Page 97 of Broken Butterfly
Over the next thirty minutes, questions and answers fly around the room. I don’t care if we’re winning; I just enjoy the silliness of the competition and the playful banter that gets thrown. Our table gets five more questions right, but we lose by one point to a table filled with Iota sorority girls. Meredith and Nick started making out ten minutes ago and were oblivious to the last part of the game. Charlie has been flirting with Sara, and I have been texting Ryder under the table.
MyBoyfriend: The video was funny as hell.
I had forwarded him the video of Meredith’s earlier performance.
Me: This was actually fun. Not so much of a girl’s night but I’m glad I came. We need to get the guys together and to do a trivia night here sometime.
MyBoyfriend: Sounds like a plan. Miss you.
Me: Miss you too. Mer hooked up with a guy in the back bathroom What are u guys up 2?
MyBoyfriend: Just hanging at the bar and throwing some darts. Would rather be deep inside you kissing every inch of your soft skin.
My stomach muscles seize when I read his words and of course my mind drifts back to him and me in the kitchen this morning. Eggs and bacon were not the only things Ryder ate for breakfast.
Me: Swoon. Yes, please.
MyBoyfriend: Ready for me to come get you?
Me: So ready.
MyBoyfriend: Let me tell the guys. Be right there.
Me:
I get Meredith and Sara’s attention. “Hey, guys. I’m out. Ryder is meeting me outside.”
“This was fun. We should do it again,” Sara says, hugging me.
“Are we still on for study group with Trevor on Sunday?” Mer tries to ask me with her lips still glued to Nick’s. Next week is finals week and she and I planned to meet with Trevor one last time to cram. Julien and I are studying together for our chem exam on Monday. Then it’s off to Seattle at the end of the week. I’m both excited and nervous about that. Maybe a little nauseous too. Seeing my daughter’s gravesite for the first time. Seeing Daniel and Drew. Being back in the place where I woke up for the first time with no memory of anything from my life.
“That’s the plan,” I answer Meredith. I kiss the top of her head as I pass by on my way out. “Nick, it was nice to meet you. Please take care of my girl here. I don’t want to have to get my very scary boyfriend to come to Gamma house to hunt you down.”
Nick has the presence of mind to take my threat seriously. “I promise she will get home safe and sound tonight.”
I tell the other guys bye, and I wave bye to Bryce as I pass the bar. He pretends to capture my wave in his hands and place it on his heart. I give him my best eye roll and walk outside to the frigid, winter air. It’s much colder tonight than it has been recently. I should have worn a thicker jacket and some gloves. I take a moment to enjoy the holiday lights strung across the street and around the base of the trees that dot the wide sidewalk paralleling the road. I stop for a second to text Ryder that I’m waiting at the corner. My phone pings back with his reply.
MyBoyfriend: Almost there. I can see you from where I am down the street.
I look up and see Ryder, Jayson, Julien, and Elijah a couple of blocks away. My only thought is to get my man, go home, and spend the rest of the night in his arms.
Something hard hits my back and I’m propelled forward into the intersection. “Told you I was coming for you, bitch.”
The next things I remember are car lights filling my vision, and my name being shouted in the distance.
Chapter 27
I’ve lived a life full of fear, regret, and anger. My whole childhood was nothing but abuse and neglect from the three people who should have loved me the most. My teenage years were lost mostly to oblivion as I used drugs, sex, and alcohol to numb my pain. The only good in my life was my friendship with Ryder. Whenever the two of us were together, Ry would go on and on about his best friend, Elizabeth. How wonderful she was, how beautiful, how special. How he was in love with her but didn’t know what to do because Jayson and Julien were in love with her too. I would razz Ryder about that. I mean, come the fuck on. How could one girl make three guys fall to their knees? Have them panting over her, scrambling for her affection like rabid dogs over a scrap of meat?
And then I saw Elizabeth for the first time. She came to the Fields one day with Ryder and his dad. I mean, sure, I had seen some pictures of her and Ry, or her and the guys, tacked up on the wall in Ry’s room. But seeing her in person, seeing her smile. That long, pale blond hair, and those fathomless green eyes—it was as if the sun came out for the very first time, I was so blinded by her. I devolved into a beast that day; one that hid in her shadows, stalking my innocent prey, never directly approaching her but secretly coveting her. Wanting to be closer to her light. Needing to feed off her innocence. Longing to be wanted by her. To be noticed.
Throughout high school, Elizabeth was my obsession. But I could never have her. She belonged to Jay, Ry, and Julien. Jay claimed her first and broke Ry’s heart. I hated to see Elizabeth with that egotistical jackass. I hated watching as my friend pined away for her on the sidelines. Ry’s love for Elizabeth never faltered. All the while, I loathed that I wasn’t the one touching her, kissing her. I filled my loneliness and my bed with nameless girls. Girls that I would fuck while imagining it was Elizabeth I was pounding into. Screwed up, I know. But that’s what happens when you’re desperate and alone and live under the same roof as Phillip Montgomery. High school was four years of nothing but fucked-up misery drowned out with whatever I could drink, smoke, or stick my dick into.
Elizabeth was also the one thing I wanted but the one thing my money and power could never buy. After all, why would someone like her want to be with a monster like me? I was messed up. Damaged. Broken. I recently told Ry that Elizbeth knew all of my secrets. That’s not entirely true. She doesn’t know my worst one. The one that will show her I am truly the monster from her nightmares.
When Elizabeth came to me that morning after her memories returned—after she slept with Jay and ran away from Ry—the beast inside of me roared with triumph. She needed me to help piece her back together. I got to have her to myself for three weeks. I got to live in her fractured light. I fucking fell in love with her despite knowing full well that she loved Ryder. And what damns me the most is that I know she is my ruin. I will never love anyone else the way I love her. I also know my borrowed time with her has to come to an end. Soon, I will lose my sunshine. Soon, she will hate me.
“Fallon?”
