He sighs as if he’s relieved. I decide to press on.
“I broke his heart when I left him,” I confess. “He told me that he used to see me deep in thought, and he knew I was thinking about you. He was decent to me, even after we broke up. We did some stupid things together. The stuff he was into was a little dodgy and occasionally illegal, but he kept me safe.”
Gabriel shakes his head and stabs his fork into a pancake. “But why is he responsible for you being here now?”
“Because he came to see me on Christmas Day. I was lonely and we talked, and he helped me to realise that I’d never be free unless I came back here and told you the truth. He didn’t know what that truth was exactly, but he knew there were things I should have told you. He said the only reason he let me go was because he thought I was coming back here—back to you. He told me he was disappointed that I hadn’t. He told me I’d never be happy unless I tried to make things right with you.”
I finally look up to find Gabriel watching me intently. I can’t decipher how he feels about what I just told him, but at least he doesn’t look angry.
“He was right,” I whisper.
Chapter 29
Gabriel
I drive away from the cafe with a heaviness in my heart that I wasn’t expecting. I’m not jealous about Yara’s relationship with Jez. He sounds a little messed up himself, but at least he was good to her. I should probably thank the guy for that.
What I wasn’t expecting to hear about what all the shit things Yara has done. After reading about her degree and the modelling offers she’d received, I guess I was expecting her to tell me things had been rosy. But she’s done some scary stuff with him and I’m wondering if my boring life of fixing people’s gardens and building tree houses will be enough for her.
“Where are we going?” she asks when she notices I’m driving in the wrong direction.
“I got a text from Jonny,” I tell her. “Seems the news people have gotten wind of your story in the magazine, and now they know you’re back in the village.”
She groans and buries her face in her hands. “But I’m a nobody.”
“You’re really not,” I say, turning my truck onto the mountain road. “It’ll die down,” I tell her. “And we can always go away for a few days.”
“Can we?” she asks.
I nod. “If you want to.”
She doesn’t speak the rest of way. Not even when I park my truck and get out, telling her to follow me. She trails behind me for half an hour, picking at bits of leaves as we walk through the long grass.
I hear her gasp when she realises where we are. “You remembered,” she says. I turn and see her eyes roaming over the place where we used to come at night. When her eyes fall to the grass on the opposite side of the water, I know exactly what she’s thinking about.
“Want to swim?” I ask, pulling my shirt off.
“We can’t,” she says.
I peel my top off, watching the way her eyes scan over my whole body in one quick sweep. “Why not?”
“It’s the middle of the day,” she tells me. “And I have nothing to swim in.”
“Oh, come on,” I say, pushing my jeans down my legs. “Since when were you bothered about being naked in a public place?”
She smiles, but it’s not a real smile. “I didn’t know what I was doing back then.”
Oh. I take a deep breath and decide I’m just going to make her get in. I lunge for her, but she darts out of my way and squeals. When I finally catch her, she squirms out of my grip and puts her hands up to stop me from grabbing her again.
“Okay,” she says through a laugh. “I’ll swim with you.”
I stand and watch her while she undresses. I feel myself getting hard at just the sight of her in her bra and knickers, so I stride towards her, picking her up into my arms and carrying her straight into the water.
“It’s still so warm,” she breathes, wrapping her legs around me.
I let my hands trail all over her back as I lean into her and kiss just underneath her ear.
“Are we okay?” she asks hesitantly.
“Yes,” I mumble against her skin. “Some of the stuff surprised me, but it’s actually better than I’ve been imagining since I found out you were working at that club.”
“I suppose I get that,” she says. “But I enjoyed the dancing, and it was a great way to hide for a while so I could try and sort my head out.”
“I understand,” I tell her, completely meaning it. “And I’m glad you’ve told me about Jez.” I pause, not wanting to ask but needing to. “Was he the only one?”
She pulls back and looks at me. “What do you mean?”
“Was he the only man you’ve been with since me?”
“Oh,” she says, looking a little embarrassed. “There have been a couple since him, but none worth writing home about.” I recognise my words from earlier. As much as I don’t like being on the receiving end of them, it’s only fair.
I lean forwards and press my watery lips against her forehead at the same time her fingers slide into my hair.
“Are we done now?” she asks. “Everything’s out in the open. No more secrets. No more lies. No more dead relatives buried under the patio. Is this it?” she breathes against my throat. “Is this where we start again?”
“Yes,” I tell her. “We’re done. No more wondering about the past, and no more regrets. What’s done is done. We’re moving on and we’ll learn from it. We’ll start afresh, just the two of us.”
“But what about your mum? Are you going to tell her what happened that morning?”
“No,” I say. “It wasn’t your fault, so there’s no point dragging all that back up. The outcome would have been the same whether you were there or not. You need to let this go, Yara.”
“I know,” she says sadly. “And I will…one day.”
