Chapter 37 Vale #2
He opens and closes his mouth a couple times. Then, in a croak, “Why?”
I duck my head and shrug, feeling warm all of a sudden. “I don’t know. Just figured you’d like it. It’s not like I want it. Was gonna give it to you for your birthday. But…” My voice trails off.
A long moment passes where I sense him staring at me. I keep my gaze focused on the bed, watching my fingers pull at a loose thread.
I can practically hear the questions swarming his head.
But instead of asking them, he just says, “Thanks.”
“It’s nothing,” I mutter, secretly grateful he dropped it. I’m not sure what I’d even say if he asked why now, why am I really here, why do I care.
He lifts the butterfly to the light, wiggling it side to side just like I did. “Did you know they don’t feel any pain?”
My brow knits at the unexpected turn in conversation. “What?”
“Butterflies. They don’t feel pain. They’re too little.”
“Oh.”
“I also read they…they do this thing called roosting. At night, when they sleep. Like birds. During the day, they keep to themselves. But at night, they stick together. To stay safe from predators.”
I lift my head. “How would that make a difference?”
He frowns, looking back down at what’s cupped in his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe… maybe it’s less about surviving, and more about protecting each other. While the predator is focused on one, the others get a chance to flee.”
I chew my lip and look at some spot drowned out by shadows across the room. “They’d probably have a better chance of staying hidden if they spread out. Kept to themselves.”
“Yeah.” He smiles slightly. “And some do. The ones that are braver, or maybe more selfish, I don’t know.”
“If they’re too small to feel pain, why would they even care to protect themselves…or save each other?”
His brow knits. “I’ve wondered that too.
Maybe it’s more of an instinct thing?” He lifts his gaze to mine.
“To protect the whole of the species, like… evolution or something. Most tiny creatures do this. Though many also stick to groups during the day.” He lifts a shoulder and glances away.
“It’s like the butterflies…know to be scared or something. ”
“Scared?”
Face tugged down into a frown, he stares off toward the window, but seems to be miles away suddenly, “To show the world that they care. About someone other than themselves, I mean.”
I look at the butterfly, and say quietly, “Because it’s a weakness.”
He inhales sharply, then twists his head toward me, breathing out, “Y-yeah.”
A weird tight feeling forms in my chest, and I go to stand up. “Anyway, um, I guess I’ll just—”
“Why are you awake?”
Guess he wasn’t going to let it go after all.
I shrug a shoulder and tell him the truth. Or at least, the partial truth. “Benadryl doesn’t really work for me.”
It’s a long moment before he stutters out a quiet, “Oh.”
I swallow tightly, and say, “Anyway, goodni—”
Fingers grab hold of my wrist just as I push up to a stand, stopping me. “Stay with me tonight?”
I tense, keeping my gaze locked on the closed door. “Why?”
When he doesn’t immediately respond, I look over my shoulder.
His eyes are locked on where his fingers encircle my wrist. “Because I’m tired of being brave. And I don’t want to be selfish.”
The tightness has moved up into my throat, making it impossible to speak. So, instead, I just shake his hand away, ignoring the way he slumps like he’s disappointed, and pull back the blanket, crawling in next to him.
He sucks in a breath, and I scowl, nudging him. “Move.”
He quickly squirms his way across the mattress to make room for me. I grab the edge of the blanket, throwing it over us. Side by side on our backs, with hardly an inch between us, we stare quietly up at the ceiling.
“The-the others?” he says near-soundlessly.
“Asleep,” I manage just as quietly.
He sighs, and I get the feeling like he’s torn about something. Maybe he’s worried about leaving them alone?
For whatever reason though, me staying with him seems to win out.
Nothing else is said for a long while. So long, that I wonder if maybe he fell asleep.
As of last month, it’s been four years since I moved in with the Baders.
So, this is far from the first time we’ve shared a bed.
But it was always mine, and if he stayed the entire night—not just to check on me, either to shake me awake from a night terror, or to just watch me sleep like a creep; something I never called him out for.
I always pretend I’m sleeping when he does that—it was because we’d brought the littles ones upstairs to sleep in my room.
It was never just the two of us. Like this.
At twelve years old, with him just shy of that, I know we’re too old to be sharing a bed.
Or maybe too young, depending on how you look at it, even though that’s not what’s happening here.
