Page 9 of Z For Butterfly Man
“You…watched…me,” she forces out as her pulse stutters. “You…didn’t…stop it.”
I did let her. I watched. I waited. I told myself it was strategy, that patience was power, that control meant allowing the illusion of choice. I told myself men like Tristan expose themselves eventually.
But hearing it from her, seeing her use it…
My fingers flex. Her vision must be tunneling now. I can feel it in the way her pulse fights, frantic but weakening. This is the moment I could take something irreversible. Still, she doesn’t look away. She denies me the satisfaction of collapse.
An electric darkness coils inside me at her insolence. She understands the game well enough to threaten its rules. I hate her for it. I admire her for it.
I yank myself away, creating distance again before I forget why it exists.
Air floods back into her lungs in ragged pulls, her body arching against the restraints, eyes blazing wet and furious. “You’re enjoying this, punishing me,” she says, voice raw. She wants to name it, tame it with language. “It must have hurt you, seeing me with him, knowing that, at some point, I chose him. Is that why you’re hurting me back? Even when I’ve left him for you?”
She still thinks I’m the detective? “For fuck’s sake…” The truth vibrates dangerously close to the surface. I press it back down where it belongs. She doesn’t get that. Truth is a privilege she hasn’t earned yet. “How is it that you didn’t recognize your husband’s partner in the first place? Why did you pretend you didn’t know who Reid Ashford was all this time?”
“I didn’t. You and Blake were never partners as detectives. Obviously, it was before I met Blake. That day, one officer responded to my 911 call. It was Blake. Then at the hospital, someone from Domestic came to take my statement. His name was David Batista. Later when Blake and I got together, he never introduced me to any partners of his when he was still an officer. Not even, shortly after, when he was promoted and went to Homicide as a detective. Besides, you went to a different department, Stalker something, when you became a detective.”
“I was never Blake Abel’s partner, and I’ve never worked for the police. Your precious detective is still out there somewhere, but not for long.”
“Stop lying to me. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
I turn back to her and take her in again. “You really do need a face to blame, don’t you? Fine, I’ll give you a hint. You already know who I am, Birdie. You just don’t want to remember.”
“What does that mean?”
“I am the one you felt before you ever saw. The one who was there long before you started guessing names.”
“Stop being so cryptic and take off your mask like a man.”
“Only you can take it off.”
“How?”
“Go back to where it all started.”
“You mean the school?”
I snort. “No, Reagan, not the school. That’s not where we first met.”
Her eyes are furious again. “Then I don’t know where. You’ve got to do better than this if you really want the truth.”
“This room. This moment. I made it all for you so you’d remember. No witnesses. No lies you can hide behind. Just you, exactly as you are, held in place long enough for me to learn every truth your body has been screaming since the day we met, before you thought you could leave.” I lean close, stopping justshort of touching her skin. “But sure, if you want to start with the school, go for it. The question is which one?”
CHAPTER 5
Reagan
I’m tucked into the corner of the parking lot, knees pulled to my chest, making myself as small as possible. The cement wall presses against my spine, cold and harsh, but at least it’s solid. Real. Something I can lean against when everything else feels like it’s crumbling.
My journal rests against my thighs, and I’m scribbling nonsense, anything to keep my mind from wandering back to that night. To the needle. To my mother’s face twisted with hate.
Don’t cry. If you don’t think about it, you won’t cry. Don’t cry.
I focus on the words spilling across the page instead. They don’t mean much. They’re just fragments of thoughts, half-formed sentences about nothing and everything. But writing helps. It always has.
The parking lot is emptying out now that school’s over. Groups of students laugh and shove each other toward their cars. A couple makes out against a pickup truck. Everyone has somewhere to go, someone to be with.
Everyone except me.
