Butterfly Dreams (12 page)

Corin jumped and finally got the phone from my grasp. “Aha!” she shouted, finally looking at me and the pained expression I was sure she would see.

I knew the moment she realized how close we were. She tensed and started to move away.

Before I could think, I snaked my arm around her waist and held her in place. “Don't,” I pleaded softly, holding her as close as she would allow.

And for a moment we stayed like that. Her dark brown eyes troubled and confused. We were both breathing heavily and I wanted to kiss her.

Quite possibly more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life.

Just do it already. Stop being such a pussy!

But before I could act on my impulses, Corin wiggled out of my grasp and gave me a shaky smile. She held up the phone and took my picture. She looked at the screen.

“Payback,” she chuckled, handing it back to me and moving to the other side of the bridge. Purposefully away from me.

I looked at the photograph she had just taken. It wasn't very flattering. I looked as though I was in pain. Which, I was. I discreetly adjusted myself and started thinking about a naked Betty White.

“I think I'll stick to taking pictures of trees for now,” I conceded when it was safe to look at her again.

“Good idea. I'd hate to have to push you over,” Corin warned.

And then, just like that, our moment had passed. And I was more than a little disappointed.

The sky was clear and the dark branches of the trees stood out starkly against the deep blue. I took a few pictures and was pleased with the results.

Corin watched me take photo after photo, saying very little as I did my thing. It was amazing how easily I fell back into the headspace of a photographer. Looking for the right light and angle.

I realized quickly how much I had missed it.

“Okay, Ansel Adams, let me see what you've got there.” Corin held out her hand and I gave her the phone, watching as she scrolled through the pictures, not saying a thing.

Shit. What if they sucked? That would be embarrassing.

Corin finally looked at me and shook her head. “These are fantastic, Beckett. Why in the world did you ever stop taking pictures?”

I felt an immeasurable amount of pride at her compliment. For some reason, her opinion mattered
more.

I took the phone and looked at the pictures. “I started playing soccer. And that took over. I found that I didn't really have time for anything else. Sports became my new passion.”

Corin frowned. “You can have more than one passion, Beckett. And I think you gave up on something incredible.” Her voice was tight with an emotion I didn't understand.

I reached out and took her hand. Once again, just needing to touch her.

“You're right. And if there's one thing I've learned since almost dying, it's to hold onto the things that matter. To the things, the
people,
that make you happy.”

She didn't say anything. I couldn't tell if I had made her uncomfortable yet again. She averted her eyes and stared out over the water.

Suddenly a pure white butterfly flittered down and landed on Corin's shoulder. She was completely unaware.

“Don't move an inch,” I warned her. She stiffened but the butterfly didn't move. I once again lifted my phone and zoomed in on her profile, the butterfly's wings lifting in the breeze.

Corin pushed her hair behind her ear and the butterfly took off.

“What was that about?” she asked.

I showed her the picture and she gave me a strange little smile.

“I think this one is my favorite,” I said.

She never replied.

And I was okay with that.

I had been lying in bed for hours, my mind spinning in a million different directions.

I was thinking about things I wished I wouldn't. Things I couldn't stop obsessing over no matter how hard I tried. I was thinking about the past. Things I could have done differently. Stuff I should have said when I had the chance.

My parents.

Not as the vibrant people they had once been, but the weak, miserable invalids who had withered away into nothing.

I would give anything to remember the good things. But my brain didn't seem to work like that. It focused on the negative. The horrible.

No reprieve. Constant. Unyielding. My memories were my worst enemy. They invaded my present and wouldn't let me move on.

I was immobilized with thinking about
them.

I went to the dark places I tried so hard to forget.

Dad's cough sounded wet and I remembered his physician saying the cancer had moved to his lungs.

He was having trouble breathing, his skin ashen from being deprived of oxygen. The tube the nurse had put in his nose stood out starkly against pale skin.

His eyes were open but they weren't looking at me.

They were looking
through
me.

And I imagined dying this way. In pain. Barely lucid.

It wasn't the first time I felt the fear.

And it wouldn't be the last.

I had seen my fair share of counselors to try and get a handle on my grief and anxiety. Most of them had been after my mother had died because my dad had insisted on it. I would talk about stages of grief and coping with my feelings in a healthy way.

Blah, blah, blah. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Not to say that their points weren't valid. I'm sure there was a reason they had gone to school for so many years. They had to know what they were talking about. But I hadn't wanted to hear it.

Nope.

No way.

I had been way too numb to take any of it in. The counselors would open their mouths and all I heard was static. Nothing they said would make the horrible hole in my chest close up and disappear. I didn't care how long they went to school or how fancy their degrees were.

Finally, after a few months my father had stopped making me go. Not because he picked up on my resistance, but because he had just been diagnosed with his own terminal illness.

