# Chapter 4: The Butterfly, the Leash, and the Girl Who Fell Outside Herself
Hello everyone, it's me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 4 of "Forget You Saw Her free digital audiobook." This is the chapter where a birthday wish turns into a nightmare, where a pair of butterfly earrings becomes a tiny symbol of hope in a house full of danger, and where Andrea discovers that sometimes the worst monsters are waiting at home, wearing the face of someone who is supposed to protect you. So take a breath, stay close, because this chapter does not flinch.
The chapter opens in Ogden, Utah, with Andrea standing at the entryway, not closing the door behind her. She shrugs off her backpack and red sweatshirt, sets them on the linoleum, and tilts her head to listen. In her hand, she clutches the butterfly earrings Paloma gave her like a lucky charm. She is dying to try them on. Her ears were pierced years ago, but she isn't sure the holes are still open. Then—Bam. Metal strikes metal from the kitchen. The sound startles her so badly that she drops the earrings. One clatters out of sight beneath the side table near the door. She swallows, mouth dry, and bends to pick up the lone earring at her feet. She does not move closer to the kitchen. She knows Bunny isn't home yet. Bunny works at the dairy plant until five every weekday, without fail. Which means it is Dennis in the kitchen.
Andrea hates when this happens. Dennis is a general contractor, so his work comes in waves. Sometimes he is on a job site from sunrise until long after dark, and that is fine with her. Sometimes—the best times—he oversees jobs in Logan or Provo and is gone for days. But sometimes, like today, he gets home before noon and starts drinking. Those are the worst days. She eases the front door shut, her arms popping goosebumps despite the stale, muggy air inside the house. Bam. The oven slams shut, followed by a quieter thump, like Dennis has banged his fist against it. "Worthless piece of shit!" Andrea takes a step toward the stairs, pretty sure he hasn't heard her come inside. If she can make it to her bedroom without him noticing, there is a good chance he will keep drinking and maybe settle down on the couch to watch *King of Queens* until Bunny gets home. As excited as she is about that Baskin Robbins cake, she would gladly chuck it into the trash in a second if she could guarantee he would do that.
She sets her foot on the first carpeted step, careful to place it in the middle where it won't creak. Thump, thump, thump. Dennis's footsteps move across the kitchen. Shit. She hustles, taking the stairs faster—too fast. She hits the fifth one just shy of dead center, sending a loud creak into the silence right as his footsteps stop. She clutches the lone butterfly tighter in her hand. "Andrea? You sneaking around out there?" She freezes, hoping that if she doesn't answer he will go back to whatever he is making. She can smell the fuggy, burnt odor the oven gives off whenever it heats up, from food crusted to the bottom. The same way the whole house smells, but stronger. "Andrea?" Dennis calls again, and the still-raw marks on her arms prickle like a warning. More footsteps. She takes off, dashing the rest of the way up the stairs. She is too slow. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Dennis's bulky frame move into the living room right before she reaches the top. He sees her see him.
"Sneaky," he drawls, but Andrea knows better than to accept the casual tone. "Here I am, going out of my way to make you an afterschool snack for your birthday, and you ignore me when I say your name?" She forces an apologetic smile and shrugs, as if to say, *I guess I'm just that stupid*. "I—I didn't hear you. I'm sorry, I just needed to get something from my room—" "You damn well did hear me," he interrupts. The drawl fades, scraped away by a harder edge. "Do you know what my daddy would've done to me if I disrespected him like that?" When she doesn't answer, he snaps, "Get down here. March." Tears sting her eyes, but not because of his words. It is because he is reaching for his back pocket. She can already imagine the slap of leather hitting her stomach again, when the bruises are still so new they haven't even turned yellow at the margins yet. Also because it is her birthday, and all she wants is to disappear into her room and admire her new earrings until she can eat those silky purple roses and the creamy rocky road ice cream of the cake from Baskin Robbins.
