Butterfly Dreams

by A. Meredith Walters

  “I know I can be dickish. I don’t do the whole tell-me-about-your-feelings thing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t give a shit. And it also means I can tell you when you’re slacking on your end of the deal here. I’m carrying this store, Corin. And I’m sort of sick of it.”

  My bottom lip started to tremble and I knew I was about to start blubbering. I could deal with Tamsin’s criticism. I could handle when people looked at me like I was a pyscho after one of my panic attacks.

  But Adam’s reproach hit me hard.

  Mostly because he never, ever gave it.

  “Hold on, don’t do that. Shit, Cor, I didn’t want to make you cry. I don’t do tears. I’m allergic, remember?”

  He came over and put his arm around me and I almost shoved him. He never and I mean never hugged me. His idea of comfort involved tossing my bag of pretzels at me and maybe handing me a tissue.

  “You and I have been friends for a long time, but do you know why I even spoke to you that day in the courtyard when you were sitting there like a drowned rat, crying into your coat sleeve?”

  This conversation was jumping around too fast for me to keep up with.

  “Um. No.” Drowned rat? Really?

  “You know that my parents are divorced but what you don’t know is that they split up the night before I gave you that gum in the courtyard.”

  “I didn’t realize that.”

  And I didn’t. I knew Adam’s parents had gotten divorced our senior year but he never talked about it. He never talked about anything.

  That had always worked for both of us.

  Or at least I thought. Maybe it hadn’t been working for Adam as much as I had thought.

  “That day you lost your shit at school and I saw you sitting there, your face covered with snot—”

  “It was not covered with snot!”

  Adam pursed his lips. “Like I was saying, you were covered in snot, and I saw someone who was having a worse day than I was. And you know what? It made me feel a little less alone.”

  “I was not covered in snot,” I grumbled again.

  “Enough about the snot. Do you get what I’m trying to say here?” he asked.

  “I’m your friend. I’m here if you need me. But suck it up, Cor. I know you have some shit going on in that messed-up head of yours. I know that losing your parents fucked with you royally. But I need your head in the game. I need you here. I’ve got stuff I’d like to talk to you about once in a while. So you think you can check the narcissistic woe-is-me act and be a friend?”

  “What stuff do you need to talk about?” I latched on instantly to that thread of information.

  “Not now. But down the road. When I actually have something to tell you.” He was backpedaling.

  “If there’s something you want to tell me, Adam, I’m here. I’ll listen. Even if it doesn’t always seem like I will,” I made sure to tell him.

  Crap friend, party of one.

  “The preschool party is here,” Krista called out, standing in the doorway. She looked at Adam. Then at me. Then at Adam. Her eyes were wide. She looked like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  Adam ignored her. “We can talk later, I guess,” he said, and I nodded. Then he did the strangest thing. He hugged me again. That was two hugs in less than five minutes.

  My head officially exploded.

  He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed. All this Adam touching was weirding me out. Who was this person and what had he done with my partner? I lifted my hands and held them up over his back.

  Again, I didn’t know what to do with my hands!

  “Thanks,” I said awkwardly, patting him on the back. What was I thanking him for? The most uncomfortable hug in the history of hugs?

  He let go of me abruptly. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

  “Yeah, me too?” It was more of a question. Because seriously…what?

  Adam gave me a smile and I had to do a double take. Hugs. Smiling? Almost deep confessions.

  I hadn’t expected to take a trip to la-la land when I decided to come to work today.

  “Let’s hang out soon. We haven’t done that in a long time.”

  Had we ever hung out?

  We watched a slasher movie together once. I ate too many Twizzlers and spent most of the evening vomiting in his bathroom with his dog Skittles trying to sniff my crotch. Did that count?

  “Yeah. That sounds good.”

  And it did.

  It really did.

  Chapter 17

  Corin

  After our odd conversation, Adam went to help Krista with the party and I worked on the spreadsheets, though my mind wasn’t really all there.

  I was thinking about Geoffery’s service. I was thinking about Beckett. I was thinking about what I was going to do to keep Razzle Dazzle from going belly-up.

  It was a lot of stress.

  I didn’t do stress.

  I felt like going home and hiding under my covers until it all went away. Or the world ended.

  Whichever came first.

  “Okay, guys, I’m heading home. I have a thing tonight,” I said hours later, emerging from the office.

  Adam and Krista were over at the counter, their heads bent close together. Adam turned quickly toward me and all but shoved Krista away.

  “A thing?” he asked, clearing his throat.

  “A funeral,” I clarified.

  “Sounds like a swinging good time,” he replied blandly.

  “It’s a man I knew from the Mended Hearts support group. He had a heart attack.”

  “Makes sense.” Adam nodded and I didn’t even bother to respond to that one.

  “Everything go okay out here today?” I asked, putting on my coat.

  “A couple of preschoolers decided to try their hand at poop graffiti in the bathroom but other than that it was great.”

  I gagged. “I really don’t need to hear any more. Do you need help cleaning up?” I asked. Though the last thing I wanted was to clean poo from the walls, I needed to offer.

