Chapter Five
Feralyn
The front door slammed shut, and he was gone.
Really, really gone.
Then I was running.
“Feralyn!”
I didn’t stop when Ares called after me.
I didn’t stop at all.
I ran all the way through the house, up the back stairs, and to my room that I used to like. But now it smelled like Helios and the laundry soap he used to wash all our clothes, but he was gone, and I hated it.
I hated everything.
I hated Helios for leaving.
I hated how everyone left.
Mommy, Daddy, Helios. And Ares was going to be next.
Not bothering to shove the dresser in front of my bedroom door because Ares would just come in through the window again, I ran into my closet to hide, but this time it didn’t feel like a ruined-cake kind of hiding.
It felt like when Daddy told me Mommy had gone to heaven.
Or when I met that older boy named Ghost, who Daddy said was my half brother, then I never saw him again.
It felt like the end of something, and I couldn’t stop the tears. No matter how small I curled up, no matter how hard I wished for Helios to come back, I knew nothing would make those wishes come true.
Everybody left.
And I was going to be all alone.
“Hey.” Ares walked into my closet.
Swiping at my face, I turned my back on him. “Go away.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can!” Mad, I turned back around. “You just—” I stopped when I saw what he had in his hands.
Holding two coffee mugs overflowing with cake and frosting that was all messy and smeared over the sides of the cups, he held one out to me. “Here.”
I took the mug that had a fork jammed into the middle of the mess. “What are you doing?”
“Eating cake.” He sat down on my closet floor and took a big bite from his mug.
“I cried on the frosting,” I blurted.
Ares swallowed and looked up at the ceiling for a second, like he was thinking. Then he looked back down at his mug and dug his fork in. “Well, it still tastes good.” He took another bite.
“But I dropped it.” I’d ruined it. I’d ruined everything, and it was Helios’s birthday, and he never got a piece of the cake before I dropped it.
Ares chewed and swallowed. “Like I said, still tastes good.”
The stupid tears wouldn’t stop, except maybe now they felt different. “I broke the platter.” I confessed, “It was your mom’s.” I wasn’t supposed to touch it. I wasn’t supposed to do a whole lot of things in this house.
Ares shrugged. “She’ll never notice, and I didn’t scoop up any of the cake that was by the broken dish part.” He nodded at my mug. “Try it.”
I took a small bite.
Then a bigger one.
“See?” Ares asked. “It’s good.”
It was a little salty. Maybe I didn’t read the recipe right. “It’s not like store cake.”
“No,” Ares agreed. “It’s better. I’m getting more. Wait here.” He stood and walked out of my closet.
I took a bite that was all frosting.
Then another.
When Ares came back and set a paper plate full of mushed cake on the floor between us, I’d already finished what was in my cup.
“Give me your mug,” he ordered.
I handed it over.
Holding the handle of the coffee cup, Ares used it like a ladle to scoop up more cake. Then he handed it back to me and smiled. “Dinner.”
I took the mug.
We ate ruined birthday cake for dinner as we sat on my closet floor.