How to Catch Butterflies (2 page)

“Dave mate, you’re a lucky fucker. Not only is she gorgeous and the figure of a pin-up girl, boy can she can cook.”

How they envied him and he knew it. She had made it a lovely home for them. She was proud of what they had achieved.

Their house was a typical terrace, which had been converted into two flats; it had two bedrooms, one of which he used as his gym. She had given the front ‘curb appeal’, with the two potted planters, and a neatly trimmed road facing evergreen hedges. She even paid for a gardener to do it, so that it was done properly. They shared a communal hall with people upstairs. Their flat was housed on the ground and first-floor levels.

Their entrance door was on the ground level, which led into a small hallway leading you directly to the medium-sized period-featured sitting room. She had her couch positioned in the bay window. It had a beautiful old-period fireplace which didn’t work, but she didn’t care as it looked lovely. She had asked the Landlord if they could paint when they first moved in. He said that he didn’t care as long as he didn’t have to buy the paint and do it, and to include no gaudy colors.

After that it had taken her nearly a month to have the whole place done exactly how she wanted. Only three months earlier the landlord had said he
wanted to sell
. He would give them first refusal and at a good price. She had been saving ever since for the deposit.

She had only recently done the floorboards; they were stripped and varnished over one weekend. Nothing would have been done if it had been left to David. The lads had been a real godsend. They were brilliant; they helped out with the majority of the work that was done to the property.

She loved her kitchen: ‘
a kitchen was the heart of a home’
she would say. She even painted the kitchen cupboards in a natural cream gloss; it had totally brightened the room. When they had first moved in, it had been an old yellow aged pine which was so dated. Rebecca’s spare time was lovingly spent painting and doing up the place.

It had paid off. It looked really fabulous, she was very proud of it and its contents. She would rush home from work preparing meals, tidying, just generally playing house. And she had her small garden, which was mainly paved except for a small area of grass. It had branches from the neighbor’s ash trees, which hung over the fence into theirs. Rebecca would hang bird feed on those so she could watch the birds feed from the kitchen window as she washed up. It wasn’t much but it was home and she made it a lovely one.

Yes maybe they should have ended it many times; there were certainly a sufficient amount of countless opportunities. They had actually finished a few times over the past seven years for a week or so. Or a month tops. This was due to his cheating in some form or another. But stupidly Rebecca always took him back.

You would have thought that his constant cheating would have been enough to finish it once and for all, but alas no. I suppose if she had to be honest with herself she was frightened. She was frightened of the big bad world that was out there.
‘Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t’
she thought. Especially when she looked at who their friends were,
his
friends.

Not one of hers. She had let hers go over the years. Even Lucy, out of all her friends..... It was Lucy, who she missed the most. David knew the friendship, the bond they shared. If Lucy had been around, he would have lost his control on her, as she would never have stood to see the way he treated Rebecca. She would never have held her tongue and watched quietly. That’s why she had to go.

Lucy and Rebecca had met on their first day of secondary school. Together they were double the trouble. Both were each gorgeous looking girls. They were like sisters, a team; they were a force to be reckoned with.

Each turned heads as individuals, but together they’d stop men dead in their tracks. David was more than threatened with their friendship; he would nag at her, breaking her down with cutting comments about anything he could, from going out to what she was wearing, to Lucy being a bad influence. It got to the point that it was easier to let Lucy go. When she had found Lucy six months earlier working for one of her clients she knew she had to reconnect with her, for Rebecca that too seemed like fate.

David was now twenty six; she thought he would have grown up over the years. But no, David was still the same nineteen year old lad she had met many years ago. To be quite honest he completely mystified her.

Rebecca and David were like chalk and cheese. He had no drive for anything whatsoever except for his beloved Karate. She now thought of him as a boy in long trousers. He behaved like an adolescent boy most of the time. He would sulk, or walk out, not letting her know where he was going, or what time he would be back if he did come back.

Rebecca remembered her promotion and the conversation that came with it. That was only two months earlier with one of her two bosses. She said to Rebecca
now she was the Manager of the recruitment agency. She would see that things would change between her and David.
That had actually shocked Rebecca, and from her mentor of all people.

At that time.... She truly believed she loved David with all her heart and the idea of them not being THEM horrified her. “
Why would it split us
?
He would be proud that I’m Branch Manager.
” She had laughed it off at the time; she really did truly mean it.

Her boss explained that
she had gone through exactly the same in her own life and recognized the signs
. She said
Rebecca had drive. David....he was a nice guy but !... she said....but !...They were too different and would find that they actually had nothing in common at all. Both she and David we’re travelling different paths. She said “that was fine! IF...if that was the direction she was travelling ...But it wasn’t.

