Chasing Away the Demons by Kayla Stiles (best ereader for comics TXT) 📕

and her stomach grumbles with anticipation. But she turns down the food. She has no desire to eat at the present moment.
     Instead, she turns away, says to her mom without looking at her, “Thanks mom. That’s really sweet of you. But I’m just not really hungry right now. I’m sorry.” She then trudges back to her room to finish getting ready for school.
     Five minutes later, Olivia’s walking out the creaky front door, Damon’s guitar in hand and backpack on shoulder. She kisses her mom on the cheek and then walks out onto the cold front stoop. Alone for the first time in a long while, Olivia walks the thirty minute walk to school. Her ear buds are in and her music is blasting. Ten minutes pass with no occurrence. Then, suddenly, a flutter of bright purple on the ground catches her eye. Looking down, she sees a red spotted purple butterfly lying on the concrete, fluttering helplessly on the ground, one wing appearing to be broken.
     “Oh you poor thing. Here, let me help you,” Olivia coos softly, stopping and gently scooping up the injured butterfly. Dropping to her knees, she rummages through her backpack with one hand and pulls out a small plastic bag. Poking a few small holes in it with the tip of her pocket knife, she gently lowers the butterfly into the baggie and closes the top, holding the bag in her hand.
     She continues walking to school, sneaking peeks at the butterfly in her right hand, amazed at her find. Arriving at school 10 minutes later, Olivia goes straight to her Forensics teacher. She knocks on the door and waits patiently as Ms. Freeman opens the locked door.
     “Well hello there Olivia. What can I do for you?” Ms. Freeman asks.
     “Do you have anything to put a living specimen in?” Olivia replies.
     “Why yes I do. I have plenty of jars and some cheesecloth that can be put over the top to keep the specimen inside the jar without killing it. May I ask what you need it for?”
     Olivia holds up the injured butterfly and says softly as Ms. Freeman gasps and takes the butterfly gingerly in her own hands, “I found it on my way to school. Its wing is hurt and I was hoping to take it hope and help mend it.”
     “This is amazing Olivia,” Ms. Freeman remarks. “I will most certainly help you with this beauty.”
     “Thank you,” Olivia says happily.
     Ms. Freeman goes to her glass cabinets and pulls out a small jar and some cheesecloth. Gently, she eases the butterfly into the jar after removing it from the bag and uses a rubber band to hold the cheesecloth in place over the top of the jar.
     “Here you go,” Ms. Freeman says, handing the jar to Olivia.
     Olivia looks at the jar and asks softly, “Is it alright if I keep her in here and pick her up after school?”
    Ms. Freeman looks at Olivia for a second and then says, “Of course you can. I have no problem with that.” She gives Olivia a warm smile.
     Olivia gives Ms. Freeman a small smile back and then says, “Thank you. I’ll make sure to come straight here after 5th period.”
     “Alright dear. See you then.” Ms. Freeman gives Olivia another small smile.
     Olivia tells her to have a nice day and walks back out of the room, back into the hallway.
     All during 1st, 3rd, and 5th period, the only thing on Olivia’s mind is the strange finding of the red spotted purple butterfly. She can’t concentrate on her quadratic formula lesson in algebra 2, can’t keep her balance in yoga. Thankfully, her last period of the day is creative writing and she doesn’t have to do anything in that class. So she has all the time in that class to sit there and space out, her thoughts a mile away.
     Suddenly, the bell for lunch rings. Olivia does not feel up for going to lunch today, so she just gets up and goes straight to Ms. Freeman’s classroom to pick up her butterfly. Ms. Freeman is waiting outside of her room for Olivia, already holding the jarred butterfly in her hands. Olivia takes the butterfly and quietly thanks the teacher. Quickly, she turns around and walks back down the hall and out the doors to the courtyard. She breathes in the fresh air and feels the warm sunlight on her face. She breathes deeply and sighs as the cool breezy air rushes in and fills her lungs. Suddenly, she hears a familiar and heartbreaking voice call her name from across the courtyard. Terrified, eyes already filling with tears, Olivia looks up and sees Damon striding over to her quickly. Quickly, she turns to her left and begins to speed walk to the gates that open up to freedom. She’s practically running when someone suddenly grabs her arm and pulls her back. Looking up into the gorgeous face of her ex lover, Olivia forces herself not to cry as Damon opens his mouth to speak.
     “Don’t even try telling me that you’re sorry,” Olivia says crudely, before Damon even has a chance to get a single syllable out. “You left me high and dry and didn’t even look back as you left me there to cry alone. I’m not going to be hurt again by you telling me that you’re sorry, just to up and leave again.”
     “Olivia-” Damon begins to say. But Olivia cuts him off again.
