Chasing Butterflies (20 page)

I can’t believe Gabriel’s here. That he’s seen me. That he’s still hurting after all this time.
What must he think of me?

I wave to the new security guard who’s name I keep forgetting when I get to my apartment building and take the lift up to my floor. As soon I reach my apartment, I throw my bag into the bathroom and head straight for the fridge. I’ve lost my appetite, but I want to drink until I pass out. I don’t like the feelings that have come back to the surface. I don’t like
feeling
full-stop these days.

I’ve just poured myself a nice glass of white wine and taken the first delicious sip when there’s a knock at the door.

“It’s only me,” Heath calls through the door. “Just checking that you’re home safe.”

I smile as I walk toward the door. Heath is my cute neighbour that has recently decided he’s going to keep an eye out for me. Apparently, he’s realised that I work weird hours and come home in the early hours of the morning. I haven’t told him what it is that I do, but based on the conversations we’ve had, I think he assumes that I work at the hospital. I’m definitely not going to correct him.

I pull the door open and lean against the frame, holding my wine glass up to him. “I got home just fine, thank you. Would you like a glass of wine?”

He wrinkles his nose up. “No thanks. Wine is for girls.”

I laugh because I know he’s joking. “Oh, okay, tough guy. Beer?”

“Can’t,” he says with a sigh as he leans on my doorframe. “I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”

Good, because I’m actually in no fit state
. I smile. “And what time is early?”

“I’ve got to be at work at five.”

“What?” I turn around and look at the clock on the wall in my kitchen. “Why are you standing here if you’ve got to be up in three hours?”

He shrugs. “I can’t sleep until I know you’re home safe.”

“Heath…”

“I know,” he says, holding his hands up. “I know I’m weird, but I promise that I’m the good kind of weird.”

“I’m pretty sure I already knew that,” I say, smiling at him.

“So when are you going to let me take you out?” he asks.

“We’ve talked about this.”

He yawns as he pins me with his green eyes. “We have, and I told you then that I wouldn’t stop asking until you gave me a decent reason. Telling me you’re ‘complicated’ isn’t a good enough reason, just for the record.”

“It should be.”

“Well, it isn’t. Complicated turns me on.”

“Shush,” I say as I push at his shoulder. “Now go home and go to bed. You look disgustingly tired.”

“I can go all night,” he says through a yawn. “And I don’t mean that I can stay up all night.” He laughs and then says, “Although I can. And so can my little man, that’s actually not so little.”

“That’s good to know,” I say, giggling.

“Yes,” he says, standing to full height. “I’m a big, strong man, and I’ve got a big plonker to match it.” He puffs out his chest, then has a coughing fit and has to hold on to the doorframe for support.

“Plonker?” I ask. “I mean, I’m assuming you’re calling your dick a plonker, but where the hell have you got that word from?”

“I have many secrets, Yara. And one of them is that I’ve not always lived here.”

“Where have you lived?”

“Shut up and go to bed,” he tells me.

“Hey, that’s my line!”

When he leans in to kiss me on the cheek, I let him. Just like I do every night. “Goodnight, Yara,” he says.

“Goodnight, Heath.” When I hear his door click shut, I close mine and slurp the rest of my wine in one go.

As I’m pouring my next glass, there’s another knock on the door. I take a deep breath, hoping tonight isn’t the night that Heath chooses to try for something more than just a kiss on the cheek. He’s actually really hot and he seems genuinely nice, but I’m not ready to take things further with him. And I never will be.

I pull the door open again and then stumble backwards when I find Gabriel standing right in front of me with his hands on his hips. My breath catches in my throat as my eyes sweep over him. Like Jonny, he’s aged a little. His eyes seem sad and dull, and nothing like the lively swirls of chocolate that they used to look like. His hair is light brown with the same natural blonde highlights running through it, and there’s a deep tan to his skin that tells me he’s still doing outdoor work.

But those eyes
. He looks dangerous and calm at the same time. Controlled and careful. And I’ve learned the hard way that’s a lethal combination.

