Butterfly Girl

by Greenleigh Adams

  “Maybe if you didn’t flirt with every female in a fifty-foot radius, you would find a nice girl.” Now she was just repeating what she had already said. This certainly wouldn’t help my situation.

  “You mentioned that before. Truly, I am just being friendly.” I returned to my earlier thought. “Okay. So maybe there is some flirting, but I swear it’s harmless. It’s just who I am.” And quite literally, I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear her sage advice.

  “Then you will continue with the same pattern you have always had.” I appreciated her no-nonsense approach to situations. And I could always count on her to give me an honest opinion rather than just tell me what I wanted to hear.

  Rubbing my hand across my bristly jaw made me aware of how badly I needed to shave. “So how do I change?”

  She didn’t even attempt to hide the chuckle that escaped under her breath. “You really need to get yourself together. You’re acting like a girl, and Claudette is the sibling you should go to about being a girl.” She was right. Charlie always was the tomboy, and Claudette had always been the girly girl.

  “Thanks, Lean Bean. You really know how to make a guy feel good about himself.” I rolled not just my eyes, but my entire head.

  Meanwhile, the lines around the corners of her gray eyes burrowed deeper as her grin widened. “How about I invite Alexis to breakfast with us?”

  I felt a smile tug at the corners of my lips as my sullen expression vanished.

  “Maybe after our shift one morning?” Her eyebrows peaked farther on her forehead.

  The heavy brick that had taken refuge in my gut dissipated, leaving me lighter than I’d felt in days. I was beyond grateful for my sister’s friendship. I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought about not talking to her about what was going on with me. She understood me better than maybe I had given her credit for. My relief settled in, and Charlie easily transitioned into our normal routine.

  We were best friends exchanging conversation over a meal like we had done a million times since we’d started feeding ourselves and speaking in sentences. Truthfully, we probably exchanged our thoughts with each other even before that. And just as easily as we would make plans for a bike ride or a trip to the lake for fishing, we finalized a breakfast date for the following week. My early-life crisis evaporated just as that brick weighing me down had.

  3

  Alexis

  The ER always seemed to get busier every night during the summer months. Apparently, the June bugs acted foolish and made bad choices when it came to their beach vacations. Drunken wounds, surfing injuries, boating accidents, and jet skiing traumas were the norm during the warm weather in our highly trafficked tourist destination.

  “Priority one head trauma coming in by chopper,” Charlie said to me as I returned to the floor from my very brief break. She breezed past me and into our large trauma resuscitation room to prepare for the arrival of our critical patient. “Eight minutes to the scene, ten minutes back.”

  I needed to focus on the injured patient on his way, but I hadn’t been sleeping well—which happened to a lot of nurses who worked night shifts. But I was pretty sure my lack of sleep was because I had a lot on my mind and not due to an alteration in my circadian rhythm.

  “Alexis, you got my back, right?” Charlie continued to check supplies and equipment in the empty patient room while I stood outside the threshold.

  “Of course.” I nodded and shuffled my feet to assist her in the preparation, hoping for some automatic drive to kick in and allow me to work efficiently without requiring too much thought. I wanted to help my colleague. Even though we weren’t exactly friends, she was my favorite nurse to work alongside.

  I was also very appreciative that she had come to my rescue from that uncomfortable situation with her brother last week. I hadn’t been on a date in a very long time. I was only twenty-one, so I had my whole life ahead of me. I didn’t need a man dragging me down.

  Although, I also recognized that I didn’t want to be alone my whole life, either. Damn that old woman for dying last week and causing me to think about being alone when I die. Maybe when I was much older, I’d be interested in dealing with a man, but I couldn’t foresee that being anytime soon. I wasn’t a man-hater per se, but I found them controlling, demanding, and selfish. Additionally, grown men would sometimes throw a temper tantrum fiercer than any toddler when he didn’t get his way, and I didn’t have the patience for that. I also didn’t feel like having that kind of drama in my life at the moment. It was emotionally exhausting. I’d heard there were some good guys out there, but I had yet to witness any myself. I also probably didn’t let my guard down long enough to find out if a guy was nice or not. I’d push them all away just the same.

  The reality was that I may not have seen any good guys, but I had seen some bad ones. I had seen ones who physically tortured women too many times during my short time on Earth, which was really the true reason I’d never let my guard down.

  “What is the mechanism of head injury? Tourist dove into the shallow end of a pool?” This time of year always had me predicting the consequences of vacationers’ bad choices.

  “Nah.” Charlie checked the oxygen tank beneath the stretcher and surveyed the breathing masks and cannulas while she spoke. “Some local guy beat the crap out of his wife with a baseball bat.”

  Bile crept up my throat, and perspiration prickled against my clammy skin. I willed the stomach acid back down, but the nausea wasn’t so willing to comply with my request. I could force myself not to vomit, but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I needed to. I always ate quickly at work because I didn’t want to leave my co-workers for too long. But at that moment, I regretted my usual hasty meal since it sat like concrete in the abyss of my gut.

