Love is a Butterfly

Chapter One- Cracks

Chapter One: Cracks

"What do you think the goodnesses look like?" Cedar, in the softest voice he can manage, says through clenched teeth.

"They look like mercy. They... they look very different from our parents, my darling Cedar."

Mari wraps the bandage round and round Cedar's arms. Her fingers graze the delicate skin, marking her hands with red, with rage and with pain. She continues to wrap, ignoring the red that begins to seep through new bandages, that seeps into her untouched skin. She ignores the whimpers of her twin brother, continuing to wrap his arms in what bandages she has left. She imagines wrapping his arms in love, images the goodnesses above coming down and blessing mercy upon his skin. She imagines scars that no seven year old should have fading away.

"Do they love me?" Cedar asks suddenly, pleadingly.

Mari swallows hard, soft eyes coming to meet her mirror. "I think they love as best they can. They love through half hearts and muted thoughts, though Cedar. They do not love wholly; they love through cracks."
"I am cracked." Cedar looks to his cracks, to the scars littering his young skin.

"They will fade."

"Not in here." With gentle hands he taps his temple, and with shaky fingers he moves to his heart. "They've scarred my soul, Mari. These scars have rooted in my heart. These scars will not fade."
And Mari understands. She too has scars, scars no one can see that have infected her brain and plagued her heaving soul. She watches as Cedar, with the gentlest hands she'll ever know, drags his fingers to her chest. He looks with empty eyes to where he points, to her heart and to her soul. She breathes in and out, eyes raised to meet her brother's, her mirror, her parallel. She watches the thoughts come to life in his head, she watches with wonder as he continues to breathe.

"I wish they did not pain you so. I wish it were only me. I wish all the scars littered my skin; I wish I could not see the cracks in your chest." She smiles weakly, looking down to her chest.

She can see the scars. They are not really there, they are invisible, but to them they are the most real things in the world. A crack, from her collarbone to her belly button. A thinly drawn one, made by hands of nurture turned to hands of steel. She can see it rise and fall with her shaky breath; she can see the cracks spreading from the cut that was made so long ago. Her eyes fill with water as she watches Cedar's hand drop, and her heart misses a beat as another crack begins to form, jutting for her soul.

Her weak hands grab Cedar's quickly as she looks away from her growing evil. "I wish I did not love them"

"I wish they did not love us." Cedar whispers the words, as if saying them too loud would be too much, too real. "Am I wrong to wish their love away?"

"I do not know." Mari whispers against his hands, his fingers cold and sweaty and intertwined with hers. "But if you are, so am I."

"Then let us be wrong together." Mari chuckles at her brother, her lips pressing gently to his knuckles before she pulls away to be greeted by the most heavenly sight on earth.

She smiles back at Cedar and says, "Let us go down together."

***

Mari doesn't sleep. She never does on nights like these. Nights when all Cedar can think about are scars and whispers of death and what it's like to float. Mari knows what it's like to float, but her words stay trapped behind her lips, dying on her tongue before they can come to fruition.

Cedar is asleep in her arms, head on her chest, on her arm, his breath hot against her collarbones. She runs her fingers through his hair, absently, lovingly, thoughtlessly. She lays there with wishes in her mind and prayers tasting her lips. She imagines her arms are a fortress, wrapping her brother in safety and love. She imagines gates of fire around them, a fire only she and her brother can walk through, for they are worthy and others are not. She imagines what the world would be like without evil, and she imagines what Cedar's skin might look like without past memories written along his arms and legs.