The Shadow I Used To Be

Chapter 1

The sun is bright, too bright—beating down on the busy street where a young family walks hand in hand. Dianne, about seven years old, wears a frilly pink dress and skips ahead, her mother’s eyes never leaving her. The little one—barely a toddler, in worn jeans that are too big—stumbles along behind, clutching at her mother’s dress hem.

“Dianne, look—there’s the ice cream shop you wanted!” Their mother’s voice is warm, full of laughter as she lifts Dianne onto her hip. “Vanilla with rainbow sprinkles, just like you asked.”

The toddler tugs harder on the dress, looking up with big, hopeful eyes. “Mama… me too?”

Her mother glances down at her, and the warmth vanishes—replaced by a coldness that makes the little girl shrink back. “Not now. You’ll just make a mess.”

They cross the street. A car rounds the corner too fast, its horn blaring. Before anyone can react, the toddler steps into the road, chasing after a stray butterfly that flutters near the asphalt.

Her father moves in an instant—diving forward to scoop her up just as the car screeches to a stop. But he loses his balance, stumbling backward into the curb with a sharp crack.

The world slows down. The toddler is safe in his arms, crying at the loud noise. But her father’s face is pale, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. He tries to smile at her, to say “It’s okay, little one,” but his voice is weak.

“No… no…” Her mother’s scream cuts through the chaos. She drops Dianne’s hand and rushes to him, but as she passes the toddler still in his arms, her eyes lock onto the little girl’s face—and in that moment, the toddler sees something she’ll never forget: pure, searing hatred.

“This is your fault,” her mother hisses, even as people gather around, even as her father is lifted into an ambulance. “You did this. You killed him.”

The toddler’s tears mix with the dust on her cheeks. She doesn’t understand what she did wrong—she just wanted to see the butterfly. Dianne stands nearby, holding a cone of melting ice cream, watching with wide, confused eyes.

Later, in the hospital waiting room, the little girl sits in a corner chair, alone. No one talks to her. No one touches her. She can hear her mother sobbing in the next room, repeating over and over: “Why her? Why not her instead?”

A hand gently touches her head. It’s her grandma—her father’s mother—who’s just arrived. She pulls the toddler into her lap, wrapping her in a soft shawl that smells like cinnamon and flowers.

“Don’t you listen to that,” her grandma whispers, pressing a kiss to her hair. “You’re not to blame, my precious girl. Never, ever think that.”

The little girl buries her face in her grandma’s neck, and for the first time since it happened, she feels safe. But even then, she can’t shake the sound of her mother’s words—or the look in her eyes that made her feel like she was invisible, like she didn’t belong.

****

In their shared bedroom, sunlight streams through lace curtains, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Cassidy sits cross-legged on the wooden floor, her small hands moving carefully across a sheet of paper—strokes of red, orange, yellow forming a bright rainbow.

Dianne stands at the bed, running a brush through her long hair, a new porcelain doll in a pink satin dress propped up against her pillows.

“Mommy said this doll is for me because I got straight A’s on my report card,” Dianne says, her voice carrying a note of pride as she smooths the doll’s skirt with her finger. She doesn’t look back at her youngee sister.

The crayon pauses over the blue she’s drawing for the sky. “Can I… can I hold it?” Cassidy asks, her voice barely a whisper.

Dianne turns then, and her eyes are sharp—just like their mother’s sometimes are. “No. You’ll break it. You’re always clumsy.” She picks up the doll and sets it carefully on her nightstand, out of reach.

As a younger sister, she nods, pressing her lips together to hold back tears. A single drop escapes anyway, falling onto the paper and spreading into a pale blue stain across the rainbow. She folds the drawing in half, then half again, until it’s small enough to hide in her pocket.

Later that night, she slips into the kitchen, her bare feet cold on the tile. She climbs onto the counter, hugging her knees to her chest, staring at the spot where the rainbow drawing had been smudged. The light from the refrigerator door clicks on as Nana Felicia pulls out a tray of chocolate chip cookies.

“There you are, mija,” Nana says softly, setting a warm cookie in her palm. “I saw you hiding in here.”

The girl takes a small bite, the sweetness a small comfort. “Dianne said I’ll break things. Mom says I’m not as smart as her.”

Nana leans against the counter, brushing a stray strand of hair from her forehead. “Your sister doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s just learning how to be big—and sometimes when people feel big, they forget how it feels to be small. And you… you’re not just smart. You have a heart that sees things others miss—like how pretty a rainbow can be even when it gets smudged.” She winks, breaking off a piece of her own cookie to share.

Cassidy hugs her Nana tightly, her face pressed against the older woman’s shoulder. In that moment, the coldness from the bedroom feels far away.

***

She runs her thumb over the chipped porcelain of the doll’s head. She’d found it years after—Dianne had probably forgotten all about it, left it behind when she moved into her own room. Now it sits in her hand, a small, hard reminder of all the moments that built the walls around her heart.

The paintbrush on the floor catches her eye again. She sets the doll head down and picks it up, dipping the bristles into dark gray paint. On the canvas, she adds a single, bright rainbow peeking through the storm clouds—just like the one she’d tried to draw so long ago.

“I still see them,” she whispers to the empty room. “Even when no one else does.”