Chasing Butterflies

by Beckie Stevenson

  She sniffs and picks up two different types of toothpaste. “I don’t even know what the stories are, to be honest.” She chooses one and tosses it at me. I catch it and let it drop into the basket. “I’ve heard the ones about me sleeping like a bat and how I make babies cry, but I don’t know why that would scare people so much that they can’t bear to look at me.”

  “And why she tells them?” I push.

  She sighs and lets her fingers dance over some of the shelves we’re walking past. “I’d overheard some people talking about me in the street a few years ago. I was upset when I got home and I asked her if she knew why Lulu hated me so much.” She shakes her head. “Granny was pretty drunk but she mumbled something about Lulu not having her man.”

  Her man? “Your Grandpa?”

  “I guess, but I still don’t understand why Lulu took it out on me.”

  “She’s a bitch,” I say.

  Yara turns her head and raises her eyebrows at me but she doesn’t say anything else.

  I trail behind her, wondering if I should tell her the truth about what people believe, but then I wonder what good it would actually do if she knew what people had heard. I know none of it’s true, but the people in this village are fucking stupid. Plus, it’s not like she could disprove them anyway.

  “I think we’re done,” she says. “Unless you can think of anything else?”

  I shake my head. “We’re good.”

  She turns around and I stare at her hair that falls all the way down her back to her tiny, denim shorts. I watch the way her bum gently wobbles as she walks confidently ahead of me. I’m aching to touch her. To give her that first good memory that she talked about earlier. I’m just not sure I’m good enough for her. I don’t think I’m worthy of that honour.

  “Hi,” she says to the cashier as we approach the checkout.

  The cashier doesn’t speak to Yara and she doesn’t look at her either. She begins to scan the items, places them into a bag for us and then points to the total on the screen, never once acknowledging the girl standing right in front of her.

  Yara pulls some notes from her purse and puts them into the cashier’s outstretched hand. Before the cashier can take them, I reach out and place my hand on top of theirs.

  “It’s normally polite to look at the person you’re serving,” I growl. Who the hell does this girl think she is?

  “Gabriel, don’t,” whispers Yara. “Please.”

  I shake my head at her. Why does she accept this? She hasn’t done a single bad thing in all her life.

  “I can’t,” the cashier mumbles, trying to tug her hand away from mine.

  “You can,” I say, “and you will. Or else you won’t be getting any of this money.”

  “No,” whispers Yara. “You don’t have to,” she says to the girl.

  “She does,” I snap. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Yara. You deserve the same level of respect as everyone else in here.”

  When I turn back to face the woman at the checkout, I notice a small crowd has gathered. None of them are daring to look at Yara either.

  “Look!” I call out, putting my thumb and finger underneath Yara’s jaw. I pull her chin until her face is almost touching mine. I dip my head and stare into her wide, pale blue eyes. “I’m staring at her,” I tell them all, “and nothing is happening to me.” I’m livid when I turn back to face the crowd. “She’s not fucking cursed and she’s not fucking evil. You people should be ashamed of yourselves!”

  “Gabriel,” Yara says, sobbing. I look back at her and realise she’s crying as she tries to squirm out of my grip. “Let go of me.”

  I instantly remove my fingers from her chin, feeling like an idiot. “I’m sorry,” I whisper so only she can hear me, “they just make me so mad.”

  She pushes at my hand, forcing me to let go, and then grabs the bags and scurries out of the store, leaving me standing at the checkout. I look up to see Lulu Deburge grinning at the back of the crowd “What?” I ask.

  The cashier shakes her head at me, and then I look up to see Lulu Deburge grinning at the back of the crowd.

  “You sure she’s not getting to you?” she calls out. Everyone turns to stare at her. “I’m sure your mother would have something to say about your behaviour.”

  Fuck you. “You make me sick.” I glare at her and the rest of them, and then I run out of the shop.

  Chapter 15

  Yara

  I haven’t spoken to Gabriel since we left the shop. I can’t believe he did that to me. It was embarrassing, even if he thought he was doing it for the right reasons. He made me more of a spectacle than I already am.

  “I’m really sorry,” Gabriel says for the fourth time. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing. I was just mad at them and their disgusting behaviour.”

  “I know,” I say, taking my plate of pasta from him. I sit at the table and pick up my fork. “And I know you had good intentions, but can you not do something like that ever again?”

  He sighs and sits opposite me. “They needed to be told, Yara. And maybe the way I went about it wasn’t the best, but I think we need to educate the people of this stupid village. You need to be able to have a life here.”

  “I do have a life,” I say.

  “Not a very good one.”

  My fork hovers in the air in front of my mouth as I stare at him. “What did you say?”

  “Shit,” he says with a huff, pushing his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that things could be better. You can’t tell me that you like being ignored by everyone.”

  I shove the food into my mouth and watch him while I chew. He’s right. I know he’s right, but I don’t want to appear any weaker and more childish than I already do. That’s not how I want Gabriel to look at me. “No, I don’t,” I finally answer. “But I don’t want you to do anything about it either.”

  His jaw twitches, but he doesn’t say anything else while we finish our meal.

