Текст книги "Butterfly Dreams"

Title Page

Copyright

Preface

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

Dedication

Acknowledgments

By A. Meredith Walters

About the Author

The Editor’s Corner

Excerpt from Should’ve Said No

Preface

Corin

I’ve always dreamed in butterflies.

Wild. Free. Colorful butterflies.

To me they were a real, breathing thing. As real as you or me.

When I was a little girl, my head was full of beautiful, flying creatures while I slept. Soft touches on my face as they swarmed my body, enfolding me in their reassuring protection.

My mother used to tell me they were my guardians. That they looked over me while I slept. That to dream about butterflies was good luck. That I was destined to have a wonderful, amazing life. Pretty words filled with well-intentioned lies.

She decorated my bedroom in butterflies. Pink, blue, purple wings on my walls. Shimmering stained glass hanging in my window.

But as I became an adult and real life set in, my butterfly dreams weren’t so benevolent. They became dark, twisted things suffocating and paralyzing me.

They weaved into my nightmares. An overwhelming press of bodies that I couldn’t break free of.

And then one day, my once happy butterflies found their way into my waking world. But they weren’t there to protect me. They filled my nose and put pressure on my chest. They rendered me blind and wrapped themselves tight around me, making it impossible for me to move.

I started to hate my butterflies.

They terrified me.

Prologue

Corin

Breathe. In and out. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight and my throat constricted painfully. The all-too-familiar black spots in my peripheral started to bleed across my vision.

I was going to pass out.

This was my waking butterfly dream. The feeling that had once only lived in my dreams was now very real and very present. It was a scary, debilitating panic attack.

I felt my heart hammering violently in my chest. Fluttering madly in its attempt to break free from my rib cage.

My hands started to tingle. My extremities were going numb and all I could think was, I’m dying.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block out the sounds of traffic whirling past me. I stumbled blindly along the sidewalk, shoving and pushing my way toward sanctuary.

I’m having a heart attack.

I was going to die here, in the middle of town, wearing my ugliest pair of shoes and my ratty blue jeans that should have been thrown out three years ago.

Why hadn’t I thrown out these jeans? The conspicuous hole below the ass pocket should have been the only sign needed to not wear them in public. Ever.

I made a strangled, gurgling sound and dropped to my knees, not caring that people were staring. Not caring that I was making a scene. I didn’t feel the cold, wet snow beneath me, nor did I register the frigid wind cutting through my clothing on the late February afternoon.

None of it mattered because I was dying. There was no denying the truth that stared me in the face.

It was my time to die.

Goodbye, cruel world…

My overly maudlin inner voice was at it again. Eager to throw an added flair for the dramatic into an already overly dramatic situation.

I gritted my teeth together and clenched my hands into fists, digging my nails into the tender flesh of my palms.

Breathe! I commanded myself.

I covered my face with my hands and started to rock. A full-body repetitive motion that soothed me in a way nothing else could.

Go to your happy place, Corin, I urged myself silently. Panicked and desperate.

My happy place. Where the hell was my damn happy place?

Waiting at the DMV…no!

Standing in line at the post office…hell to the double no!

Running into Shannon Peters, my high school nemesis, and seeing that she’d gained forty pounds since graduation…maybe.

My mind was a whirling, discombobulated mess. It was like an out-of-control seesaw. Up and down. Frantic and scary.

The only thing I could really focus on was what would happen to my cat after I died. I had made plans for my sister to take Mr. Bingley in the event of my early passing. But I didn’t particularly like my sister. She had elevated bitchiness to an art form.

I didn’t want her to have Mr. Bingley! She’d never remember to feed him his special yogurt at six o’clock every evening. She wasn’t the touchy-feely type so I knew she’d never let him climb on her lap and rub him behind the ears in the way that made him purr.

Her idea of being nurturing involved snotty looks and a healthy dose of ridicule.

Why had I left my cat, the only thing in the world I cared about, to my horrible, self-centered sister?

My mouth opened and closed in panic and I squeezed my eyes shut again, trying to drown out everything but the feeling of air whooshing in and out of my lungs.

I couldn’t think about Mr. Bingley, or my sister, or the fact that I was wearing granny panties instead of something lacy and sexy. Because what type of underwear I had on really mattered in a situation like this. Here was clear proof that my priorities were in order. It was nice to know that even when facing my imminent demise, I could still hold onto my sarcasm. Some natural talents never let you down.

And right now my head was full of my threadbare, washed-so-many-times-the-white-had-turned-gray granny panties.