I can tell he’s still in there though. Deep down, he’s still
my
Gabriel. I know there’s a kindness to him that runs right to his core. I can see he’s sad and scared. I can tell he’s surprised too, and I can’t help wondering what part of me has surprised him the most.

My eyes move away from his face and down his body. He’s wearing a shirt that’s been left open at the collar with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’s a lot more buff than he used to be, and he was already buff. I let my eyes roam over him once more, savouring every second, and then I look away from him completely.

“How did you find me?” I ask.

I hear him take a deep breath, and then he steps right into my apartment and slams the door. His chest collides with my shoulder, and when I stumble into the wall, I feel his hand wrap tightly around my arm as he steadies me. “Those are really going to be the first words you say to me?” he growls.

I yank my arm out of his hand and look up at him. “I’ll admit they’re not as good as
‘All the blood’s probably rushed to your head by now. And you need to cover yourself up.’
  But I’m sticking with them.”

He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “I followed you.”

Gabriel

“You followed me?”

My eyes devour her.
It’s you. It’s really you.

Up close Yara is even more beautiful than she used to be. She’s enchanting and a little intimidating, even though I know her inside out.

No girl has ever come close to making my heart beat as hard as she did. No girl has ever made me love her as hard as she did. Then again, no girl has ever broken my heart like she did.

When my eyes finally meet hers, I see that Yara looks so frightened that it almost makes me forget the hurt I’ve felt for the last five years. Almost.

“Yes, I followed you. How long have you been living here?”

“Really?” she asks. She strides into her living room, standing on the other side of a coffee table, as far from me as she can get. “That’s really the first question you want to ask me?”

I shrug as I wonder why she feels the need to separate herself from me. “I want to know so much that I don’t know where to start, Yara. Is that what you want to hear? Would that have made this any less fucking awkward?”

“No,” she says sadly. “Of course not.”

I sigh, hating how drunk I am. I shouldn’t have had all those glasses of whiskey. My thoughts are jumbled and my vision is starting to blur. I hate that I already know I probably won’t remember half of this in the morning.

Maybe I should go. Maybe if I wasn’t so disarmed by how gorgeous she is, the awkwardness between us wouldn’t feel so shit. Maybe I should just tell her that I forgive her—that I don’t care why she ran. Maybe I should just bend her over the table she’s trying to hide behind and fuck her into next year, and then pull my trousers up and walk away from her, hoping she feels just a tiny slither of the hurt that I felt when she left me. Or maybe I’m just thinking a load of shit.

“I’m sorry, Gabriel. I’ve been sorry every single day since I left.”

I look at her then and feel like an arsehole for thinking about fucking her in such a distasteful way. Over the years I kept trying to tell myself that she didn’t purposely hurt me. She couldn’t have. I tried to convince myself that she must have really been mentally ill; it was the only explanation I could come up with. But then I remembered the lies she must have told me…the sneaky way she went behind my back to get that guy to lie for her and take her away. Yara clearly wasn’t the naïve young girl that I thought she was.

“I just want to talk,” I tell her honestly. “I don’t want to argue.”

She sighs heavily and lifts the glass she’s been holding up to her mouth. It’s then that I see a big, sparkling ring on her ring finger, and I hate her all over again.

“Arguing with you, especially after all this time, is the very last thing I want to do,” she tells me.

I glance at the door and then stare at the ring again. I want to ask her who he is. I want to ask if he knows her secrets. I want to know how long it took her to move on from us. “I should go,” I mumble. “I shouldn’t be here.”

I start to walk away from her. I can’t deal with this now.

“Wait!” she calls as she walks around the table. “Please. Don’t go, Gabriel. If you’ve come to clear things up, then let’s clear them up. I can’t live with it anymore either.”

I shake my head. “You look like you’re living with it just fine.”

“You don’t know the first fucking thing,” she says.

