Chasing Butterflies Read online

Her ice-blue eyes lift to meet mine. They look sad and scared, and though I’m sure mine look sad and scared too, it’s for a completely different reason.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

  What does she have to be sorry for?

  “No, I’m sorry,” I tell her. I walk to my wardrobe and pull out some clothes. I sigh as I pull a white t-shirt over my head then turn around to face her. “I was drunk,” I admit. “So drunk that if you’d asked me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you my own name.”

  She nods as her eyes move over my face before shifting down to my towel. I see her swallow, and then I have to look away from her “I can’t remember anything,” I confess. “I don’t know how we ended up together or what we said.” I hesitate as I briefly look at her and then at the bed. “Did we…?”

  She shakes her head quickly. “No, we didn’t do anything.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No.”

  “No kissing or touching even?”

  “No, Gabriel. You didn’t touch me. You were asleep. Nothing else.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief and feel my shoulders drop. “Thank God.” I pick my jeans up off the floor, but not before I notice the way Yara scowls at me.

  “You don’t have to be so happy about it,” she mumbles.

  I sigh again, but not in a good way this time. “I didn’t mean it like that, Yara.”

  “Well, that’s how it sounded,” she whispers, her voice hoarse as if she’s holding back tears.

  I turn away from her and hide behind my wardrobe door. “I didn’t mean to sound like that,” I say. Letting my towel drop, I quickly pull my jeans up my legs, fasten the button and then step around the door. “I told you I was beyond drunk. I don’t want to be so hammered the first time I do something with you that I can’t remember the next morning.” There. I admitted it for the very first time. Jonny would be proud.

  Yara looks up at me through her lowered lashes and smiles. I stare at her nibbling her lower lip, wondering if she’s going to actually say anything about what I’ve just admitted.

  “You talk in your sleep,” she says after we’ve stared long enough to make each other feel uncomfortable.

  I flinch. What did I say? “Yeah…people have told me that.”

  “Who’s Alex?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and turn around to sit on the end of my bed. “Alex is a very long story.”

  “Don’t we have time?” she pushes.

  “Not really.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to go to work.” I get up from the bed and turn around to face her. My eyes immediately find the soft curve of her breast that’s trying to peek out from under the covers. I groan and pick up my towel. “How did you even get in here?”

  “I walked in,” she says, picking at the duvet. “You were already asleep.”

  I frown. “You can’t just keep doing shit when I’m asleep, Yara. It’s freaking me out.”

  “Sorry,” she mumbles. “I just didn’t want to be alone.”

  I roll my eyes and stride into the bathroom, hanging my towel over the rail. “So you got into my bed when I was fast asleep, and you what…just fell asleep? With me? In my bed?” I can feel myself getting angrier the more I think about it. What if my mum had walked in this morning? What if Yara’s grandmother had wondered where she was and came here looking for her? “You could have gotten me in trouble,” I tell her as I emerge from the bathroom. “A lot of trouble.”

  “I couldn’t,” she says sadly. “You did nothing wrong.”

  “They wouldn’t have seen it like that, Yara. No one would. I wouldn’t.”

  “I’d have just told whoever asked the truth.”

  My eyes find hers and I look into them, thinking about how they look like the pale blue waters of the icy Atlantic Ocean. She looks like she’s from Sweden or Norway, or some other northern European country. She has the colouring with her pale skin and hair and blue eyes, and it makes me wonder who her father is and where he’s been all her life. Does she even know him? I don’t ever remember seeing a man around their house, and I’ve never heard anyone mention him.

  Realising I know nothing about her makes me feel sad. I bet no one else knows anything about her either because every single person in this whole village has avoided her. I keep forgetting that. “They wouldn’t believe a word you say,” I tell her, not realising how terrible those words are to someone like Yara.

  Her eyes instantly dull and her face falls. She turns away from me, staring at the plain wall next to her.

  I open my mouth to apologise but shut it again before I actually say anything. Maybe this is what we need. Maybe it’s what I need. To put some distance between us. To make her realise that she can’t sneak into my room at night or kiss me when I’m asleep.

  “I’m going to get some food. I’ll sneak you some afterwards, but then you’ll have to go.”

  She doesn’t answer, but I don’t really give her much of a chance to. I pull open the storage cupboard and pull out a towel, placing it on the end of the bed. “You know where the bathroom is. Feel free to take a shower and get dressed while I’m gone.”

  I walk out, hating the way I’ve just acted. Jonny was right. I’ve messed her about and probably confused the hell out of her.

  “Hey, Mum,” I say, sliding a stool noisily over the tiled floor.

  “Shh,” she hisses, pulling a tray out of the oven. “Yara is upstairs sleeping.”

  I freeze. “How do you know?”

  She looks at me over her shoulder. “How do I know she’s sleeping?” My mum’s looking at me as if I’m the one that’s said something stupid, so I’m guessing she knows something that I don’t. “Well, she might be awake now,” she replies, “seeing as though you made as much noise as an elephant coming down the stairs.”

  I shake my head, feeling confused. “Why is Yara upstairs in the first place? And why don’t you seem bothered about it?”