The last thing any twentysomething girl with an obsessive fixation on her own death wanted was for potential paramedics to get an eyeful of stretched elastic and tiny holes along the crotch.

That’s how Corin Thompson was going to be remembered. As the crazy girl with the disgusting undies. Why oh why hadn’t I worn my pretty pink bikini briefs with the bows at the hips?

My hands were shaking. My skin was coated in a fine sheen of sweat even though the temperature outside was barely above freezing.

“Are you all right?” a deep voice asked. Under normal circumstances I may have thought it was a nice voice. An appealing voice.

Not now.

Right now all I could do was focus on my imminent mortality.

This was it. The light is there, at the end of the tunnel. Should I go toward it?

I waved my hand in an agitated gesture. A clear nonverbal cue to leave me the fuck alone.

It’s all over. The light is getting brighter.

“Come on. Let’s get you to stand up.”

I felt hands underneath my armpits attempting to hoist me up and onto my feet. I squinted and realized that the bright light was actually the sun glinting off my unwanted rescuer’s stupid sunglasses.

“Leave me alone!” I yelled, followed by a low, keening moan.

“Just let me get you off the sidewalk,” the voice urged in a calm, placating manner.

“Don’t touch me!” I screeched, wrenching myself from the grasp that held me.

What part of Leave me alone was he having a hard time understanding? Had my speech started to slur? Was I losing motor control?

Shit!

“I can’t breathe,” I gasped, pulling at the scarf around my neck, trying to get it free. My fingers scratched and tore at the fabric. “I. Can’t. Breathe!” My words were broken gasps without substance.

“Here,” the deep voice said from somewhere in the void around me. Gentle hands touched my neck, slowly and gently releasing me from the confines of my scarf.

The frigid wind touched my skin and I felt better.

I shut my eyes and hunched in on myself, my fingers still curled into claws.

I tried to concentrate on anything other than where I was and what was happening.

Go to your sanctuary, Corin.

Where was my goddamned sanctuary?

“Just breathe. Slowly. In through the nose and out of the mouth,” the deep voice said from beside my ear.

I barely heard him because suddenly I remembered that perfect place in my mind that I could go to in times like this.

A beach. With crystal clear water. Waves lapping along the sand. I could almost hear the surf pounding in my ears.

There was the requisite shirtless hot guy feeding me chocolate and quoting Lord Byron while another muscle-bound pretty boy massaged my feet as I ogled his um…package.

Okay, so my sanctuary was overly self-indulgent and slightly on the pervy side.

I was a red-blooded twenty-five-year-old woman after all, dying aside.

Breathe. In through the nose and out of the mouth.

I nodded my head, noticing for the first time the feel of a hand rubbing slowly up and down my back.

Someone was touching me.

I felt my lungs finally able to take in air and I slowly, carefully blew it out again. My fingers began to tingle, once again getting the feeling back.

Soon I became aware of where I was and what I was doing. Slowly I began to brush off the snow from my knees. I straightened my scarf and pulled my hat down over my ears.

Run and hide, Corin. As fast as your skinny legs can carry you.

“There you go. Feeling better?” the deep voice asked, and I felt myself start to flush with mortification.

I couldn’t look at him. I knew that if I did, this moment of humiliation would haunt me in my dreams from here to eternity. As it was, that voice with just the right amount of husk would be etched into my brain until I keeled over. Which would be pretty soon at this rate.

“I’m fine. Thank you,” I mumbled, ever polite, just as my parents had taught me to be.

Even if I wanted to scream like a banshee and dash away, arms flailing.

I didn’t want to look at the crowd that had gathered during my freak-out. I didn’t want to see the shocked and sympathetic expressions on the faces of total strangers. Or worse I didn’t want to recognize the look of total disgust, which would undoubtedly be there. I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste blood.

It was one thing to melt down in the privacy of your own home; it was something else entirely to have a large audience staring at you as you channeled your inner nut job.

“Do you need me to call someone? I can walk you home,” the deep voice offered and I shook my head and tucked my chin down into the safe warmth of my coat, attempting to hide the red burn of my cheeks.

“Are you sure?” His voice was gentle and concerned. He didn’t sound horrified or aghast. I felt a momentary relief in that.

I chanced a quick look before I made my escape.

My gaze hovered a moment on soft brown hair and kind blue eyes shining bright with his sympathy. And that’s all I could handle seeing.

