Take Me With You (26 page)

Epilogue

Amelia

This has been the worst week of my life and the last thing I want to do is go out with Dillon.

I know what he’s trying to do and I appreciate it. It took a really long time but I’ve finally learned what it means to be a real friend and that’s what he’s attempting to do with me now.

I’m just not sure that it’s what I want and I definitely know it’s not what I need.

It’s been a week since I’ve seen Eric. A week since he showed up at my dad’s, saw me at my worst and held me until the blood loss made me pass out. When I woke up, I was in the hospital and he was nowhere to be found and it hurts. I need him, but I don’t have the first clue how to let him know that because I still believe he’s better off without me.

Everything’s changed since that night, but where I expected it to change in a bad way, it hasn’t.

My mom knows everything now. I used to think she knew all about the sick things my dad was doing to me, but she didn’t. She wasn’t blocking out what happened under her nose all those years, she was just as clueless about it as the rest of the world because I didn’t have the strength to stand up and tell her.

I kept it to myself because I thought she needed to be protected, but after spending the first two nights in the hospital talking things through with her, I found out that I didn’t have to do that after all. Somewhere along the way I became the mom; the adult that needed to protect the child, never giving her a chance to do it. I can’t go back and change it now, but knowing that if I had opened up and told her what was going on, she would have believed me, it means a lot.

We don’t have a perfect relationship and I’m not sure we ever will, but we’re getting there. Just like I’m learning how to be a better person; to be Amelia again, she’s learning too. We’re both a work in progress, but as long as she’s here and not walking away, I’m not either.

Along with the stuff happening with my mom, I’ve also found out who my true friends are. Dillon and Cadence, both together and separately came to visit me during the five days I spent practically tied to a hospital bed and Kayden and Belle joined them.

After everything I put them all through, they still sat there, talked to me and let me know that they didn’t hate me for everything that happened. It’s spending time with all of them that made me realize that they really aren’t that different. They’re different from me because I think they’
re somehow better, but with how easy it was talking to them, it was hard to see actual differences at all.

They both like the same things as me, find the same stupid jokes funny and even share the same opinions as me about the most random things. They’re different, not less. For Cadence, Belle and even Eric, I’m starting to see that different might just mean more.

It takes a pretty strong person to forgive the things I’ve done.

“Are you gonna tell me where you’re taking me?” I ask again, probably the fiftieth time I’ve asked since I got in his car earlier and just like every other time, he grins at me but says nothing.

Asshole.

“You’ll see when we get there.”

“Because that’s so helpful.”

“I was wondering how long it would take.” He laughs and catching my eye roll he does it again, even louder than the first time.

“How long what would take?”

“For my bitchy ex-girlfriend to make an appearance.”

He’s joking but any reminder of the way I was before, it hurts. I don’t want to think about any of that. I can easily remember how I was all on my own, I don’t need the reminder from anyone else. I was the biggest bitch, a monster. A person I never want to be again.

With my dad finally paying for everything he did, finally breaking down and telling the truth about all of it, even telling them about Tim and what happened with us, the wheels started moving and he was taken away. That’s another thing that happened around the same time my dad confessed. Tim’s paying too, but not for the things that happened with us as kids. He’s paying in the way Daniels wanted me to in the beginning.

What he did to me and Eric that day in the hall, what he’s been doing for years, he’s paying for it all. The way I think I should have, even if everyone sees it differently.

I can talk about it now, open up without fear of the way people are going to react. Eventually, I’m hoping I’ll get to a point where the
flashbacks will stop and the reminders of them and the nightmare I’ve lived will vanish forever, but I’m not stupid enough to think it’s gonna happen overnight.

I’m prepared for the long haul. One step at a time and the control he had, it will be mine again.

“You know you missed her.”

“Yeah, about as much as I miss getting beat on by random guys.”

I’m not the only one that’s changed. He has too. It’s something we’re both learning about as we go. He can joke about what his father put him through now. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do it, but its nice hearing him able to.

If Dillon’s happy and surviving his own nightmare, then it gives me hope that I’ll be able to do the same thing eventually.

He pulls into the parking spot and turns the car off and looking up, taking in where we are, I’m not sure how I feel.

Edgewood Bluffs.

The place where Frank took video and pictures of me. The pictures that he then posted online, giving the police even more to use against him. Not only was he going to pay for everything he did to me privately, but now he had child pornography charges to add to the mix.

It’s not just the place where bad things happened to me though. It’s become more than that and Dillon bringing me here, I don’t feel right about it. The only person that I want to be here with wants nothing to do with me.

Eric.

“In a week, will you come back here with me and release the butterflies?”

It’s hard to believe that happened a little over a month ago. We never did come back here and release them and thinking about that just makes my heart hurt. It’s something that I wanted to do, but will never get the chance to now that things are so different.

I wonder what happened to the butterflies. Did he come back here and release them on his own? Will I ever get to ask him about it or will it be like every other thing inside my head about him and remain a regret?

“You gonna get out or are we just gonna sit in here all night?”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“You want the truth?”

“No, Dill. I want you to lie to me.” I roll my eyes and he laughs. “Yes, I want the truth.’

