help, when I needed someone to lean on, when I needed—" She cut herself, hating the smug look on Barbara's face.
"So what you're saying," she said slowly, "is that you're angry with her."
"What I'm saying is that two wrongs doesn't make a right. This 'hard to get' game doesn't sit well with me." Barbara sighed and sat down at the table, resting her chin on her hand, staring at Dinah like she was torn between hitting her and hugging her.
"When you're tired of fumbling around in the dark, hon, let me know. I'm an old woman, my attention span is too short for all this back and forth drama." Dinah cracked a small grin and nodded, glad that—for now—she had gotten her way.
"Whatever you say, Mrs. Hamilton."
//
They never said no to each other, but they fought all the time.
Their worst fight was in the middle of their senior year, and it involved Ally.
She didn't quite remember what Ally had done—it might have been stealing her notes, telling Normani that she had a crush on the girl who'd later be in their Economics class, or even something as silly as not having lunch with her as promised (it was likely all three)—and that didn't matter. What mattered was that Dinah was angry with Ally, and was angry with Normani for not taking a side.
"You can't be impartial!" Dinah had said, glaring at her friend. "She does this all the time, it pisses you off too. Tell her that we're not going to stand for it."
"The fight is between you and Ally, Dinah," Normani said with a laugh, leaning forward to shove Dinah's shoulder lightly. "Besides, it's not that big a deal."
"To you. To you it isn't a big deal."
"To everyone who doesn't take offense to every little thing."
"I take offense to every little thing, do I?"
"I didn't mean it like that."
"What did you mean?"
"Just...you're easily offended, Dinah. Like, Objectively speaking. You get all aloof and distant and just shout your displeasure with your eyes."
"Is this a joke to you? Me expressing a problem is just a joke?"
"Dinah—"
"You know what? You're right. I'll just be distant, how about that?"
They didn't speak for a week and a half.
Dinah was miserable the entire time.
Normani never apologized in words—instead, she knocked on Dinah's door every morning and night, not speaking, not doing anything, merely wordlessly promising she'd be there when Dinah finally decided to open the door.
(After Arin, Dinah opened the door and Normani wasn't there.)
//
Everyone else had gone to bed, but in an effort to avoid Normani until she'd fallen asleep, Dinah fixed herself a cup of tea, sipping at it slowly in the kitchen. She had a book open in front of her, but the words swirled and twirled and furled before her eyes, her mind in a whirl.
"Can't sleep?" Dinah looked up and smiled politely at John, shrugging and trying to collect her thoughts. He grinned right back, pouring himself a cup of tea as well, sitting across from her with a soft sigh. "I can't either. This house makes me relive all the nights of my childhood, when Derrick and Lizzie successfully convinced me there was a monster under my bed."
"Gullible kid, huh?"
"And gullible adult. I never really grew out of the phase."
"That's unfortunate." He snorted, nodding and taking a large gulp of his tea.
"You know, I knew I'd like you before I ever met you."
"Is that so?"
"Oh yeah. When Mom told me about you, she was excited. She thinks of you like family, which is a big deal."
"Mrs. Hamilton has been very kind to me." John snorted again, giving her an incredulous look.
"Kind? Damn, kid. How long have you known Normani again? Hamilton's don't do kind. You're either family or you're not. There's not in between. My dad used to say that we're not in the business of bullshitting." Somehow, someway, this got a laugh out of her, and John grinned, pleased. He leaned forward, tapping the table with his index finger. "See, when we were younger, there was a speech my dad gave to people brought into the family. When Derrick got old enough, he started giving the speech. You know, the whole, 'hurt her and we'll hurt you' thing. It's all very cliché."
"You're going to give me the speech?"
"Me? Hell no. I'm not my dad or my brother, and I don't even want to try to fill their shoes. Besides, I can tell. You don't need the speech." He paused, clearly waiting for her to say something, but Dinah remained silent, choosing to watch him, choosing to observe only, knowing she was treading dangerous waters. Regardless of what he said, John was vetting her out, in his own weird way, attempting to protect his niece. Dinah decided she'd let him.