     “No! You hurt me more than you have ever hurt me in any of our fights, Damon! I don’t think you realize how much you killed me inside.”
     “I know, but I want to tell you that-” he begins again.
     “No! I don’t want to hear it! It’s probably just something to make me hurt even more!” Olivia wrenches her arm free of Damon’s grip and shouts at him, “I hate you after what you did to me!” Then she whirls around and races to the open gate, jarred butterfly in hand. Reaching the gates, out of breath, Olivia stops and drops to her hands and knees, tears streaming from her eyes, breath coming in short gasps. She sobs about what she just did, how she just treated Damon, what Damon did to hurt her so much, but most of all, she sobs at the thought of what she just screamed at the man whom she loves. She sobs at the fact that she just told the man that she loves that she hated him.
     Damon walks by, head down, and says softly, almost whispers, “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I know now that it was the wrong thing to do and apparently I’ve lost you for good, since you apparently hate me now. I’m sorry.” His voice is rough and husky. Olivia can tell without looking at him that tears are filling his own eyes.
     As Damon passes by her, Olivia holds her stomach, as though hoping to hold herself together, and folds over so her forehead touches the concrete sidewalk, tears gushing from her eyes like a broken hose set on full blast. She sits like this for several minutes, just sobbing her eyes out. She’s so glad that most of the students have a 7th period. Otherwise, she’d be having a lot of people asking her questions at the moment.
     Ten minutes pass and Olivia finally finds the composure she needs to be able to walk home. Taking a deep breath, she rises to her feet and picks up her butterfly. Slowly, she begins the twenty minute walk home. As she arrives at the house, she quietly opens the front door and tiptoes to her room at the other end of the house. Silently closing her bedroom door behind her, Olivia drops her backpack on the floor at the end of her bed and plops onto the soft mattress of the queen size bed, looking intently at the butterfly in the glass jar that she holds in her hands.
     Interest peaked, she hops off the bed and goes to her laptop on the dresser across from her bed, right in front of the window. Logging on, she searches “red spotted purple butterfly” and begins to discover things about the critter. She’s shocked that she found the butterfly where she did, considering it’s a woodlands creature. Its habitat is mostly woodlands and forest edges. It’s a mimic of the poisonous Pipevine Swallowtail. Also, she discovers that after it becomes an adult, it only lives for four to five days. This last fact saddens her even more than she’s already saddened. But then she gets an idea.
     Going back to the butterfly, she turns the jar around so she can get a better look at the wings of the butterfly. The left wing is definitely injured. Going back online, she searches ways to help the butterfly heal. After a few minutes, she finds a remedy. The site tells her to put the butterfly in a glass and put it in the fridge for 10 minutes at the maximum because that will naturally calm the butterfly down. It then says to dim the lights or work in the evening so the butterfly is still calm. Scanning through all the other material, Olivia realizes that all you basically have to do is hold down the butterfly with tweezers and fix the wing with adhesive.
     One hour later, the butterfly sits in its jar, perfectly content in its slumber as the adhesive on its wing dries. The process was long and hard but in the end, Olivia achieved her goal of healing the butterfly. A couple days pass and the butterfly seems ready to fly off again. Olivia, beaming and proud at her achievement, takes the butterfly outside and opens the jar up, gently putting her hand inside and letting the butterfly climb on her extended finger. Gently, Olivia places the newly healed butterfly onto a rose bush leaf and watches in wonder as it walks a little and then takes flight. She watches the majestic creature fly up into the sky, the sun shining through its glittering wings. A tear of hope and happiness comes to Olivia’s eye as she stands there outside, watching this butterfly’s dance of thanks. Suddenly, she knows just what she needs to do.
     “Fly away child of the Goddess. Fly away and be beautiful,” Olivia whispers softly.
     The next day, Olivia goes through school, keeping an eye out for Damon the whole. The bell signaling the end of 5th period rings and she goes to lunch. 35 minutes later, she is going through the 300 building and heading to the double doors to go outside. Everyone else is either in class or leaving to go home. And yet, looking out of the windows in the doors, Olivia can see a pair of black clad legs sticking out of the stairwell leading up to the second floor. Stepping out into the bright sunlight, Olivia begins walking out to the gates opening onto the front lawn. Suddenly, she stops as she hears someone sobbing her name. She turns to her left and sees the owner of the black clad legs, her lover Damon, sitting on the steps, sobbing into his open palms. Olivia goes over to him and sits beside him on the steps. She puts an arm around his shaking shoulders and lays her head on his shoulder.
     He looks up, surprised, and whispers, face all tear stained, “Olivia?”
     “Yeah baby?” Olivia says softly, stroking away Damon’s tears with her thumb.
     “You-you came back? I-I-I thought you hated me?” Damon murmurs.
    “I could never hate you. I