Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
ELIZABETH
With a sigh, Trevor leans his elbows on the table. “Are we going to acknowledge the elephant in the room? Or are the two of you going to continue to act like Carthusians and not talk? That was mainly aimed at you, Meredith, since you’ve been uncharacteristically nonverbal most of the evening.”
Meredith looks up from what she’s reading, her eyes like those of a deer caught in headlights. Trevor was spot on with his observation.
“What the hell is a Carthusian?” she asks.
It’s almost nine in the evening, and we’re shut in our study room at the library. Trevor finished his paper, and Meredith is reading over it. I’m almost done with mine.
“Okay. I’ll bite. I’m curious about the whole Fallon-brother thing. By all means, let’s cage that elephant.”
Trevor doesn’t look away from his laptop screen, but I see the half-grin that tips his mouth.
My morning started off well. Daniel and I met Julien and Elijah for our early morning run. I see a bromance brewing between those three, despite the age difference.
Unfortunately, my day took a slight turn for the worse during my session with Dr. Clairemont. Daniel was not happy to find out about my “memory episodes.” I knew I’d have to tell him about them eventually, but I also knew that when I did, he and Drew would go into overprotective mode, and that was something I wanted to put off as long as possible.
Instead of enjoying a nice walk with Daniel and showing him around campus after my appointment, he insisted that we talk. And by talk, I mean I got grilled and guilt-tripped. It took a mountain of effort, but I was able to carefully deflect every one of his demands. Meet more often with Dr. Clairemont every week, move into a dorm on campus so I wouldn’t be living alone, get a roommate, have a personal bodyguard, get a dog, move back to Seattle—that was an immediate no—and ask Ryder to live with me. I gave his last suggestion serious consideration.
Trevor closes his laptop. “How well do you know Fallon?”
“Not as well as you,” I reply, purposely evading because if I did before, I don’t remember.
Meredith cups her hand around her mouth and silently mouths, “Are you going to tell him?”
I subtly shake my head no.
“I only found out we were related a few years ago. You need to be careful around him.”
I don’t know why I get defensive, but Trevor’s warning has me crossing my arms over my chest.
“Fallon is friends with Ryder, Julien, and Elijah, and I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, but I trust their judgments about someone’s moral character more than yours.”
Ryder may get cagey whenever I ask him about Fallon, but he has never said anything negative about him. Jayson hates him, but Elijah gushes over him, and Julien says he’s cool.
Trevor’s unnaturally blue gaze bores into me from across the table. “Fallon doesn’t give a fuck about anything. His life is all about hooking up, partying, getting high, and spending Daddy’s money. But you, Elizabeth, are a different story. He went apeshit over you. He threatened me over you.”
“I also remember you antagonizing him,” I argue.
“Fallon looks down on everybody else. Thinks he’s better than everyone. The only thing we have in common is a father who’s a philandering manwhore.”
For some insane reason, I feel like I need to stand up for Fallon.
“Fallon isn’t a bad person once you get to know him. Yes, trying to have a conversation with him should be considered an Olympic sport, but have you tried talking to him? Like a real conversation?”
Trevor drums his fingers on the tabletop. “I’ve tried to connect with him. Tried to help him. He’s made it clear that he wants nothing to do with me.”
“Sometimes when you meet a brick wall, you have to come at it with a hammer. Again and again, before it starts to crumble. I think your situation with your brother is sad. Then again, I don’t know the history between the two of you, nor do I really know either one of you that well, so my opinion isn’t important.”
“Your opinion matters to me,” he mumbles.
He opened the door, I might as well walk on through. “If what I think is so important, you’ll answer me truthfully when I ask, did you know who I was at the beach?”
Meredith kicks me under the table to get my attention. She’s holding her phone in her lap, typing furiously. My phone vibrates in the back pocket of my skinny jeans.
“Elizabeth—” Trevor begins, but I don’t hear the rest of what he says.
Out of nowhere, I’m slammed with memories of a girl. Memories of us running through a forest, memories of us snuggled in bed together as she reads to me, memories of bruises and burn marks. And blood.
“Do you see, Elizabeth? Your pathetic sister could never take your place. You’re my butterfly. My beautiful broken butterfly.”
“Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”
Meredith has her hands on either side of my face, shaking me, but I can’t see her past the images of blood filling my vision.
There’s a loud bang of a door slamming and then a deep voice demanding, “Move.”
Disjointed sounds overlap in the background.
“Is she having a seizure?”
“Should we call 9-1-1?”
“Back up and give her a minute.”
Warm, calloused fingers grip the back of my neck and squeeze.
“Breathe, baby. Focus on my voice and breathe.”
The memories release me, and I gasp for air, choke on it, like I had been dropped at the bottom of the ocean and made it to the surface just in time before all my oxygen was used up. My muscles unlock, my grip loosens from the table, fingers falling away to hang loosely by my sides. I bury my face deep into a familiar masculine chest.
“That’s it. Just breathe with me, Liz.”
Liz? Ryder calls me Elizabeth.
“Jayson?”