"Normani's a big girl. She's tough and strong." He smiled, and Dinah noticed it was different from all the other ones. It was smaller, softer, fonder—as if this was his first sincere smile, the first smile that came from his heart and reached his eyes. "She's like Derrick, so if she trusts you, then I do too." Dinah looked down, hiding the sudden welling of emotion by taking a hurried gulp of her tea, trying to ignore the twisting of guilt deep in her belly. Because Normani didn't trust her. Because John shouldn't trust her—not when she was lying straight to his face.
"Thank you."
"Nothing to thank me for," he said, waving her off. "But I do need to thank you."
"For what?"
"For my mom." He smiled his real smile again, leaning back once more. "I don't know what you two are doing, and honestly, I don't care. But it's making her smile. So it's good enough for me." Dinah played with her cup for a moment, staring at the dregs at the bottom, unable to help the furrow between her brows.
"She's sad," Dinah said finally, not looking up. "She hides it so well, though. But when she thinks no one is paying attention...she's just so sad." John was silent for a long time before he spoke up, surprising Dinah enough that she looked up to meet his eyes (eyes that were Normani's, were his brother's, were his mother's, the Hamilton dark eyes).
"I'm sad," he said, giving her a searching look, his mouth twisted into some sort of smile-frown, looking like he was about to cry. "Kate, Ellie, Peter, the others? All sad. But for my mom...He'd been her husband for over fifty years, and she'd known him even longer than that." He collected their empty teacups and went to the sink, his back to her. "She's not sad, Dinah," he said, his tone different from anything she'd heard from him before, and for the first time, she wondered if she perhaps misjudged the big, burly, boisterous man. "Half of her died with him. But you make her smile, make her more like herself, and for that, I'm grateful." Dinah didn't know what to say to that, but John spared her the trouble of trying to come up with something.
He turned on the faucet, washing their teacups, using the sound of gurgling water to hide the sound of the sob that escaped him—but Dinah knew it was there, because she was familiar with the way his back slouched, familiar with the way his head was bowed. So without another word, she spared him any embarrassment and left quietly, realizing that yes, she had indeed misjudged John Hamilton: he had more than just his mother's dark eyes, he also had her bleeding heart and her unwavering strength.
//
She hesitated for a moment before opening the door.
The first thing that met her eyes was the empty bed, and her heart sank at the thought that Normani was still awake, wanting to talk—a talk that would most definitely turn into something worse: a shouting match. But then she noticed the bundle of blankets on the ground, at the foot of the bed, swallowing hard when the bundle breathed.
"Normani," she said softly, stepping forward and leaning down by the sleeping girl, shaking her gently. "Why are you on the ground?"
"Cold," she murmured, her voiced slurred by sleep.
"I know. So why are you on the floor?" Normani seemed to doze off, and Dinah shook her once again. Her dark eyes flitted open briefly, focused blearily on Dinah, then closed.
"Not fair," she muttered, wrapping the blankets tighter around herself. "Not fair to you." Dinah studied the bed, the untouched pillow and blankets laid out for her, then looked back down at Normani, fast asleep and snoring softly. The decision was easy.
She gently shook Normani awake a third time, somehow managed to convince her to hook her arm around Dinah's neck, and she half-carried, half-dragged Normani to the bed. (Three truths: One, she loved Normani.)
She pulled the covers and blankets over the brunette, before getting herself ready for bed, and after a moment of consideration, she slipped in next to Normani. (Three truths: Two, she always loved Normani.)
Dinah turned on her side, watched as Normani slept, and she smiled. She smiled her first sincere smile of the day—smaller, softer, fonder smile, coming from the heart and reaching her eyes—and she reached out to briefly squeeze Normani's hand. (Three truths: Three, she would always love Normani, and no matter how angry she was, that did not go away.)
//
She and Andrea had gone on a walk, to 'get out of the crazy house' after a 'crazy breakfast,' when she heard it. Barbara yelling, and Normani yelling right back.
"I should go break that up," Andrea said, making to move forward, but Dinah immediately shook her head.