Yara
My heart feels like it can’t take anymore. Gabriel has listened to my story, and he hasn’t judged me for the decisions I’ve made. He hasn’t once made me feel guilty about how I treated him or how I left him. Even though he hasn’t said anything, I still hate myself at times for the things I’ve done. The way I treated people. The way I treated him.
But at least everything is out there now. I have no more secrets or stories to tell him. He knows everything about me and he still loves me. It makes me wonder what I could have done to deserve such a man, to be worthy of someone like him.
Well, I don’t know what it is that I’ve done, but I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to cherish that love. I’m going to thank my lucky stars every single day that I’ve found someone who is good and kind and has a heart that’s willing to accept me for who I am.
“What are you thinking about?”
I blink, realising he’s carried us out of the water. “Just how much I love you,” I tell him as he places me gently down on the grass.
“And how much is that exactly?” he asks, pushing my thighs apart with his knee.
“I love you with all of my heart,” I breathe.
“Good,” he says as he towers over me. Our skin is still wet but warm in the streak of sunlight, and he slides over me, nudging in between my legs with his hardness. “I love you too.”
I groan when he rocks into me. Leaning down on one elbow, he gently squeezes my breasts with his free hand as he thrusts into me.
My legs curl around the base of his spine as he slowly moves inside me. He kisses along my jaw and pulls back until he’s almost out of me, and then he pushes back in even more slowly. He repeats this over and over while whispering words in my ear about how much he loves me, how he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, how he doesn’t want to waste a single second being apart from me.
He carries on thrusting until my legs start to quiver. His hand caresses and dances over every single part of my body that he can reach. Our skin has dried from the heat of the sun, and it feels like I’m on fire when Gabriel lifts my knees and dips even deeper.
“You feel amazing,” he tells me as he leans back on his knees. “I love watching the way we move.”
I lift my head and see the way his eyes are transfixed on where we’re joined together. Knowing he’s watching himself going in and out makes my heart thump in my chest and causes my insides to turn to mush. When I hear his breathing deepen, I know I’m only seconds away from coming completely undone.
“Gabriel…” I reach out and squeeze his arms.
“I know.”
I let my head fall back, feeling the brush of the grass on my back. Then he tenses, and I feel my whole body jerk in response as my orgasm flies right through me.
Gabriel thrusts a couple more times and groans before collapsing on top of me. We lie there for a while, neither of us saying anything as we listen to the birds and insects chirp around us. I play with his hair as he listens to my heart beating through my chest.
Things with Gabriel have always felt like they weren’t real…like I was dreaming or I’d imagined him. The first time he spoke to me freaked me out. Maybe not as much as it freaked him out, but I had been reading Wuthering Heights and I’d just wished to find someone who loved me as much as Heathcliff loved Cathy. That thought had slithered out of mind the instant I heard him speak to me. I couldn’t believe someone as handsome and as funny as Gabriel would want to talk to me.
“What are you thinking about?” he whispers.
“The first time we met,” I reply, smiling to myself.
“I think about that a lot too,” he tells me. “There were so many things that led me outside that night. So many other things I could have done. So many what ifs that I think it’s mad how I came to be standing under that tree on that particular night.”
“Me too,” I say. “I was never allowed out at night, but I used to sneak out anyway. I’d come here and swim for a while and then sneak back home, but for some reason I chose to hang from that tree on that night. It was the first time I’d ever done it, and there you were.”
Gabriel looks up at me and smiles. “And here I am.”
Epilogue
9 months later
Yara
My heels click on the linoleum floor as I approach the main door. I could hear the screaming and yelling before I even stepped out of the lift, and I know it won’t stop anytime soon. Just before I swipe my ID card against the small black panel on the wall, the door swings wide open and out steps Yoko.
“Good luck with that one today,” she says, blowing her fringe out of her eyes. “She’s in a disgusting mood. Hasn’t eaten a thing all day and won’t talk to anyone either.”
I take a deep breath and stare at Yoko’s bright red cheeks. “Did you tell her I was coming to see her?”
“No,” she says, holding the door open for me as I walk through it. “I thought I’d let her sweat it out a bit more.”
I roll my eyes as the door slams shut in my face, then I watch Yoko retreat down the corridor, pulling a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. People like Yoko shouldn’t be in a job like this if they haven’t got any patience. I make a mental note to talk to my supervisor about her and then spin on my heels, carrying on down the bare corridor.
“Get the fuck off me! GET FUCKING OFF!”
“I’m nowhere near you, April. Just calm down.”
“Alright,” I say as forcefully as I can when I open April’s door. My eyes immediately find Silas as he stands with his hands on his hips right in front of me. He blinks at me, looking confused and a little bit scared because of what she was shouting. I was half expecting to come in and find him manhandling her. “That’s enough yelling and accusing people of doing stuff they’re not doing, April. And we don’t swear in here. Understood?”
She immediately stops screaming then turns her bright red face towards me, glaring at me from the other side of the room.
“She’s all yours,” says Silas, sounding relieved.
