Page 157 of Until We Burn
No matter how many times you get back up, how hard you try, at the end of the day, mutts like you don’t fucking belong here.
DIANA
For the last several weeks, agong has dwindled into a quiet ghost whose expectations still haunt the mansion.
A maid sits beside him at the dinner table, patiently shoveling little spoonfuls of porridge into his mouth.
“Diana, how’s the joint project coming along?” Jonathan asks. He cocks his head, as he runs his finger over his napkin. “Hope you’re not struggling with it.”
Even though he desperately wants me to be struggling, things havebeen wonderful with the joint project. I’ve learned so much about climate change and sexism in science that it reminds me of why I fell in love with reporting in the first place. You walk into a story learning something new and the world around you suddenly feels so much bigger.
I glare back at Jonathan, my voice coming out taut. “We just finished finalizing scripts for the podcast and the documentary, as well as revisions to the long form piece.”
Bàba strikes down his wine glass, making the table jolt.
“I want to see a copy of those before it goes further,” he demands. “You’ve grown rather soft over these last few weeks, and it’s made me wonder if it influenced your work.”
I struggle to swallow past the pressure digging into my chest. “Well, I?—”
“I’ve been noticing that, too.” Gregory stabs into a roasted potato and pops it into his mouth. “It makes me wonder what kind of people you’re surrounding yourself with, Diana.”
I want to wring both of their necks.
After the truth broke out, Jonathan and Gregory quietly receded into obscurity under bàba’s commands. They narrowly evaded getting strangled by fangirls because Sasha Vellair recently announced that she’s going back on tour.
That leaves all eyes on me.
Except eyes don’t give you a vote of confidence. People don’t see Diana Huang the shrewd reporter, the resilient news leader. They only see Diana Huang, the manipulated, the victim, and they’re only searching for more opportunities to pry into me rather than uplift me.
The scrutiny I face in front of the cameras is the same kind I experience at home and I’m so tired of it.
“I surround myself with the people who will help me secure the CEO vote,” I snap. “A skill that both of you fail to accomplish on your own.”
Gregory’s hands tighten around his utensils. Jonathan slams down his glass of water. Sophia smiles.
“That’s why the men in our family go bald by twenty,” she quips.
Bàba’s nostrils flare. “Sophia Huang, have you no respect?”
For once, Sophia doesn’t flinch. She pops a piece of fish into her mouth and chews it with a fearlessness I haven’t seen since she was sixteen.
The men are about to fire back before mama huffs.
“Enough!” she scolds. “We are having dinner. Not waging war. Now, sit up straight and finish your meal.”
Bàba doesn’t protest. Instead, he stays focused on me throughout dinner, skeptical and watchful for the missing pieces of the daughter he was once proud of.
But for the first time, I can’t find it in myself to care.
I rip off my dress,unpin my hair, and take off my jewelry the moment I’m alone in my room.
“Aiya!”The diamond earring hooks onto my hair. I tug and wiggle it. It catches onto other strands until it knots into a web I can’t untangle.
Frustrated tears burst from my eyes.
It’s been days of faking my smiles, hoping that no one can see the panic thrumming inside of me, and pretending that the random mundane things I see don’t affect me when in truth, they bring me back to the one person I should’ve stopped thinking about the moment I broke his heart.
The phone rings.
