Five days had passed since Flash Sentry’s fateful ride-along with Officer Shining Armor that led to the discovery of a far-reaching criminal organization right in Canterlot of all places. That discovery led to Flash’s family temporarily taking in two of the organization’s victims, or at least, that was the original plan.
After Flash and his younger brother First Base finished setting the table with their guests, 13-year-old Honey Bee and 16-year-old Ocellus, Flash’s aunt Flare Burst and his grandmother Free Bird entered from the kitchen with the food. Dinner that night consisted of spiral pasta with chicken and vegetables and cheesy garlic bread. The sight and smell of the gooey, melty cheese made the boys’ mouths water.
After the family and their guests sat down, said grace together, and began eating, Aunt Flare gave everyone at the table a troubled look and sighed audibly.
“Something wrong, Aunt Flare?” Flash asked taking notice of his aunt’s facial expression and body language.
“Oh no, nothing’s wrong,” Aunt Flare replied, listlessly pushing her food around her plate with her fork. “At least, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”
“Oh, come on, hun, just tell them,” Grandma Birdie stated.
“Does it have anything to do with us?” Ocellus asked, indicating herself and Bee.
“Yes, actually it does,” Aunt Flare replied.
“Let me guess,” Bee sneered. “The social worker called and told you that there’s nowhere for us to go, so now, you’re stuck with us.”
“You act as if you can’t wait to be out of here,” First Base retorted back as he thought to himself, “Even though we’ve been nothing but nice to you the whole time you were here back-sassing everybody.”
Bee kicked his leg from under the table, causing him to cry out. Base considered kicking her back, but Flash gave him the look that older brothers used to keep their younger brothers out of trouble. Instead, Base glared at the yellow-and-black-haired girl and resumed eating.
“Actually,” Aunt Flare clarified, “Thorax asked me, Grandma, and the Chips to meet with him today, and he told us that Ms. Chrysalis had been recently arrested.”
“So, she WAS involved,” Flash gasped, dropping his fork.
“It certainly looks that way. Anyway, because of that, Thorax is taking over the group home. However, since he’s running it alone now, the home won’t be able to take in as many foster kids as it used to.”
“So, what does that mean for us?” Base asked before nervously taking a bite of garlic bread.
“Thorax was asking us and the Chips if maybe we can foster Honey Bee, Gypsy Scarf, Nightingale, and Robin when they find him on a more long-term basis,” Grandma finished.
“And?”
“And after discussing it, your grandmother and I agreed,” Aunt Flare answered.
“Oh, great,” Base muttered with the enthusiasm of a stale cracker.
“Of course, the two of us are going to need training, but once that’s taken care of, we’ll officially be Bee’s foster family.”
“That’s great, Aunt Flare,” Flash replied sincerely. “What did the Chips say?”
“Well,” Grandma smirked, “why don’t you ask Micro Chips? It’s really more his news to tell than ours.”
“Oh, by the way, Ocellus,” Aunt Flare continued, addressing the older girl, “the social worker called this morning, and she wants to meet with the two of us. She said she’s going to need you to tell her where your family is and if possible, how to contact them as well as how you got here.”
Ocellus visibly stiffened, and her hands began to shake.
“Oh, I see,” she replied.
“By the way, where are you even from?” Base asked curiously. “You haven’t really told us much about yourself since you got here.”
“Not that I care, but do you even have a family?” Bee retorted, which put her on the receiving end of Flash’s older brother look. “What?”
“Oh, I, I have a family,” Ocellus stuttered, sounding like she was about to cry. “I-it’s just, it’s just really hard for me to talk about them.”
“Oh, it’s alright, dear,” Grandma Birdie assured her. “You don’t have to talk about them if you don’t want to.”
Ocellus nervously fidgeted with her fingers as she replied, “Oh, it’s not that. I want to. You all have been so kind to me, and I feel as if I can trust you with what I’m about to say. It’s just…” She trailed off before continuing, “It’s just not easy.”
“Why don’t you start with the easiest part?” Flare suggested. “Like, where are you from?”
