Chapter Text
Elizabeth Afton is a smart girl.
She’s a very, very smart girl.
So the moment it happens, she knows.
She feels the moment her brother dies — she just doesn’t realize it until years, years later. And in all those years, not a single soul mourns Michael Afton. They all mourn his daddy and all the misery he didn’t have the time to unleash.
There’s blood nourishing the flowers in their backyard, and two gardeners — but just one. There’s just Death, but death’s in everything, so when Michael digs and digs and buries and hides, it’s all over him. The blood seeps into the dirt, and it remains there, and Elizabeth will forever be tempted to unbury the dead. But she never will.
What’s dead should stay dead.
She lets it.
All my life, I thought I’d change, Elizabeth writes in her diary years later. But it feels like everything’s changing, and I stay the same. But she looks in the mirror each day, looking for clues about her own existence, so she never notices what matters the most: her heart, the bleeding, cursed meat, flowering, blooming into something new. The madness that threatened to condemn her to the fate of torture that dissipates, like hate for all that she doesn’t love.
There’s an absent father, a wayward brother, and a baby crying in the dark. And then there’s Elizabeth, Venus that thinks itself the Sun. Venus, the one they call the morning star. Or evening star. It’s because it’s visible even before sunrise and after sunset, being the brightest planet and all. But Elizabeth thinks it’s more of a glass half full, glass half empty kind of thing. She just thinks of it as Planet Star.
Venus, the planet of love and all beauty. Venus, bright orange in all her glory.
Venus, the planet with no moon. The planet with no rings. Beautiful, bright, and yet alone. With a single satellite, so close to the Earth, and yet so far out of reach of humanity. Full of love with no one to give it to. Venus, growing mad from all the loneliness, the only warm thing surrounded by the cold metallic cosmos, with no living soul to talk to.
Venus, the hottest planet. The hottest, prettiest, loneliest, just like Elizabeth now.
She burns like a planet. She burns like the Sun.
Watch, listen, and be full—
And then she wakes up.
Sunlight sneaks into her room through the drawn curtains, and she can hear the morning chirp of the birds. She blinks the blurriness in her eyes away, her sight focused on the white ceiling. It’s like a cloud, she thinks, still sleepily, a big, fluffy, white cloud she’s stuck in, and not a ceiling at all.
The birds sing. She listens.
She wonders what they’re singing about. Are they happy for the new day? Are they singing about spring or the sun, are they asking for good weather? Are they singing about love?
Are they singing about death?
Her body feels heavy when she gets up from the bed, like it doesn’t belong to her. She feels like a stranger in her own skin. Something feels off, and she itches all over. She doesn’t understand what’s happening at all, so she looks for her favorite toy, the one that always brings her comfort. The one Daddy gave her.
Mangle is there, on the floor. Must’ve fallen off the bed at night, with Elizabeth tossing and turning. She reaches for her and holds her tightly against her chest. Mangle’s soft and warm, and there’s that characteristic smell sewn into her that always makes Lizzie feel better. She doesn’t know how to describe it: it just smells like peace and safe and calm. Like Mangle.
She leaves her room quietly, with no socks or shoes on. But her feet don’t feel all that cold. She’s not feeling cold. It’s strange because it’s barely the beginning of spring. Winter still sometimes lingers, but just a bit. Elizabeth misses snow, but she loves spring since it comes with flowers blooming and bees buzzing. Birds returning to their homes and singing in the morning. Spring is the season of a fresh start and hope. The season of rebirth and love. The season of promises.
The season of flowers.
She heads toward the kitchen, thirsty. The house is quiet. There’s only her soft footsteps and birds singing, no other sound. It feels safe. It feels calm. It feels lonely. Her brothers are probably still sleeping, she guesses. She doesn’t know what Daddy’s up to, but she’s not going to go and bother him either way. He doesn’t like that. And, besides, Elizabeth’s a smart girl. She knows what she’s supposed to and not supposed to do.