Another memory comes. We’re sitting on a branch high up in a tree. He’s holding me, my back to his chest, as tiny, twinkling stars flicker all around us like fireflies. I begin falling again into the dark chasm that exists in my mind, being pulled under. But I fight it. I don’t let it take me.
“Don’t let go,” I manage to say.
“I’ve got you. Stay with me.”
“Jay, what happened?” Ryder’s worried voice booms out.
“Ryder, what should we do?” Meredith says.
I’m stuck in my own little pocket right now. Everyone else seems so far away. I grip Jayson tighter and listen to his softly murmured words in my ear, absorbing his strength, needing him to keep me in the present, so I don’t disappear back into the past.
I hear Ryder say, “Can you guys just clear out and give us space? We’ve got her.”
I hear Trevor. “Elizabeth has my number. She needs anything, you call me.”
I hear Meredith. “Please call me and let me know how she is.”
I listen to the sounds of shuffling, zippers being pulled, and finally, a door opening and closing. Then silence.
I feel Ryder next to us, his hands joining Jayson’s to rub circles on my back.
“Don’t tell Daniel.”
“I think he?—”
“Don’t tell Daniel,” I repeat again, my voice stronger.
“What happened?” Ryder asks.
“I don’t know. I got here, and I heard Meredith shouting. Liz was white as a ghost, frozen in place. Scared the shit out of me. She was breathing weird and staring off into space.”
“Fuck. One of her memory blackouts?”
“A seizure, maybe? I don’t know.” Jayson moves his hand from my neck and cups the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair. The slight pinch of pain helps ground me. “What are you doing here?”
What an odd thing to ask me.
“What are you doing here?” Ryder answers in return.
I don’t know how long I zone out. When I finally reconnect to the present, I lift my head to see Jayson’s concerned gaze.
“There she is.”
Turning, I reach for Ryder, and he takes me in his arms.
“We need to get you to the hospital,” Jayson says.
“No.”
“Elizabeth—” Ryder starts, but I cut him off.
“I’m not going to the hospital.”
“Fucking Christ!” Jayson explodes.
“I get you’re scared, but now’s not the time,” Ryder says.
“I am scared, and you should be, too. What if she was driving? What if that shit happens when she’s behind the wheel of a car? Did you ever think about that? Or if she’s walking across the street. In the shower. How many times has this happened, Liz?”
I refuse to answer and bury deeper into Ryder.
“How many?”
Jayson’s sharp bark makes me jump.
“Jay, calm down.”
“Answer me!”
I snap fully back, going from helpless to fighting mad in an instant. Why is it that Jayson seems to bring that out in me?
“I don’t know!” I yell. “They’ve been happening more and more over the past month, ever since I came here. I don’t know how many. They just happen. I don’t keep count. They’re not seizures. They’re memories!”
Ryder goes rigid. He pulls away, and I feel it as if an entire ocean has sprung up between us.
“Ryder, no,” I plead, needing to bridge that distance. “It won’t change anything. It won’t change how I feel about you. My memories will never change the fact that I’m in love with you,” I say, completely forgetting in that moment that we have an audience.
“What?” a pained voice breaks behind me. “What did you just say?”
No. Not like this. I didn’t want him to find out like this.
“Jayson, I?—”
“You love him?”
Jayson flays Ryder with a look so malicious, I’m actually afraid of him. He takes one lethal step forward, and with a quickness I didn’t know I possessed, I push out of Ryder’s arms and slam my hands against Jayson’s chest.
“Stop!” His body is vibrating so hard, I’m surprised the entire library isn’t shaking on its foundation. “Jayson, stop.”
Those liquid silver eyes morph from menace to heartbreak as they snap to me, but I can barely see them past the tears.
“We didn’t want you to find out like this. It’s my fault. This is all my fault. Please, please, just stop.”
“Why Liz?”
“I can’t explain why.”
“It’s supposed to be me. Me and you. Forever. You’re my soulmate.”
I’m devastated when I see his eyes fill and spill over, and my heart breaks from the pain I caused him.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You were supposed to remember us. Our stars were supposed to lead you back to me,” he says brokenly, collapsing down into a chair, defeat etched over his tear-streaked face.
“Stars?”
Jayson scrubs his hands across his wet cheeks. “Our silver stars. The ones I leave you almost every day. The ones I would hang from our tree. Our stars filled with promises for our future. The ones filled with my love for you.”
“The paper origami stars? Those were from you? But I thought…” I look at Ryder.
“You thought they were from him ?” Jayson says incredulously.
I swallow, mouth dry. That’s exactly what I thought.
Ryder’s face starts to blur. Black creeps in around my periphery. In that blackness are hundreds of iridescent silver stars.
“I thought…I…”
The study room door opens, and someone says, “Is there a problem in here? We’ve received noise complaints.”
My mind spirals into a suffocating abyss, memories swirling around me like dark clouds. Fragments of my past flash before me like a cruel film on repeat. The laughter of childhood, once sweet, echoes with a haunting distortion, while the echoes of harsh words and broken promises crash against my chest like waves against jagged rocks. The faces of those lost flicker in and out, their eyes clouded and blank. The familiar darkness creeps in quickly, stealing the last traces of light and sound.
And then I see him .
“My beautiful broken butterfly.”