The Butterfly Box_A SASS Anthology

by Anthology

  Good.

  The big jerk.

  Perhaps he’ll think long and hard about his ridiculous proposal before coming back.

  ROLLING ONTO MY hip and blinking awake, I smooth my arm across the empty space beside me, and my heart aches in my chest all over again as I’m reminded of the fight Adam and I had just a few short hours ago. I sit myself up, and as I push the unruly strands of my hair from my face, I look around our bedroom. Pictures of us hang on the walls, and although we haven’t lived here long, memories are already painted in every room, across every surface.

  This is our home.

  How could he just want to pack up and leave?

  Tired and eyes red and puffy from crying myself to sleep, I swing my legs off the mattress and pad across the soft, plush carpet to the bathroom. I flip the switch on the wall, turning on the light, and move to the sink to rinse my face. The entire house is cloaked in silence, and I briefly wonder if Adam fell asleep on the couch. Normally, he crawls back into bed and demands that we make up, because he hates the thought of us falling asleep with our disagreements unresolved. Not tonight, though, and a pang of guilt hits my chest knowing he wasn’t able to because I had locked the door. But damnit, I was mad and hurt, and the last thing I wanted to see was his stupidly-good-looking face.

  Drying the water from my skin, I return to my bedroom and my gaze bounces between the bed and the door, my mind and my heart contemplating on which way I should venture. My heart overruling my thoughts, I head straight for the door and unlock it, slipping quietly into the living room in case Adam is in fact asleep. We need to talk, and this time, I’m ready to listen with open ears and an open mind. He’s my forever always, and regardless of where we live, that will never change. If he wants this—if he truly wants this—than I will go. I will go for him, because the only thing that matters is that we are together.

  I hurry over to the couch, the silky rose petals still littering the floor tickling the soles of my feet, and as my eyes roll over the unoccupied cushions, my heart lands in the pit of my stomach.

  He’s not here.

  “Adam?”

  The room is quiet. Too quiet. I look around, my throat thick as I realize he never came back home. He left hours ago. This isn’t like him. This isn’t like him at all. Moving back over to the coat rack, I pull my cellphone from my pocket and press the unlock button, my heart sinking even further at the lack of missed calls or notifications on the screen. Pressing his speed-dial, I bring the phone to my ear and listen to the line ring. It rings. And it rings.

  “Hey, this is Adam. Leave me a message, and I’ll call you back.”

  Beep.

  “Adam… baby, it’s nearly three am and you’re still not home. I’m not sure where you are, and I know I told you to go, but I was just mad. Please come home so we can talk, and call me as soon as you get this, okay? I’m sorry, and I love you… forever always.”

  Ending the call, I return to the couch with my phone clenched in my hand, waiting for it to ring. I sit there, forcing myself to stay awake as long as I can before my tired eyes win the battle and I succumb to the darkness.

  BROUGHT OUT OF my sleep by the loud ringing of my phone, I straighten myself and rifle through the pillows surrounding me, searching for my cell. I spot it wedged in the space between the cushion and the arm of the couch, and I quickly answer it, bringing it to my ear.

  “Adam?”

  A female voice comes through the line. “Hi, I’m looking to speak with a Miss Cassidy Porter.”

  “This is she.”

  “Hi, Miss Porter. My name is Emily Tate. I’m calling from Liberty Medical Center in regards to a Mr. Adam Dunn. I’m afraid there has been an accident.”

  OUT OF BREATH and tears flowing freely down my cheeks, I rush through the sliding doors of the emergency room, my feet stomping across the hard linoleum floor and skidding to a halt in front of the nurse’s station.

  The nurse at the desk stops her typing on the keyboard and lifts her head, a look on her face I can’t read because my mind is whirring with thoughts of Adam.

  “Can I help you?”

  My heart will not slowdown in my chest, and I force a mouthful or air into my lungs. “Uh, hi, yes. My name is Cassidy Porter. I received a phone call just a little bit ago regarding my boyfriend, Adam Dunn. He was involved in a car accident and brought in by ambulance.”

