Heathers Requests/One Shots

Butterflies

Please comment requests! Short chapter. TW//Self-Hate, Internalized-Homophobia

Butterflies were some of the best creatures, Heather Lillian Duke decided from a young age. They were scientific marvels. They made a cocoon and after a couple months, they were something completely different.

They went from quiet and unassuming to beautiful and bold and brazen. Butterflies stood out, green against blue, a girl apart from the crowd.

Yes, she thought one middle school day, pinning butterfly enamel pins to her corkboard. Butterflies were amazing.

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Butterflies were okay, not horrible and not amazing. They didn't really matter to Heather Astrid Chandler, girl in red, shopaholic, queen of Westerburg High School.

They were pretty sure, and Heather could relate to that on some level. Looking pretty was one of her main jobs, and she couldn't shame an animal who was so similar to herself.

But at the same time, she played a necessary role. She held the school together. Without her, everyone would collapse. Butterflies didn't do anything. 

So no, butterflies weren't great. but they weren't terrible. So she watched a butterfly documentary while her parents were gone, while Veronica was out with her boyfriend, while Mac was shopping, while Duke was reading.

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Butterflies were the worst. They were just the worst. There was no explanation. Well, there was an explanation. One that she hated.

The way butterflies would grow in her heart whenever she looked at Veronica. The way they would flap around when her dark eyes glimmered with happiness, when she twirled around in her skirts and they would flap up just a little, when they were changing to go to the pool or something and she let her eyes wander across the room to wear Veronica was pulling a T-shirt over her bikini.

It was wrong. Heather didn't know how she knew, but she did. Maybe it was the way the Heathers would scoff at guys who walked too close together. They was her mom would give a wide birth to two girls holding hands at the mall.

So butterflies were the worst a symbol of how wrong she was. Yellow butterflies were the worst. When she saw them on the street she ducker her head, when they had a class trip to a butterfly zoo she faked being sick.

And she knew, she would never tell anybody.

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Maybe butterflies weren't that bad. Maybe they weren't so horrible.

Veronica was raving about some movie and she could feel butterflies dancing and swirling inside her at the sight of her amazing girlfriend. "And the butterflies were attacking her because she hit their queen, and it was weird, and- hey, what's that face? Do you not like butterflies?"

Before, prefect nights had been shopping or parties, drinking and smoking.

Now, they were classical music or show tunes, apple cider of expensive champagne stolen from the cellar. Apple pie and take out, braiding hair and make up and gossiping.

But most importantly, they were her amazing, beautiful girlfriend, navy blue on periwinkle, butterflies going like mad. So butterflies. 

Maybe, just maybe, butterflies could be something new, something beautiful. They could be pain and suffering, but golden rays of hope at the same time, glittering on her life.

Butterflies were amazing and horrible and okay and mediocre and amazing, butterflies were her scars and her hope, the light of her life and the darkest despairs.

"Butterflies are alright, I guess."

(546 words)