Chasing Butterflies Read online

  Pulling my bags onto my shoulder, I start to walk towards home. It’s late—almost ten at night—and I spent longer away from home than I originally intended. I know I’ll have to deal with Granny and her anger when I see her, but I don’t care. I’ve never done anything like that before.

  Plus, I’m not the only one who will have to answer questions tonight. I want to know how long I’ve had a bank account and why she kept it from me. I want to know who opened it and why.

  Just as I’m rounding the corner onto Mill Street, the creaky, wooden, saloon-style doors of the local bar swing open and out stumbles Gabriel, kicking up dust from the road as he staggers in front of me.

  ““Gabriel.” My shocked breaths wheeze in and out over my lips. I don’t like that he’s been in a bar. I’m not sure why, except that I never thought of him doing the things that men usually do. It immediately makes me feel uncomfortable and awkward…and younger than him.

  He squints his eyes and sways in front of me. “Yara?”

  I nod. “Yes, it’s me.”

  I watch his eyes move up and down my body, and then he smirks. “Sew wook smice.”

  “What?”

  “S-nice,” he mumbles, and then he starts to laugh—the sort of laugh that starts deep in your belly.

  I don’t know what he finds so funny, but Gabriel’s laugh turns out to be infectious, and I soon feel my own mouth twitching. “Why are you laughing?”

  He suddenly stands stock-still and frowns. “Don’t know.” He bursts out laughing again until he suddenly stops and stares right at me. “Come here,” he whispers.

  My heart thumps so hard in my chest, I wonder if I’m having a heart attack. Since I can’t seem to move, it must be a stroke.

  “Come here, Yara.” He holds out his hand at the exact same time an older girl comes out of the bar, carrying a suit jacket.

  “There you are,” she says, walking straight up to Gabriel. She puts the jacket over his shoulders and links her fingers through his. She looks at me then and frowns.

  “He’s drunk,” she tells me as I stare at their conjoined hands.

  “Yeah, I sort of figured that,” I say to her as my eyes lift and scan over her face. I’m sure I recognise her, but I can’t remember where I’ve seen her before.

  “It’s Yara,” Gabriel murmurs.

  “Yara?” she repeats, looking between the two of us.

  “Yup,” he says, smiling at me. “She’s a small butterfly.”

  He remembered.

  “Really?” she replies, narrowing her eyes at me again.

  “I remembered,” he mutters.

  I nod, smiling at him.

  “Yara,” she says again, and then I see recognition flare in her eyes. “The Yara? The Yara that killed her own mother?”

  But I didn’t.

  “But she didn’t,” Gabriel says with a sigh.

  It feels so good for someone to defend me, but the feeling only lasts a moment. The girl glances over at Gabriel then quickly turns around and begins to walk away, dragging him with her. “We’re going,” she hisses at him. “Say goodbye, Gabriel.”

  “Goodbyeeeeee, Yara,” he calls, holding up his hand.

  I watch with an open mouth as she leads him away from me. Who is she? And why are they holding hands?

  “What are you talking to her for?” she whispers loudly to him.

  I don’t hear what Gabriel says back. I’m too busy trying not to cry when I see him throw his arm around her waist.

  When I finally get back home, there’s no sign of Granny. I tiptoe upstairs, thanking my lucky stars that she’s already gone to bed but hating the small part of me that feels hurt. She must know by now that I’ve skipped school. She also must know that I haven’t come home. Granny clearly doesn’t care enough about me to worry where I’ve been all day.

  I stash all my bags in my wardrobe and peel off my new clothes. Then I rifle through my drawers until I find my favourite silk slip and pull it over my head before flopping down onto my bed. I know the beautician told me to always make sure I take my makeup off, but I can’t be bothered. I know I should brush my teeth too, but I don’t do that either. My mind is too full of the images of Gabriel—and the pretty girl he was with—to care about whether my face will break out in spots or if my teeth will rot.

  I’ve been kidding myself thinking Gabriel could ever really like someone like me. I’m way younger than him, and I certainly don’t look like the girl he was with earlier. I might have bought new clothes and had my face caked with makeup, but it was obvious it wasn’t me. I was a fake, and she could see right through me. Maybe Gabriel could too and that’s why he was laughing so hard.

  But Gabriel did kiss me, even if it was just the once. I can’t stop thinking about that and how stupid I’ve been to read something into it. It must have meant nothing to him. I must mean nothing to him.

  Maybe he kisses girls all the time, giving kisses out like they’re going out of fashion…like they’re nothing to him. But that kiss was everything to me. It made me feel everything I’ve ever wanted to feel. It made me want things I never imagined I could have. It made me want Gabriel in a way I thought I’d never want anyone.

  I feel tears slithering down my cheeks, but I don’t bother wiping them away. My eyes lids suddenly feel heavy and I feel sleep tugging at me as I drift off towards dreams of Gabriel holding my hand.

  My hot breath rushes out of my mouth and my arms pump furiously at my side as I run from my house. I can feel twigs whipping across my forehead and the bottoms of my calves are damp from the morning dew, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop.

