Metamorphosis (33 page)

As always, Ash pulled a stool up
on stage, he hated playing while standing up, and made himself comfortable. The
girl sitting next to me leaned over to her friend and said not so quietly,
“Here we go again with butterfly boy.”

Her friend gave her a questioning
look, “What are you talking about? Is he gay? All the hot ones are always gay.”
She muttered the last sentence shaking her head.

“No, he’s not gay, stupid ass. I
call him butterfly boy because he always sings that damn butterfly song and has
that tattoo on his arm.”

My head shot up and my eyes
scanned his arms. My stomach dropped to the floor when I saw the same tattoo
that donned my left calf inked on his left forearm. How did he know? I never
even got a chance to tell him that night about it. My mind started swirling and
it took everything in me to remain seated at the bar and collect myself before
reacting foolishly.

I took slow and steady breaths
until I felt my body relax a bit, and then I took a huge drink of my beer. I
didn’t need to get drunk by any means, but my nerves needed some drowning,
quickly. Hearing his voice again was another huge test of my will, and it
almost broke me. Almost.

Ash walked off the back of the
stage and I saw him glare over at whoever was taking the stage next. My eyes
followed his heated stare and I found Mason returning the sentiment with a
glower just as fierce. Ash stepped off the single step and moved directly into
the arms of a busty blonde waiting for him. Some things never change. The girl
next to me piped up again, “Now this is what I’m talking about. That’s Rat,”
she explained to her friend. “His brother owns this place and he’s like the
rock god around here. He’s the lead singer for
Jobu’s
Rum, but he always sings solo on Fridays.”

Both girls openly gawked at the
figure on the stage and it reminded me of Mina telling me about Mason the first
time I was there. “He’s… wow,” the friend finally responded.

“I know, wait until you hear his
voice. You’re going to need a new pair of panties when you leave here,” the
first girl said matter-of-factly.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of
him. He hadn’t changed a bit since that morning I had left him sleeping in his
bed. He had on a black t-shirt with a pair of jeans and his black boots. My
heart had stopped when I first saw Ash, but the sight of Mason had made it beat
double-time. I wondered what he was going to sing as he adjusted the
microphone. He always stood when he performed which reminded me of just another
way he was so different from Ash. I held on to the bar to physically brace
myself to hear his voice.

“Good morning Houston! Are y’all
having a good time?” he yelled and the entire bar went crazy. I thought the
girls next to me were going to strip and rush him on the stage at any moment.
“The place is packed tonight and I know that most of you guys are getting ready
to head back to school, so let’s make this a night to remember. What do
ya
say?” Again frenzied screaming and clapping ensued.
“That’s what I like to hear. Alright, tonight I’m going to start off with
Jobu’s
Rum latest single.” He looked over in the direction
that I was sitting and I swore that he stared straight into my eyes for a brief
moment. He turned his attention back towards a girl who had screamed “I love
you Rat!” and he laughed. “I love all of y’all too.”

During his first song, I had to do
more breathing exercises and continue to think about the last eight months. I
could do this. I could do this. I had to give myself a pep talk several times
during that
three minute
period. When he finished,
everyone in the bar went wild. “Thank you guys,” he interrupted the applause.
“Thank you. Okay this next one I’ve never performed in public, it’s a song
that’s a few years old. I actually ran across it again a couple of months ago
and it couldn’t have been at a more perfect time in my life. I was saving it
for…” His voice trailed off for a moment and he looked towards Ash’s table.
“Well, I guess it really doesn’t matter what I was saving it for, that day will
never come, my angel flew away. So tonight it’s for all of you!”

Where I felt that Ash’s words were
going to break me, Mason’s healed me. His voice, and the love and longing in
his words, filled every one of my remaining holes and made me feel complete. I
suddenly felt more determined than ever to do what I had come to do. I slipped
off of my barstool and headed around the perimeter of the warehouse. I wanted
to remain unseen by Mason. He finished the song and allowed the crowd to reward
him with cheers and whistles. He leaned his acoustic on an amp setting on the
side of the stage and jumped down to head towards his friends.

I took a deep breath and reminded
myself of everything that I had discovered about love and respect and dignity
over the last several months. Unrequited love was basically just infatuation,
and that was exactly what I had with Ash for so long. Love was about sacrifice
and putting the wants and needs of the other person in front of your own. Ash
was never willing to do that for me. Other than the times that Ash and I had
spent locked away from the real world, our relationship was tumultuous and
filled with drama. He was always upsetting me by openly being with other girls
in front of me or doing things to purposely keep me from being happy. It was
like he kept me on a string and if he thought I was getting too far away from
him, too close to someone else, he would reel me back in. I knew that Ash cared
about me, but he didn’t love me. He loved himself too much to love anyone else.
Mason, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He went out of his way to
make me happy and comfortable. He loved making me laugh and wasn’t afraid to
put himself out there for me. I never got upset with Mason, not once. And
despite all that, I had allowed my infatuation and fascination with Ash,
someone who could never give me what I deserved, to get in the way of that. It
was time for me to apologize.

I climbed onto the back of my
stage and walked towards the front, grabbing Mason’s acoustic on the way.
“Excuse me everyone,” my voice was shaky and
unsure .
A few people took notice of me as I waited to get the attention of the person I
wanted it from the most. It only took a minute or so as the collective voice
lowered and dropped to hushed whisper. Then I hear someone say “Oh shit, Rat,
it’s
Angel,” and instantly the place got silent.