  Recognition dawns on her face, and she briefly taps a few keys on her keyboard before addressing me. “Yes. Hi, Miss Porter. I’m Emily, the nurse you spoke with on the phone.” She gestures over to the small area off to the right of her desk, filled with rows of green chairs, their plastic cushions matching the dull green paint on the walls. “If you’d like to have a seat right over there, I’ll page the doctor for you.”

  “Is he okay? Is Adam okay?” The questions spill from my mouth, and I swear my heart stops in my chest as I wait for her response.

  She gives me a sad look, quickly masking it so her face is void of any and all emotion; something I suspect she has been trained to do. “Please have a seat, Miss Porter. Dr. Marks will be down momentarily to speak with you.”

  I inhale deeply, trying to catch my breath. I don’t understand why she won’t just answer my question. Surely, she sees the worry washed across my face. Doesn’t she? I sniff back my tears and nod my head. “Okay. Okay, thank you.”

  Walking over to the chairs, I sit down and my knee begins to bounce. I’m restless. I’m scared. All I want is for the doctor to come out and tell me Adam is okay and I’m allowed to go back and see him. I want to wrap my arms around him and tell him I love him and that I’m sorry.

  Time passes. An hour. Minutes. Days. I’m not really sure. I feel like I’ve been watching the hand on the clock tick around and around for what seems like an eternity. My chest hurts. My eyes are puffy and sore, and my lips are chapped and broken.

  What is taking so long? Where is the doctor? Why is nobody giving me answers?

  I drop my forehead to the palm of my hand, and just as I’m about to reach into my purse to pull out another tissue, a deep, unfamiliar voice calls my name.

  “Miss Cassidy Porter.”

  My head shoots up, and as I rise to my feet, my eyes land on a middle-aged man with dark brown hair and a set of black-rimmed glasses. “Yes.”

  Dressed in blue scrubs and a white coat, he begins to walk straight toward me, a stethoscope around his neck and a clipboard in his hands, and as he stops just a foot away, he holds his hand out for me to shake. “Miss Porter, I’m Dr. Russell Marks. Just to confirm, you’re the girlfriend of Mr. Adam Dunn?

  “Yes. How is he?”

  “If you will follow me please so we can talk somewhere a little more private.”

  He starts down the brightly lit sterile fluorescent hallway, and I follow quickly beside him. We step foot into a small office. In the center of the floor is a desk and two chairs, similar to the ones in the waiting room.

  He waves his arm out, offering me a seat. “If you’d like to have a seat—”

  “No, I don’t want to have a seat. I just want to know what’s going on. I want to see Adam.”

  “Why don’t we start off with you telling me what you already know, and I’ll try to avoid repeating any unnecessary information.”

  Why does it matter what I know? Why won’t he just take me to see him? I swallow down the rock in my throat and push the nightmare from my mouth. “Adam was involved in a car accident.”

  “Are you aware of the severity of Mr. Dunn’s injuries when he was brought into the emergency room?”

  I shake my head, the corner of my eyes stinging once again, and the hold I have on my coat tightens.

  “Mr. Dunn suffered severe blunt force trauma to his head and torso. Upon arrival to the emergency room, he was immediately rushed into surgery where my team and I worked to stabilize his condition. We did everything we could possibly do.”

  What? We did everything we could possibly do. What does that even mean? �
��What… I don’t—”

  “It is with my deepest condolences that I inform you that Mr. Dunn succumbed to his injuries while still on the operating table and was pronounced dead at five-twenty-two a.m.”

  “No...” With the heels of my palms resting on my temples, I begin to back away, needing to put distance between myself and this man and his words, this man who is telling me that my Adam—my forever always—is gone. “No, no… God no. Please no.” I sob out the same thing, over and over, as if doing so will magically reverse everything he's just told me.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss, Miss Porter. If there is anything my staff can do for you at this time—”

  His words drown out as the piercing sound of my heart completely shattering within my chest echoes loudly in my ears, and my lungs give way at the same time my body crumbles to a broken pile on the floor. My purse lands beside me, spilling everything with it. I can’t breathe. My breath is gone. I want to scream out, but there is a pain in my chest unlike anything I've ever felt before; it's as if someone has torn me open and cut my heart right out.