When she gets to the kitchen, there’s someone already there.
It’s Mike.
Her smile fades a bit. But it still lingers. Just like winter. Elizabeth doesn’t hate him. She loves him. She just doesn’t like him.
Mike is her oldest brother. The one that shines bright and loud, the one that held her, a long, long time ago. The one that changes like the wind or the water. The one that burns hot and fast, like a wildfire. The one she can’t hate. The one she loves. The one that is.
Mike, in the long run, isn’t the worst brother. Sure, he could be better. Sure, he should be better. He is her least favorite brother, but she still loves him. Even when he’s being mean or stupid, she still loves him, even if she hates that and doesn’t like him. In the end, he’s still her brother. He always will be. And he looks so much like Daddy, it’s hard not to see them as one sometimes. And she could never hate Daddy.
She loves Mike. But she loves him distantly, like she loves her Mommy. She never got to know her. Years later, she’ll think that she never really got to know Michael either.
“Hi,” she says, walking into the kitchen. Mike’s sitting on the chair, looking out of the window. It’s still sunrise, she realizes.
Mike doesn’t turn around. The silence lingers like morning dew. She wonders if the grass outside is wet. If it’s slippery and silk and green like leaves that begin to grow on the trees.
“Mike,” she says again, a bit louder. Elizabeth doesn’t like being ignored. “Hey, Mike. Mike. Mike, Mike, Michael!”
He sighs, and he finally turns around to look at her, but the moment he does, he freezes. It’s like he didn’t expect to see her there, like he thought it was someone else.
“What are you doing?” she asks. He doesn’t answer, just stares at her. “Hellooooo,” she crosses her arms. “Are you ignoring me? That’s mean!”
He blinks a few times and then clears his throat. His face scrunches in a weird way, like he got tricked into eating something very sour, like a lemon. Elizabeth doesn’t like lemons. At all.
“Lizzie,” he says finally, voice raspy. He clears his throat again. “Lizzie, hey.”
He bites his lip and blinks many, many times, and only then does she realize he looks like he’s going to cry. His eyes are glossy, and they look like two blue marbles. He reminds her of a doll, with empty, unmoving eyes and plastic hands. With a soft belly and stiff legs. Eyes so blue they look like the sky or sea, salty and wet and full of waves. Unstable. Uncontrollable.
Full of life and trash and plastic and disease and death.
Elizabeth’s a very smart girl. She knows what death means. She always did, she thinks. Or maybe not. But she doesn’t remember not knowing. It just feels safe and familiar. Death is everywhere.
But so is life.
“Are you crying?” she asks. She doesn’t want him to cry. “Are you sick?”
Mike doesn’t cry. He shouts and he screams and he yells and he acts like a big dumb meanie, but he doesn’t cry, not like this. She only saw him crying when he got hurt, once, and then never again. He fell off his bike, she remembers. It was years ago.
“No, I’m—I’m okay,” he says, and he doesn’t even sound like Mike. He sounds… different. “I’m just— just really happy to see you.”
She scrunches her eyebrows. Since when? He sniffles and then laughs softly. He acts like she’s the best thing he’s ever seen. He acts like he’s been in this kitchen, moping, waiting just for her. On her.
“You are?” she questions, and he smiles.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I really am. I— I really missed you, Elizabeth.”
That confuses her even more. How can he miss her if she didn’t go anywhere? How can he miss her when she’s been home the whole night, just sleeping, a room away? He saw her yesterday.
(It’s over a decade later when she realizes that she wasn’t the one going somewhere. It’s over a decade later when she realizes that he was the one who left and then returned, irrevocably changed. Who went years without seeing her and still loved her the very same.)
“That’s stupid,” she says. “You saw me yesterday. You can’t miss me already.”
Michael looks at her then, and she can’t tell if he seems more sad or happy. He just looks tired, like he hasn’t slept for days. Which Elizabeth knows is not true since she caught him snoring two days ago on the couch.