  Adam thought I wasn’t carrying my weight. That had to change. It was my business too. It was time I started acting like it.

  Adam waved his hand in dismissal. “Krista and I’ve got it. Go get ready for your funeral. Wait, that sounded bad. You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I gotcha. Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Krista had already disappeared into the storeroom and Adam gave me a smile with teeth. Huh. Guess they were still all there.

  As I left, I noticed that he went into the storeroom after her.

  I had a good idea about what Adam needed to talk to me about so badly.

  I went home and fed Mr. Bingley. I washed a load of laundry and I found a suitable black dress to wear.

  I made myself something to eat to tide me over. But I wasn’t really hungry. I had lost my appetite.

  My mind was everywhere and nowhere.

  I thought of my father. My mother.

  Beckett and his heart.

  Funerals and wakes.

  I was most definitely not riding unicorns and frolicking in meadows.

  By the time Beckett showed up, I was trying to think of an excuse that would get me out of going.

  “Hey,” Beckett said when I opened the door.

  I barely registered how nice he looked in his dark suit, his brown hair slicked back off his face.

  I let him in as I fastened an earring to my lobe. Mr. Bingley wrapped himself around Beckett’s feet and he picked the cat up.

  My feline companion purred so loud I could see his furry little body shake.

  “I think he likes me,” he said, scratching Mr. Bingley behind the ears.

  “Scratch him like that and he’ll be yours forever,” I joked, but it sounded a little brittle.

  “Are you all right to go tonight? If you’re not feeling up to it—”

  “I’ll be okay, Beck. Let’s just go,” I said shortly.

  Beckett put Mr. Bingley on th
e floor and reached out to grab my hand. “You’d tell me if there was something wrong, right?”

  He cupped the side of my face and I tried to take strength from it. I wasn’t sure it worked.

  “I know funerals are hard. They certainly are for me. Even more so now that I almost had one myself.” I winced at his statement. I couldn’t help it. The last thing I wanted to do was think about Beckett dying. It didn’t help settle the churning mess in my stomach. He was trying to be reassuring but he needed a lesson or two on what constituted encouragement to your overanxious girlfriend.

  “But let’s do this for Geoffery. Because when my time comes, I hope people come to say goodbye to me.” Beckett gave me a soft smile and I thought I was going to puke all over his shoes.

  I wanted to tell him to shut up. To stop talking about his death and funeral. I didn’t want to think about that very real possibility. The one that seemed to shadow everything.

  “Don’t die, Dad. Please.”

  He couldn’t hear me.

  He was way past listening.

  Beckett leaned down and kissed me. It started gentle. Just a brushing of lips. But I was feeling desperate. Scared.

  Out of control.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. I pressed myself up against him, not caring about wrinkling our clothes.

  Beckett let out a groan and opened his mouth, his tongue plunging deep. I kissed him harder. Devouring him.

  He made me forget.

  When he kissed me, I could only think about him.

  He was my anesthetic. He numbed me. Before he also set me on fire.

  “Corin,” he whispered against my mouth.

  “Shhh,” I scolded, kissing him again. My fingers dug into his shoulders.

  Make me forget…

  “Corin, baby, stop.” He wrapped his hands around my wrists and untangled them from his neck. “We have to get going.” His intensely heated blue eyes searched my face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  No I’m not! I screamed on the inside.

  I nodded.

  He lifted my hand and gently kissed my knuckles. It made me tingle everywhere. But the moment had passed and I was thinking about other things again.

  I was quiet as he led me out to his car. I didn’t protest when he opened the door for me and I could see him frowning at my non-response.

  He tried to get me talking. He asked me questions about the shop. But I didn’t give him much. I stared out the window and thought about funerals.

  Mine.

  Beckett’s.

  Endings and missed beginnings.

  Geoffery’s service was being held at the same Methodist church where Mended Hearts had their meetings.

  Beckett and I walked in, hand in hand. The air in the room was oppressive. I was lost in a sea of black and tear-soaked faces.

  I clamped my fingers around Beckett’s, holding on for dear life.

  I could see many of the group members already there. I found Candace, who had squeezed herself into a black dress that made her look a bit like a sausage. She was talking intently to an older woman who was sobbing into her hands.

  “Come on. Let’s go talk to some of the others,” he said, giving my hand a tug. I stayed rooted to the spot.

  “Corin, could you lighten up the death grip? I’m losing feeling in my hand,” he teased, with a note of concern.

  “Oh, sorry. I don’t know my own strength sometimes. That’s what happens when you moonlight as a superhero.” I tried to joke. Poorly, I might add.

  “How about we get some food first?” he suggested.

  “Food? They have food at this thing?” I asked, sounding a little horrified. Funerals and a buffet sounded really wrong.

  “Just coffee and stuff. Not a three-course dinner.” He nudged me with his elbow and smiled. How could he smile when we were surrounded by so much…grief?

  “We don’t drink coffee,” I replied, deadened.

  “No, we don’t. But maybe a cookie will perk you up.”

  I didn’t argue. I didn’t even mention the whole diabetes thing. I had moved past that. It was the least of my worries.