“Pittsburgh.”
Base nearly choked on the water he was drinking when she answered that.
“Pittsburgh?!” he exclaimed. “How did you end up all the way here from Pittsburgh?!” His brother elbowed him for his outburst. “Ow!”
“It’s a bit of a long story,” Ocellus continued. “My parents aren’t bad people. They didn’t mean to hurt anyone, especially not me. All they wanted was for me to have a better life than the one they had, so they told me to work hard, do well in school, and get a scholarship, so I can go to college.”
“Wait, your parents did this to you?” Base asked, looking at Ocellus in confusion.
“No! Of course not! Well, not directly or intentionally anyway,” Ocellus clarified, horrified by Base’s suggestion. “See, I liked school and did extremely well at it too, so everyone thought that after I graduated, my future was going to be set. The plan was to go to college, get a good job, and make enough money to get me and my parents out from our current life, but then my mom got pregnant, and we found out she was having twins. My parents both asked their bosses for raises, but none of the well-off people that my mom cleaned houses for would give her one. We didn’t think that was going to be a problem because my dad’s boss had agreed to give him one, but then he got hurt at a work accident.”
“I’m guessing that your dad’s boss wasn’t going to be able to hold his job for him in the time it was going to take for him to recover,” Aunt Flare inferred.
Ocellus nodded and continued, “With my dad out of work, my mom got really desperate, so she stole some of her employers’ jewelry and had planned to pawn them off for money. She got caught, her employers pressed charges, and now, she’s in jail for a few months. I had offered to get a job to help my parents out, but they insisted that I stay focused on school, so my dad had me sent to live with my mom’s brother and his wife until my dad got better and found a job or until my mom got out of jail and found a job, which ever came first. My dad put a lot of trust in them when he asked them to take care of me.”
Flash felt a pit form in his stomach. He was reminded of a cryptically worded sentence Ocellus had said on the first night she was here, and he did not like where this story was going.
“A couple of nights after I started staying over with them, my, my uncle,” she continued, shaking like a leaf and her voice breaking, “came into my room and…”
“He ‘played with you,’ didn’t he?” Bee finished for Ocellus when the latter trailed off. Ocellus nodded as she burst into tears. Aunt Flare got up to grab a box of tissues while Grandma put an arm around Ocellus and began rubbing circles on her back. Flash’s jaw dropped while Base looked at everyone in confusion.
“Wait, what do you mean her uncle ‘played with her’?” Base asked Bee, who could only look at him incredulously.
“I’ll tell you later,” Flash said to him.
“Bro, I’m almost fifteen. I think I’m old enough to know what this conversation is about.” First Base glared at Flash. Flash glared back but eventually relented. He leaned over and whispered the answer his younger brother wanted into his ear. Base’s facial expression slowly morphed from that of curiosity to straight-up disgust.
“Well, there’s a chunk of my innocence I’m never getting back,” he quipped when Flash had finished.
Aunt Flare returned with the tissues and gave some to Ocellus. Ocellus wiped her eyes as she continued to cry.
“Sweetie, we can stop there if you don’t want to talk anymore,” Grandma said to her. “It’s okay.”
“No, I can keep going, really,” Ocellus managed to say through her tears. “I don’t know how long he did that to me for, but one night, he told me that I could help my parents out of their problems if I went somewhere with him no questions asked, so I went with him. When I got to where he was taking me, a man took me from my uncle and gave him some money. I got dragged to this back room where another man, well, forced himself on me.” Ocellus stopped to cry some more. “This went on a few more nights when my uncle gives me over to someone that he only referred to as Mr. King. Mr. King hands my uncle this briefcase, shoves me into the passenger seat of a car, and handcuffs me to the driver. He told the driver to bring me to someone named Verko. The driver just nods and drives off. I couldn’t see any other way out, so I started begging her to let me go. She said if she did, she wouldn’t get paid, so I asked her why she was helping that horrible man. She said that she used to be where I was and that she got out of it by getting good at what Mr. King wanted her to do and getting Mr. King to like her. Then, she said, ‘I’m still his [censored], but at least now, I’m the alpha.’ She told me if I wanted to get out of where I was, I had to do what she did. I told her that I would never want to become like her, and she says, ‘Then, you’re going to die right where you’re at.’ Next thing I knew, she had passed me off to these guys in black jackets, and I was being forced to do the same thing my uncle was making me do. Then, I got put in the back of a truck of with a bunch of other girls.”