“Eric told me what happened to you here. The memories you have of the place. A few weeks after that fight in the barn that Cadence and Kayden found me in, I went back out there. I had to confront what happened. It’s the only way I could move on.”

“So, you brought me here to do the same?”

“Yeah, in a way, but not exactly.”

“So why then?”

“To make better memories.”

Better memories. Another reminder of Eric. I need to just come to terms with the fact that everything that happens is going to come back to him. Nothing else before he knocked me down in Dr. T’s office that day is worth remembering. Everything else is what matters.

“Come on, let’s go for a walk and watch the boats come in or something. I know my car is awesome, but this will be better.”

Going along with what he wants even though it’s the last thing I’m in the mood for, I close the door behind me and wait until he makes it around to meet me. Walking side by side all the way through the near vacant parking lot until we’re near the trees I walked through the last time I was here, I stop.

This is too much. I’m going to come out on the other side, onto the rock pebble path and remember even more of what happened the last time I was here. Watching Eric from far away as he put caterpillars into the bag, one after the other, not a care in the world. The way everything about him looked so natural and peaceful that coming up behind him and interrupting seemed wrong.

I can’t relive this. I’m not worried about reliving the stuff that happened with my dad. A million different flashbacks of that time could hit me right now and it wouldn’t matter. It’s the time with Eric that I don’t want to think about. What I want to run from because I know I’ll never have it again.

I ruined it the way I thought I would and I hate myself for it.

“Ames, are you alright?”

“I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. I promise you that you can. Just a little further.”

He seems so sure and I wonder why. Is this another thing that because he’s gone through it, he just knows will work out the same for me or is there more to it? With Dillon, this version of him, I don’t think I’ll ever know and I’m pretty sure if I ask, he wouldn’t tell me anyway.

“Unless there’s a guy standing on the other side of those trees putting caterpillars into bags so that he can take them home and watch them change, I can’t do this.”

His face lights up as he smiles and there’s something about how easily he did it that makes me think there’s more going on here. He didn’t bring me here to help me confront the past. He did it for a different reason. One that he needs to tell me about before I take another step forward.

“What’s the real reason you brought me here?”

“I told you.”

“You mean you lied to me.”

“No Ames, I didn’t. I really did bring you here to make better memories. So stop stalling and come on.” He says with a small laugh before grabbing onto my hand and dragging me the rest of the way through the trees until we’re standing completely on the other side, the rocks of the path under our feet.

It’s when we finally stop and I look up that I see what he was getting at and why he was in such a hurry to bring me here.

He was telling me the truth after all. He really did bring me here to make better memories and the person standing on the rocks about five feet in front of me, his eyes straight ahead and locked on me proves it.

Eric. He’s here.

Eric

I’m so freaking scared right now.

There was a point last week where I didn’t think I’d ever get to do this. Even after spending every waking minute locked away in my room, watching all ten of them break free and begin flying around, their change complete, I still had doubts I would reach this moment.

I’m standing on the rocks where she found me the last time we were here together. I’m waiting for Dillon to show up with her, returning the favor from a few months ago when I helped him with Cadence and I’m doing everything I can not to shake from the sheer anxiety I feel over what’s going to happen when she shows up.

I didn’t want to end up doing this myself. This was supposed to be our thing and not just because I asked her to do it with me when we came here before. It had to happen with her because of what all of these butterflies I’m holding mean.

Amelia Evans is my butterfly.

Believing she was ugly on the inside, the same way most people see the caterpillars when they come across them, she just went through the motions of her life, moving from one spot to the next until that day in Thompson’s office when I literally knocked her on her ass. From that day on, she was growing, preparing herself for the change that was coming.

The day she asked me to come here and told me everything about her was the day that she wrapped herself tightly in her cocoon, her secret finally out to the world. With me standing by her, not walking away the way she expected me to, she was safe. It was time for her to change, become something stronger, better, even more beautiful.

It wasn’t without its rough spots, but even after that disaster, she didn’t completely lose herself. She still continued to grow, becoming stronger than before, taking it so far as to confront her father. It might not have been the smartest thing in the world but it was a moment of change for her. A moment of strength.

She came out of it better. Transformed. She’s not that broken ugly caterpillar anymore, but a strong, colorful butterfly. My butterfly. So bringing her here tonight, releasing the very real butterflies back out into the world, freeing them to be who they’re meant to be, it’s time for her to see it too. It’s time for her metamorphosis to be complete.

For both of us to be complete.

It’s time for her to see just how much I love her.

Seeing Dillon break through the trees, dragging her along with him makes me laugh. I didn’t think it was going to be easy getting her here, not with everything she’s been through and what this place means to her, but I’m glad that he did.

I know I should probably let him walk her down here, or let her take the steps to reach me,
but I can’t do that. It feels like weeks since I’ve been this close to her, not counting finding her at her father’s house that night a week ago and the nights I spent sketching her in the hospital and I can’t stand it lasting even a second longer.

I need to reach out, bring her to me and connect again. Not connecting to her is unacceptable.

Gathering up every bit of nerve I have, I jump down off the rock and start walking, each step coming faster than the last until I’m standing in front of her surprised face. Looking up long enough to nod at Dillon, no words needing to be said, he smiles and backs away, leaving the both of alone.