Fall by Eden Butler

Author:Eden Butler [Butler, Eden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eden Butler
Published: 2017-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Lily found Zinnia in her room, lying on her bed with a pillow tucked between her knees. She seemed so small—younger than the girl Lily remembered crying, sobbing when she was eleven and Lily left the hospital and her brother’s bed in the ICU to fetch Zee from the sleepover the night of the fire.

Melissa Owens had turned twelve and Zinnia, as the girl’s best friend, was expected. She hadn’t wanted to go. Lily remembered that so clearly: Zee fighting with Ellen as she tried braiding the girls’ hair and that eleven-year-old complaint that Missy Owens wasn’t really her best friend anymore. Not since she started hanging around all those “lolo hula dancers.”

“I was a hula dancer when I was your age,” Lily had offered, earning a look of horror from her niece.

“Do I really have to go?” she’d asked her mother. “I can’t dance,” she explained. “Besides, Aunt Lil is home. I want to play dominoes with her…”

“You’re going,” Ellen interrupted.

Zee left for the sleepover not speaking to her mother. Later, when she and Lily had left the island, the girl had nightmares, vicious ones where Ellen burned and Zinnia laughed. It had mortified her for years, and every night when the nightmare came, Lily crawled next to her niece and held her until her tears had dried and she didn’t cling so tightly to the pillow she hugged against her chest.

“You always lay like that when you’re scared,” Lily said, stepping into the room slowly, as though Zinnia was a bomb ticking down until detonation. But Lily knew the triggers, small warnings when her niece could not contain her frustration or fear; she knew how to defuse the situation. “I guess you’re more mad than worried?”

“A little of both,” she answered, her back to Lily as she came to the bed. She didn’t sit until Zinnia reached out a hand, expecting Lily to grab it and snuggle against her. They had done that for years, often when their struggles and worries became too overwhelming. They’d really just been two kids raising each other; most times doing a pathetic job of it.

“You want to tell me what happened?” Lily rested on her elbow, looking down at Zee as she stared out of the window, eyes unblinking, tears drying on her face. “He step out on you?” The girl’s only response was a quick glance at her aunt that instantly became an eye roll. Lily nodded, a small apology that took the sneer from Zinnia’s expression. “Okay, so fess up. What did he do?”

Zee took a minute to swallow and clear the remaining tears collected beneath her lids before she turned onto her back, looking up at Lily. “He won’t listen and he won’t fight.”

“Him not fighting is bad?” Lily frowned, confused.

“Him not fighting for me is bad.” Zee sat up to face Lily, inhaling deeply before her words came out in a rush. “It’s all so screwed up. His family, how they are. He understands about my career and wanting to be my best.

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