“Thanks,” I mumble as he slips out of the door behind me.
I can hear April’s fast, shallow breathing from across the room. “Where’s your inhaler?” I ask.
“I don’t need it.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t need it,” she repeats. She spits the last bit of the word and then grinds her teeth together.
I sigh and sit down on the chair at her desk. “Where is it?”
“I. Don’t. Need. It!”
I lift my chin and hold her gaze for a few seconds as I think about how I’m going to go about this with her. “I didn’t ask you if you needed it, April. I asked you where it is. Now you should know that I can play these games with you all day long, but where would that get us?” I shuffle on the seat, pulling my pencil skirt down where it’s gotten bunched up. “It wouldn’t get us anywhere,” I answer for her. “It would just make us both angrier than we already are, and then we’d be annoyed with each other for no good reason.”
She throws herself back on the bed with a huff. “Why can’t all the others be like you?”
I pull some notes from her file and my eyes scan over them, even though I know her case by heart. She was my first patient, and she’s been at St Mary’s for the longest. “I’m going to tell you something now that I don’t want you repeating to any of the others.”
“A secret?” she asks, grinning at me in anticipation.
“Yes,” I say, nodding, “and I’m only telling you so you’ll understand why I’m not like the others. It isn’t because I’m special or because I’m younger than they are. It’s because I was just like you,” I whisper. “I was misunderstood too. I know how lonely it is to feel like you’re the only one feeling like you do. I know you think about things over and over, wondering if there’s anything you could have done differently to prevent you from being where you are now. I know what it’s like to feel so angry that you can’t ever see yourself feeling any other way.”
She sits up and stares at me, looking shocked. “You were in a place like this?”
I nod and swallow. “Yes.”
“Wow,” she says through a whistle. “I never would have guessed.”
“And why is that?” I ask.
She shrugs. “You dress nice and wear expensive-smelling perfume. You’re clever and have a good job. People genuinely like you. You’ve got a boyfriend that loves you and you’re pretty.”
I smile sadly at her. “Almost all of those things you listed are material, April. It doesn’t matter what my face looks like or how nice my clothes are. It doesn’t really matter if I smell like I just walked out of a perfume shop. What matters is that I’m happy being who I am. What matters is that I love myself more than anyone loves me.”
“But I guess it helps that someone gave you that?” she asks, nodding toward my hand.
I look down and stare at the sparkling, butterfly-shaped diamond that sits proudly on my finger. “The man that gave me this loves me for who I am. He doesn’t care what I look like or how I smell either. He loves me. The real me. And I know this because he fell in love with me when I was in my”—I hold my fingers up, making air quotes—“crazy stage.”
“He did?” she asks, the astonishment clear in her voice.
“Yes,” I tell her. “But even if I didn’t have a man that wanted to marry me, I’d still be happy. I’d be happy because I learned to work through my problems. I worked with my therapist instead of against her. I behaved. I followed the rules. I got myself out of there, April. No one else did it. It was me. And in doing so, I managed to tackle some of the demons that plagued me, to turn my life around for the better.”
“How old were you?” she asks, curling her legs underneath her.
I smile when I notice her face is back to a normal colour. “I was sixteen, just a few months older than you are now.”
“Are you completely better now? You don’t have any dark days?”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” I say softly. “There will always be things I regret, but even people who’ve never felt like we feel have regrets.
It’s a part of life. But what I don’t have anymore are days when I feel like there’s nothing here for me. I look forward to the future, and I never wish I wasn’t here, living my life and experiencing all the good things that being alive can bring you.”
“Do you think I’ll feel like you one day?”
“I hope so,” I say quickly. “Because I was out in the field today, meeting with a couple that have offered you a place in their home if you want it.”
“What?” she shrieks. “Really?” I nod and beam at her as she jumps to her feet.
“Yes, but they want to see you working with your therapist and see your behaviour improving over the next four weeks. They want to help you, but they want you to help yourself too.”
“I will, I will,” she says, skipping across the floor until she wraps her arms around me. “I can’t believe someone is going to take me at my age. Usually, they all want the babies.”
“They’re amazing people, April,” I say as I hug her back, even though I probably shouldn’t. “They’ll really look after you, and they’re both looking forward to meeting you if it’s what you want.”
“It is,” she gushes. “It’s what I’ve wanted for the last five years.”
“Good. Then let’s make sure you behave yourself.”
“Best behaviour,” she tells me, saluting me with a grin on her face.
“With everyone,” I say, raising my eyebrow at her.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I laugh at her as I stand up and straighten my skirt. “I have to go now,” I say, noticing the time and wincing as I realise I’m twenty minutes late. “But I want you to think about what we’ve talked about, and I want to hear you’ve made a significant improvement when I get back next week.”
“You will,” she says. “I’m even going to tidy my room.”
“Good girl,” I say as I walk toward her door.
“Have a good holiday, Yara.”
“Thank you, April.”
Chasing Butterflies Page 23