I suppose we’re just at that awkward in-between age now, where everything either feels too childish or too adult.
And I guess I just feel…lost.
Like I don’t know what to do with my body. To roll away and turn my back….
To draw closer….
For what though?
I don’t like this…this feeling. This unknown.
“Valey?” he whispers, startling me.
I roll my eyes. I hate it when he calls me that. And he knows it. “What?”
“You won’t ever leave me, right?”
I pull my face in, and angle my head toward him, watching the way his throat bobs with a swallow. He has to know I’m looking at him, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the ceiling.
There are a whole bunch of things I could say and know I probably should say. All along the lines of, “It’s not really up to me.” But instead, I find myself asking, “Why would I leave you?”
His voice is so faint, I nearly miss it when he says, “They did.”
I frown. “Who?”
His lashes flutter. “Everyone.”
I slowly blink and turn to look up at the ceiling once more. I try to imagine it—a life without him in it. And I don’t like it. Just the thought of it—that someone or something could rip him away from me at any moment—makes me want to break something. Or hit someone.
Because he’s…he’s mine. Like my football. Like the brand new sneakers I bought with the twenty I stole from Rick’s pocket one night. Like the Gameboy I had when I was little, that I smashed after the screen froze. Like my favorite Hot Wheels car I lost track of when I was thrown into the system.
Mine like my parents were, before death stole them from me.
Mine.
Aston’s not an object; he can’t stop working like my Gameboy did.
So, unless he’s torn from my life like my parents were, like my grandma….I can’t see how I’d ever willingly abandon him. Not when I know what it’s like to lose something I should’ve kept a closer eye on.
“Soon, Rick won’t want me either.”
I make a face at that. “You mean Rick and Louise?”
A too-long moment passes before he says, “Yeah. They’re…they’re gonna get rid of me soon, just like they got rid of—”
He cuts himself off before he can mention the boy who lived here before. I don’t know his name, only that he was a couple years older. Aston doesn’t like to talk about him.
It makes me angry. Hateful toward whoever it was. Not because they left him—they didn’t have a choice; no one in foster care ever does when it comes to placement—but because whoever he was…he was important to Aston. Important enough that Aston can’t even say his name.
Like it’s a secret.
A secret kept even from me, his best friend.
But I try to get him to talk anyway, playing dumb, hoping maybe he’ll finally tell me. “Who?”
“No one,” he quickly says.
I purse my lips, but before he can tune into my irritation, he blows out a breath, nods, and says, “But we’re basically the same age.
Maybe they’ll send us away together.” He nods some more.
“Yeah, I’ll make sure you come with me,” he whispers, and I get the feeling like this time the words are more for him than me. “And we’ll go to our next home tog—”
“Why do you think they won’t keep us ’til we’re eighteen?
” Sure, one of us could do something bad enough that it gets us kicked out and placed elsewhere.
Like when Aston took the blame for me that time.
But even when that happened, Rick and Louise were dead set on keeping him. Despite how much trouble he got in.
So, I don’t understand why Aston makes it sound like he’s running out of time. Like we’re running out of time.
Aston shrugs, causing our shoulders to bump.
The mattress is so lumpy, it feels like we’re sinking into each other.
We probably are. “I…it’s just a feeling.
They, uh, they seem to prefer having…kids around.
Not teenagers. Teenagers are, um, more work.
And…and they don’t like work. They don’t like when we’re difficult. ”
My lip curls. If anything, you’d think Rick and Louise would want someone older around to take care of the younger ones so they don’t have to. I mean, they already do put most of it on Aston and me, seeing as Louise barely gets off the couch during the day and Rick works long hours at some factory.
Not that that’s the case anymore…
But it’s only a matter of time before he gets a new job, and things return to normal. Aston mentioned once that he changed jobs a lot. Or, rather, he used to. This job he had since I got here, so that was news to me.
Without Aston and me here to mind the younger ones…
Who will make sure they’re fed and bathed if we’re not here? Who will take care of them when they’re sick?
Aston’s been doing that for as long as I’ve been here. I might be older, but he’s the one who’s taken charge of all of us.
He was only seven when I moved in…
Younger than Chloe now.
I frown. That just…it never occurred to me before now.
There’s a sniffle, and my eyes widen. A second later, arms are thrown around me, and I’m being squeezed in a bone-crushing hug.