Even though she'd tried to drift away back into the confines of another, more solitary room, her father pulled her back into the living room. Right beside him.

"I really think you should move in with us, honey. You're still adjusting. And trying to find a new apartment will just be another stressor. Ask your mother, a stressor right now is something you don't need." His cerulean eyes were glued to the television, watching the green haze of football players as they sprinted across the field, kicking up clumbs of dirt as they vyed for another point. 

Diana pressed her head into the cushion of the couch until she could feel the wooden skeleton beneath. "Sure, dad."

"The guest room is really-"Another tackle played out on the television interrupting their conversation, "Wooo!" They cheered, Henry and Daniel high fived. Diana hadn't remembered them being so interested in football before she'd...left.

Pulling herself from the couch, Diana wandered aimlessly through the house. Staring up at her graduation photo above the upstairs mahogany mantle, Diana tried to muster the feeling's she'd felt on that day. But failed.

She could remember it all, the way she'd spent almost three hours trying to curl her hair for graduation photos, only for it to rain and make her hair damp as a dog. Her mother had told her to bring an umbrella, but at the time, she'd thought it was uncool to have an umbrella so she hadn't brought one.

But the excitement and elation she'd felt, the anticipation of graduating high school. That was all gone. Like a stone heart, she could feel the weight in her chest but couldn't feel the beat of it.

Being the youngest, both Henry and Phoebe's photos were older. They looked like she had remembered them, wide smiles and standing tall. Hazy and listless are what her memories had become, she could not placed memories of her smiling so hard her cheeks began to hurt like she knew Phoebe's graduation photo day had been like. 

She moved onwards, down the hall till a couple sounds caught her attention. Colourful sounds chirped from the room.

Diana pushed open the door, Zack was laying on his stomach in the bed. He was watching some type of animated show. A bunch of animals were on screen; a lion, a giraffe, a hyena, a hippopotamus.

They were singing a song together. Diana couldn’t make out what the lyrics were about, but it was something involving a fruit stand. Apparently children's television in the time she'd gone had evolved quite a bit.

The hippopotamus ate a piece of watermelon and its grey eyes crlinked as they smiled widely. The other animals danced around them, practising their ballet. Twirling endlessly alongside dancing fruit. 

Intrigued, Diana asked, "Can I sit with you?"

Zack nodded, he shifted over on the bed, bringing his blanket with him, so she could lay down too.

"Thanks." Laying in Henry's old room, she saw his soccer and math trophies. His poster of some old soccer star that she didn't recognize. Henry had taken almost nothing when he'd moved out. Leaving his entire childhood framed like a museum exhibit.

The episode ended and the buffering screen started as it switched to the next.

In the reflection of Zack's IPad screen, Diana could see Zack's tiny face. He looked so much like Henry. "My dad said you were dead. But now you're here."

"I wasn't dead," She replied factually, ignoring the bulbous flower that was sprouting and clogging up her throat, "Some people just thought I was."

"Oh. Okay. So where were you?"

"I was stuck in a really bad place."

"Ok, Baba is really happy you're home. I heard him crying after we saw you in the hospital." When Diana didn't respond, Zack turned his attention back to the episode. It opened with the animals meeting a large moose. He had enormous horns and a gargantuan body compared to the hyena and Zack started to laugh at them.

He had so much glee in his laugh, snorting and chortling as the animals played together.

Diana's ears pricked as she heard the creaking of the stairs. Despite her eyes being set on the device's screen, her attention was elsewhere. Counting the steps, counting the creaks.

She saw him in the glass reflection of Zack's screen.

Henry chickled to himself as he opened the door to see his son laying and watching tv on his bed and his sister, with a straight spine and legs too long for the bed laying beside him. "I guess you finally found someone with the same amount of brain cells as you." Henry teased as he leaned over, gently kissing Zack's hair. 

She sneered at him, "Shut up."

"I'm happy you're home. But I've got to steal him. This little rascal needs to get to bed." Together, Zack and Diana rolled off of the bed. He turned off his device and the voices of the animals fell away into silence.

Diana only had two things in hand when her mother was showing her to her temporary room; her toothbrush and the cold, metallic knife stashed up her sleeve. 

"Why can't I just have my room?"

Her mother clicked her tongue like it was a stupid question, "Because it's my craft room now. So, you're sleeping in the guest room." A guest in my old home.

The guest room was still as drab as she remembered it, except for the fact that grey boxes were pushed against the walls. Full to the brim with her stuff.

Honestly she didn't think they would've kept it.

There was a small window to the left of the bed, partially covered with alabaster blinds. Linking her fingers together, Diana stood and watched the neighbourhood from behind the slats. There was no one outside, no children or people walking their dogs. A few houses stewed in darkness, others she could see the tenants moving around in their living rooms as they watched movies. A car was parked across the street, dark red, like the one she'd drove to the airport before Chechnya.

Her mother had made up the bed for her. "Thank you, mama." The bed had a whole bunch of pillows alongside a cozy blanket. Diana sat on the mattress and it dipped beneath her.

Tracing her fingers over the bed, it felt plush. Like the inside of a cactus. When she lifted her fingers from the bed, prickles like cactus pins replaced the plushness she'd just felt. They were long, like each pin passed to each side of her hand. Right through glassy bone.

She pressed it against her thigh until she couldn't feel the pins. Until they'd been pressed from her shaking fingers and palm.

"Goodnight 宝贝." Her mother closed the door. It clicked and Diana exhaled into the darkness. She could see her shifting form in the reflection of the mirror as she slid into bed.

Slipping the knife beneath her pillow, she could feel its skeleton as her head pressed against the warm pillow.