I averted my gaze, unable to look at him. Wanting to ignore his kind voice and naked pity that was in many ways so much worse than disgust.

“I can help you home—”

I didn’t let him finish his offer. I couldn’t stand there, drowning in his compassion, for a moment longer.

I tucked my chin down into my coat and all but ran away from the pieces of my crumbling pride.

Chapter 1

Corin

“I’m leaving around three today,” I told Adam Johnson several weeks later.

Adam was my partner at the Razzle Dazzle pottery studio and my best friend by default, mostly because there was no one else to fill the position.

Though I’m pretty sure if he were given the option of being Corin Thompson’s bestie or…well…anything else, anything else would win every time.

“Oh yeah? Where are you headed?” he asked, opening a box of premade clay figurines and haphazardly lining them along the lowest shelf. I waited for him to finish and then quickly, while his back was turned, rearranged them so that they were neat and straight.

Razzle Dazzle was my pride and joy, and I may or may not be a bit over the top about wanting everything to be perfect. The studio catered mostly to the stay-at-home mom and preschool crowd. I enjoyed watching people create something that they loved. It gave me a sense of satisfaction knowing that my store was responsible for putting smiles on people’s faces.

And I also liked to fart rainbows on the weekends.

“I’m headed to a new group,” I said quietly so no one would overhear. If I were talking to my older sister, Tamsin, I could expect an exasperated huff followed by a lengthy lecture about yet another support group I was attending. She’d tell me, in her condescending way, that my illnesses were all in my head. That no, I didn’t have fibromyalgia. And that pain in my head was not a brain tumor. She had no patience for my health anxiety and even less patience for the persistent fears that had plagued me for years.

Tamsin was seven years older than me, and I often wondered if our difference in age attributed to our lack of closeness. But then I realized she was just a jerk.

But Adam didn’t huff. He never really said anything. And I could never figure out whether it was because he sensed I wouldn’t appreciate it or if he just didn’t care. I sincerely hoped it wasn’t the latter, though I’d never really asked him. I was much more abrasive and snarky in my head than I was in real life.

But it was his lack of domineering personality that made him the only person I could stomach being around for lengthy periods of time. I hated pushy people almost as much as I hated judgmental people. And Adam was neither. At least out loud.

What went on inside that head of his was anybody’s guess.

Adam and I weren’t the sort to share unnecessary confidences, but he had been there, in all of his strong, silent glory, through the rougher parts of my life.

So, like it or not, he had been handed the Corin best friend crown.

I had known Adam since we were kids. But we weren’t friends at first sight. Hell, I think we spent the first ten years of our acquaintance staunchly avoiding each other.

Though that wasn’t unusual for either of us.

Even before both of my parents had died when I was a teenager, I wasn’t exactly a people person. When everyone else learned to play beer pong, I made vases on my pottery wheel. I didn’t talk much.

Adam Johnson was someone who spoke even less.

He was the loner just shy of good looking with thick, dark hair and a wiry, lean frame. His lips were too thin and his nose too long. His ears stuck out through his curls, but his lashes were beautiful, making his eyes his best feature by far. He was a hodgepodge of attributes, some attractive, some not, that made him, at the very least, interesting to look at.

The day I had come back to school after my dad’s funeral, I lost it after first period. I had sat down on a stone bench in the school courtyard and sobbed until I thought I was going to be sick.

“Here.” Adam, whom I hadn’t noticed sitting in the corner, came over and offered me a stick of gum. I took it, holding it in my hand.

“You gonna look at it or chew it?” he had asked abruptly. Slowly I had unwrapped the gum and stuck it in my mouth, barely noticing the flavor. He sat with me until the bell rang. We didn’t talk about much that day. I think we mentioned the weather and a new sitcom on television, but that was it.

After that, I unconsciously sought him out during lunch. I went out of my way to find him while he smoked in the parking lot after school. He started offering me rides home and sometimes we’d hang out and watch television together.

But most important, Adam never looked at me like I was strange or different. Not even when I first told him I thought I had a rare form of bone cancer after complaining of aches in my legs for over three weeks. And when I told him I was pretty sure I had developed glaucoma, he had only shrugged and asked if I wanted to grab something to eat.

His lack of response was more reassuring than most people’s verbal concern.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

I rubbed at a sore spot in the middle of my chest. “I’ve been feeling dizzy and fatigued. And my left arm has been going numb. Dr. Harrison is running some tests.”

“Dr. Harrison?”