It seems like neither of them really knows what to say right now, though. It feels awkward and yet so right. The specks of dust dance in the air gracefully, visible thanks to the sneaky sunlight that crawled its way into the kitchen through the open window, the morning chirp of the birds harmonizing with her quiet breaths. This, Elizabeth will one day think, is the essence of life: the quiet and the loud, the empty and the full. The gentleness and peace and light and so much love. The dew covering the ground, making it a slippery mess, and yet refreshing the world so the flowers can bloom and ease the misery of the worms.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he says eventually. “Are you hungry?” he asks.
“Thirsty,” she replies. “Can you get me milk, Mike?”
“Sure.”
He stands up from the chair and walks towards the fridge, and Elizabeth follows behind him like a duckling. He gets her a glass and pours milk into it, and Elizabeth watches with fascination as the glass gets halfway full.
The liquid swirls inside like waves of the sea. It would be funny and a bit gross, she thinks, to swim in the sea of milk. Where would you even get that much milk, anyway? Titan cow?
Mike holds the glass in his hand and stares at it.
“Oh,” he mumbles. It’s like a gentle realization washes over him. He lets out a breathy laugh. It doesn’t sound happy or sad. It’s a stone in a river, quiet and calm, solid and yet easily washed away. “That’s nice.”
“What’s nice?” she asks him, and he looks at her, and he seems so big, so tall, and she feels so small. But it’s not a bad feeling, not like a bug under a microscope.
“Just,” he starts. “You know. Everything.”
She thinks of this warm, spring weather, and the milk she’s about to drink, and the quiet and the singing, and she thinks, yeah, it is. It’s quite nice.
“I guess,” she says.
He puts the glass of milk on the aisle and crouches down to be at her eye level. They look at each other for a bit, and she can tell there’s something different about Mike, something she can’t quite put her finger on. The one thing that sticks out, though, is how different from Daddy he looks now. Something that made them so similar is almost completely gone, the traces of it barely visible.
He stares into her eyes, and she wonders what he sees in there. Or maybe if there’s something he’s looking for. Is he looking for Mommy? She knows she looks like her, the way he looks like Daddy. It’s easy to find Daddy in Michael’s blue eyes and brown hair, his nose and cheeks, the same way it is with Elizabeth and their Mommy. When she can’t find a picture of her, she just looks at the mirror and pretends it’s Mom.
When she can’t find Daddy, she looks for Mike. They look so alike that it doesn’t matter which one tucks her into bed because she can always pretend it’s the other.
“I love you, Lizzie,” he says. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it before.”
Elizabeth knows that. She knows he loves her, it was never a question of if, just of how much . She knows Mike loves her, even if he hates it. Because they’re the same in that way.
“It’s okay,” she replies. It is. Love’s like a snowdrop — it grows, it blooms, it wilts. And then it grows anew, again and again. Like a dandelion — it’s everywhere and it’s bright and yellow, and it pops up in the cracks of the pavement and between the soft grass blades in the park, and it grows and it blooms and it turns into something new and it shares a part of it with everyone and everything and then it wilts, just to come back again. Different and yet the same. It never truly goes away.
Love, like a dandelion that can grow anywhere. Love that is hard to get rid of once it blooms. Love that will always find a way to carry on.
Even once it withers, a part of it always survives. And it survives and it survives and it perseveres and it endures and it blooms. Always, constantly, each spring. All it needs is one tiny seed, and it’ll grow into thousands.
“I’m sorry,” he says again and then kisses her forehead. She blinks. “I promise to do better, okay? I love you so much.”
She swallows. Her heart hurts, but it hurts in a good way, like when you laugh so much your stomach starts to ache. Like when you smile so much your face starts cramping. It’s the soft glow of happiness, making your soul giggle.
Mike’s acting strange. But maybe it’s just that warm spring weather.