If one was to look at Flash’s face after Ocellus finished her story, one would not see much emotion on it. However, judging by how red his ears had become, he was absolutely livid.
“What kind of a person does that to a kid, especially their own flesh and blood?” he asked, forcing himself to keep his voice steady.
After that, no one said anything for a while. Aunt Flare finally broke the silence.
“Ocellus, I know this isn’t going to be easy for you, but can you tell the social worker everything that you just told us?” she asked. “She’s probably going to want to get into touch with your parents and maybe work something out with them so that you can be kept safe from your uncle and other people like him.”
Ocellus nodded. “I can do that.”
Aunt Flare then looked at Bee who had been oddly quiet the whole time. She had also been avoiding looking at Ocellus during the whole story.
“Bee” Flare called, getting the girl’s attention, “how did you know Ocellus had gotten, as you put it, ‘played with’?”
Bee averted her gaze. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Flash’s eyes widened as he realized, “It’s happened to you, hasn’t it?”
Bee angrily threw her fork at Flash and missed him, hitting the wall instead.
“Oh, shut up! You don’t know anything!” she screamed, getting up and storming upstairs.
The rest of dinner passed in awkward silence. Aunt Flare kept sharing looks with Grandma as if she was asking permission to share a dark secret. Grandma looked back at her and nodded.
Aunt Flare nodded back and said to everyone at the table, “Family meeting in the living room after dishes are done.”
The boys nodded in understanding, and everyone resumed eating quietly.
“Bee, come on,” Flash pleaded as he knocked on the locked door. “Aunt Flare wants all of us in the living room.”
“You said it was a family meeting, and last time I checked, I’m not family,” Bee retorted through the door.
“Well, either way, both she and Grandma think that you and Ocellus might need to hear what Aunt Flare has to say, and Ocellus is already in the living room.”
“Whatever she has to say, she can say without me there.”
Flash sighed as he threw up his arms and went down the stairs. Unbeknownst to him, Bee had unlocked the door and stealthily crept towards the stairs so that she was within earshot of the living room, her curiosity piqued.
“Well, she’s not coming,” Flash said to everyone else in the living room.
“Oh, it’s alright. I can tell her later,” Aunt Flare relented as everyone else in the house gathered around her. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to tell you boys about this, but with present circumstances, I think it’d be good for you to know.”
Flash and First Base shared a look before turning their attention back to their aunt.
“When I was in high school, I HATED being your mom’s twin sister, absolutely hated it,” Aunt Flare recounted to the boys’ surprise. “Bullies at school kept treating us as if we were the same person just to make fun of us. The other kids went along with it because they thought it was funny and because they didn’t know how much it drove us crazy. Your mom shrugged it off and put up with it, but I desperately wanted to break out of that. It started with little things like dressing differently, changing my hair every week or so, acting out, but it eventually led to hanging out with the wrong people, going to the wrong places, doing all the wrong things.”
“I don’t think I like where this is going,” Base whispered to no one in particular.
“Oh, hush up and let your aunt finish,” Grandma scolded.
“One night,” Aunt Flare continued, taking a breath every so often. Even after all this time, the memory was still hard to revisit. “One night, I had gone somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be and had a few too many drinks. An older boy that I knew approached me and led me off somewhere. Before I even knew what was happening, he was kissing me and touching me in places I didn’t want touched. I tried to pull away, but he was stronger and less impaired.”
“Uh, Aunt Flare,” Flash interrupted, his face turning pale and his ears turning red. “I know you mean well by telling us this, but can we skip over the next part if what I think happened actually happened? I’d really rather not have that image in my head.”