Her words are so venomous and full of anger that my head snaps up so I can look at her properly. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her swear before. “I know you left me,” I tell her. “I know you lied and acted crazier than you were. I know you put me back together again only to fucking tear me to pieces the second I gave you my heart.”

She flinches, and then I see tears wobble in her eyes. “I didn’t act crazier than I was,” she finally whispers. “I
was
crazy.”

“You weren’t. You were just a bit clueless or something.”
Clueless? What am I even saying?

She rolls her eyes at me. “I
was
taken to an institute. I stayed there for six months. You can check if you like.”
I shake my head. “They said it was my past that was making me the way I was.”

“You were fine,” I insist, but I think I’m really trying to convince myself at this point. “There was nothing wrong with you.”

“There really was. But there isn’t anymore,” she says simply.

I squeeze my eyes shut, hating how I know deep down that she’s telling the truth. I took her virginity when she was ill. I should’ve known better. I should have stayed away from her. “I’m sorry,” I finally say as I open my eyes. “I just thought you were naïve since Joanna kept you locked away like a little prisoner.”

“You were right,” she says, nodding. “I didn’t have a clue how to act my age. The only things I could go off were the books I read and some of the stuff I overheard other girls saying at school. I think my naïvety masked my actual illness to a point, but that wasn’t your fault either. You couldn’t have known.” She shudders and then looks toward her kitchen. “I don’t like using the word illness. I wasn’t ill. I was just struggling to cope with what I’d found out. My brain couldn’t handle what I’d been through. It couldn’t comprehend what my eyes had seen. The things I’d witnessed when I was a little girl were things no child should ever have to hear or see. I helped to bury a dead man when I was six years old, Gabriel.”

I stare at her and clear my throat. “I don’t know what to say,” I confess. “I don’t know why I came here. I just needed answers, but I have a feeling you’re not going to give them to me.”

She frowns. “Answers to what? You haven’t asked me any questions.”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I mean, I’m not sure.” I sigh and say, “I’m drunk.”

“I gathered.” She folds her arms over her chest and then walks into the kitchen with me following right behind her. “I’m hungry,” she announces, pulling some pasta from the fridge. “If I heat this up, are you going to eat some?”

I shrug. “I guess.”

“It might help sober you up,” she tells me.

I don’t say another word as I watch her pull some plates from the cupboard. While she’s preparing the food, I walk out of the kitchen and look around. Her apartment is absolutely huge. It’s even got stairs to a second floor where I’m guessing the bedrooms are. She has floor-to-ceiling windows that line the back wall of her open-plan living and dining room, and the kitchen is a little U-shaped room off to the side that has glossy cupboards and top-of-the-range appliances.

“Looks like dancing with your knickers on for men to drool all over pays pretty well,” I say as I walk back into the kitchen.

She smiles, but it’s forced and fake. I don’t like it. “Yep, I guess it does.”

Do you fuck them too? Is that what really pays for all this stuff?” I don’t know why I asked that. I guess there must be something else she’s doing to be able to afford living in a place like this, but I don’t want to know who she’s fucking. The thought of her being with someone else like that makes me feel sick to my stomach.

“Yeah, I fuck them,” she says, sounding as pissed off as I feel. She pours two glasses of water and then dumps them onto the counter. “I fuck them really good. I suck them too, and if they show me enough money, then I’ll let them stick it in my ass as well.”

I deserved that, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her think that her talking like that is bothering me. “I might have a spare tenner,” I tell her. “What will that get me?”

“Nothing,” she says, serving the pasta onto the plates. “I’m way out of your league.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve already fucked you, isn’t it?”

She raises her eyebrows at me as she hands me a plate of steaming tomato and cheese pasta and a glass of water. “You’ve changed,” she says.

I follow her as she walks to her glass-topped dining table. “Well, that’s like the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?” I reply.

She narrows her eyes at me as she pulls out two white placemats and then sits down, handing me a fork.

We eat in silence, the awkwardness of our stupid little spat hanging in the air between us. I watch her eat, and as she chews, she watches me. It’s like a game of cat and mouse. Only I don’t know which one of us is the mouse.