  She sighs. “I let her sleep in the spare room last night.”

  Well, she didn’t stay in her room. “Why?”

  She places the cereal box and carton of milk in front of me and rubs her hands on a towel. “Joanna passed away yesterday. Yara came looking for you, but you were out.” She raises an eyebrow at me, letting me know she’s not happy with my recent behaviour.

  “Joanna died?” Why the hell didn’t Yara tell me? “How? Why?”

  “I’m worried about Yara,” Mum says, completely ignoring my questions.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, completely ignoring her too.

  “I would have, if you’d gotten in at a decent time,” she retorts.

  Yara’s grandmother died yesterday, and I’ve just dismissed her from my room like she’s a naughty child. I groan and drop my head into my hands. “Did Yara find her?”

  “Yes,” Mum replies sadly. “Poor thing. But there’s something not right with her, Gabriel. I don’t know how well you know her, or how much time you’ve been spending with her, but she’s a very messed-up young girl.”

  “You’ve never spoken to her before,” I snap. “The only time you’ve ever seen her and spoken to her properly is when she’d just found out her only living relative had died. I imagine I wouldn’t look right if it had been me in her shoes.”

  “I think she needs help,” she tells me. “Professional help.”

  “God, Mum,” I say with a sigh. “Give her a break.”

  She holds up her hands. “You didn’t see the house yesterday or her behaviour. Joanna had been dead for hours, probably more than a day, and Yara had been painting the bloody walls. When I got there, she was blaring weird music out of the speakers as if her grandmother wasn’t lying dead in her bed.”

  I wince, hating the fact that Yara must have been scared, not knowing what to do. “Did you ask why she was painting?”

  Mum nods. “She said she just wanted to paint and that she thought Joanna had gone out.”

  “Well, then that’s what happen
ed.”

  She shakes her head. “The music…the painting. Gabriel, even if she really didn’t know Joanna was dead, don’t you think that’s weird?”

  I take a deep breath and finally lower myself onto a chair. “What music was it?”

  Mum blinks, looking confused. “What?”

  “What was she listening to?”

  “She said it was Kate Bush, and it was a song about clouds or something. Why?”

  I smile to myself. “It’s not weird, Mum. It’s just Yara. That’s how she is.”

  Yara

  I tiptoe back into Gabriel’s room and quickly get dressed, trying to see through the wall of tears that have built up in front of my eyes.

  So his mum thinks I’m weird. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Everyone else does, so I don’t know why she would be any different.

  I sneak out the open window, dropping down onto the grass before sprinting all the way back to my empty house.

  I hate that I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. The house is too big and old for me to look after all by myself, but I guess I don’t really have a choice. I don’t even know if I have a choice, actually. I know I’m legally an adult, but what if they check my doctor’s records?

  I’d be screwed, that’s what.

  Chapter 12

  Yara

  I squeeze the sponge, letting the dirty water drip back into the bowl, and then drop the sponge into the other bowl that’s full of clean water. As I let it all soak up, I huff, pushing some hair out of my face and look up at the house.

  Somebody—and I’m guessing it’s Jasmine—has painted the words Granny Killer and Witch onto the front of my house in big, white letters. I sigh as I realise the last two hours I’ve spent out in the scorching heat have hardly made any difference. I don’t know what she painted it with, but it’s not coming off—not easily anyway—and I don’t have time for this. Taking care of the house all on my own is hard…much harder than I ever thought it would be.

  It’s been four days since Granny died, which means it’s been three days since I last saw Gabriel. His mum has been over to visit me a couple of times to make sure I know how to work things in the house, but I don’t think she really wants to. She’s uncomfortable when she’s here, always fidgeting and shuffling about on her feet, and her eyes never stay still for even a second. I want to ask her what she’s thinking when I see her forehead crinkle into a frown, but I always keep my mouth shout.

  I’m afraid of talking to her actually. I don’t want to hear her telling me the same things she told Gabriel in their kitchen. I don’t need anyone else in this awful village telling me that they think I’m crazy. And I don’t want her going home and telling Gabriel that she’s seen things that cement her beliefs either.

  Because for the first time in my life, I truly believe that I’m not crazy. That I was never crazy. I think it was Granny. She was the one who needed help, but because I was young and stupid—and because the whole village already treated me like I was crazy—I just accepted it. She told me things…wicked and evil things. She told me the devil was out to get me, and that I’d burn in hell for the things I’d done. But I didn’t even do them. It wasn’t me. It was her. It was always her.

  I wipe the tears off my face with the back of my hand and carry on scrubbing at the bricks. I’m tired of feeling sad all the time. I don’t like missing Granny because she was mean and horrible to me, but I do. I miss her every single minute of every single day, and it’s exhausting.

  “What’re you doing, Yara?”

  I flinch, dropping the sponge. When I look up at him, I sigh and pick it back up again.

  Gabriel is wearing dark blue jeans and a casual t-shirt. His meadow-blond hair gleams in the bright sunshine and his chocolate-brown eyes leave me feeling breathless as they scan my entire body. It makes me remember how he looked at me right before he kissed me—when he looked at me like I was just a normal girl and he was a normal guy.