Then my life became consumed with caretaking. I didn't have time to take care of
me
and my emotional well-being.

Now here I was, years later, stuck in that same headspace I had inhabited as a teenager. In so many ways I still felt like that messed-up girl who had just lost her parents. I felt stunted. Unable to move on.

Stuck.

During the day I could go about my routine and
almost
think about other things. The pottery studio. Doctor's appointments. Support group. These things filled my hours.

But at night I only had my thoughts for company. My scary, irrational thoughts that threatened to undo me completely.

After hours, I finally willed myself to sleep only to have my dreams take me places I didn't want to go.

I was buried under six feet of dirt. Enclosed in a coffin I couldn't escape from.

I scratched at the wooden lid, fingers bloodied, nails pulled from their beds. I screamed and screamed hoping someone would hear me.

But no one heard me.

I was alone.

Trapped.

In an unyielding death.

I couldn't wake up. I was stuck. In the nightmare. It wouldn't let me go.

And it didn't end when I woke up, drenched in a cold sweat, my body shaking.

Being awake was worse than the terror of my dreams.

I wanted to cry. To let these terrible feelings out somehow. I felt like a bottle of soda that had been shaken up but the cap was still securely in place. The pressure in my chest was unbearable.

I hardly ever cried. I kept it inside. Mixed up with the pain and misery that had become the most familiar and constant thing in my life.

I felt the ache in my chest resume and I had a hard time breathing. Now there was a ringing in my ears that was so loud I couldn't hear anything else. The room started to tip and spin and I was getting nauseous.

I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, barely getting to the toilet in time before I emptied the contents of my stomach. Bile and acid because I hadn't been able to eat dinner.

Cold sweats. Thumping heart. Endless dark thoughts that left me spiraling.

My ever loyal cat, Mr. Bingley, came into the bathroom and curled up on the mat beside me as I lay out on the cold, hard tiles. I pressed my cheek into the floor and shivered uncontrollably.

They had come for me again.

The butterflies.

My once benevolent protectors now my sadistic torturers.

The panic attack took on the form of this beautiful childhood memory and made it something ugly. Something scary.

The fluttering in my chest, the suffocating weight of fear. The buzz in my ears that drowned out my ragged breathing.

It was my own personal hell.

The one I had been living for almost eight years.

I thought of the butterfly that had landed on my shoulder at the bridge with Beckett.

He had no idea how perfect the picture he took had been.

Not because of its seeming innocent beauty.

But because the butterflies were always there. Threatening to drown me.

And I could never escape.

“This can't be right.” The numbers blurred and floated in front of my eyes. I put my pencil down and rubbed at my temples, willing the headache to go away.

I took a couple of deep breaths and looked once again at the ledgers open on my desk.

The numbers didn't lie.

Stupid numbers that couldn't be wrong.

I hated math. I hated that it was absolute and unchanging.

Because the numbers in front of me let me know one important thing. I was in serious trouble.

“Hey, everything okay back here? I can feel your shitty mood all the way out front.” Adam put a bottle of water on the desk and sat down in the worn chair.

“I'm doing the quarterly numbers and wondering if it's too late in life to start a recreational drug habit.” I sighed and opened the bottle of water but didn't bother to drink it.

“I thought the accountant took care of all that. Why are you stressing yourself over it?” Adam asked, and I rolled my eyes. Adam made it clear from the beginning that he wanted nothing to do with the business end of well…running the business. He had failed every math class in high school and was vocal about his hatred of adding and subtracting.

So I left him responsible for marketing and advertising. He put ads in the paper and printed up pretty brochures that sat in the bathrooms and wastebaskets of every establishment in Southborough.

He also hired and trained our two part-time employees. Krista, who was more interested in checking her lipstick in the mirror than dealing with customers, and Jane, who I was pretty sure stole supplies when she thought no one was looking.

And I was the one who had to eat her own stomach acid four times a year as I tried to figure out how to keep us afloat.

We really were a bang-up team.

Razzle Dazzle wasn't a cash cow. I had suspected for a year that it was in its death throes but I refused to admit it. Even though we had our good periods, it wasn't enough to sustain us the entire year.

“If I don't stress about it, who will, Adam?” I asked, digging the eraser end of my pencil into the center of my forehead.

Adam pulled out a bag and I almost lost what little cool I had left.

“Are those MY pretzels?” I shrieked, diving across the desk and snatching them from his hands.

Not before he pilfered a handful of my favorite snack.

“We have very few rules around here, but
Thou shalt not eat Corin's pretzels
is the most important one!”

Adam gave me a level look that I never could read but made me bristle. “Does this have to do with PMS? I'm leaving early if it does.”

I glared at him. “Do not diagnose PMS unless you want this pencil to make nice with your eyeball.”

“You really need to sort out your pretzel issues. It's becoming a problem, Cor.”

