Mia Castile - [The Butterfly Chronicles 02]

by Butterfly Kisses (epub)

  “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m here for him; that’s what’s important,” I say, trying to blow off this conversation. Mike has been trying to have it with me for days.

  “It’s summertime, and you should be going out and having fun with your friends.” He takes a deep breath. “I just don’t want you putting your life on hold for him.”

  “Mike, all due respect, I’m not putting my life on hold. I’m supporting him. He would do this for me if it were me. Besides, he’s all I have. It’s my fault he’s here. If I had just told him about Byron, they wouldn’t have been in that awful fight. He wouldn’t have hit his head the first time or the second time in the bathroom. I’m not going to stop coming here. One of the nurses told me he can hear us, everything; we shouldn’t even be talking about this in here,” I pause, taking a deep breath as I look at the ceiling. “I need to be here as much for me as for him. I feel safe with him, even in this state.” I can’t hide the shaking in my voice or the tears that slide down my cheeks.

  “Chase wouldn’t want you spending all of your time here like this. He’d want you to focus on yourself and work. The doctors don’t even know how long this will last.” He rises and embraces me. I know all of this, but making me leave would be like ship wrecking me on an island. He is my life jacket.

  More days pass. I Skype with Lana, and she shows me the new condo. It’s hard to be excited for her when she seems miserable there. We talk about Chase and Mike. I get her up to speed on his condition. Then there’s nothing to talk about. When I go to bed that night, I toss and turn. I can’t wait until the sun rises. I go down to the pool and swim laps across it. Granted our pool isn’t large, but the first time I decide to swim them I hit only seventy five. It’s my new stress reliever, especially since there’s no one really to talk to these days. Sure I could reach out to Tasha or Jade, but I can’t stand their pity. Bea and Stacey, no way I can’t even think about that. Henry, no. That leaves Byron, and it’s strange how we have more in common than we ever knew. After an hour in the pool, I get ready for the hospital. I put on the usual, jean shorts, a T-shirt. Today I choose a concert T and a hoodie because the hospital is freezing, and I slip my feet into my cons. My wet hair goes up into a messy bun, and I put my contacts in. I don’t bother with make-up anymore. At first, I always dressed cute and tried to look my best because I wanted him to wake up to see me at my best, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he’s seen me at my worst, so as long as I don’t smell, I think I’m OK. There’s no one in his room when I arrive. So I climb up into the bed and snuggle in beside him. It’s a tight fit because he’s lying on his back.

  “Lana’s settling into their condo. Mom’s being a little spastic, but overall I think they’re doing OK. I swam a 150 laps this morning. That’s ten more than yesterday. Are you proud of me?” I ask, waiting for his response. “I can’t wait for the SafetySuit concert this summer. We’re going to have so much fun.” I twine my fingers between his and turn a little so that I can look up at the ceiling. “If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine we’re at our spot in the woods. Can you see it? A dark sky above us, leafy trees around us? I haven’t been there since you fell. Chase, that was the worse day of my life. I lost my parents, and I lost you. I’m just hoping to find you again soon. We all miss you. We’re ready for you to come back to us. Find me again.” I turn and look at him. His eyes are still closed. I touch his temple gently and trace the lines of his face, his cheek bones, his nose, his forehead down to his chin, and around his short hairline. “Please wake up,” I whisper, as I gently brush my lips against his warm ones. I settle in close to his face and just watch him breathe. “I love you.” I slide my hand across his chest. “I miss you, come back.” I fall asleep repeating those words over and over. In fact in my dream, I whisper those words as counts to the waltz we do in front the Thunderbird headlights to the song “Shelter.” We are in our homecoming outfits, and this time when he kisses me, I don’t fight him; I confess my love and we are happy. In my dream we get our “happily ever after” with years passing, growing old, having children, having grandchildren, and then looking back on our lives together contently. I feel a stirring, as the bed creaks around me. I open my eyes wondering if I’m in the nurse’s way. My eyes widen as I see Chase with his head raised, and he’s looking down at the IV in his left arm in confusion. He looks at me, into my eyes, still confused. I’m so happy I can’t stop the tear that slides from my eye and falls on the pillow. I don’t know what to say so I just lean up and kiss him. He’s surprised as my hands delicately touch his face, and I feel relief as my desperation for him is met with his own intensity. When we pull away, he looks at me with that sideways smirk on his lips. He opens his mouth to speak, but frowns a little as his voice comes out scruffy. Then he says his first words to me in more than two months.

  “Who are you?”

  Chase

  “Do you know what today is?” Lacey asks as she lies on top of me, resting her head on my chest. It slowly rises and falls as I take deep breaths. We’re in the cabin where we spent our first night together. The sun is bright through the window and the sheets cover us, but that’s the only thing we’re wearing. Her soft, dark-blond hair smells like apples, and her skin feels like silk against me. I reach for my phone on the night stand to give me a clue as to the day or even just the time. But it’s not there. That’s weird.

