Chapter 12 Burning Butterflies
Burning Butterflies
The more Dana hints at adopting me, the harder I fight the hope building inside me.
It’s not that Mark and Dana are the parents I’ve always dreamed of; it’s just that the relief of knowing where I’ll land next is too precious to ignore.
In the four years I’ve been here, I’ve grown accustomed to their quirks—Mark’s mood swings, Dana’s week-long depressions where I’d become her caretaker—bringing her food, water, sometimes even washing her. They are the devils I know.
So, when the social services worker walks in and we all sit down in the living room, my heart vaults into my throat, fluttering like a hopeful butterfly. I hold my breath, afraid even a blink will crush the moment.
But the moment the agent says I’m being moved again, it feels as though someone has cruelly torn the wings off that butterfly, setting them alight while the tiny creature screams in unimaginable agony.
Mark’s face stays blank, but I catch the faint glimmer of smug satisfaction in his eyes.
Dana, on the other hand, avoids my gaze, her eyes set on a spot over my shoulder as she offers a brittle smile, murmuring how she’s enjoyed our time together.
Dana’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. It wilts, like she’s already mourning me.
It hits me then—I’ve become a burden, taking up too much of Dana’s attention, and Mark wants me gone. She can’t say no to him.
Maybe love does exist, but it’s not the dream everyone makes it out to be.
Love is a waterlogged dungeon—airless, lightless, with just enough room to jut your head up for one desperate, strangled breath. It’s a relentless pressure, a submersion that won’t let you resurface, that holds you as if you’re chained to the ocean floor.
It crushes you under the weight of its expectations.
In this moment, I vow to never fall in love. If love means being disposable, I want no part of it.
No one will ever twist me into what suits them, not any foster parents, not even if I was adopted by my dream parents. I swear to myself, I won’t love them.
In the social worker’s car, two bags of my belongings in the trunk, I stare out the window, feeling pieces of myself go gray and deaden. Like a gangrene of the soul.
"You’ll only spend a couple days at the group home," she explains. "Because we are actually already lining up a new place for you. A couple that I think you’ll really like."
I’m left to stew in the burning memory of Mark and Dana in that living room, cutting me out of their life like an unwanted cancer.
Not even two days later, I’m taken to a large suburban house surrounded by a white fence with oversized blooming rose bushes.
Jean and David could easily pass for the parents I would have chosen from a catalog, with their blond hair, well-tailored attire, and perfectly straight smiles, courtesy of braces they likely had in their youth.
Too perfect. Too polished. Like someone staged a fantasy and forgot to check if it felt real.
I take everything in without speaking. The social service agent guides me to the oversized white couch where the three of them talk.
I tune out, taking in the details of the house.
Framed college degrees, art that looks like someone accidentally kicked a can of paint onto a canvas and went with it, and the strong smell of gardenia and soap.
"Evie," the social worker says, drawing my attention. "I actually know David. He grew up in the same system as you."
She’s trying to prompt connection.
David and Jean smile at me. "It’s true," he says. "I know exactly what you’ve gone through. I went through it myself, which is exactly why we decided to bring you here."
Jean puts a hand over his chest, lovingly. "He’s gone on and on about how he wants to repay the kindness he received while he was in the system."
They beam at each other and kiss.
The worker tries to give me a look as if to say, "See? Isn’t this going to be wonderful?"
But I don’t buy it.
Something feels off about this, I just can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s cynicism from too many bad situations, maybe it’s my instincts, but I don’t allow myself to truly relax.
I settle in easy enough. My room is full of sunshine, books, and stuffed animals that I’ll never let Snarp see me touch.
The routine of homemade dinners, getting to do whatever I want—which mostly means hiding out in my room—and adjusting to a new school flies by until the next Monday.
The kids at this school treat me like I’m invisible.
I’m surprised to find I miss the fear I inspired in the other kids at my old school.
Being invisible is my usual protection, but knowing I could inspire terror in those who despised me made me feel powerful.
I wonder if that’s how Shadow feels all the time.
David picks me up from my new school, taking me back to the house per the new routine. Jean doesn’t get off work for a couple of hours, leaving us alone. I don’t like how quiet the house is. Silence can hide a thousand sins.
David follows me into my bedroom, asking me questions about my day. I give one-word answers, but instead of taking the hint, he closes the door behind him.
Still chatting, he casually mentions I’ll have time to do homework later as he unzips his pants. His tone doesn’t change. Like this is just another part of the routine.
Our eyes meet. I’ve been in the system long enough to know what’s about to happen. The social workers try to give us resources to protect ourselves. I know from some of the other kids that many of them were too young to know better when this happened to them. That’s not the case here.
