Page 33 of Broken Butterfly
I decide to take the plunge and dive off the deep end into dangerous waters. “Who hurt you, Fallon?”
“You don’t want to go there, Elizabeth,” he bites out, jaw rigid and teeth clenched.
“Yes, I do. Who hurt you?” He pulls at my hair again, but I refuse to react. He wants to scare me, to deter me from pushing for more. Joke’s on him. I’ve seen the real Fallon and I know he would never really hurt me. “Who hurt you, Fallon?”
This time he curses and shoves up from the bed as if he’s preparing to walk out of the room. I watch his chest heave with strangled breaths. I wait him out, allowing him the time he needs to decide whether he trusts me enough to let me in.
I hear him rasp out, venom coating every word, “My father. My mother. My brother. Everyone in my life who was supposed to love me.” He thumps a closed fist on the mattress and the bed shakes.
With his bare back to me, I can see the scars on his lower torso. “Tell me,” I whisper, crawling up behind him and placing my hands over his scars. Every muscle in his body goes taut and his breath hitches violently like he’s forcing back tears but refuses to let them fall. I want to help ease his pain. I want him to know that he is loved. By me, by Tatiána, by Ryder. Fallon deserves to be loved.
I don’t know how much time passes, but eventually he starts talking.
“My father is a cruel son of a bitch. He only cares about money and getting his dick wet in any available pussy. I hated living in his fucking house. I escaped every chance I got. I don’t remember the first time he hit me or locked me in the closet. I do remember the last time his did because that was the day I fought back. I was no longer the small, timid boy he could bully. I grew up and learned how to hold my own.” He crooks his head slightly to the side as if he needs to make sure that I’m still there.
“That last time, he tried to burn me with a lit cigar. I broke his goddamn right hand,” he recalls and holds his hand up in front of him as if remembering. “Took a hammer and cracked every bone.” Fallon chuckles mirthlessly. “It ruined his golf game. He hasn’t been able to properly hold a club since.”
Tears run freely down my face as I listen to Fallon’s childhood horror. If I ever come face-to-face with his father, that man better run in the opposite direction because I think I might actually kill him.
“Then there’s good ol’ mom. The grand dame, Patricia Montgomery. The queen of the fucking castle. I bet her elitist friends would shit a brick if they found out she liked to fuck little boys.”
I gasp against his back. After hearing about his father, I don’t know if I’ll be able to hear what I think he’s about to tell me.Please, no, I pray with everything in me. What the hell kind of deranged parents were they? I add his mother to my list of people I will likely kill given half a chance.
“I came home one night and found my brother and Patricia in my bed. I never slept in my room again after that night. I found out later that she had been molesting him for a while.”
I’m openly sobbing now, and I wrap every part of me around Fallon, needing to shield him from his memories. Then something he said penetrates my sadness. “Wait. What brother? I thought Trevor was your half-sibling?”
“Not Trevor. I didn’t even know about him back then. I had an older brother, Peter. He was ten years older than me, so by the time I was born, Peter was already messed up. After he turned fourteen, he was in and out of drug rehab and mental facilities for the rest of his life. Pretty sure what Phillip and Patricia did to him made him that way. My parents made sure that no one outside the family knew about Peter. Most people thought he was part of the hired help. I didn’t think anything of it because that’s how it was growing up.
“About a month after I found him and Patricia in bed together, I woke up to Peter straddling me. That night I had bunked down in one of the guest rooms. He was doped up on meth and had a knife in his hand. He said it should have been me and not him. I woke up in the hospital days later. Alone. Ry was the only person who came to visit me the entire two weeks I was stuck there recovering.”
That’s how he got his scars, I conclude, reading between the lines. I don’t ask about Ryder, even though I’m so desperately want to. I don’t ask Fallon anything more. I can’t hear another word. It’s too painful. His parentsaremonsters. He was a child, and no one protected him. The only thing he ever felt growing up was pain. He has been hurt by every person who should have loved him.
“I’m so sorry, Fallon. I’m so fucking sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. No, that’s not true. I know exactly what Ineedto say.
“I love you, Fallon.”
“What?”
“I love you,” I repeat.
He turns around and stares at me, confusion and need warring within his blue eyes.
“No, you don’t. You can’t. I’m unclean. Every piece of me is filthy and tainted. You don’t want my darkness touching you,” he angrily tells me, but I feel his hands tremble like he’s fighting himself not to reach out to me. Fallon saved me. I want to save him. So I make the first move and reach out to him.
I band my arms around his neck and hold him. I squeeze him to me as hard as I can. “I love you, Fallon Montgomery. I love your strength. You had your childhood stolen from you by people who should have loved you. You survived their cruelty and didn’t let them break you. I love your heart. You care so deeply. I’ve seen it. Playing basketball with the boys at the women’s center. The way you take care of me. The way you are with Tatiána. The way you have always looked out for Ryder without him even knowing. You took me in without a second’s thought when I showed up on your front doorstep. I love how you treat your sister with respect and kindness. I love how you fight for not only what you want, but also for your friends. You jumped in and protected me from Marshall that night at the Fields. You protected me at the party last month when Maria and Jacinda showed up. Even though no one would tell me the whole story, I can assume it was you who got the video of the fight taken down so Jayson, Ryder, and Julien wouldn’t get into trouble. And it was you who got Marshall kicked off his soccer team. And it was you who threatened Jacinda to leave me alone. You shielded me then and you continue to protect me now. You are a wonderful, beautiful man, and I love every filthy, tainted piece of you.”
That’s the moment when I feel Fallon break, and a part of me breaks with him. He buries his face against my chest, clutching me to him. And cries. His tears are not gentle. They are ugly and hard and filled with desolation. They soak my shirt and run down my skin like I am being bathed in his grief. Through it all, I tell him I love him over and over again until his body stops trembling and his eyes run dry. I give him every possible comfort I can. I kiss his wet cheeks. I rub my fingers across his scalp and up and down his back. I sing to him and cradle his body like a mother does a child—like his mother should have done when he was a little boy. I can tell by the smooth, easy rhythm of his breathing when he finally falls asleep, the emotional exhaustion having drained him completely.
“Thank you for trusting me,” I whisper so not to disturb him. Right before my own exhaustion pulls me under, a question pops into my mind. What happened to Peter and where is he now? I also wonder how quickly I can choke the life out of his parents to make them suffer for what they did to him and his brother.
Chapter 10
Day 16: Finding Fallon
Barcelona
God, my bones ache like I’ve been pummeled by boulders. It feels worse than the mornings I would wake up in an alcoholic haze after a bender or when I would crash down from a high. Thank fuck I don’t do that shit anymore. I stretch my arms up to relieve some of the stiffness and instantly feel a soft warmth beside me. Elizabeth. My eyes feel swollen and gritty and it’s hard to open them, so I reach over to her. I need to feel her. I need to hold her goodness.