  “No, what’s today?” I ask lazily, trying not to let the fact that my phone is missing rattle me.

  “This is the day that a year ago you said your first words to me. Do you remember what they were?” she asks, looking up at me with beautiful, wide grey eyes.

  “Do you want me to open that for you?” I repeat. It was the day I escorted her to the nurse’s office after she fell in English class and busted her nose. We stopped off at her locker, and she couldn’t get it to open because she was so upset. For the longest time I thought the first words I said to her were about not getting blood on me. But she reminded me at Christmas that those weren’t the first words I said to her, which made me feel a lot better.

  “Yeah, I thought you hated me, the way you always looked at me like you couldn’t stand me.”

  “But it wasn’t true,” we both say together, and I feel her smile against my chest. She turns her face and presses her lips against my heart and inhales deeply. Then I feel a tear on my skin.

  “I need you to wake up,” she says, her voice wavering, and I’m confused because I am awake, but then suddenly my eyelids feel really heavy. I drift to sleep, and the last thing I remember is she leans up and kisses my cheek.

  When I open my eyes, I almost wreck my bike. It scares the shit out of me. I swerve but right it. I’m on a country road. It’s my favorite thing to do, just ride. The sun is setting behind me, making the sky yellow, red, orange, and purple. My bike roars between my legs in raw power. I feel invincible. I’m usually a cautious rider, but I feel daring, and so I gun it. No one is on this road, and I know it like the back of my hand. I feel free, happy. But then I think about the last thing Lacey said to me. She told me to “wake up.” I don’t know what she was talking about. I am awake. I’ve never been more awake than I am now. So I ride for hours. It doesn’t seem to get dark. The sky is just that beautiful rainbow of colors. And this road doesn’t end. I’m getting tired, so I slow down. My head begins to ache, and my eyelids feel heavy. As I slow down, I begin to swerve, but I’m OK with it. I’m veering all over the road, and my bike is all but tipping over, but I’m not worried. And then I roll into a deep trench. I’m falling backward into darkness. I feel the air rushing around me, but I keep falling. I see my arms and legs above me. The blackness around me is almost shiny or dark blue, and it feels tangible, like I could reach out and stop myself from falling, but I don’t. I continue to fall, and I close my eyes, accepting my fate.

  I have a million dreams with Lacey, dreams where she confides in me, dreams where she talks with my
family about me, dreams where she’s with our friends, dreams that I’m in, and dreams that I watch. She’s always in my thoughts, when I’m lucid and when I sleep. But then sometime, there’s just darkness, and silence, and can’t even make a sound or move a muscle. That terrifies me.

  My mom is shaking me from the couch in our old house in Columbus. There are piled up ashtrays on the coffee table and liquor bottles scattered on the floor by where I slept. I look up at her angrily for waking me.

  “Chase, where did I put my cigarettes?” she pleads. Her bleached blond hair is a matted mess, and all her eye makeup rests on the tops of her cheeks. She looks like a zombie with grey skin.

  “In your purse,” I say and roll over. She’ll find an empty pack, but I don’t care.

  “Chase, honey, you have to wake up. We need you.” She pushes on my back. She hasn’t needed me in a long time.

  “Go away,” I mumble.

  “Chase, I’m not leaving you. I did that once; I won’t do it again.” I roll over and look at her, and she looks clean and sober suddenly.

  “What do you want from me?” I ask, annoyed.

  “Wake up, and please come back to us,” she says softly. I don’t want to wake up, so I close my eyes and go back to sleep.

  Later, I open my eyes; I don’t know what time it is, or how much time has passed. I’m lying in my bed at home. It’s dark out though. Where is my clock? I rise and go upstairs. My dad and Lacey are standing across from each other at the island. He’s making his famous barbeque ribs. They neither one look at me, so I just stand there. They are dressed in summer clothes, Lacey in a short, pretty sundress, Dad in khaki, cut-off shorts and a graphic T, but I’m just wearing long, gym shorts or as I call them, pajamas.

  “Chase wouldn’t want you spending all of your time here like this. He’d want you to focus on yourself and work. The doctors don’t even know how long this will last.” He rises and embraces me. I know all of this, but making me leave would be like ship wrecking me on an island. He is my life jacket. “I just don’t want you putting your life on hold for him,” my dad says, as he pauses in his seasoning and looks at her.

  “Mike, all due respect, I’m not putting my life on hold. I’m supporting him. He would do this for me if it were me. Besides, he’s all I have. It’s my fault he’s here. If I had just told him about Byron, they wouldn’t have been in that awful fight. He wouldn’t have hit his head the first time or the second time in the bathroom. I’m not going to stop coming here. One of the nurses told me he can hear us, everything; we shouldn’t even be talking about this in here,”

  “What fight?” I ask confused, but they ignore me.

