Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER EIGHT monkey business
⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:
LIKE A BROKEN TOY, Nadine had been left behind many times before. Abandoned. Forgotten. Easily replaceable. Destined to rot. So it was that when Allison Hargreeves left her and Vanya behind, Nadine barely batted an eye, even though the conversation had been far from saccharine. She was still coated in a film of outrage, though, her fists clenched as if they could somehow bat back the words Allison had spit at Vanya. She knew the woman was hurting, knew Allison just wanted to see Claire again, but pain and heartbreak both weren't excuses to tear somebody else down, and that was what Allison didn't seem to understand before spitting poison at her sister.
Louise had done that a lot. She was like a venomous snake without a rattle for warning, biting down and spreading her toxicity through Nadine's body. Nadine, who could stare at pictures of serpents for hours and replicate them into reality, duplicating every scale, every flick of its tongue, still found herself succumbing to the virus every single time. Perhaps it was because she believed, every single time, that this time, the snake would change. Like Snow White had constantly trusted the old woman outside her window, Nadine kept going back for more from Louise. She died a thousand times over, being rebirthed like a phoenix rising its way out of the ashes, but every time she perished, another piece of her soul withered.
All of this for a scrap of affection.
She recalled the first time she'd revealed her abilities to her mother. She'd been at the park with Louise, sitting on a picnic blanket and scribbling madly on a colouring book while her mother drank wine and watched others walk by. Back then, Louise adored Nadine's company, revelled in it, even. Back then, when Nadine was four, five, she was still Louise's miracle girl. Her angel.
Nadine's memories of that day were fuzzy—she couldn't remember if the sky was a clear blue or clumped full of clouds—but she did remember sitting up, her hair, which had hung just above her ears in unruly wisps, flopping as she did so. She remembered telling Louise she had something to show her, and replicating the image on her colouring book (a girl eating strawberries), blowing it up until it was three times the size. The lines were messy and uneven, and instead of looking real, the image hung in the air like a paper cut out, but Nadine had been so proud of her creation she'd looked at her mother with a big, toothy grin.
Louise had instead screamed bloody murder.
And that was the first time she'd been left behind.
Vanya went back home under the excuse of upcoming violin lessons. Nadine wasn't sure that was true or not (although it may very well have been), because after being pushed aside by family yet again, the woman just might've wanted to get out of her childhood home, get away from any more jeers or jabs she might have been subjected to. She told Nadine she could stay here as long as she wanted, which, on any other day, would've been an offer Nadine was totally up to, but today she was just considering heading back to her motel. It was obvious that she wasn't welcome here, and she was abhorrent to the possibility of running into Diego or Allison again. But it wasn't Diego or Allison she came across as she made her way to the front door.