Yara

I know Gabriel is drunk and angry. I know he doesn’t really mean half the things he’s saying, and even if he manages to remember any of it in the morning, I know he’ll regret it. Even so, his words hurt. Not because of what he’s suggesting, because—if I’m honest—what I’ve actually done is far worse than sleeping with a few men for money. It’s
how
he’s saying it.

He’s looking at me and speaking to me like I’m no one to him. Like I was
never
anyone to him. And that hurts worse than his words ever could.

But what confuses me is that he seems to be hurting too. It’s been five years, and while I wake up every single morning desperately clinging to the dreams I have about him, I never once thought it would be the same for him. Maybe I’ve been naïve about that too.

“I’m sorry for saying that bit,” he whispers.

I look up from my food, surprised to see that he appears embarrassed. He drops his fork on the plate and roughly rubs his hands all over his beautiful face. “I’m sorry too,” I say. “I’ve never really let anyone stick it in my ass.”

His mouth twitches as he picks his fork back up. When he starts eating again, I shove my fork back into the pasta and shovel a huge bite into my mouth. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up spilling my guts to him. Gabriel’s the only person I’ve ever felt I could talk to. He’s the only one that knows my secrets…well, most of them anyway.

There’s always been something about him. I used to wonder whether it was just because he was the first person that actually spoke to me—aside from my Granny. And he looked at me…like really looked at me.

“Were you ever planning on coming back to Eleze?” he asks.

The fork freezes on its way to my mouth. I can’t go back there. I’ve thought about it. Wanted it even. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t go back and see the house where my secret is still buried. I don’t want to walk through the house where my mother was raped. I don’t want to enter the bedroom where my Granny died.

I decided five years ago that my life was going to be all about making new memories. The past was the past, and nothing I could ever do would change that, so I’ve learned to just accept it.

I shake my head at him. “No.”

He nods as if expecting that answer.

“I wish I could,” I confess, “but I just can’t. There are too many bad memories there for me. Too many things that I want to avoid.”

“Was I one of those things?”

“Yes.” He winces, then lifts the glass to his mouth and drinks while watching me. “Did you ever tell the police what I told you?” I ask.

He puts the glass down and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “No. I thought about it a few times, but I didn’t. I haven’t told anyone else…not even Jonny.”

I feel my shoulders instantly relax. I’ve kind of been looking over my shoulder for the last five years, wondering if the police would find me. “So he’s still there then? Under the patio?”

He nods and pushes his empty plate to the middle of the table. I put my fork down and take a sip of my water. I can feel his eyes on me the whole time, watching me. It’s like he’s waiting for me to just unload everything or give him some big explanation as to why I left. Maybe he deserves
something
. “I told you a lie earlier on.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “Go on.”

“I’m not completely cured,” I tell him, shivering as I say it. “I’ve still got secrets that haunt my every waking moment.”

“What did you do to him, Yara? You told me you’d killed him. You told me you helped to bury him, but I don’t know how you could have killed him. You were just a young girl. I know why, and I don’t blame you for one second, but why wouldn’t you tell me how you did it?”

When I glance at the clock behind his head, I see it’s almost three in the morning. “I need coffee,” I say as I stand up. I grab the plates and walk into the kitchen, dumping them in the sink. I place my hands on either side of it, and as my head drops forward, I take a couple of deep breaths.

“Thinking about it is hard,” I call out to him. “Talking about it is even harder.”

I hear him come up behind me and freeze when I feel the heat from his body against my back. “I know,” he whispers. He leans around me and flicks the switch for the kettle.

My breath catches in my throat when his arm accidentally brushes against mine. I gasp involuntarily and then I feel him completely freeze. I shut my eyes, trying to ignore my heart that feels as if it’s going to pound right out of my chest, and pull a big breath deep into my lungs.

I’ve craved his touch. I’ve often dreamt about him making my skin tingle just like that. I’ve ached for him for years. And now he’s finally here, within touching distance, I can’t do anything about it.