Page 2 of Broken Butterfly
I open my door all the way. “What?”
“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me,” he says.
“Being woken by someone pounding your door down isn’t much better,” I reply.
“Sorry about that. Have you heard from Elizabeth?”
I peek down the hallway half expecting to see her. I step out and close the door to my bedroom. It smells like musk and sex.
“Why?”
“Fuck!”
“Ryder, what the hell is going on?”
“She wasn’t at home last night when I got back from the track. She never came home. I’ve been driving all over town. She’s not answering her phone. I’ve tried calling Fallon. I don’t know how to get in touch with Meredith or Trevor, so I went to campus this morning and searched every place I thought she might be. I even called the police, but they said she had to be gone for twenty-four hours before I could file a report. Jay, where the hell is she?”
I walk around the condo, looking for Liz. Ryder follows me wondering what I’m doing.Liz, where are you? Did she sneak out?
“Jay, I’m worried.”
“Ry, she’s fine,” I assure him. Liz was with me in bed a few hours ago.
“How can you be so sure? Weren’t you the one who pointed out what could happen to her if she had another memory blackout? She could be hurt for fuck’s sake!” he yells at me. “Her location tracking is turned off. Why the hell would she do that? She promised to keep it on so we could find her in emergencies.”
That’s a good question.Where the hell are you, Liz?It’s then I see the piece of paper with my name on it sitting on top of the coffee pot. The paper is folded like a tent, my name is written in large block letters. Ryder sees the note at the same time I do but gets to it first.
His face morphs into furious anger. I rip the paper from his hand.
“Jayson, I’m sorry. Last night should never have happened.–Elizabeth”
“What happened last night, Jay?” Ry’s voice is hard and threatening. I think he already knows.
“Liz’s memory returned,” is all I get to say before Ryder punches me in the face.
Chapter 2
One good thing about Fallon is that he knows when not to ask questions. He takes one look at me standing on his frat house doorstep and grabs my arm, pulling me inside. A dozen of his fraternity brothers silently watch as he leads me upstairs and into what I assume is his room.
“You look like shit,” he tells me as he shuts his bedroom door. He grabs a rolled-up towel from a shelf and throws it at me. “Bathroom is through there.” He points to the doorway located adjacent to his dresser.
I hold the towel close to me, hugging its softness, wanting to feel something good to help replace some of the bad. I nod at Fallon and walk on blistered feet across the wood floor and into the tiled bathroom. I turn the shower on to the hottest setting it will go to and step under the spray without taking off the ill-fitting clothes I arrived in. I pray the hot water will scald my skin until it peels off. If it doesn’t, I will rub every inch of my body raw until it does, needing to get the smell of sex with Jayson off of my skin. I don’t realize I’m screaming until Fallon flings open the bathroom door and rushes in.
“What the fuck, Elizabeth?”
I’m not used to him calling me by my given name. I’ve always been “kitten” to him. He reaches for the shower handle and turns the temperature down. “Jesus,” he hisses when he looks at me. Some of my skin, the parts not covered by clothes, are bright red, and thin trickles of blood create a path of rivulets from the broken blisters on my feet to the shower drain. Fallon steps inside the shower with me and turns me around to face him, not seeming to mind that his clothes are getting drenched. I look up at him with desolate, beggar’s eyes.
“Going to tell me why you landed on my doorstep?”
No, I’m not, so I don’t answer him. He’s not supposed to ask questions. He’s not supposed to care.
Fallon sighs then reaches for a bottle and squirts some of its contents into his hand. He lifts my heavy, long hair and massages the lather through each strand. I close my eyes and step forward to grab his waist, laying my forehead to his chest. Fallon takes his time with my hair, making sure to rinse it thoroughly so no shampoo remains. He reaches behind me and turns the shower off. He uses the towel to rub my hair dry, then takes my hand. The soggy clothes on my body drip water all over his floor, but he doesn’t say anything. Fallon tells me to sit down on the seat of the toilet and I obey. He takes out a first aid kit from his bathroom cabinet and wordlessly tends to my blistered feet. I watch as he walks into his bedroom and takes a couple items of clothing out of his dresser and lays them on his bed. He comes back inside the bathroom and lifts me up in his arms to carry me the ten feet to his large, king-sized bed. Setting me down on the bedspread, not caring that I am also getting it wet, he lifts my bandaged feet, carefully slipping a sock on each, before picking up the folded clothes and placing them in my hands.
“Put these on,” he tells me.
I follow his directions like a child does a parent. Fallon opens his bedroom door and steps outside, giving me some privacy. I strip the wet fabric off, gingerly walking back into the bathroom and placing the garments in the sink and put on the clean ones Fallon gave me. The cotton shirt and pants soothe my scalded skin. I can tell how expensive the cloth is just from how it feels. I trundle back over to his bed and lie down. The scent that lingers on his sheets smells like lemon, ginger, and bergamot. How the hell do I know what a bergamot is? I do. It’s a type of orange.
I hear the bedroom door click open and then close. The bed dips beside me and Fallon lies down at my back. He pulls me into his arms and rests his head against mine. “It’s going to be okay, Elizabeth.”
