𝐓𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐞 (ʳᵒᵗᵗᵐⁿᵗ; ᵈᵒⁿᵃᵗᵉˡˡᵒ)

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

— in modern ages —

ELOISE sat with her back perfectly poised and her face blank. Although she remained stoney to the outside, internally—the choir of a thousand different voices rang. Her thoughts were loud, and her mind was a messy, shattered, and terrifying place at the moment.

It had not always been this way, but in the days since the accident, it had grown ever more dark. The sound mostly occupying her mind was her family's screams. The pain in their voice as the fire raged out of control.

The smell of everything that she loved and held dear burning to ash. She remembered the brightness of it, she remembered desperately trying to crawl her way to where her mothers and brother were trapped.

She went unconscious before she made it even close to halfway. Too much smoke inhalation. It seemed that Eloise's fate had been sealed then and there. A tragic fate to die with the rest of her family at the young age of 16.

She wished that had been her fate, at least. To die alongside her mothers and little brother. Then she would not be feeling this guilt—this anguish that ran rampant in her veins.

And it was all because of that damn dog.

It was all because of her Saint Bernard, the dog that Eloise begged her parents to get for her birthday when she was 10. She named him Elton because when she was 10 she thought it would be cool to have a dog with a similar name to her own. That, and her parents loved the music of Elton John.

Elton was perhaps the sweetest dog anyone would meet. Large? Absolutely. But not a mean bone in his body.

He was the reason that Eloise survived the house fire, that dog pulled her from the house. Broke straight through the crumbling door and pulled the only human that he could find to safety. And she was grateful, but also very sad.

However, Elton was all she had left at the moment. Well, other than one of her parents.

Being raised in an LGBTQ home was a beautiful thing. And to Eloise, it was all she had ever known. She did not have Mom and Dad. No, she had Mom and Momma. She and her little brother, Heath, were adopted at a young age.

It was only Momma who survived the fire. Mom and Heath both died. Mom passed immediately from protecting Heath from the falling debris, and Heath later at the hospital from organ failure and severe burns.

Momma barely survived it—she was left in a coma with the doctors unable to tell when or even if she would ever wake up. Eloise held onto hope though, because Momma was strong and she would survive this. She had to.

She and Elton were the ones she had left.

Eloise could not even remember how the fire had started. One second, she was staring at her hand in amazement—for within her palm was a small flame. A flame that she had conjured and was controlling, or at least she was before it caught onto the living room curtains.

It raged out of her control before she could stop it.

It was all her fault. She was a murderer.

"Eloise!"

Eloise was snapped out of her thoughts by a strict voice, the girl blinking and shaking her head. Her newly short hair swung. The ends had been singed by the fire leading to the once luscious and thick curls to be cut at her chin.

Her gaze landed on the social worker in front of her.

Eloise tried explaining what happened to the cops, but no one believed her. Of course, her insane story of conjuring flames led to immense suspicion that she purposely started the fire and killed her family.

Alas, there was absolutely no evidence to prove this theory, and Eloise's claims were clearly not of a sane mind. Therefore, her explanation was labeled as a hallucination caused by the trauma of it all.

Eloise was in a pickle though. With her only guardian being currently unresponsive, Eloise had to be left in the care of someone else. Her grandparents were the obvious choice, as they live no more than 40 minutes away—in Santa Monica, to be precise.

Eloise and her family had lived in the suburbs of Anaheim.

So what was the problem? It made sense. Keep Eloise in her home area, live with her grandparents whom she saw every weekend, Elton was already with them, after all. Not to mention, she would be able to visit her only alive parent in the hospital. She could stay at the same school, keep her friends and her life.

It seemed to make the most sense. Plus, Eloise was not exactly desiring to leave California. She quite liked it here. Constant sunny skies, pretty beaches, and there was never a boring moment.

Well, the issue was that the courts thought it would be beneficial for Eloise to have some time away from where the incident occurred. Some time far far away. In New York City, where one of the best non-bordering reform schools in the country was.

Her auntie Taylor (Momma's younger sister), lived there too. And she was more than ecstatic to house Eloise—Aunt Taylor and her fiancé that was.

Eloise really did not know how she felt about it.

Sure, she loved her Aunt Taylor—she was always fun to be around. But Eloise only sees Aunt Taylor maybe once a year, it's not like flights to L.A. and New York are cheap. And yeah, New York City sounds cool. It is the big apple, the place of dreams, the city that never sleeps. But it was also cold and infested with rats and roaches and you had to take the subway to get everywhere.

It rained way too much and there was hardly a chance to get a tan there. Plus, the beach was nothing compared to Cali.

The East Coast sucked compared to the wild wild West Coast, and that was a fact. Nothing would change Eloise's mind.

But it was less about the possibility of Eloise losing her tan in New York and more about the fact that when she went, she would not be here for Momma. Her last parent, her mother, could either wake up (or God forbid she die!) and Eloise would be halfway across the country!

The advice of the social workers and courts was absolutely ludicrous! Bullshit, if you asked Eloise. And yet, it was already set in stone. She had to stay in New York City and attend that stupid reform school for at least a year.

"Eloise!"

Her attention was once again taken to the social worker sat in front of her. The social worker stared at her annoyed, but that quickly faded upon the extremely depressed look she received from the child.

It was silent in the office for a few moments. Only the L.A. traffic could be heard from outside, and through the window, the beginnings of an orange sunset were visible in the skies. If you squinted hard enough, one could spot Venice Beach in the distance.

Oh, Eloise would sure miss this.

"When do I leave?" The broken and miserable girl asked despondently.

The social worker tapped her pen on the desk, "tomorrow..."

And that was the beginning to the end of the life of Eloise Thomas.