“That’s okay. I love you, too.”
And isn’t that the core of everything? I love you. I forgive you. I trust you. Isn’t that the point of humanity? To love, to care, to embrace. To grow and learn and love and leave and return. To be born, to change, and to die, like a butterfly. There’s only one type of beauty that isn’t temporary, and it’s the beauty of the ugliness of the world. The beauty in the wretchedness of the passage of time, the beauty in everything and nothing.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and his lips tremble. He lets go of her and covers his face with his hands. She can’t see it, but she knows he’s crying by the way he’s shaking.
Elizabeth’s a smart girl. She knows that the best cure for everything is hugs.
She doesn’t remember how she knows that; she just does. She thinks she might have learned it from Daddy a long, long time ago.
“Don’t cry,” she says as she hugs him. “Don’t cry. I love you, Mike.”
He buries his head in her hair, and she thinks it’s weird how openly he’s crying when he always laughs at Evan for doing the same. When it comes down to it, they both act like crybabies. But it’s okay. Elizabeth is neither the baby nor the crier, so she can hold them both when they act like that. She can hug them both. She can fix them.
It takes him a bit to stop crying.
“Thanks,” he says and sniffles. “You’re a good sister, Elizabeth.”
She smiles brightly. She knows she is, but the praise is always good. Especially from Mike, who is usually so negative all the time.
“I know,” she replies, and he laughs, standing up. He ruffles her hair. “Can I get my milk now?”
He laughs even more but hands her the glass, and she drinks it, the cold spreading from her throat to her chest. It feels familiar in some weird kind of way. The coldness, the fresh and sticky coldness that seeps into her body. She drinks her milk until the glass is empty.
It’s similar and yet not at all. She looks at the glass as if it hides the answer inside, but it’s clear, stained with milk, but still see-through. There’s nothing she’ll find in the glass, except for her own reflection.
But the girl in the glass doesn’t really feel like her; she looks like someone else, someone that Elizabeth knew a long time ago. But she doesn’t remember who. Maybe it’s Mommy, but she doubts it. The girl seems too sad to be Mommy.
“Do you want some breakfast?” he asks, and Elizabeth hands him the glass back.
She nods her head. “But what about Evan? Do you want me to go wake him up?”
He thinks for a bit and then glances at the clock. “No, it’s fine. We can let him sleep for a bit longer. We could—”
Turns out they don’t have to let Evan sleep for a bit longer because it’s right then when he walks into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes with one hand and holding Fredbear in the other. He looks like he’s still half-asleep, and Elizabeth wonders if he had any good dreams tonight instead of all those nightmares that keep haunting him.
“Evan,” Mike says quietly. Evan looks up at him, and something in the atmosphere shifts and rewrites itself, something trembles, and Elizabeth’s sure that if not for the birds, she could hear Mike’s heart trying to rip itself out of his chest. “Hi,” he mumbles softly, and the way he looks at him almost makes Elizabeth jealous.
Love is practically beaming out of him. The happiness, the soft and gentle, all care and love is filling up their kitchen, and Lizzie doesn’t understand it, but something in her chest finally stops feeling that empty, and she finally feels right, like everything’s going to be alright.
“Mike,” Evan replies, and he squeezes Fredbear. “Hi.”
It’s like Mike can’t stop looking at him, like a sunflower following the sun.
“Hi!” she says because she doesn’t want to be left out. “We’re gonna make breakfast! Are you hungry?”
Evan looks a bit confused but nods slowly. “Yeah… What are you making?”
Elizabeth thinks for a bit until she finally decides, “Pancakes! Right, Mike?” She turns around.
“Sure,” he replies. “If you want to, pancakes it is. You wanna help, little man?”
Evan smiles shyly. “Yes.”
“But I want to pour milk in!” Elizabeth adds. “You can mix it, I guess.”
“Okay!”