"Just leave me alone today!" she bursts out. Dennis stares at her in shock as one hand moves toward the pocket where he keeps the coiled dog leash. She has never talked back to him quite like that before. She knows instantly she has just made everything much, much worse. In desperation, she glances sideways at the portrait of Jesus hanging in the hallway. He wears a white robe and kneels in front of some sparrows at his feet. From where she stands, and the way he is positioned in the painting, it looks like he has his back to her, blissfully unaware of her predicament. He always seems to be facing away when she needs him. Their family hasn't been to church since she was in elementary school, and it has been just as long since she prayed, but suddenly she finds the words she memorized as a child running through her head. *Dear Heavenly Father, please protect me.*
Dennis blinks, his face turning a deep shade of red, his jaw ticking as he chews on the words she has just hurled at him. Then, faster than you would think a man his size could run, he bounds up the stairs, taking them two at a time, dog leash now hanging from his right hand. Andrea freezes. Then, before he reaches her, she takes off running. That is a mistake. Because if she hadn't tried to escape, he might have only added a few more red-and-purple stripes while she cowered in front of him like he wanted, paying the price for her "disobedience." Instead, he dives forward and darts out a hand to catch her shirt, yanking her back as she lifts her foot to run for her bedroom. She loses her balance and tilts backward. The butterfly flies out of her hand. For a second, she is sure she is going to fall all the way down those stairs. So she arches her back like a cat, in a desperate attempt to keep that from happening. That is her next mistake.
Instead of tumbling backward down the stairs like she thought she would, her body slams sideways. Her left temple connects with the sharp, square corner of the banister. The ugly beige carpet flashes bright red, like an awful fireworks show. The pain wells up with so much force she can barely stand it, then goes strangely dull. She crumples to the carpet. With her vision still flashing red, she can only feel, rather than see, Dennis hovering over her. His awful wheeze gets louder as he leans closer. Blackness curls at the edges of her mind, and she knows that if she doesn't fight it, she will be unconscious in about half a second. Every cell in her body resists the idea of slipping away into oblivion while Dennis is beside her.
"Andrea," he rasps, flat and low, like maybe she is just faking being hurt. She tries to blink, to clear the cotton-wrapped pain in her head and the flashes of light behind her eyes. She tries to talk, but the only thing that comes out of her mouth is a warm string of saliva and a word that might have been, "Don't." Dennis blows out a breath, like air going out of a big balloon. "Goddammit, Andrea," he mutters, sounding suddenly afraid, even tearful. She thinks he is going to put down the dog leash and help her up. That maybe now that she is hurt—hurt bad—all the rage will go out of him, and they will still get to eat that Baskin Robbins cake tonight when Bunny gets home. That is not what happens.
"Why'd you have to go and do that?" he wheezes, anger creeping into his voice, like she has done something to him. She tries to answer, but all she can do is moan. "Hush up. Shh, shh. The more you fuss the worse it'll be," he whispers, and his voice is next to her ear all of a sudden, and that dog leash is snaking around her neck. "You don't gotta suffer much more." She wants to scream, but now she cannot even breathe. For a few long, agonizing seconds, the pain in her head and the pain in her throat turn up to eleven, and it is so awful she cannot stand to be in her body anymore. But then, all at once, her vision clears and the pain and pressure let go. She can see. She can scream. And she can move. Like an arrow out of a bow, she scrambles to her feet as fast as she can get them underneath her. "Stop, stop, please, I'll be good!" she begs. The thing is, though, Dennis doesn't even notice. Because he is still choking that limp, seventeen-year-old girl on the stairs. The girl with an ugly black bruise at her crushed left temple and a line of saliva running down her cheek. The girl who was me.
## Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
This chapter is a gut punch from the first metallic bang to the final, devastating reveal. The tension is built with terrifying precision: the earrings, the creaking stair, the burnt smell, the dog leash, the portrait of Jesus facing away. Every detail tightens the noose. Andrea's voice is so sharp and real that her fear, her small rebellion, and her desperate prayer all feel achingly human. And then that ending—the out-of-body shift, the realization that she is watching her own body being choked—is one of the most chilling cliffhangers I have read in a long time. It is brutal, sad, and impossible to forget.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.9 / 5 Stars
## Next Chapter Prediction
I predict the next chapter will force Andrea to confront a horrifying new reality: she is no longer inside her body, but she is still in that house. Dennis will likely panic as Bunny's return home draws closer. He may try to hide what he has done, stage an accident, or move Andrea's body before anyone sees. Meanwhile, Andrea—now unseen, unheard, and perhaps trapped between life and death—will witness everything and be unable to stop it. The missing butterfly earring beneath the side table may become a crucial clue. Paloma may sense that something is wrong, and Bunny may walk into a home that looks normal on the surface but has become a grave. The title "Forget You Saw Her" makes me wonder if someone will soon see Andrea when they shouldn't—and whether forgetting her will be the only way to survive.
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