  “I’m cleaning the house,” I finally reply, feeling a blush settle across my cheeks. His eyebrows quirk as if he can read my mind. I drop my gaze and dunk the sponge back into the clean water. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I just came to see how you’re doing.”

  “It took you three days to do that?”

  I hear him take a sharp breath as he snaps his eyes towards me. “Yes, and I’m sorry. I’ve been working on a house in another village, and my boss had me staying there so I could spend more time getting the garden done instead of commuting every day. I don’t have your phone number or else I would have called you, but I checked with my mum that you were okay.”

  Oh. “I see.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him, hoping he won’t notice just how not fine I am. “Apart from this,” I say, nodding up towards the house.

  Gabriel shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips as his eyes roam over the hateful words. “Who did this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He squats and puts his hand into the soapy water and over mine. “Just stop for a second.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “I can’t stop, Gabriel.”

  “You have to,” he says, lifting my hand out of the bowl. “Your hands are raw, Yara. How long have you been doing this?”

  I shrug, pulling my hand away from him. “I saw it first thing this morning when I went out for my morning walk.”

  “This is criminal damage. Have you called the police?”

  “No. There’s no point, and I don’t want any attention. I just want to get it cleaned off.”

  He sighs. I can tell he’s not happy with my answer, but he rolls his sleeves up and walks towards the small plastic shed in the corner. He grabs a yard brush and walks back over to me. Then I see him looking all around the garden.

  “This place needs tidying up,” he says.

  I nod. “I know.”

  “But I guess we should start on getting this crap off the bricks,” he tells me, dunking the brush into the water.

  “You don’t have to, Gabriel.”

  He freezes for a second, his eyes scanning over my face. “I want to.”

  I nod again. There’s no point in arguing with him, especially since I’ve been silently begging God to send me some help all morning. “Thank you.”

  Gabriel

  I read somewhere once that a broken heart will always be broken. In those moments when something makes you smile or laugh, it might seem fixed, but it never fully heals. I call those the bandage moments. The times when you take a careful step onto the road of recovery and realise your heart is finally letting you, saying it’s okay to try and get better. And as scary as it might seem at first, I liked feeling like things were okay again.

  But what I never realised was that things can happen that tear that bandage right off, opening up the wound that’s been there all along. And everyone knows that when a cut reopens, it hurts twice as much as it did the first time.

  “It’s never going to come off, is it?” Yara asks, sighing.

  I also didn’t realise until this moment that an already broken heart can break all over again.

  Taking a deep breath, I look up at the bricks that we’ve spent six hours cleaning. The words are faded, but they’re still legible. “Not without professional help,” I tell her.

  Her eyes mist over, showing me how broken she is. Unfortunately, I’m broken too, and two broken people won’t make a whole one.

  She lets the sponge fall from her hands and bows her head. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. I pick up the bowls, throwing the dirty water across the patio, and wait for her to continue. “I don’t know how to cook or clean. I don’t know how to pay bills or do the grocery shopping. I don’t know how I’m supposed to live on my own…how I’m supposed to survive.”

  “You don’t have to do it all on your own. I can help with stuff, and my mum will help too.” I pick up the sponges and throw them in the outdoor bin, then stash the
brush back in the shed. Yara hasn’t once taken her eyes off me. I stand in front of her and take her hand in mine.

  “I’m scared,” she mumbles. “It’s scary being on my own.”

  I swallow, hating how I have no idea how to relate to her. I don’t even know what to say to her. “Let’s just forget about that for a minute,” I whisper. “If I tell you that we can do anything you want to do right now, what would you do?”

  Her eyes slowly lift until they’re locked with mine. “Anything?”

  I feel my mouth twitch as I smile at her. “I guess…”

  “Stay there,” she says before running into the house.

  While she’s gone, I grab the bottle of water I fetched out of my truck earlier and take a huge swig. As I tip my head back, I can feel all the skin on the back of my neck and shoulders tighten from the sunburn. We were stupid to stay out in the sun for this long, but Yara wouldn’t leave it until we physically couldn’t get any more off. She showed me her stubborn streak and I liked it. Spending most of the day with Yara has made me realise that I actually really like her. Too much.

  “I’m back!” she says, giving me a small smile.

  “What have you done?” I ask, noticing the twinkle in her eyes.

  “Nothing. Yet.”

  “Yara…”

  “Here,” she says, pushing a plastic bottle into my hand. “Since we can’t get it all off, let’s paint over it instead.”

  I look at the bottle as Yara pulls five more from behind her back. Some of them are twinkling with coloured glitter.

  “This won’t cover it, Yara,” I tell her. “The rain will wash it all off anyway.”

  “It won’t rain for ages,” she says brightly. “Come on, let’s just do it. Even if it only lasts a little while. Hiding it for a few days has got to be better than not hiding it at all, hasn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say, looking from the bottle of paint back to the house. “That’s a really big area we need to cover.”

  “Shut up, Gabriel,” she says, squirting paint onto her hand.