  I push my empty plate to the middle of the table and lean back to watch him finish his dinner. He smiles as he wipes his mouth with a napkin when he’s done. “Wow, you eat really quickly.”

  I smile back. “I was hungry.”

  His face falls. “Please promise me that you’ll eat every day?”

  I nod. “I promise.”

  “Good,” he says, pushing his plate away. He takes a sip of his beer and then offers the bottle to me. “You sure you don’t want a taste?”

  “I’m not old enough,” I tell him.

  He shrugs. “It’s just a tiny sip.”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  The sun has just begun to dip behind the mountains in the distance when we finish cleaning up. I pick up my glass of Coke and walk into the living room with Gabriel trailing behind me. It’s darker in this room because of the huge hedge that lines up in front of the house, so I strike a match and light a couple of candles.

  “No lights?” he asks, sitting on the floor in front of the empty fireplace.

  I shake my head. “Granny didn’t really like electricity, unless it was for cooking or for the fridge. I managed to get permission to use it for playing my music, but that’s it.”

  He glances around the room. “No television? No computer?”

  I shake my head. “She didn’t like them.”

  “Why?”

  I take a deep breath and sit down on the sofa behind him. “Granny wasn’t normal.”

  He scoffs, and then he must realise what he’s done because he coughs and looks down at the cracked floor. I watch his eyes trail across the floor until they get to me and start to slide up my legs. “What’s that cut from?”

  I frown. “What cut?”

  He leans over and gently brushes his finger against the cut on my inner thigh. It’s healing now, but it’s still sore. I push my hand over it, trying to cover it up. I don’t think I can bring myself to tell him how I got it, because then I would have to ad
mit to someone how good it felt after the initial shock of the razor blade slicing through my skin. I know that isn’t normal. “I cut it doing some gardening. It’s nothing.”

  He nods and takes another sip of his beer.

  “Did your mum tell you that we argued?” I ask. It was the first thing I could think of to change the subject.

  His face tells me the answer before he even opens his mouth. “No, she didn’t.” He puts his beer bottle down on the floor in front of him and levels his gaze with mine. “What about?”

  “I was confused about the funeral arrangements,” I say quickly. “I thought your mum was wrong, but she wasn’t. It was me that was wrong.”

  “How so?”

  “I wanted Granny to be buried in the garden. I didn’t know people don’t do that anymore.”

  Gabriel’s face crumples in confusion. “Why would you think that, Yara?”

  I shrug. “I just did.” I shift on the sofa, pulling my knees up in front of me. “I know it’s not normal now though.”

  “My mum never mentioned anything,” he tells me, sounding surprised. “But maybe it wasn’t much of an argument.”

  “I told her to leave,” I rush. “I was getting scared and I didn’t know what else to say. I just wanted her to get out of my house.”

  “You were scared of my mum?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head.

  “What were you scared of then?” he pushes.

  “Because I was getting angry, and my Granny always told me that I hurt people when I’m angry.”

  His breaths are heavy and slow, the sort of breathing you’d expect to hear if someone was really concentrating. “What did you do, Yara?”

  My skin starts to itch, so I scratch at it. “It’s only ever been the once,” I tell him. I wring my hands and wriggle my toes.

  “What did you do?” he repeats.

  Don’t cry. Don’t show him how weak you really are.

  “It wasn’t even me,” I whisper. “It was never me. It was Granny. She did it, but she made me think that I made her do it. I couldn’t have made her do it. I couldn’t have!”

  Gabriel

  Yara is getting hysterical. The sick feeling in my stomach makes me hesitate for just a second, but then I reach across and pull at her hips until she’s sitting on the edge of the sofa. “Shh,” I say, cupping her face. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

  She sniffs and shakes her head. I’ve never seen anyone look so terrified—not even Alex the morning she told me she was dying. My heart clenches, wondering what it is Yara’s about to tell me.

  “You can tell me anything,” I whisper. “I promise it’ll be okay.”

  “Do you?” she hiccups.

  “Yes,” I say, completely meaning it.

  “I was six years old,” she stammers. “I was fast asleep in my bed, but a thunderstorm woke me up.”

  I nod, letting her know that I’m listening.

  “I just lay there watching it and listening to it,” she continues. “I liked how powerful it appeared. How noisy it was. How out of control it seemed.” She sniffs again and looks down at her lap. “I started to count in between the flashes and the bangs, you know, so I could see how far away it was.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say softly.

  “But then I heard a noise that wasn’t the storm. A floorboard creaked outside my bedroom door. I was six, so I thought it was some sort of monster.”

  I readjust my position because of the tingling in my legs, but I don’t let go of her and I don’t stop looking at her. My heart is hammering in my chest as her words start to register in my head. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  “I remember seeing a shadow beneath the door.” She reaches up to swipe at the tears that have started to fall from her eyes. Then she pushes away from me and curls into the corner of the sofa. I want to reach out and pull her close, to tell her that whatever she’s about to tell me won’t change anything. But she needs space and I have to respect that.