They make pancakes, Lizzie pouring the ingredients into the bowl and Evan, as promised, mixing the batter. Then, she watches as Mike puts a pan on the stove, turns it on, and starts cooking. He tells them to wait at the table, so they do.
Soon enough, all of the batter’s gone from the bowl, and Mike puts a pile of pancakes on the table in front of them. He makes sure to hand Elizabeth her favorite pink plate with butterflies and Evan the one with Smurfs.
Mike sits next to her, and Elizabeth feels incredibly confused by how weird he’s acting.
“Aren’t you gonna eat too?” Evan asks him, and Mike looks at the pancakes and then at Elizabeth and then back at the food. He grimaces.
“I’m not really hungry,” he mumbles instead and leans into his chair. He looks tired.
Elizabeth puts a piece of pancake in her mouth, and it melts on her tongue. “Yummy,” she says, and Mike smiles.
“Yeah,” Evan adds. “They’re good. Thanks, Mike.”
“It’s nothing, Evan. You helped, remember?”
Evan nods and smiles, and it’s nice to see them like this. Elizabeth knows that Mike, deep inside, loves Evan. He just acts too stupid to remember that sometimes.
“I—” he takes a deep breath. “I love you. I’m sorry I was being a jerk before.”
Evan stops chewing and looks up at him, eyes wide and surprised. It’s clear he didn’t expect that. Elizabeth watches them both carefully.
“You were really mean,” Evan says quietly. “I don’t like it when you’re mean.”
“I won’t be anymore,” Michael replies. “I promise, okay?”
Evan eyes him for a bit until he smiles again. “Okay. I love you, too.”
They both turn to Elizabeth.
“I want more milk,” she says, and Mike laughs.
“Sure, squirt. Whatever you want.”
Elizabeth stares at the cleared table, belly full and heart achingly empty. Hollowed out. She can still taste the pancakes on her tongue, all the sweetness lingering in her mouth and on her teeth. Sugar, rot, sweetness, love. She’s uneasy but happy, nonetheless. I love you rings in her head quietly like birds singing praises to the morning sun, I love you that buzzes like a bumblebee in the spring, fluffy and soft, I love you. It’s such a small thing to agonize over, but it feels like she’s been waiting decades to hear those three simple words.
I promise, Mike said. I’m sorry, he offered. I love you, he admitted. And Elizabeth wonders if maybe the birds have already known and were celebrating ahead. If the sun peeked out just out of sheer curiosity or maybe to sweeten the day altogether — if it’s all just the prologue to a new story, a sequel of the sorrow, or maybe a prequel to happiness. Only time will tell, she supposes.
Mike’s different. Not changed, but, well, maybe. But she can’t tell yet, it’s too soon. But he said he’s sorry, and if he really is, then she’ll believe him. She loves him; of course she’ll believe him. He’s her brother.
The pancakes were soft — warm and soft and gooey on the inside. Sweet and yummy. They were perfect. And now, they’re nothing more than a memory.
They didn’t talk much, enjoying the quiet and the everlasting sunlight, encasing their kitchen with warmth, and calm, and love.
“I’m gonna go get ready for school,” Evan says, tugging at the sleeves of his pajamas. “It’s getting late.”
“School,” Mike repeats. “Right.”
He sighs wearily but then smiles softly, which Elizabeth finds extremely weird because she knows very well just how much Mike hates school. She doesn’t mind it, especially since school means playing with Charlie, but Mike despises going to school, even though he gets to hang out with his stupid friends, too. Elizabeth doesn’t really understand him.
“You should go get dressed too, Lizzie,” Mike adds. “I’ll wait for you guys in the living room.”
She nods and then runs off to her room. Technically, she shouldn’t run around the house since Daddy didn’t like that much, but it’s not like he would ever know, right? And whatever he doesn’t see won’t hurt him. Besides, he would always like her more than Mike.
