The Butterfly Garden: A Thriller

I don’t choose to be sad or pissed off, but I don’t exactly choose to be happy, either.

Sometimes the illusion of freedom, of choice, was more painful than captivity.

I liked the fairy tales. Not the watered-down Disney shit, or the sanitized Perrault versions. I liked the real ones, where horrible things happened to everyone and you really understood it wasn’t intended for children.

Justice is a faulty thing at the best of times, and it doesn’t actually fix anything.

. It’s about the eyes, really. If you’ve seen enough, you just look older, no matter what the rest of your face looks like.

“Some people stay broken. Some pick up the pieces and put them back together with all the sharp edges showing.”

“Not making a choice is a choice. Neutrality is a concept, not a fact. No one actually gets to live their lives that way.”

“My secrets are old friends; I would feel like a poor friend if I abandoned them now.”

He sighs and rubs tiredly at his face. This isn’t a debate either of them can win.

“Some of us have jobs to do,” he retorts. “You try dating when your job can call you in at any time.”
“Hanoverian is married.”
“He got married in college.”