Chasing Butterflies (9 page)

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
.

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.