  Flashes of unwanted recollections flashed in my mind like flipping pages in a magazine. The images were colorful, vivid, yet repulsive. In my attempt to avoid panic, I glanced at my watch and discovered I still had a few minutes before the patient would head to our hospital. I took that opportunity to excuse myself for a quick trip to the ladies’ room. Making a brief stop to the bathroom before a trauma patient’s arrival was actually a norm, because you couldn’t predict how long you might need to be bedside literally saving someone’s life. It could be hours; therefore, sneaking away to the restroom was something I felt like I could do without drawing any suspicion.

  So I exited the room quietly and slipped into the employee ladies’ room, pulling the heavy, wooden door shut and clicked the lock into place. Thankful for the tiled wall, I leaned against the cool surface and cursed myself for traveling down memory lane into a past I’d rather forget and never revisit. I had been pushing visions from my childhood down so far into the furthest reaches of my mind ever since high school in the hopes that those images couldn’t be located again, even with GPS.

  But for some reason, with one unexpected yet brief patient report, I couldn’t pull my mind away from memories that had once invaded me with sadness yet now shook my body with anger. I hated that I couldn’t seem to control my feelings or my mind from taking me back to a place I didn’t want to go. I was a grown woman now, and I despised when I felt anything less than confident and strong. I had too often felt weak and afraid when I was a little girl, and I sometimes needed to remind myself that I wasn’t that scared, vulnerable child anymore.

  My thoughts reeled me back in time, but I continued to try to fight them. I have moved on, I recited the same chant over and over again, just as I had so many times throughout my life. Sometimes it was a silent plea, and other times, like now, I said the words loud and proud, willing the memories to leave me alone.

  I always wanted to believe that coming out on the other side of a traumatic childhood had left me stronger. I relished in my accomplishments, recalling how I’d managed to work my way through college and dive into a career that I loved.

  After too many years of sinking into quicksand, I managed to claw my way out of the hol
e that threatened to swallow me, climb a mountain, and reach the summit. I was one of the few women who could say that, so I was extremely proud of my tenacity and perseverance.

  But slipping back into those weak moments in my mind caused me the same feelings of claustrophobia as those intimidating walls started to move toward me, squeezing me into a smaller and smaller space until I was completely boxed in with nowhere to flee. Unfortunately, that wasn’t where it ended. Once I was rooted in a confined area without an escape, I felt sand gather around my feet and creep up my legs, immersing me until I eventually felt like I was drowning in dust, causing a choking sensation to form within my throat as I gasped for air. Normal people would call that a panic attack. But for me, it was merely an inconvenience that only periodically showed up. Fortunately, I was always able to combat it. I was a fighter, and even though I might’ve needed to remind myself occasionally, I felt confident that no one or nothing could ever hurt me again.

  My biological father was physically abusive to my mom. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to determine my distrust of men was a result of that. It wasn’t just an occasional shove or smack, either. He was extremely cruel and took abuse to another dimension of domestic violence.

  My mom had burned dinner once, so my father thought retribution came with burning her. He’d lit a cigarette and dragged the hot ember tip up and down her forearms multiple times. To make matters worse, he had no regard for performing such a heinous act in front of his daughter. The smell of burnt flesh, the blood-curdling screams from my mother, and the sight of charred skin sporadically made an appearance as a grotesque image that I could see on the widescreen of my mind with a muffled soundtrack. I understood it wasn’t real, but although distorted, I could make out the memory all too clearly.

  When my father—I’d never call such a horrific person Dad—saw her talking to the mailman one day, he punched her in the face and broke her nose so that “no man would find her attractive again.” Again, the cracking reverberation causing a nasal bone fracture was a noise I would never forget. Neither was the sight of blood pouring out of my mom’s nostrils like two spigots and coating her white shirt.

  I could go on and on about cuts, bruises, broken bones, burns, and busted lips, but with only an occasional slip-up like what happened tonight, I was pretty efficient at keeping most of those memories buried deep inside.

  When I was ten, my father had come home and said he was disgusted by my mother, so he left. He just packed up and left. I couldn’t understand the sadness that surrounded my mom regarding that event. I remembered being overjoyed to have that man out of my life. I hadn’t seen him since that day, and I didn’t miss him one bit. I had no idea why she had stayed with him all that time, but leaving had never even been a consideration for her. Fortunately, my father had never raised a hand to me, but I saw the aftermath of what he did to her just the same.

  Regrettably, she didn’t stay without a man for very long. My mom began dating—too soon for my liking—in an attempt to recover from her sadness. From where I stood, I would’ve assumed that she’d date a man who was the opposite of my father. But she wound up dating another abusive man.

  The first guy my mother dated after my dad was not so selective with his abuse. He got into fistfights at bars and lost several jobs due to his temper and anger issues. My mom moved him into our house anyway. Again, I fell witness to the same abuse, only at the hands of a different man. I had read the articles in the academic journals, and I witnessed firsthand the cycle of domestic violence. The information was all the same. A woman would continue to fall into the same relationship patterns because that was all she knew.