“Wait,” First Base realized. “You mean, he…?” Base couldn’t even finish that sentence because he couldn’t stop shuddering at the thought.
Despite the sordid nature of the memories she was revisiting, Flare couldn’t help but smile at her nephews. There was something oddly comforting about knowing that her sister had raised those two boys so well that just the idea of violating a girl disgusted them.
“Well, anyway,” Flare continued. “Once he had done the deed, I pulled myself up and stumbled towards the nearest phone and called our house. Your grandfather picked up, and all I could say was ‘Daddy, please help me.’ He asked me where I was, but I couldn’t talk well enough to tell your grandfather where to find me. Thankfully, everyone at school had been talking about that party, so your mom knew where I was. I was so relieved that I didn’t care how embarrassing it was to have your dad pick you up from a party. The moment I got in the car, I just collapsed on the seat and started crying.”
“This story gets worse, doesn’t it?” Base squeaked before nervously biting his knuckle.
“After I that, I wouldn’t talk to anybody about what had happened,” said Aunt Flare. “I wouldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I thought I was losing my mind.” Aunt Flare took another breath and continued, “I’m not proud of this next part, but I started sneaking your grandfather’s PTSD medication and taking it without anybody knowing. Back then, I didn’t know what it was for or what it actually did, but I had hoped that it’d help me forget that night. The other thing I didn’t know was that your grandparents kept very careful track of Grandpa’s medication, and since the only other people who could have touched it were me and your mom, they figured out pretty quickly that one of us had been sneaking it and possibly using it.”
“What happened next?” asked Ocellus. Unbeknownst to everyone in the living room, Bee had been scooting further down the stairs to get a better listen to Flare’s story.
“Well, my parents confronted me and my sister about it over breakfast one morning. Lighty had no idea what was going on. I was trying to act AS IF I had no idea what was going on, but the fact that I wouldn’t look anyone in the eye was giving me away, so I shoved the table away and ran out into the street,” Flare continued. “I felt so hopeless that I was going to throw myself in front of the first moving car that came my way, but before I could my sister, my soft-spoken, goody-two-shoes, physical activity-adverse sister, tackles me out of the way and pins me to the street by my shoulders. I was surprised that she had been fast enough to keep up with me, let alone strong enough to knock me to the ground.”
Flash and Base’s eyes widened as they both shared an impressed look with each other and then smiled.
“Anyway, I was still stronger than she was, so I was able to push her off, but by that time, my dad had caught up with us. He picks me up, carries me kicking and screaming to the car, and tells my sister to get in with me. Dad says to Mom, ‘Call the school. The girls aren’t going today.’ Then, he gets into the car and drives me to the psychiatrist’s office. Okay, back then, going to a shrink’s office had way more unfortunate implications than it does now, so much so that back then, the bullies also made fun of the fact that our dad saw one regularly. I begged my dad to not make me go, but then Dad looks at me with this angry look in his eye and says, ‘Young lady, I don’t know what’s wrong, but daggum it, if this is what I’ve got to do to get you out of whatever hole you’ve dug yourself into, then I’m doing it. Now, get out of the car.’”
As Flash was listening to the story, his mind went back to the time he had called himself a no-good kid. He remembered the look in Grandpa’s eyes when those self-loathing words left his mouth. Even as a kid, Flash could see his grandfather’s love and desire to protect him from the worst of himself underneath the anger. Maybe Grandpa had looked at Aunt Flare the same way when her life spiraled out of control.
“It took a few sessions,” Aunt Flare admitted, “but eventually, I finally told my family and the psychiatrist what had happened, and boy, was my dad mad! When I told him who had done the deed, he went straight to the boy’s father and demanded that the boy turn himself in.”
“It turned out the boy was our pastor’s kid,” Grandma interrupted. “When Lionheart and I told the pastor what had happened, he didn’t believe us. He didn’t want to believe us. He wouldn’t believe us. He told us there’s no way his son could have done the deed because his son was a model citizen. He even accused Flare of being a liar and a problem child and said that getting raped was her own fault.”
“That pastor’s obviously never seen how his son acted at school when the teachers weren’t looking,” Aunt Flare commented.
