Abandonment is one word to describe Evelyn Ward's childhood.
Known as an orphan freak and paranoid schizophrenic, she was dragged through years of therapy after admitting to hearing whispering voices and seeing creatures and living shadows.
...
Zev knelt in front of his couch stroking my hair while I lay curled up, shuddering, tears leaking from my eyes. Shock tore down my walls, betrayal crumbled my foundations, tearing me apart.
I had used Jorden to pretend I was normal, to escape my life. I had never opened myself up to him because I was scared of getting hurt, yet somehow, he wound up in my heart anyway and now he had torn it apart.
Everything we had was a lie; an illusion that ripped me to shreds when exposed, and for what purpose? What was the reason behind destroying me? Why?
"Why?"
Zev's eyes swam with sympathy at my feeble question. "He's a demon. They live to cause pain."
But I couldn't accept that. There had to be a reason, a substantial reason for why he had chosen me to destroy. Maybe demons lived to cause pain, yes, they had caused me pain every day of my life but that lead to the question of why they targeted me with such intensity. What about me screamed for them to attack? "Why?" I repeated, determination steeling itself in my cracked, warbling voice. I knew Zev didn't have all the answers to every question but I had to ask anyway, had to grasp for that distant piece of closure.
His eyes danced away from my hard gaze and he was silent for a moment. His hand paused in my hair, and he brushed his thumb across my cheek, wiping away the tears. "Evelyn..." His voice faltered and he turned away to stare out the window. "I haven't been entirely honest with you."
The tattered remnants of my heart stumbled. How many knives through my back could I take before they stopped my heart altogether? I sat up and touched his shoulder, a silent plea for him to take it back, to let me believe he had never been anything but honest.
A guilty conscious met my tortured gaze, staring back from the depths of his green eyes. "It's who you are, Evelyn, why the demons are so attached to you. You aren't just some faerie abandoned in the human realm, and I should've told you sooner. You're the sole heir to this realm, the future queen of the fae. You were stolen as a baby and we've searched for you every second since but your presence was too heavily glamoured by the demons who took you. I'd guess he was there to get close to you and keep you hidden."
The oxygen escaped my lungs in a whoosh. I dropped my hand, reeling from the blow he had just dealt. How had he withheld something so important from me? Anger boiled away the shock, leaving a blazing pool of hurt behind. "Yeah, you should've told me sooner. Didn't you think that maybe this was important? Or did you just not bother because like everyone else I've ever known, you just didn't give a shit about me?"
"I didn't want to hurt you." His voice was soft, weighed down with remorse. "You had enough crap beating you down that I didn't want to add to it with something like that. I wanted to give you time to adjust to being a faerie before dumping an entire future as a ruler on your shoulders. I thought I could protect you. I'm sorry."
His hung head and sincerity echoed through me, bouncing across my damaged corners without eliciting any sympathy. I'd had enough of people lying to me, of keeping me blind so I wouldn't see them sharpen their knife. He hadn't meant to hurt me but the only thing on my mind was a single word; heir. If I was the heir, then a ruler was still in place, parents who were still alive. Alive and searching for me. "What of my parents? Do they know that you found me?"
He refused to meet my icy stare. "Your father died before your birth but I alerted the queen the moment I realized who you were. She was delighted to know that you're safe but agreed that putting too much pressure on you wouldn't help you, though she longs to meet you."
"You don't know me," I spat, "don't know what's good for me. How could you presume to keep something like this from me? I've spent my whole life wondering why I was abandoned. I'd have given anything to know that I have a mother who cares and you deliberately hid that from me."
"I'm sorry." His whispered apology barely registered in my head, drowned beneath the heartache assailing me.
I tilted his chin up, forcing him to look me in the eye. "Take me to see her. Take me to my mother."
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So what do you think of Zev's latest revelation? Should he have told her sooner? Or did he do the right thing? Do you think Evelyn is overreacting or is her anger and hurt justified?
And I'd like to give a huge shoutout to EllenaScott_ for the beautiful and amazing drawing of Evelyn up at the top. It's such a lovely drawing, and I still can't believe how perfectly it captures her emotions! Thank you so much! ❤️