  “Hurry up, Corin. We have to get there early. The minister wants to talk about the sermon before everyone arrives.” Tamsin was so efficient. Even as she dabbed her eyes with a tissue, she had everything under control.

  “I can’t go,” I said. There was no emotion in my voice.

  Void.

  Nothing.

  Unlike the compassion I received from my dad during a similar conversation just before Mom’s funeral, my older sister wasn’t in the mood to waste time on sympathy.

  “I don’t want to go either, Corin. But we have to. There’s no one to do this but us,” she replied harshly.

  “I can’t do it,” I whispered.

  “Well, too bad,” Tamsin snarled.

  “Eat this.” Beckett all but shoved the cookie in my mouth.

  “I can feed myself, you know.”

  Beckett wiped the crumbs from his hand and poured himself a glass of water.

  “Beckett! Corin! You made it!” Candace came over and gave both of us a hug. “It’s so good to see you.” She smelled like sweat and perfume. It turned my already unsettled stomach.

  “Hi, Candace, good to see you too.” Beckett looked at me as if waiting for me to add my own greeting. I didn’t.

  “I was just talking to Ida, Geoffery’s wife. She’s such a brave woman. She’d love to meet you. She says the group was such a help for Geoffery.”

  Ida must have been the sobbing woman I saw Candace speaking to when we came in.

  “Of course. Please introduce us.” Beckett took my hand again, giving it a little squeeze.

  And then we were standing in front of Geoffery’s widow, her eyes red, her lips trembling as she tried not to cry.

  “Ida, this is Beckett Kingsley and Corin Thompson. They’re both in the Mended Hearts group as well.”

  Ida gave us a watery smile. “It’s lovely to meet you. Geoffery really looked forward to those groups every week. Thank you for being a part of his life. And thank you for being here tonight.” Her voice broke toward the end and she dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  “I’m just thankful to have had a chance to know Geoffery. He was an amazing guy. Though I still wonder if he was trying to tell me something with all those mints he insisted that I eat,” Beckett said, and Ida laughed. How was he able to do that? Make people laugh when they should be crying?

  “Those stupid mints. He sucked on them all the time. I found bags of them hidden in drawers all over the house.” Ida chuckled, wiping at her eyes again.

  “He was like the mint pusher. He wouldn’t let you leave until you had taken a handful.”

  Just like that Beckett got Ida and Candace laughing and reminiscing about funny things. Happy things.

  I wished I could be like that. Make death a joke.

  But for me, it was no joking matter.

  “Excuse me,” I said quietly, pulling my hand out of Beckett’s grasp, and quickly walked out of the room.

  There were too many people. It was too hot. Too much crying.

  I couldn’t handle it.

  “Neil Thompson was a faithful husband to his wife, Charlotte. A loving father to his daughters, Tamsin and Corin. He was a loyal servant of God, acting as a deacon in our church for many years.”

  I was getting really angry. What did this man know about my father? What did any of these people know about how he suffered?

  Tamsin quietly cried beside me and I hated her.

  She hadn’t been there to wipe the vomit from Dad’s chin when his pain had gotten the best of him and he had thrown up all over himself.

  These people hadn’t sat by his bedside, watching him breathe. Waiting for that unbearable moment when his chest would stop rising.

  What did they know about real grief?

  They didn’t have a right to any of it.

  “Corin, you out here?”


  Beckett walked outside and found me huddled on a bench, barely feeling the cold.

  “It’s freezing out here. What are you doing?” He sat down beside me.

  “It’s a little oppressive in there, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, it is,” he agreed, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close.

  “You want to tell me what’s going on with you?” he asked.

  “I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “You’re thinking about your parents,” he surmised. I nodded. Not able to say anything more about it.

  “How can you stand in there with everyone crying and being sad and make people laugh? How are you able to do that?” I asked.

  Beckett shrugged. “I could get depressed and upset, but what point does that serve?”

  “But how do you have any control over that? You feel how you feel, end of story,” I protested. I should know that better than most.

  “Of course you have control over how you feel.” He sat up a little straighter and turned to face me, wrapping my cold hands between his, rubbing them slightly to warm them up. “Look, after the cardiac arrest I was really depressed. Scarily so. My whole life had changed in an instant. There were a lot of times I was angry. Angry that I was still alive. Because what was the point?”

  Beckett’s face shadowed and I couldn’t look away from him.

  It was the sadness belonging to a man who had lost so much.

  “But then I realized I still had my entire life ahead of me. And I could go around feeling sorry for myself, or I could suck it up and keep on going.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not a man who gives up very easily.”

  I snorted. “I had no idea.”

  “It didn’t all happen at once. It’s been a process. Picking up the pieces and moving on. I had to accept there were things that just weren’t working, like my relationship with Sierra.” I felt my heart squeeze at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. Yeah, it was jealousy. I was only human after all.

  “I also had to reach out and grab ahold of the things that were.” He pulled me closer, resting his forehead against mine. “That’s you, Corin. My life’s different now. I’m not the jock anymore. I can’t drink freaking coffee. Carb binges are out of the question. There are things I miss. But those things pale in comparison to what I’ve gained.”