“Anyway, Lion and I were so outraged that a man of God would put himself and his own above doing the right thing that we had to change churches,” Grandma continued. “We tried to get the police involved to press charges, but they were no help at all. They said that if she didn’t say no, then it technically wasn’t a rape. I said, ‘How the blazes was she supposed to say no?! She couldn’t even talk!’ Then, they said that she shouldn’t have been drinking in the first place.”
“Well, in their defense, I really shouldn’t have,” Aunt Flare added flimsily.
“Oh, hush, you,” Grandma admonished. “That’s like saying people who don’t lock their houses deserve to get stolen from.”
“Wait,” Flash cut in, his face no longer pale but his ears still flaming red, “so, not only did you get raped but the guy who did it got away with it?”
“Yeah,” Aunt Flare replied with a sigh, “that’s pretty much what happened. The worst part was that he shamelessly bragged about it to the whole school. If your mom hadn’t been on my side through the whole thing, the shame and harassment that followed would have been enough to kill me.” She sighed again. “And to think, before that happened, I had resented her just for existing.”
Aunt Flare looked to the ground sadly, no doubt wishing that her sister was still living. The logical part of Flare’s mind knew that Lighty’s death had nothing to do with how she treated her sister as a teenager. However, a nagging, accusing voice in the back of her mind couldn’t help but tell her otherwise. Thankfully, her mother knew her well enough to know how to make that voice shut up.
“Lighty was just happy to have her sister and her best friend back,” said Grandma Birdie, jolting her daughter from her troubled thoughts. “If she could see what you’re doing now, raising her kids for her and doing what you can to help these girls you don’t even know, she’d be proud of you.”
“For what it’s worth, Aunt Flare,” Flash added with a small, reassuring smile, “as bad as all that was, we’re glad that you survived it and that you’re here now.”
“We’d be glad even if you never learned how to cook,” First Base half-joked, getting a laugh out of his aunt and the rest of his family.
“What happened to the guy?” Bee asked, revealing her presence from the bottom of the stairs. “Well?”
Aunt Flare and Grandma shared a look and smiled not because of her question but because of what her asking it implied.
Flare recounted, “It was the last year of my first tour of duty, and I had somehow run into him where I was stationed at. I was getting ready to take the next step in order to move up the ranks, and he was fresh out of boot camp. Apparently, he had gotten in trouble back at home, and his family made him join the army to straighten him out. Of course, I was a little nervous given our history, but a part of me hoped that boot camp had made him a better man.” She sighed and shook her head as if she was dealing with a stubbornly disobedient child. “It hadn’t. He cornered me when I was alone and tried to outmuscle me like he did the first time. Too bad for him, not only was I not drunk, but I had also been learning how to defend myself. Before he knew what had happened, I had him pinned to the floor, and I said to him, ‘Listen, your daddy and your so-called friends from high school aren’t here to get you out of trouble anymore, so I suggest you get your act together. If you cause me or anyone under my watch any trouble, you can bet I’ll make sure the CO sends you packing. Now, get out of here before I call the MPs.’”
“DID you send him packing?” asked First Base.
“No, but he eventually did get dishonorably discharged. I wasn’t there when it happened, so I don’t know what it was for.”
“You just gave him a warning and let him go his own way? That’s it?” Bee scoffed incredulously. “You had an opportunity to put your foot up where it hurts the most and make him pay for what he did to you. Why didn’t you?”
Flare gave a sad smile and continued, “Because while I was recovering from the deed, I realized that if I wanted to really get over what happened, I was going to have to forgive him, so I did.”
“After what he did? Just like that?”
Flash looked from Bee to his aunt and noted, “It wasn’t ‘just like that,’ wasn’t it, Aunt Flare? Forgiving hurt like getting a bad tooth pulled out, didn’t it?”
Aunt Flare blinked twice in surprise but ultimately agreed, “Yeah, that’s pretty much what it was like.”