  I screech to a stop outside Gabriel’s front door and bang on it as hard as I can. I shuffle with impatience, wondering why he’s taking so long, and then beat on it again.

  When the door finally swings open, I find Gabriel’s mum standing in front of me with brown eyes and honey-coloured hair that falls to her shoulders. She looks a little like Gabriel. “Hello?” she asks, looking tired.

  “Are you Gabriel’s mum?” I realise at this moment that we’ve never been properly introduced, even though we’ve been neighbours since I was born.

  “Yes. Why? Who are you?”

  I clear my throat. “I’m Yara.”

  Gabriel’s mum gasps and then covers her mouth with her hand. “Yara,” she whispers through her fingers as her eyes fly all over my face. “My god. You…you’re so different.”

  “Is Gabriel in, please?” I ask. “I really need his help. And I need it kinda quick.”

  His mum shakes her head. “No, Yara. He left for work about an hour ago.”

  Oh. Now what am I supposed to do? “It’s Granny,” I blurt. “I need a doctor. Can you call one, please?”

  “A doctor?” she repeats, looking worried. “Is Joanna poorly?”

  “Yes, I think so,” I say, grabbing her hand as I remember that Gabriel told me she was a nurse. “I don’t know. I just need your help. Please.”

  I notice her hesitation as she looks over her shoulder. Then she pulls her dressing gown tighter around her and follows me back to my house.

  “What’s that noise?” she asks through her heavy breaths as she runs beside me.

  “My music,” I say with a huff.

  “What is it?”

  “Kate Bush,” I tell her. “I put it on while I paint, and it’s only loud because I thought I was on my own.”

  I grab her hand again and lead her around the splashes of paint and bits of glitter that I dropped earlier.

  “What is all this?” She has to yell at me just so I can hear her over the music. Then she steps over the mess in the kitchen, and I see her looking at the overflowing rubbish and the dirty, crumb-covered table.

  I rush into the living room and turn off the music. “I was painting,” I tell her as I return to the hallway. “I thought Granny had gone out.”

  “You were painting the whole house?”

  “Yes. I don’t think Granny has ever decorated, and I found
some tins of paint in the shed.”

  Her face falls as her eyes scan over the floor and walls I’ve painted. “Where’s Joanna, Yara?”

  I tug her hand, leading her up the stairs. I push open Granny’s bedroom door and then immediately stop.

  “Oh, God.” Gabriel’s mum rushes into the room and then drops to her knees where Granny is slumped over the side of her bed. “How long has she been like this?”

  I feel like I’m watching this whole scene as if it were on a television screen. “I don’t know.”

  “How long, Yara?” she snaps.

  “I don’t know,” I repeat slowly. “The last time I saw her was the night before last. We argued.”

  “You didn’t look for her yesterday?” she asks as she presses her fingers to Granny’s neck.

  “No.” I don’t like her tone. I feel like she’s blaming me. “We didn’t live in each other’s pockets,” I tell her. “We weren’t like that.”

  “I’m getting that impression,” she mumbles, looking around the bedroom. “But why didn’t you call an ambulance?”

  “Is she dead?”

  “I can’t say,” she says gently, but I see it in her face.

  “She is, isn’t she?”

  I take two steps into the room and look down at Granny’s pale, sunken face and blue lips. Unable to look another second, I look back at Gabriel’s mum as she shakes her head slowly. “I think she’s been dead for a while,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, Yara.”

  “It’s fine,” I say quickly, taking a step back. “Really.”

  She frowns at me and stands up, looking around the room. “I still need to call an ambulance.”

  I ignore her because the only thing I can think of is that Granny is dead. We argued and now she’s dead. I’m alone. Completely alone in a world that I know nothing about.

  “Yara.” Gabriel’s mum walks up to me and pulls me into a hug, but I don’t hug her back. I don’t know her. It feels weird. “It’s okay,” she says, “you can cry all you want, and then we’ll call an ambulance.

  I want to tell her that I’m not going to cry. Why would I cry when Granny was horrible to me?

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispers again. “Just let it all out, sweetheart.”

  I want to tell her I won’t be letting anything out, but then I feel her shoulder turning damp underneath my cheeks and I realise tears are streaming down my face.

  “We need to call an ambulance,” she says after a few minutes.

  I wipe my face and sniff as I pull away from her. “We don’t have a phone,” I eventually whisper. “Granny said the devil made the phone and that’s how he was brainwashing people into going to hell to help him. It was all through their phones.”

  “There’s no such thing as the devil,” she tells me. “Or hell.”

  “I hope you’re wrong,” I say, wondering if she’s telling me this because she thinks it’ll make me feel better. Hell is just too good for some people.

  Chapter 11

  Gabriel

  “When did you last see Yara?”

  I shrug and look up at Jonny. “I dunno. Ella said I stumbled outside of here on the night of Alex’s funeral, and there she was. She said we spoke to her, but I can’t remember.”

  “Why was Yara outside the bar at that time of night?”

  I shake my head. “I have no idea. Can I have another drink now, please?” I ask, nodding towards the bottle.

  “No,” he says. “You’ve been drunk for three solid days. I think you need a break from it.”

  “Give it to me,” I growl.