  Feeling sick to my stomach, I pull my knees to my chest and continue to sob.

  “No. Please no.”

  It's not until I hear my mother's voice and feel Jenny’s arms around me that I know I'm no longer alone. Jenny holds me tightly, rocking me gently, her lips pressed to my forehead as her tears fall into my hair. I curl into her chest, my own in excruciating pain, and I choke out the words I don't want to say. “He’s gone. Adam’s gone.”

  MY BODY IS completely numb. I can't feel my legs as Jenny guides me back through the waiting room, stopping briefly at the nurse’s station to collect the small bag of things Adam had within his pockets. She doesn't wait for me to grab it. Instead, she picks it up herself from the top of the desk and then wraps a supportive arm around me, walking me in the direction of her car and not my own.

  I suppose I'm in no condition to drive. My limbs are functioning, yet every movement is being powered on auto-pilot. I can't focus, let alone see clearly. The never-ending pools of water filling my eyes have blurred my vision. My face and my shirt are soaked with tears, and as I sit down on the passenger side seat in Jenny’s car, I stare blankly out of the window.

  How did this happen? How can he not possibly be here when just a few short hours ago I was being showered in his kisses and listening to his heart beat?

  My throat seizes, and I have to swallow the onslaught of overwhelming emotion, but I can't. Jenny notices my struggle, her soft caring voice reaching me on a gentle whisper.

  “Are you okay, Cass?”

  Am I okay?

  No. No, I'm not okay. My forever always is gone and I'm not okay. Pain leeches it's nasty claws into my chest once again, shredding me into a thousand pieces, and I sob out. “He's gone, Jenny. He's gone. I let him walk right out that door, and I didn't stop him. I didn't fucking stop him. I told him to go, to leave. I was so mad at him and hurt because he wanted to just pack up and move to LA. I locked the bedroom door and didn't let him in. Didn't let him crawl in beside me like he always does because he can't stand the thought of us going to sleep being mad at each other.”

  Oh God, I can't breathe.

  I hyperventilate, about to lose my stomach all over the inside of Jenny’s car. Jenny quickly swerves off the highway, pulling over on the side of the road and thrusting the shifter into park, and the bag resting on my lap tumbles to the floor, its contents spilling at my feet.

  I reach down, trying to frantically collect what's left of Adam when my fingers brush against a small, velvet box. Confused, I pick it up, my brain taking a moment to register what I'm holding in the palm of my hands.

  No… no, no, no.

  I begin to shake my head, hot tears continuing to spill from my eyes and racing down my cheeks. My fingers shake as I open the lid, and my breath is stolen from me once again as my eyes land on the sparkling, diamond ring tucked carefully inside.

  A shuddering gasp erupts from my throat, and I turn to look at Jenny, barely able to get the words out. “He was going to propose?”

  She nods, her own tears streaming fast as her face contorts in sadness. “We knew. We all knew, Cass. We knew about LA. Adam wanted you to go with him, and we all know how much you love him. We all thought you'd agree—”

  I shake my head faster, the crippling pain in my chest spreading to every cell in my body. “No, God no. Please, Jenny, no.”

  “He was going to ask you after you said yes.”

  “But I didn't say yes.”

  I didn't say yes, and I should have said yes. If I said yes, he'd still be here.

  He'd still—

  The thought chokes me, and I can't get any words out. I can't speak. This is my fault. It's my fault Adam's dead. I stare back at the ring, it's brilliance smiling back at me in shades of red, blue, and green as the morning sun hits it, and I close my eyes. I silently cry out my heart break, my words a desperate plea.

  “I'll go with you. I'll go to LA. Just come back to me. Please come back.”

  “Come back.”