  “Yara,” I say, “it’s okay if you—”

  “The door knob wobbled,” she whispers, “and then the door swung wide open just as the loudest crack of thunder I’d ever heard tore through the night sky. It was Grandpa,” she says, “and I breathed a sigh of relief because it wasn’t a monster. It was just my Grandpa coming to check on me. It was okay.”

  I feel myself swallow as I continue to watch her. Somehow I don’t think everything was okay.

  “I smiled at him as he stepped into my room. I was still smiling at him when he closed my door behind him and walked over to my bed.” She gulps in between sobs and furiously wipes the back of her hand across her cheeks. “But I stopped smiling when he climbed into bed with me and pulled my knickers down.”

  I feel my fists clench at my sides. My hands are trembling as anger fires through my body. I want to find this guy and kill him.

  “He started to touch me,” she tells me. “I knew it was wrong, but I also didn’t think my Grandpa wouldn’t do anything bad. That’s what I kept telling myself.” She covers her face with her hands and sobs uncontrollably.

  “Yara, you don’t have to say anything more if you don’t want to,” I say, hating how much pain I can see she’s in as she tells me.

  She shakes her head. “He just touched my stomach and thighs. I think he would have touched me in other places too, but then the door burst open. It was my Granny and she was livid. She screamed and shouted things at him that I didn’t understand back then. I just knew that the bad feeling I had must have been right. Granny wouldn’t have been that angry with him if he was doing something that was okay.”

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I tell her.

  She shakes her head. “That’s not it. That’s not what I wanted to tell you.”

  What the—? “What do you mean?” I can’t believe there’s more. I almost don’t want her to tell me anything else. I’ve heard enough already. “What happened?”

  “Granny pulled him out of the bed. I remember thinking that she was little and he was big. She hit him, and then he got up and hit her back. That wasn’t exactly anything new to me. I’d seen them fighting many times over the years, but this was different.

  “Granny stumbled, but she grabbed my lamp and then swung it at his head, hitting him across his ear. Grandpa fell to the ground, and I remember screaming at her to stop. I didn’t want her to hurt him.” She sniffs and scratches at the cut on her thigh. “Then Grandpa got up and hit her again. When he pushed her down the hallway, I started to follow but Granny told me to stay back. I did for a while, cowering in my room as their screams echoed through the house, but then there was silence. The quiet scared me more than the shouting, so I crept out of my room and went downstairs.”

  I can’t stand the distance between us any longer when I see her bottom lip begin to tremble. Standing up, I pull Yara into my arms then sit back down with her on my lap. She wraps her legs around my waist, and I reach up and wipe her damp cheeks with my thumbs. I lift her chin with my finger and wait until she looks up at me. “It’s okay,” I assure her. “I’m right here, Yara.” I pull her closer to me so she knows I’m here for her, and I make a mental promise to myself to always be here for her.

  “We killed him,” she says, without breaking eye contact with me.

  I frown. They killed him? How? “I thought your Grandpa left? That’s what everyone says.”

  She nods. “He was going to, I think. People saw him at the train station with his bags earlier that day, but for whatever reason, he decided to come back home.”

  “Everyone thinks your Grandpa left the village,” I whisper. My brain is trying to wrap itself around what she’s saying, but it doesn’t make sense. She was six years old. What the fuck could she have done?

  “Yes,” she says sadly. “That’s what they think. No one knows what really happened. Well, except me and Granny. And now you.”

  “I’m confused,” I whisper.

  Yara�
�s bloodshot eyes snap up to mine, and I see the fear in them as she gazes back at me. “We buried him under the patio. I helped Granny to dig the hole, and then she made me help her clean up all the blood in the kitchen and the garden too. Everyone just assumed he’d left, so that’s what she let them think. She told me that’s what we should tell people if they asked.”

  Jesus. “Fuck,” I breathe. “He’s under the patio? Right now?” Shit, that’s why it smells and why the paving slabs are all uneven. That’s why I get the creeps every time I come here.

  “Please don’t hate me,” she cries. “I was only six, Gabriel. I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know it was so very wrong. I know it now though. I know what we did was wrong, but please don’t leave me. Don’t hate me for this…for what I did.”

  “I don’t,” I say, completely meaning it. “But what did—?”

  “That’s why I argued with your mum,” she interrupts as fresh tears stream down her cheeks. “I didn’t understand why she was going on about funerals and cremating and all that other stuff.”

  “Shh,” I say, running my hand down Yara’s back. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. You were too young to know that whatever you were doing wasn’t right. I’ll help you. We’ll sort it out together.”

  “You won’t tell the police, will you?” she asks frantically.

  I freeze. How can I not tell the police?

  Yara pulls at my shirt and tugs me closer as her eyes frantically search my face. “Granny said I’d go to jail forever if the police knew what I’d done. She said they’d lock me up and throw away the key. She said the devil would come for me too.” I feel her fingers tighten around my clothes as she stares at me with tears falling down her cheeks.

  “No,” I say, “I won’t tell them.

  “You promise you won’t tell them?”

  I swallow and rest my cheek against her head as she sobs into my chest. “I promise.”

  “Yara, what happened to him? What did you do?”