She runs into her room and takes a moment to look out the window at the bright sky and green leaves. Barely green — but still green. Still alive. Sunshine always made her feel better. Elizabeth loved sunny days.
She opens her wardrobe and picks out clothes. She thinks about school as she takes her pajamas off. That’s the easy part; putting on tights turns out to be hard, just like always.
“Evan!” she yells. “Come help me!”
He walks into her room not long after, already dressed. “Help with what?” he asks, and she points at the tights. “Oh, right.”
He helps her put them on, and she blurts the first thing that comes to her mind. “How’d you learn how to put them on anyway? You’re not a girl.”
He looks down at her for a second, clearly thinking about his answer. “I don’t really know,” he replies after a bit. “I guess I just picked it up from when Mom and Mike used to dress you when you were a baby,” he shrugs. Oh.
“Why’d he stop?” she asks Evan again. When he looks at her, confused, she clarifies, “Mike. Why’d he stop dressing me?”
She wonders when the last time he dressed her was. She can’t remember. She can’t remember Mom dressing her either. There’s someone, she remembers, but she thinks it’s Daddy. It must’ve been. He’s big and has brown hair, and who else could it have been?
“I don’t know, Lizzie,” he mumbles. “He always says it’s Dad’s job, not his.”
“And Daddy? Why is he never here?” she urges him, and he looks away.
“I don’t know, okay? Just— here you go. Do you need help with the skirt?” She shakes her head. “Okay, I’ll go get my backpack,” he says as he leaves.
Elizabeth puts on her skirt and looks at the heart-shaped mirror hanging on her wall. She smiles and stares at her missing tooth. She lost it a few days ago. She grimaces at her messy hair; she grabs a hairbrush from her nightstand and runs out of her room.
She returns to the kitchen and sits on the chair with a big grin on her face. “Brush!” she exclaims, pointing the brush at Mike. He looks confused.
“You want me to brush your hair?” he asks. She looks at him, weirded out.
“Duh. You always brush my hair,” she replies, and he lets out a breath.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “I do, don’t I?” he scratches his neck and then smiles wildly. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
She braces herself. She shuts her eyes tightly.
He brushes her hair gently, and it feels weird. That’s not how Mike brushes her hair. He always wants to be quick with it, so he brushes as fast as possible, which means pulling on knots sometimes, which hurts. A lot. But now he’s taking his time, getting one knot at a time, and it doesn’t hurt that much.
She winces when he tugs too hard.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Accident.”
“Just don’t do it again,” she replies, but smiles.
“Almost finished,” he promises. “Okay, I’m done.”
“Lemme see, lemme see!” she squeals, and Mike snorts as he hands her a mirror.
Wow, she thinks, so… different. Mike braided her hair — it wasn’t perfect, with a few loose strands here and there, but she still liked it. She still thought it was pretty.
“I tried,” he offers nervously, and she looks up at him.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I like it.”
“You look nice,” Evan chimes in, and she smiles at him.
“Thanks. How’d you learn to braid hair?” she asks, and Mike laughs.
“Ah, a guy doesn’t kiss and tell.”
She can almost see her Mommy in the mirror. People often remarked that Elizabeth looked just like her, Mike looked just like Daddy, and Lizzie looked just like Mommy, and Evan was a mix of the two. Elizabeth has her Mom’s big, green eyes and red hair, and her thousands of freckles. Mike has Daddy’s blue eyes and his nose, and he looks exactly like him, just like a clone would. Evan has Daddy’s hair and Mommy’s eyes and smile.
And Daddy loved Mommy — he must have if he married her, wouldn’t he? That’s why people married each other, after all — because of love. They wouldn’t get married if they weren’t in love, and all Mommies and Daddies are. But then, if Elizabeth looks just like her mom, why doesn’t Daddy love her half as much? Why is he always busy? Why’d he stop helping her with putting on her tights?
Years later, Elizabeth thinks, thank God for that . Thank God he didn’t love me half as much as he did her, because to be loved by him is to be loved by Rot itself.