I popped one in my mouth and crunched it noisily, wishing it would mute the stressed-out voices in my head.

“So what's the problem?” Adam asked, propping his feet up on my desk.

“Did you have any idea we were so far in the red? Or the fact that we are hemorrhaging cash? We still haven't bounced back after purchasing the new kilns and pottery wheels last year.”

“Well, you have to spend money to make money, Cor. That's Business 101.”

“You also need money to pay bills, which, if we continue as we are, we won't be able to do.” I pushed his feet off the desk.

Adam sat forward and pulled the ledger toward him to have a look. “This doesn't look
too
bad. So we've had a slow quarter. Our numbers before Christmas were decent. That's got to make up for it, right?”

“I don't know, Adam. This is pretty bad. Our outgoings are far exceeding our income. Right now we're floating on what I have in savings and what's left of my parents' life insurance money. We've got to figure out a way to increase business and fast. Before our rainy-day money dries up. Unless you want to start that second career as an exotic dancer that we've talked about.”

Adam visibly shuddered.

“Maybe we could advertise more in the neighboring towns. I could put an ad in the Davidson Gazette and leave some flyers around Rinard College over in Bakersville,” Adam suggested, actually putting some thought into the problem at hand.

“That's a good start but I'm not sure that'll be enough,” I sighed.

My mild headache blossomed into a full-blown explosion. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes, feeling sick to my stomach. Bile rose in the back of my throat and I willed myself not to throw up.

“Are you okay doing the workshop tonight?” Adam asked. “I've stayed late the last couple of times and I could use the night off.”

I closed the ledger, not wanting to look at it anymore. I rubbed at my temples, willing the headache away.

“Why? Big plans?”

I knew he wouldn't tell me. When it came to his personal life, Adam was a closed book.

Just once I wished we could talk to each other like ordinary friends. He could tell me about slaughtering pigeons or vandalizing interstate bridges—whatever weird thing he was into—and I could tell him about…

What?

Beckett?

Why would I tell him about Beckett?

There was nothing to tell!

Dear lord, I was prattling nervously in my head.

That was a bad, bad sign.

“Nothing of significance,” Adam responded vaguely.

I noticed a blond head and blue sweater all but pacing in front of the office.

“Krista? Do you need something?” I called out.

Krista poked her head around the door. “Did you call me?”

Her eyes jumped from me, to Adam, and stayed there.

Hmm…

“Did you want something? I've been watching you walk back and forth for the last five minutes.”

I glanced at Adam but he looked completely uninterested.

But if I didn't know better…

“I was just…uh…going to the toilet.” She flushed and all but ran away.

“That was odd, right?” I asked carefully, looking at my partner and friend who never told me anything.

He shrugged. “So can I leave early? Or is it the butt cancer group tonight?”

“Butt cancer? I don't have butt cancer!”

“One thing you can strike off the list then.”

Touché, Adam. Touché.

“That's fine. I'm not expecting a huge turnout. We've only had the bookings from Mr. and Mrs. Webber.”

“They're the only ones that came last time. I'm not sure I can handle their
erotic art
ever again. Mr. Webber keeps pushing us to sculpt nudes, and I'm tired of explaining there will be no naked people in the studio. Ever.”

I groaned. “If he asks to mold his wife's boobs out of clay tonight, I'm telling them to leave.”

“It might put a crimp in your plans with lover boy then.” Adam arched his eyebrow and I frowned in confusion.

“Huh?”

Adam leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “That guy from the fucked-up hearts support group. The one who came in here that one time.”

I threw my pencil at him, which he deftly dodged. “Adam, he's not my
lover boy.
” I laughed a little maniacally. No sense mentioning our near kiss at the bridge or the way he had held me against him as though he never wanted to let go.

Nope. Not going to mention that at all.

“He's coming tonight, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I responded, my voice unnaturally high.

“Nicely done, Cor. Slutting it up to drum up business.”

I glared at my friend who looked back at me blandly. “I am
not
slutting it up, asshole. We're just friends. Really I don't even know him. He just said he'd like to come. It's no big deal. He may not even come. It's not like he promised or anything. Why are you bugging me about it?” I asked in a rush, the words pouring out like
Exorcist
-style vomit.

“You like him,” Adam said with a hint of teasing in his voice.

“No I don't,” I squeaked.

Adam didn't say anything for a long time. His silence was making me twitchy. I felt the need to fill the void with noise. Any noise. So I started sharpening my pencils. One at a time. When I was finished, I straightened the papers on my desk.

“We met at the support group. Actually, I met him before that. He helped me when I was having a level-ten Corin freak-out in the middle of the sidewalk. I don't like him like that. We're just friends. He's nice to talk to. He's kind of funny. And he doesn't laugh at me or look at me like I'm nuts.”