"No! I mean, it's okay," she hurriedly tacked on, noting the surprise on Andrea's face. "I got this. My girlfriend, my responsibility."
"Are you sure?" Andrea asked, clearly attempting to hide her relief, though she wasn't able to do it with any semblance of success (no one, Dinah learned, wanted to face the wrath of Hamilton anger— especially not Barbara Hamilton's anger).
"Yeah, yeah. I got this. You go on inside." Andrea looked mildly worried, but she nodded and turned back towards the house while Dinah headed towards the arguing, coming to a stop and hiding behind a tree when she heard her name.
"What I don't get is why you seem to think Dinah needs your protection," Normani said, and Dinah could practically see her narrowed eyes accompanying the harshness of her tone and words. She did, however, wonder if she imagined the cadence of Normani's accusation, for of all the anger Normani had ever thrown at her, this pained anger directed at her and Barbara now was not one of them.
"I'm not protecting her."
"You are, though. You take her side, you help her, you talk to her. When you know she came here just to lie to you, trick you."
"Because you asked her!"
"What're you two doing together?"
"I'm teaching her about showing backbone."
"Dinah has plenty of backbone."
"Not when it comes to you," Barbara said, and there was a short pause before Normani seemed to collect her thoughts.
"Stop. I know what you're—"
"You say she's your best friend—"
"She is—"
"Then prove it, Normani. Tell me. Tell me why you cut off all ties with her and why choose her to come here at all?"
"It slipped out. It was an accident."
"We're not in the business of bullshitting, Normani."
"It's not bullshit."
"Normani. Tell me the truth."
"What do you want me to say?" Normani demanded. Dinah shifted slightly, wanting to get a look, but also not wanting to be seen. Because if she was seen, Normani would clam up and she'd never get any answers.
"I want you to tell me what actually happened. I want you to tell me the truth. Not some cock and bull story about it 'slipping out' and having 'no choice' but to ask Dinah here." Another pause followed, much shorter and broken only by the sound of footsteps—footsteps that seemed to grow more distant. Dinah wanted to follow them, but she knew she couldn't. Perhaps Barbara would tell her what Normani had said later on...She was broken out of her thoughts as the footsteps got louder, though it was clear that the part she most wanted to hear—why Normani ever asked her to come— was no longer being discussed.
"You can't tell her."
"I won't."
"I'm serious. You have to promise."
"I promise, Normani. I won't say a word. But you didn't answer my other question. Why?"
"Why what?"
"She's your best friend. And even if you didn't love him, you cared for Arin. So after everything happened, why didn't you ask her why she left? This girl you trusted beyond everyone else, the one who you entrusted the boy you cared for to, why didn't you ask why?"
"Why she left him? Why she let him drive? Does it matter? She did it."
"I've known Dinah for far less time than you and I know she doesn't do anything without thinking it to death. She thinks and thinks things to death, revives it, then thinks it to death again. She's careful, practical, logical. Pragmatic. So why? Why did she leave him?" Dinah's heart pumped so hard that she was sure it would thump right out of the jail composed of ribs and muscle, her mind going blank as her heart attempted to make its escape.
("Picked fights all the time. Then ran to you. I knew it, I knew why. And it fucking pissed me off.")
"I didn't ask why because the why didn't matter."
"Of course it matters, Normani. What would make the trustworthy Dinah break a promise?"
("I'm calling you a cab. I'll stay here until it gets here. But after that, you and me? We're through.")
"Because Dinah wasn't as trustworthy as I thought." The words hit her like a battering ram, and her heart—in the middle of its prison break—stopped in its tracks, as if it was reconsidering its decision.
"You're lying. You're just afraid, afraid to know for sure that you made a mistake."
"My mistake was never in question. I shouldn't have turned my back on her. But she shouldn't have done it first." And just like that, Dinah's heart turned right around and took its rightful place in its cage, beating faithfully on. The status quo would not change. Her efforts were Sisyphean in nature, and that would not change.
She loved Normani (one).
Normani still blamed her (two).
Dinah deserved this (three).
(That would not change.)