Years later, Elizabeth realizes, it was never him. I wanted it to be him so bad that I rewrote my memories, but it was never him, and I’ll never not be thankful for that.
Years later, Elizabeth will put on her tights and think, Michael used to do that.
Mike sighs, “Alright, let’s go. Put on some shoes and hoodies or whatever.”
He helps her zip up her pink hoodie, and after putting shoes on, they go outside and wait for Mike to lock the door. She wonders where Daddy went so early. He doesn’t have school.
“Why did Daddy leave so soon?” she asks, wishing she had woken up sooner so that she could’ve given him a goodbye kiss. “Mike, did you hear what I s—”
“Yes,” Mike interrupts her, and he sounds so monotone, just like a robot. She shivers. She doesn’t like that voice on him. It’s too similar to Daddy’s, and Mike is nothing like Daddy at all. “Sorry, um, I don’t know. He was gone before I even woke up. He’s probably just very busy. You know how he is, all about work,” he replies and continues walking. She holds his hand tighter.
“Okay.”
She can deal with Mike instead of Daddy for a change.
Right now, he’s acting nicer than Daddy does, anyway.
When they get to school, Lizzie leaves Mike and Evan behind to go look for Charlie. “I like your hair,” is the first thing Charlie says the moment they meet up. Her smile takes up almost half of her face — whenever Charlie smiles, it makes Elizabeth want to smile too. It’s contagious. “It looks nice.”
Lizzie missed her — playing with Charlie is always fun, as long as the games she comes up with don’t involve dirt or bugs or anything yucky. Everybody likes Charlie. She’s a bit weird and boyish but she’s really nice and kind too.
“Thanks,” she replies, face warm. “Mike did it for me.”
“He did?” Charlie asks, eyes wide. “He’s good at it. Do you think he’d do mine if I asked? Does he want to be a hairstylist?” Elizabeth snorts.
“Mike? No way!”
“Well, what does he wanna do when he grows up then?”
Elizabeth stops, thinking. “I don’t know,” she says finally, but thinks, I want him to be kind.
Thousands of days later, she’ll finally find the answer. I think he just wanted to grow up, she’ll write in a journal that she’ll burn someday.
“Probably something stupid,” she adds, and Charlie laughs.
Nothing much other than that happens at school. It’s just as boring as any other day. Once they’re finished, Mike and Evan come to pick them up. They wait on the bench outside, Mike drawing something in his notebook and Evan tracking his every move.
“Hi, Mike!” Charlie says, grinning at him.
He looks up and grins back, and he seems so happy to see her that it makes Elizabeth’s heart skip a beat. She hadn’t seen him that way for so long that she had forgotten what it looked like. With that big, dumb smile on his face and dimples in his cheeks.
(And if happiness’s a butterfly, then Mike must’ve framed his and nailed it to a wall, just like Evan does at twenty-five as a hobby. Mike’s is a reminder of death; Evan’s a reminder of life. But neither will fly.)
“Charlie,” he says, almost as if disbelieving. “Hi. I— hi. I’ve missed you.”
She turns her head like a curious puppy. She stares at him, but Elizabeth can’t tell what she’s thinking about.
“I’ve missed you too!” she finally exclaims, giggling.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth asks, looking at Evan. He takes the notebook out of Mike’s hands and shoves it in her face, beaming. “Evan!”
“Look, Liz! Mike drew me a bear! Isn’t he cool? He said he’ll make me one, too!”
She glances at Mike. She didn’t know Mike could draw. But he definitely doesn’t know how to make bears, so she’s not sure how he plans on doing that.
“His name is Helpy,” Mike adds. “Because he, you know, helps. So. Helpy.”
“Clever!” Charlie replies. “Oh, look! It’s daddy! Daddy!” she yells and they turn around to look at Henry Emily walking their way. Mike freezes.
“Hey, kids.”