“
You Rebecca are going places girl, you’re hungry, I know.... I see it!.... look how far you’ve come: You’re Our Top Consultant, and you’ve changed the core business, you made a one man section turn into the main business and turn it into something amazing and highly profitable in a market we didn’t think or know was there... I’m proud of you. You’ve achieved so much
”.

Rebecca soaked it up, she adored her boss. To hear those words coming from her Mentor was as fantastic as the promotion and huge salary that went with it. She was right: Rebecca was hungry and she was at the top of her game at work.

She was Head-Hunted daily by clients and other Agencies. She trained all the staff that came into the agency: she taught them what she knew; exactly the way her mentor had shown her years before. There was even talk of her getting a Directorship.

Rebecca’s career was perfect, she managed that like a well-oiled machine, she worked damn hard and it was paying off. Shame she couldn’t get her personal life in some shape or order i.e. David.

She worked hard at everything she did, it was the only way she knew.... it was how she was reared. When she asked any of her staff to do something they themselves would have seen her doing it the day before. She led by example that was her motto, she was very well respected and liked by her staff and the company Directors; she had made them a lot of money over the years.

She had secured some ‘Big Hitter’ clients that the company had spent years trying to break into. It was Rebecca’s down to earth, honest style that had done it. She
never
messed her clients around like other agencies who would throw enough mud at the wall hoping it would stick. She hated that all too common approach, her competitors had within the industry.

She worked damn hard to prove that she was different to them, from those competitors. Although she had targets of how many applicants must go to each vacancy/position she would only send two of the best and believe me she had the best.

All her applicants were interviewed by either her or her team. The trick was to chat away to them, relaxing them, enough to be comfortable to show their real personality and not the interview persona they were giving.

For Rebecca, it meant that she could sell the applicants on personality. She would say
“anyone can send a CV, yes that will get you an interview....but it’s the personality that gets them the job’. ’Best form of advertising and the cheapest... is recommendations!

Her clients and applicants alike adored her. If flowers or gifts came to the office nine, out of ten, they would be for her. Her wall was full of the thank you cards stuck there with drawing pins, it reminded her why she done what she done, to make people happy. She always dealt with the odd client trying to get a bit too friendly which was a big no-no.

She would always tell them that she
‘Never mixed business with pleasure’ plus she was engaged.
And putting it frankly,
‘A Cat Doesn’t Shit on Their Own Doorstep.
Things funny enough started to go wrong when she received her promotion if she had to pinpoint it exactly. David was a postman. He hadn’t done that well at school and left with no exams unlike Rebecca who had left with numerous A levels.

David had bounced from building site to building site before landing a secure job as a Postman. It suited him perfectly. He saw it as easy money with little work or effort. With the hours he could fit his beloved Karate training in and any other extracurricular actives he wished.

The only problem was he loved going out on the weekends. It was like he’d live for them. He would be pretty much be boozed up over the weekend. She had never seen this as a problem until now ....Genie Mac....
how blind she was. How very blind she had been.

She couldn’t bear him touching her anymore; he had started to repulse her. He as a person had not grown at all within the relationship, especially sexually. He was still the unskilled boy she had met, despite the numerous affairs he had over the years.

He seemed to only try something new when he had actually cheated on her and HAD actually had the nerve try something he had obviously done to someone else. She found him disgusting on so many levels. Not only the idea of knowing he has done this to another girl, but to actually try to do it to her and so bloody badly.

Yes it was a sure sign of his cheating. She knew it because of his unusual and awkward fumbling, they were not enjoyable experiences. David’s version of performing oral sex was so awful, it was decided they would never to do it again.

That’s why it had become routine and mundane and very infrequent at this point, maybe it was plain old complacency, on
both
of their parts that kept them together. He really wasn’t a lover he was a fighter and tonight he had proved that once again.

She was sick and tired of asking herself stupid questions that she knew the answers to already. ‘The definition of madness is to repeat the same thing over and over again and expect a different result each time”...

But either way it didn’t matter, she knew....she knew it was OVER. And there she was ...bloody and bruised ...
Again
from one of David’s drunken binges. Her home of six months was broken in less than six minutes.

There was
no way on god’s green earth
she was going to live her life like this.

The last thing she remembered was dropping the phone as David’s fist hurtled towards her face again.

Chapter 2

‘Goodbye Heartbreak’

At twenty four Lucy was living the dream, she had the career every girl wanted; she was working at a very well know Record Company in London. Lucy was very well liked by her colleagues and social groups. Because of the ‘Industry’, she rubbed shoulders with some very high profile people.