  Additionally, her lack of confidence made her vulnerable, which allowed these predatory men to convince her that she needed him or that no one else would want her. The evidence also suggested that children who grew up in abusive homes would end up being victims themselves when they began to date. Well, that is never going to happen to me. I was better than that. I would just as soon be alone than in the relationships I saw my mother have.

  Not only did I have the strength of mind to avoid those situations, but I also learned how to defend myself as well. I decided a long time ago that I would never let a man physically hurt me. The first time I had to protect myself was during my junior year in high school.

  My mother’s live-in boyfriend had been upset about something. I never did find out exactly what had sparked his anger, but he was in the kitchen with my mother when he began pummeling her with his fists. She held her forearms up, trying to shield her face from his punches, but he continued to wail on her. The empty thud of a clenched hand into her abdomen and the smack of flesh being split open as he struck her upper jaw were other sounds that sometimes haunted me.

  I was sixteen at the time of that disturbing vision in my kitchen, and I had been living that life long enough. At that point, I’d made the decision that if she wouldn’t defend herself, then I would have to step in. So that’s what I did.

  I yelled at him to stop, and he flinched at the screech of my voice. His nostrils flared and he glared at me, baring his teeth like an angry dog. His evil scowl didn’t deter me, though. I confidently approached him, deliberately stomping my feet as I moved closer. I watched the muscles and veins in his neck strain against his skin before he drew his closed fist back and tried to take a swing at me. He was much larger than me, but I was quicker. I dodged his failed attempt at a blow to my head. Reflexively, I grabbed the largest knife out of the wooden block on the kitchen counter and waved the sharp, shiny metal blade at him.

  That got his attention really quickly. His eyes widened and, I swear, they bulged out of the confinements of their sockets. He realized I wasn’t scared of him. He stiffened and backed away from me, but when my mother dropped her arms to her sides, coming out of her defensive stance, he threw another swift punch to her abdomen. Acting on impulse, I jabbed the blade into his side, right through his shirt and his fatty layers of skin and tissue. I let the knife continue its path until it wouldn’t go any farther. Then I removed the blade, coated with his crimson blood, and plunged it into him again.

  He crashed to his knees and fell onto his back. My mother actually yelled at me for what I had done to him! She scurried to his side and screamed for me to leave. She basically told me in no uncertain terms that I was no longer welcome there. So I left. I grabbed a few things from my dresser and closet on my way out.

  And that was the last time I saw her. That was five years ago, and I didn’t miss her one bit, either. I shouldn’t hold on to so much hatred to the people who’d given me life, but old habits die hard. I couldn’t remember a time when I felt love for either of my parents, so it wasn’t difficult to hold on to the only emotion I had associated with them.

  I never went back to that house. I never even found out what had happened to my mom’s boyfriend. I honestly didn’t have a clue what had happened to my mom. I wasn’t even sure if either of them was still alive, or even if they were still together. I suppose a lot of people would feel sorry for me, but I was actually grateful for how things had turned out.

  I was grateful that assault charges never came my way. I was grateful that I had a car I could sleep in when I didn’t have anywhere else to go. And I was grateful that I had a job so I had an income. Many sixteen-year-olds were without cars and money, so I had some things others in my situation hadn’t.

  I had no idea why the cops didn’t show up and haul me away to juvie. I certainly could’ve been found because of the aforementioned car and job. I continued to go to school, as well. It’d taken several months, but I finally stopped anticipating being arrested by every police officer I saw.

  It would have been easy to skip going to school. I mean, who would force me to go? I had zero adult supervision. And with no one telling me what to do, I could do what I wanted. Thankfully, I wanted to go to school. I wanted to get a degree, acquire a career, and support myself financially so that I would never need to depend on a man for anything
.

  Luckily, I was determined and ambitious, because I doubt anyone at my high school would’ve cared if I had stopped attending. It wasn’t like I had any friends—which was my choice. Considering my home life, I never even wanted to invite someone to my house when I was younger. Not to mention, my life seriously sucked, so I didn’t have anything in common with anyone. What would I have talked with anyone about, anyway?

  I still had the same Honda Accord, but I didn’t sleep in it anymore. I lived in a cute one-bedroom apartment now, and I had personally earned everything in it. It hadn’t been an easy road, but it was the journey that had led me to where I was now. I’d graduated high school but didn’t attend the ceremony. It was a personal achievement. I didn’t need the celebration and accolades. Besides, everyone else in my graduating class would’ve been surrounded by family; I didn’t have anyone I could share my accomplishment with.

  Graduating high school was really only one step toward my goals, anyway. I wanted a career as a nurse, so I enrolled in a community college just prior to graduation and received an associate degree in nursing two years later. Immediately after passing my board certification about a year ago, I had applied for a job at the local hospital…and I’d been an emergency room nurse ever since.

  Charlie and I had both started working at the same time. She had graduated from a four-year university, so she was a couple years older than me, but we both held the same board certification.

  Drawing my mind back to the present helped ease me out of hiding in the restroom, and I returned to the empty trauma room. I expected to see Charlie, the ER physician, a tech, and maybe a respiratory therapist surrounding the stretcher, perhaps someone from Xray, too. But the room stood sterile and bare.