A boy about half my age drew on the walls with her pink lipstick—only for her to scream at him to stop. Another boy, a little older than Della, tossed his mug of milk from his booster seat, spraying the kitchen and his mother with white.
Two little devils, undeserving of love and protection and a life littered with possibilities.
They didn’t know how lucky they were.
They didn’t know how evil the outside world could be.
And then, there was Della.
Forgotten and alone on the very same rug where I’d placed her, her little shoulders sank almost to her tiny hips. She was a puddle of despair, and it tore me up inside.
Her hair was cleaner than I’d last seen but not sparkling like the two boys causing mayhem. Her cheeks were a little fuller, but her colour wasn’t perky, just blue.
Blue eyes, blue heart, blue aching sadness.
Left behind and unwanted, she sat sadly, silently, staring at the rug with no toys in front of her, no cat to cuddle, no fish to coo at, no love or friendship or company.
And I’d done that to her.
My feet glued to the kitchen floor as an axe cracked through my ribcage. I wasn’t much older than the boy running circles around his mother, yet in that moment, I felt like a man.
A man who’d made a terrible, heart-clenching mistake. A man who’d left behind a baby but had returned for a friend.
The woman said something, but I didn’t hear her. All I could hear was the eternal emptiness, the sucking vacuum, the crippling need to fix all the pain I’d caused little Della.
My backpack crashed to the floor, clanking and clunking, uncared for as I took my first step toward a future that would mean a life of struggle, hardship, unpredictability, uncertainty, and an unbelievable consequences.
She looked up as my newly booted feet stomped onto the rug.
For a moment, she stared at me blankly. Her mouth pressed together, her blue eyes distrusting, wary, and hurt.
But then a change happened in her.
A change that stole the sun and radiated from her every golden strand and poured from every infant pore.
Something physical slammed into my chest.
Something unmentionable and powerful and so damn pure, I’d never felt anything like it before.
I thought I’d wanted to be on my own.
And I did.
But I wanted to be on my own.
With her.
And then, she cried.
Her arms swept up, her lips spread wide, her joy manifested into tears and gurgles and a crawl so fast and lurching, she looked like a drunken crab desperate to reach the ocean.
I ducked on my haunches and waited for her to scramble into my arms.
And when she did, I knew I would never let her down again. I would die for her. I would live for her. I would kill for her.
In my ten measly years on this unforgiving, cruel, terrible earth, right there I found home, and no matter where we ended up, I’d always be home because I would never let her go again.
“I’m sorry, Della Mclary.” I hugged her tight, squishing her face into my chest, pressing a kiss to her strawberry smelling hair.
That would be the last time she’d ever smelled fake. The next time she’d have a bath, she’d smell like streams and grass and silver-scaled fish.
As much as I didn’t want to upset her by moving too swiftly, I also knew we couldn’t stay here. Behind me, the woman was on the phone, muttering to someone, whispering about me and Della, telling them to come quick and stop whatever I was about to do.
Because she knew what I was about to do.
Della knew too, and the biggest grin split her tiny lips, revealing equally tiny teeth that I’d only just noticed. At the supermarket, I’d grabbed a toothbrush and two tubes of paste. She’d have to share mine. She’d have to share everything of mine.
Yet there were some things she couldn’t share.
I stood upright, and she squalled in fear, wrapping fierce arms around my legs.
Ducking down, I patted her head. “It’s okay. I’m not leaving you. I won’t do that again. You have my word.”
As if she understood, her fear vanished, smothered by indignation and the glow of a pissed-off female. It was a look I’d seen multiple times on her mother as she’d swatted me with anything close by. It was surreal to have the same stare given in two completely different circumstances.
I chuckled.
I’d never chuckled before.
The mother hated me.
The daughter liked me.
I was stealing her for everything the Mclarys had stolen from me.
I would keep her, mould her, train her, turn her into the exact opposite of what they would have made her become, and I would change her name because she no longer belonged to them.
She belonged to me.
Yet something was missing…
I studied her, inspecting the brown trousers and grey long sleeve she’d been dressed in. I frowned at the micro-sized sneakers on her feet. She looked like a tomboy and was happy about it.