  My voice is a hoarse whisper, and as the ticking sound of the clock sitting on my nightstand grows louder, forcing me back to my current reality and to the emptiness that is this room, I bury myself deeper beneath my blankets. There is an excruciating pain in my chest, and I can’t figure out if it’s a result from the memory of losing Adam or letting go of Sam. My heart breaks all over again as the last fifteen minutes’ plays on repeat in my head, and the words Sam spoke, so freely and honest, echo loudly within my ears.

  He loves me.

  He is in love with me.

  I curl myself up tighter, and the tears begin to fall once again. I don’t know how to process his feelings, let alone make sense of my own. I know that when I’m with him, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been since losing Adam, and everything in me wants to open my heart and make a permanent space for him there. And then I think, perhaps, I already have. Maybe Sam has held a place there all along.

  Is it possible for two hearts to beat only for each other?

  That’s the very question I’ve been asking myself almost every night for the past two months. At times, I shake off the absurdity. But then there are the times, when I fall asleep listening to the sound of Adam’s heart, of Sam’s heart, and how it always seems to beat so in tune with mine, and I’m tempted to say that it is possible.

  Sitting myself up, I swing my legs off the side of my bed and pull open my nightstand drawer. Pens and an array of other miscellaneous items roll forward, clunking against the hardwood, and as I reach in, feeling around for the item I’m searching for, my fingers come in contact with the familiar velvet box. My hands shake as I pull it out, and I will my pulse to steady. I flip open the lid, squinting as the light from the tabletop lamp sitting on my nightstand catches the brilliant cut of the diamond. A kaleidoscope of colors dances across my ceiling and wall, and my breath fails me.

  Tear after tear races down my cheeks as I stare at this small token that represents so much. It represents everything that I’ve lost, and a future that should have been promised to me. A future without so much heartache and pain.

  But it’s our heartache and pain that makes us who we are, does it not? It tears us down, forcing us to build ourselves back up and be stronger than the person we were yesterday, stronger than the person we will be tomorrow.

  Closing my eyes, I listen to the sound my heart is making, and for the first time in a long time, I hear every single, silent word. I hear pain and sorrow. I hear it telling me how much it misses Adam, but how badly it’s longing for Sam.

  Sam.

  I can’t let him go.

  I can’t let him walk out of that door and out of my life like I did with Adam. I won’t make that same mistake again.

  Rising to my feet, I dart into the living room and stumble over to the front door, yanking it open in hopes that maybe he’s still outside. My stomach rolls uneasily as I realize the spot his car was parked
in is vacant. He’s gone. Bolting over to the coffee table, I swipe my phone from its resting place and quickly unlock my screen, my fingers trembling as I scroll through my contact list. Finding Sam’s entry, I press the call button and bring the phone to my ear.

  It rings.

  And rings.

  He’s not answering.

  “You’ve reached the voicemail box of Samuel Copeland. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “Shit.”

  I hang up and dial again. This time it goes right to voicemail.

  “You’ve reached the voicemail box of Samuel Copeland. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  Ending the call, I curse under my breath and run back over to the door, slipping my feet into my boots and grabbing my coat from the rack. I need to find him.

  The drive across town to Sam’s place is a short one, so when I arrive to find his car nowhere in sight, I immediately head to the second place he’d likely be. Parking a block away since there is no on-street parking in front of the shop, I take off down the sidewalk, my feet stomping against the concrete, halting only when I’ve reached the front door of The Hideout. My breath comes out in cold clouds of mist, and as I cup my hands around my eyes, peeking through the glass, I catch Addy moseying about in the distance.

  “Addy!” I knock on the glass, my hands freezing and my knuckles red. “Please open up.”

  Pivoting around, a tray full of freshly baked muffins in her hand, she sets them down on the counter and rushes over to the door, unlocking it and pushing it open.

  “Cassi, sweet—”

  “Sam.” My chest is heaving, my lungs burning with the inability to catch my breath.

  Addy looks at me confused. “What about Sam, sweetie?”

  “Is he here? Have you talked to him?”

  She begins to shake her head, and a hiccupped-sob rolls out of my throat as I hug my arms across my chest and drop my gaze to the ground.