If I stay, I’ll get to paint my room black since they already agreed to it. I’ll have plenty of food, nice clothes, and money to go to the movies with the friends I’ll surely make. But you don’t get something for nothing.
I find out David didn’t lie. He absolutely wants to repay the kindness he received from the same system. I just happen to be the lucky girl who gets to receive it.
That night, Shadow comes to me.
I’m lying on my side in bed, awake.
"What do you want?" I ask, quiet and flat. I haven’t seen him in two weeks. I should be relieved. But all I feel is raw.
He almost seems to hesitate. "I felt you…" he trails off, before asking, "What happened?"
"What does it look like happened? I got moved to a new home."
"No." The monster struggles for words. "Something else happened."
"What, are you psychically linked to me or something?" I taunt, rolling over onto my other side.
His silence says it all. I shut my eyes tight.
Fuck.
That explains a lot in hindsight, but I never quite made the connection.
Pushing up off my bed, I fling open the door and make my way to the living room. David and Jean’s room is on the other side of the massive house, so I don’t have to worry about being quiet.
"If you were psychically linked with me, you would’ve known I wished you’d come sooner. But I don’t need or want you here now." My words are cutting.
I go to the fridge and pull out a soda. It’s always stocked and I can help myself to anything I want, anytime. I try to tell myself this is the sweetest setup I’ve ever had. But deep inside, I don’t believe myself.
The shadow monster stares at me with a piercing gaze. "I want to know what happened," he says sternly. "And why you feel this way. You don’t have to be alone."
"I’m always alone." My fingers dig into the perfect marble countertop. "I don’t get a choice about where I end up, but I sure as hell can decide who gets to be in my life. And right now, that’s nobody. Not you, not anyone," I hiss, my voice brittle but low to avoid waking David and Jean.
Popping the tab of the soda, I take a long, cold sip, as if it could wash away the filth clinging to my soul.
"Even when I’m not here, I’m with you," Shadow says, taking a step closer, his voice tinged with desperation. "I feel... I feel the whisper of your emotions, your fears, your loneliness. They call to me, and whether it takes me a day, a week, or longer, I’ll always come for you."
"Whispers, huh?" I roll my eyes, pressing the cold can to my temple. "Your timing sucks, you know that? Your supernatural sensitivity or whatever it is, is a little late to the party. I thought you were my friend, but you’re not."
"Evie."
"Take me with you," I say, hearing the sudden desperate plea in my voice. I set the can on the counter, my hand shaking. The words fall out before I can swallow them back. "Wherever it is that you go, take me with you. I don’t care if it’s hell, just take me with you."
Any hell is better than this place, if I could just be with Shadow.
Shadow pauses as if enduring a weighty burden. "I can’t," he finally says. My hand encircles the can again. It crunches slightly under the pressure of my fingers.
"Can’t or won’t?" I need it to be won’t. Need to know he’s choosing not to save me.
"Evie—"
"I can’t call you when I need you," I cut him off, not able to bear to hear the answer because it won’t change anything. "Nothing about this is on my terms. It’s always on yours. It’s not fair."
"Evie," Shadow says, his voice softening, "I wish I could tell you why I can’t always be there, why there are things about me that have to remain unknown. But know this: even in my absence, you’re not alone. I will always find my way back to you."
I sigh, staring into his strange, faceless features that have become the most beautiful sight to me.
His eyes are the only things I can make out in the inky blackness that forms his body. Despite the defenses I’ve put up, something about him reaches through. A strange kind of understanding, a mutual loneliness perhaps.
It scares me how tempting it is to believe him, to keep letting him in.
"Don’t make promises you can’t keep," I say finally, my voice tinged with resignation and something more vulnerable, something I won’t name. Because if he breaks them, there’ll be nothing left of me to pick up.
"I vow to always come for you, Evangeline," he says in that deep voice in a way that makes me think there is more meaning to what he says.
I feel the tiniest thread of connection, fragile and frayed but there. And while it’s not enough to dispel the darkness, for now it’s enough to pierce through it, even if just a little.
"Let’s go back to the room. We shouldn’t be out here," I say, suddenly conscious of the late hour. The kitchen suddenly feels too open. Too exposed. Too human.
I lead the way back to my room, Shadow drifting behind like a wisp of smoke.
He doesn’t tell me much, but I can’t help feeling we are two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl of life’s uncertainties.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough to keep the loneliness at bay.
Even if it’s just for a little while. Even if it’s just tonight.
And as I lay in my bed, enjoying the comforting weight of his presence near me, I make a silent vow: Shadow can stay. Only Shadow. No one else, not ever.