  “I’m not going to stop coming here. One of the nurses told me he can hear us, everything. We shouldn’t even be talking about this in here.” She pauses and looks at me for a brief second and then turns back to my dad. “I need to be here as much for me as for him. I feel safe with him, even in this state.” She buries her head in her hands, and my dad comes around the island and hugs her.

  “Chase wouldn’t want you spending all of your time here like this. He’d want you to focus on school and work. The doctors don’t even know how long this will last.” She begins to cry when he says that.

  “What’s going on? Why won’t you tell me?” I move to where they stand. I should be holding her; why can’t I reach her? Every step I take toward them, the room grows between us, and they move farther away. I’m tired again too. I’ve never felt this tired.

  “Lana’s settling into their condo. Mom’s being a little spastic, but overall I think they’re doing OK. I swam a 150 laps this morning. That’s ten more than yesterday. Are you proud of me?” I am proud of her. My eyes are resting, but I feel her beside me as she continues, “I can’t wait for the SafetySuit concert this summer. We’re going to have so much fun. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine we’re at our spot in the woods. Can you see it? A dark sky above us, leafy trees around us?” When I open my eyes, we are there. Lacey’s hair is piled on her head in a messy bun. She’s wearing rolled-up jeans and a thin, sloppy T-shirt. She’s beautiful. “I haven’t been there since you fell. Chase, that was the worst day of my life. I lost my parents and I lost you.” Now I’m confused.

  “I’m right here Lacey,” I say, as I softly touch her cheek, but she ignores me and continues.

  “I’m just hoping to find you again soon. We all miss you. We’re ready for you to come back to us. Find me again.” She touches my face, and it’s the best feeling in the world. I don’t know where I’ve been, but I want to come back to her, be with her. “Please wake up,” she whispers, as she lightly kisses me. She snuggles up to me, and we just look at the sky, all the beautiful stars, so brilliant and bright. I’ve never seen them so bright. “I love you . . . I miss you, come back.” When I tighten my arms around her to whisper that I’m right here, that I’ve never left her, she disappears. I suddenly lean up and I feel the darkness creeping in around me. The world begins to spin at a rapid speed, and I feel pressure on my head like I’ve never felt before. I close my eyes to get my bearings, but when I open them, it’s dark. I’m suddenly terrified; nothing looks familiar. I don’t know where I am. I hear a voice, soft and distant. It’s like the words to a song that I can’t remember, but I know that I know, but I’m alone. “HEY! HEY!” I scream, as I slide down my car and reflectively clutch my hair because of the sharp sudden pain in my forehead. I feel like I’m going insane. I fall to the ground in a panic, “Lacey, Lacey!” Then I start to cry because she’s gone, maybe forever. I know she’s gone. I feel her slipping away from me. I haven’t cried since that horrible day in rehab when I found Spanky on the floor of the shower with his wrist cut. But I hurt. I hurt everywhere, my arms, my legs, my lungs, my heart, my head—my head is pounding. My skull feels crushed. “Lacey,” I whisper, while a fog rolls in all around me. It’s cool and makes my skin clammy. It’s hard to breathe, and I close my eyes tight to take the pressure off my head from the fog. Then I hear beeping. It’s a steady beep like a heartbeat. Beep—beep—beep.

  I don’t feel the fog anymore, and I open my eyes. Above me I see ceiling tiles. The beep continues, and I look down at an arm resting over my chest. It’s delicate and soft, so it must belong to a girl. I turn my head. It hurts a little, but I still turn and beside me lies a pretty girl. Her eyes are closed. She has dark blond hair that is pulled back, but half of it has fallen in her face. Her face is round with high cheek bones, and her lips are plump but in a pout as she sleeps. I just stare at her, wondering why she’s lying beside me. I look around, and realize I’m in a hospital room. There is an IV in my left arm, and I feel really stiff. I look back at this girl; I’m drawn to her face. The softest grey eyes are staring widely at me. I just look at her, not really knowing what to do. Then a tear falls down her cheek as she leans up and kisses me right on the mouth. Her lips are as soft as they are plump, and she tastes sweet, like a cinnamon roll or some dessert. Her hand softly touches my cheek, and our kiss deepens. She’s a good kisser, and I only kiss her back because Emily and I are broken up so what does it matter who I kiss? After our lips part, I have one question for her, but my voice doesn’t work at first. Frustrated, in a hoarse voice, I ask, “Who are you?”

  Bonus Material

  Alternate Book Trailer

  Bonus Butterfly Kisses Vlog

  Behind the scenes- writing Butterfly Kisses