Un-Dead by RoAnna Sylver

Author:RoAnna Sylver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Sylver Lining
Published: 2016-10-31T10:21:41+00:00

☾

Later that night, Jenny came to meet Evelyn in her office. She had taken off the witch hat, and her long hair hung down partly in front of her eyes. When dressed in her usual several layers of skirts and leggings and too-long sleeves, she just looked like a young girl, too thin and pale and tired. Her hair was platinum blonde, not the ghostly white it had looked in candlelight. She stared down at her feet—in fuzzy boots, not the ballet shoes she’d once worn—as she shuffled in, not looking up to meet Evelyn’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing she said, her voice small.

“For wh...” Evelyn started, picking her chin up out of her hand and blinking her eyes back into focus. She’d been staring at Garrett’s—at her desk again, and how it was exactly as cluttered with papers as it had been earlier. She’d let her hair down and now it hung in a mass of limp magenta curls down to her waist. Even her hair looked tired. “Oh. I understand why you lied. You were just doing what Garrett said. You thought it was the right thing, to protect him.”

“But it still hurt you.”

Evelyn was quiet for a moment. “Yes, it did.”

“You don’t know how you can trust me. Or him. Either of us.”

She didn’t answer.

“You think you’re the one who’s supposed to protect everyone,” Jenny said softly. “You don’t know what to do when it’s us trying to protect you.”

“Stop,” Evelyn said, laying her hands flat on the desk. “Stop trying to figure me out. I haven’t even figured me out yet. I’m—I’m very upset that you both lied to me. Especially Garrett. I’m furious that he put you in the middle of this. He’s the adult here, not you. I’m angry that he made this decision for me and didn’t let me make it on my own.” She took a deep breath, used her hands to push herself into a standing position. “But I’m also…so happy that he’s alive.”

“Me too.”

Evelyn gave a choked little laugh that threatened to become a sob. “Because now when I see him, I can—I can smush his lousy, not-dead face!” She sniffed, smile spreading across her own face. She had no idea if she was laughing or crying. Both. “And I’m so glad that, even if you couldn’t tell me he was alive, that you wanted to show him to me! You wanted to give him back to me, however you could.”

“I had to,” Jenny nodded, tears in her eyes. “I love you and you were hurting. And I love him, and he was hurting. And I had the power to make it stop. If I can make the pain stop, and I don’t… how am I good? You told me that people started calling you a superhero.”

Evelyn just nodded, couldn’t speak. Her mouth opened but no sound came out.

“And that’s all it means. Doing good when you can. If you have the power to make it stop hurting, and you do, then you’re a hero.

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