  “You feel like shit, Gabriel. I get that. But messing about with drink and confusing the crap out of poor Yara isn’t the right way to make it hurt any less.”

  “I know,” I groan, letting my head drop into my hands. “I shouldn’t have carried on—”

  “Kissing her?” he interrupts.

  “Talking to her,” I say. “That first night, I knew it wasn’t going to end well for her. For us.”

  “But you carried on,” he pushes. “You rescued her. You made her feel like you were there for her as a friend…probably more than a friend.”

  “I know.”

  “You need to sort it out,” he tells me.

  “I know.”

  “Do you even know what you want from her?”

  I shake my head. “No, not really. She’s too young.”

  “Nah, she’s not,” Jonny says, wiping the bar down. “She’s only three years younger than you. If you were twenty-six and she was twenty-three, it wouldn’t be an issue at all. For anyone.”

  “You’re right,” I admit. “But at the moment, it feels like we’re decades apart. It feels wrong to want her that way. I feel like I’m taking advantage…like I should know better. I don’t even know if she really does have a mental illness or not. Can you imagine if she does and people found out that I’d kissed her? That I’d thought about doing more than just kissing her? I’d get lynched.”

  “Is that what you’re really worried about?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. “I don’t think she’s actually got a mental illness. I think she’s just young and naïve. I think she’s been locked away in that weird house far too long and now she doesn’t know how to be a normal sixteen-year-old girl.” “I wasn’t on about that,” he says. “Are you worried about what people will say? What they’ll think?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “Not at all.”

  “Then what the hell is it, man?”

  “It’s nothing,” I whisper, twirling the beer mat in my fingers. “It’s everything. It’s Alex. It’s this stupid fucking little village. It’s me. It’s Yara. It’s her age. She’s sixteen, but it still feels wrong.”

  “Sixteen is young, but it’s not illegal. Don’t let that put you off.”

  “Why are you encouraging this? If our roles were reversed, I wouldn’t be encouraging you to have anything to do with a girl that young.”

  He takes a deep breath and rubs the muscles at the side of his neck. “You’re different lately. Better. It’s not much, but the Gabriel I’ve seen over the past couple of months isn’t the Gabriel I knew at school. You’ve been depressed and miserable, and I don’t know what it is about her, but she’s good for you.”

  I shake my head. “We’ve not even really spent any proper time together. Except that morning on her birthday when I drove her to get breakfast. We just chatted about crap, really. But it was the good sort of chatting. The sort where there’s no pressure and no second-guessing about what she’s saying or why she’s saying it.”

  He nods. “She sounds like a good girl.”

  “I think she is.”

  He takes a deep breath and then pushes the bottle of whiskey over to me. “It sounds like you need to find her and talk to her.”

  I unscrew the top off the bottle and shake my head. “I need to stay as far away from Yara as I can.”

  The second I open my eyes, I know there’s someone in my bed. I blink without moving any other part of my body and let my eyes adjust to the brightness of the room. My head begins to pound, already making me wish I hadn’t drank anything yesterday. Or the day before. Or the day before that. Then I feel my stomach turn as the smell of bacon drifts up the stairs and into my room. Even my mum clanging around in the kitchen is too much. It’s too loud. Too early.

  I don’t know what’s worse, my hangover or the fact that I can’t even remember talking to a girl last night, never mind bringing her back home and having sex with her.

  Shit.

  My room is small and my double bed is pushed up against one wall, so the only way off the bed is to either wake the girl and ask her to move or climb over her. I lift up on my elbow and then take a deep breath as I slowly turn my head.

  The covers are pushed back, and at first all I can see are toned, tanned calves and thighs that look like they’re stained with coloured powder and paint.

  What the hell did we do last night?

>   I lean up further and turn just a fraction more. My eyes devour the gentle, sloping curve of her hips and bum—her bum that’s covered in cream-coloured lace knickers.

  Hmm. Maybe I didn’t sleep with her if she still has her knickers on…

  Before I can let that thought comfort me, my eyes fall on a sheet of pearl-white hair that falls over her shoulders and down her back. Then I see her tattoo and my eyes widen.

  Tiny, colourful butterflies are tattooed on her back as if they’re flying around a twisting vine that wraps itself around her spine. It’s intricate and beautiful and I get lost in it, wondering how she managed to sit so still while the tattooist covered her back in butterflies.

  Butterflies? Oh, no.

  I clamp a hand over my mouth and throw the covers completely off as I scramble over Yara and off my bed. Sprinting to the bathroom, I proceed to empty the entire contents of my stomach.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Fuck. Shit.

  I rub my hand over the mirror and stare at myself through the steam. I look like crap. I’ve hardly slept the last couple of nights, and I’ve drunk myself stupid all day, every day since Alex’s funeral. I know drinking isn’t the answer, and I know my mum and Jonny think I’m losing it, but nothing I’ve done over the last three days is as mortifying as what I did with Yara last night. Shit, I don’t even know what I did with her.

  I know I can’t hide in the bathroom forever, so I fasten the towel around my waist and pull open the door. When I walk into my room, I find Yara sitting up with my Batman bed covers pulled around her. At least she’s covered herself up.