“I know what it’s like to need to forgive people,” Flash added with a smile. “It took me a while to be able to forgive Sunset. I thought I had, but then I realized, if I really had forgiven her, then why did I want to pretend that the relationship never happened? Why did I want to pretend the breakup didn’t hurt instead of facing the memories as they really were? Why did just talking about it make me feel so dark inside? After all that, I realized that I had to show her to her face that I had forgiven her, so I did.”
“Wait,” Bee exclaimed, her confusion growing, “you used to date Ms. Sunset, and she actually hurt you so badly that you didn’t even want to remember that she did it?”
“Yeah, she did,” First Base recalled. “He was so hurt that he shut himself in his room and started playing ‘Open Wounds’ on repeat on full blast.”
“I have no idea what that is,” Bee replied, staring at Base in confusion before turning to Flash. “Just how can you go through that and find it in yourself to forgive the person who put you through it?”
“Still think no one here knows anything?” Aunt Flare slyly asked Bee.
Bee’s eyes widened as she caught the tone Flare was using on her. “You’re baiting me, aren’t you?”
“Is it working?” She smirked and folded her arms.
Bee tried to glare back at Flare, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to admit it, but her future foster mom had somehow earned her respect and trust. She opened her mouth to say something, but then, she closed it again, looking around at the other people in the room.
Flare followed her gaze and nodded to herself. She knew what she had to do.
“Man, what time is it?” she exclaimed, looking around the room for a clock before looking at Birdie, Flash, Ocellus, and First Base, “Shouldn’t the four of you be in bed already?”
“But Aunt Flare, it’s only 8:30, and it’s summer, so we don’t even have school tomorrow,” Base replied, confused.
Fortunately, Grandma Birdie had picked up on what Aunt Flare had been putting down.
She let out a fake yawn and said, “Goodness, I’m bushed. I think I’ll turn in early tonight. Good night.”
Birdie kissed each of her grandsons on the top of their heads before going to the room that she was sharing with her daughter.
First Base stared at the direction Grandma had left in utter bewilderment. “Since when does Grandma run out of energy like a normal old person?”
Like his grandmother and unlike his brother, Flash was also capable of taking a hint.
Flash got up from his chair, saying, “I just remembered that I wanted to call and talk to Twilight tonight. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
He rushed upstairs to his room and shut the door behind him.
Ocellus and First Base shared a look.
“I think she wanted us out of the room,” Ocellus noted.
Based made his mouth into an o shape in realization. “Well, why didn’t she just say so? Sheesh!”
Once the two of them were out of the living room, Bee quipped, “Is dropping hints a completely foreign concept to him?”
“No idea,” Flare replied with a chuckle, getting up and taking a seat next to Bee on the bottom steps. Her face became serious again as she turned and looked her in the eye. “So, now that we’re alone, why don’t you tell me what you wanted to tell me?”
Bee sighed and began her tale, “I was eight when I got placed with Ms. Chrysalis. Before that, it was me, my mom, and whoever Mom’s boy toy of the week or month was. I didn’t know who my dad is, and neither did she, and every guy she brought home with her pretty much ignored me.” She paused. “Except one.”
“The guy who ‘played with you’?” Aunt Flare guessed.
Bee nodded. “When I told my mom about it, she, uh, struck me and accused me of trying to take her ‘man’ from her. I was seven. I told her that I didn’t even do anything, and she struck me again and called me a liar.”
Flare nodded but didn’t say anything.
Then, she sighed and asked, “It’s horrible when the people you trust to protect you and be on your side let you down in a big way, isn’t it?”
“Is it ever,” Bee scoffed. “When I went into the home, I had a pretty low opinion about parents and adults in general. I kinda resented the fact that I was still dependent on them.”
“I imagine you would.”
Bee sighed again and subconsciously scooted closer to Flare. “Back in the home, I used to complain to the other kids about how no one wanted to adopt me, but the truth is that I’m not sure I even want to get adopted. If the mother who brought me into the world couldn’t be bothered to care about me, why would anyone else? What if getting adopted just leads to me getting hurt or let down again?”
Flare nodded again and put her arm around Bee. The gesture surprised Bee; even more surprisingly, she wasn’t resisting.