I lifted the microphone back to my
mouth, “I’m sorry I’m late, I didn’t make it in time to sign up tonight but I
really need to perform a song that needed to be sang a long time ago. I’ve
wasted so much time, it just can’t wait any longer.” Mason’s face stayed stoic,
not giving me an inch, but his gray eyes turned into
a
shimmery
silver that shined back at me. He gave me a slight nod
indicating I should go on. The eyes of everyone in the warehouse were jumping
back and forth from Mason to me and then back to
Mason
.

I began to strum his guitar and
sing about apologies from a guy who had hurt me, a guy who would purposely make
me too warm only to leave me out in the cold, a guy who didn’t take the time to
appreciate the beauty that he had until it was too late… and all that was left
for him to do was apologize because it had become clear that I had fallen in
love with another man.

After I sang the words of the last
verse, “It’s way too late for dignity,
It
‘s time for
apologies,” I assumed both Ash and Mason understood my intentions. However, I
didn’t want to leave something as important as this to assumptions.

I looked directly in Mason’s eyes
and pleaded, “Mason, I know what I did was wrong in so many ways, but I just
want you to know that I am truly sorry.” I paused a brief moment to let my
apology be heard. “I had someone treat me similar to the way that I treated
you, and if he was to apologize, I’m not sure I would accept it because I know
that I deserved better than that, and so did you. But I’m also here to let you
know that people can change, I know for a fact because I am a completely
different person than I was a year ago. The tragic events and loss of life I
had to endure to get to this point, I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but I’m thankful
that I was able to make something positive out of it by gaining control of my
life.” I took a deep breath before I finished what I had come to say. “I used
to be a girl who believed in fairy tales. You know, the whole knight in shining
armor riding in on a white horse that would lead me to my happily-ever-after.
About eight months ago I lost hope and faith that I would ever find my prince,
or to be more exact, that my prince would ever realize I was the one for him as
he tried out all of the other princesses. But what I discovered was that I was
in the wrong damn fairy tale the whole time, chasing the wrong damn prince.
There’s a Psyche for every Eros, an Elizabeth for every Darcy, an Abby for
every Travis,” I heard several females scream out “I love Travis,” and I
couldn’t help but smile. That reference was for
Evie’s
all-time favorite book boyfriend. “And I only hope you still want me to be the
Angel to your Rat.” I turned up my nose just slightly when I said his nickname.
“All along I was wearing the wrong wings.”

Mason slowly made his way towards
me and stepped up onto the stage. I didn’t move. He looked down at me and
seared me with his intense stare. “Don’t you ever fly away again, Angel. I
swear I’ll have your wings clipped.” Then he picked me up into his arms and
crushed me against his body.

“I’ve missed you so much, Angel. I
love you.”

“I love you too, Rat boy. I love
you, too.”

Ash

Eight months. It had been eight
goddamned months since I had seen her. It took everything inside me not to walk
up on that stage and drag her off and claim her as mine once and for all. But I
didn’t. I could see the look of determination in her eyes and the last thing I
wanted to do was piss her off. I had a lot of making up to do and acting like a
psychotic caveman in front of all of those people most definitely wasn’t the
best way to start.

I couldn’t believe she was
actually standing there. Finally. Scarlett had finally come back. I honestly
wasn’t sure if she ever would. I thought that maybe, just maybe, losing her
best friend and me shattering her heart within a matter of a two day period
would have been too much for her to ever return, but once again, she proved to
be the incredible person I knew she was. My butterfly.

She looked even more beautiful
that I had remembered. I loved seeing my design permanently inked on her leg; I
loved knowing that every day when she looked at it, she had to think of me, if
only for a brief moment. I looked down at my forearm and smiled. My daily
thoughts of her lasted way longer than brief moments. Scarlett
MacGregor
consumed me.
Every hour of
every day.

Hearing her smooth, silky voice as
she began to sing sent a warm tingly feeling throughout my entire body and my
cock instinctively hardened.
God, how I had missed hearing
that sweet sound.
As she sang about apologies and love and hurt, I
thought back to the last time I saw her. If there was ever a day in my life I
could do a redo, that would be the one.

Death is a bitch, especially when
someone who is way too young to die does. The day that
Evie
died, my world came crashing down around me. Not only was it painful and
heartbreaking because
Evie
was my friend, but her
death hurt the person I loved more than anything so badly and I didn’t know
what to do. I had never in my life felt so helpless, so useless. I had tried to
be there for Scarlett, I had tried holding her, talking to her, and just being
with her, but she had completely frozen up. Her usually cheerful, sparkling
brown eyes were dull and empty and her spirit was broken. After the funeral,
she had insisted on being by herself. I knew that wasn’t a good idea,
especially back at the dorm where she had so many memories with
Evie
, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. So by the
time Jess, Meg, and I had returned to our house, I was pissed beyond belief at
everyone and everything. I immediately closed myself off in my room because I
knew better than to be around anyone else. I would most likely be a dick and
say something I didn’t mean. I heard Jess say she was leaving for Jacob’s a few
minutes later and
that was followed by the closing of Meg’s
bedroom door
.

I ended up falling asleep; I was
physically and mentally exhausted and drained. I wasn’t sure how long it had
been but I was woken up by a knock on the front door. At first I thought it
might be Scarlett that she had changed her mind about going back to her place,
but when I opened the door I was disappointed to see some girl that I had been
stupid enough to bring home with me a week or so before. I usually didn’t like
these girls to know where I lived to avoid such situations. The girl, I can’t
even remember her name, immediately latched on to me and started kissing my
neck and telling me how much she had missed me and needed me. I tried pushing
her off and telling her to go away, but damn if she wasn’t persistent. I just
didn’t have the will in me to tell her no a third time as her kissing continued
and her hand stroked me outside my jeans. In what ended up being the worst
decision of my life, I yanked her by the arm back to my room and tried to fuck
my anger out.