“Kid, I’m about to tell you something that sucks worse than a broken vacuum cleaner,” Flare said to her. Bee frowned in confusion. “The truth is that no matter what you do, you’re not going to be able to protect yourself from getting hurt or let down. Even the people who love you the most end up doing it without meaning to.”
“So, why do people bother loving at all?” Bee bitterly replied.
“Because it gives us something to live for,” Flare answered with a small smile. “I’m guessing that even after all these years, you still hate your mom and her boyfriend for what they did to you, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do, which is why I don’t understand how you can forgive the dirtbag who raped you. I know you said it wasn’t easy and that it hurt, but you still did it. Why?”
Flare undid her arm from around Bee and placed her hands on her lap. She looked straight ahead with a thoughtful expression and sighed.
“You remember what Flash said about forgiving other people hurting like getting a bad tooth pulled out?” said Flare. “Well, people get bad teeth pulled out because leaving them in makes everything worse in the long run. Forgiveness is a lot like that. Holding on to hate and grudges steals your joy and love, and you become a horrible, mean person from the inside out. That’s no way to live, especially for someone with her whole life ahead of her.”
Bee bit her lip, trying to raise up the protective wall of sarcasm and bitterness that she had built up over the years. However, as much as she loathed to admit it, Flare and her family’s kindness and care were slowly chipping away at that wall brick by brick.
“Besides,” Flare continued, “God, my family, and other people have forgiven me for the worst in myself, it’d be pretty hypocritical of me to refuse to forgive the worst in others, now wouldn’t it?”
“But,” Bee tried to reason, “there’s no way you’ve ever done anything as bad as raping someone or letting someone get away with raping someone.”
“No, but I have hurt and disappointed other people before, even the people I love. I have no way of knowing how badly I’ve hurt them or how deeply what I did affected them. For all I know, I could have put them through the worst pain they’ll ever feel in this life. Besides, forgiving someone isn’t the same as just letting them get away with doing something terrible.”
Bee looked at Flare, her eyes wide with surprise and her face twisted in confusion. “How did you know I was thinking that?”
“It’s what most people think of when they think about forgiveness,” Flare replied. “Anyway, forgiving the people who wronged you doesn’t mean that you just let them off to hook. It just means that you’re not holding what they did to you against them and that you’re leaving the consequences of their actions up to the rightful authorities instead of demanding that they get the retribution that you feel they deserve.”
“That’s why you let that guy off with a warning instead of just beating the life out of him,” Bee realized.
“Exactly.”
Bee looked away and sighed, “Can you keep a secret?”
“You mean a bigger one than the one about your mom and her boyfriend?” Flare quipped. Bee only replied with a stern glare. “Okay, okay, joking aside, I won’t tell anyone about anything we just talked about. I promise.”
“You better not,” Bee retorted. “Anyway, my secret is that I actually hate being mean. I hate the fact that whenever I’m around other people my default reaction is to assume the worst and never let anyone get close to me. It’d be oh so nice to be able to stop, but I’m not even sure I know how anymore.” She sighed again. “Also, I’ve been thinking about what you and Flash said about forgiveness, and what you said made a lot of sense, and I think I’d like to be able to forgive my mom and her boyfriend for what they did. I’m just not sure if I can yet.”
“I understand,” Flare replied, placing her hand on top of Bee’s. “You need time to really process and get over what happened, but when you’re finally ready to forgive, you can bet I’ll be right here for you.”
“At least until I age out of the foster system,” Bee scoffed. As soon as the words left her lips, she grimaced and turned to Flare apologetically. “Uh, sorry about that.”
“No, you’re right. That whole aging out thing is something that you, my mom, and I are going to have to think about,” Flare replied as she frowned thoughtfully. “We can do that tomorrow. Right now, I think we both could use some rest.”
“Sounds good to me,” Bee agreed. She got up and began heading towards the room she shared with Ocellus. However, to both her and Flare’s surprise, she stopped, turned around, and gave Flare a hug before going back up the stairs.