I shrugged. “Dr. Graham wasn’t very helpful,” I said flippantly, referring to the doctor I had been seeing semi-religiously for most of my life.

I had decided to find a new physician when, after complaining of chronic weakness in my left arm, he suggested that perhaps I should see a therapist instead of having more tests run.

I had been gutted. And more than a little angry. I could put up with a lot, but condescension was a major pet peeve. So I had given the good family doc the big heave-ho and quickly found another physician.

“So which group is it?” Adam dropped the empty cardboard box onto the floor and I picked it up immediately, grabbing a pair of scissors so I could slice the edges and fold it down into a compact square before putting it in the recycling bin.

“It’s the Mended Hearts support group over on Eleventh at the old Methodist church,” I told him.

“The Mended Hearts group?” Adam didn’t look up but I flushed slightly at the question. I hated this part.

The explanation.

I cleared my throat and grabbed the bag of pretzels I kept underneath the counter at all times. People had all types of vices. All manner of pretzels were mine. Salted pretzels, plain pretzels, sour cream and onion pretzels. I wasn’t picky. I loved them all equally. Adam knew they were hands-off. Limbs would be at risk should he try and take one.

I popped a few in my mouth, making sure to chew and swallow before answering. “It’s for heart patients. People who have survived heart attacks and defects. It’s actually a pretty big group,” I said quickly.

Adam looked at me with his deep, unreadable eyes. “Okay, I’ll close up.”

That was it. No more questions.

“Do you want to know what I’m being tested for?” I asked him, pushing the subject, when just minutes ago I wanted to drop it completely.

Adam shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll let me know all about it,” he remarked dryly and then walked into the storeroom, ending our conversation. I wasn’t overly bothered by his indifference. It had been one of the main ingredients to our quasi-healthy friendship. His lack of censure and overall disinterest in my frequent health complaints made us work.

I looked around my store and smiled at the few customers. I could hear Adam banging around in the storeroom. Krista, one of our part-time employees, was cleaning paint off the tables in the back.

This was my life. These were my only connections.

And that felt more than a little sad.

Not so deep down, I was a hopeless romantic. I wanted to find my soul mate. I wanted to have my happily ever after.

I wanted to be swept off my feet and loved forever.

Even if the thought of going on dates and engaging in meaningless chitchat to get to that point of true love made me want to break out into hives.

I was beginning to think I was destined to live and die alone. With only Mr. Bingley, my deceptively benign cat, by my side.

Oh god.

Beckett

“Let’s have a look at the incision,” Dr. Callahan said as she carefully peeled back the bandage attached to my chest with an excessive amount of tape. I tried not to wince as a clump of my chest hair was ripped out in the process.

I clenched my teeth as my doctor gently pressed the skin around the two-inch healing cut. It was still really sore, but it had only been a couple of weeks since having the cardioverter defibrillator implanted, so that wasn’t surprising.

The defibrillator, or ICD as the docs liked to say, was meant to monitor my heart, delivering an electric shock should it pick up on an abnormal rhythm. The purpose was to prevent another heart attack. Because, as Dr. Callahan gently informed me, the next one could be fatal given the heart damage I had sustained.

I had jokingly asked about getting a new heart, to which I was told, by a very serious Dr. Callahan, that it was an option of last resort. She made it clear that until my heart began to fail completely, it wasn’t something they would even consider.

“It looks like it’s healing nicely,” Dr. Callahan said with a smile, cutting a length of new gauze and taping it to my chest. When she was finished, she pulled out something that looked sort of like a paddle.

“I’ve been a good boy, I swear,” I joked lamely. Dr. Callahan, who was ridiculously hot for a doctor, didn’t respond to my less-than-appropriate attempt at humor.

“This is a programmer that will check to make sure your ICD is working properly. It’ll only take a few minutes and then we’ll look at the results.” She started pushing buttons on the paddle thing. “It’s nothing to be nervous about. It uses radio waves to determine whether it’s functioning the way it’s supposed to. It’s completely painless.”

Yeah, yeah. I knew the drill. I should be used to being poked and prodded by now. This had been my norm since suffering from a heart attack four months ago.

It had been sudden and completely unexpected. I was young, not obese, and almost maniacally healthy. I worked out. I ran five miles every morning before going to work. I ate right and wasn’t a boozehound or a smoker. I had sex in monogamous relationships and didn’t dabble in random hookups with hookers on street corners.

The day that had changed my entire life had started like any other. I had woken up when my alarm went off. I had turned over and kissed my girlfriend, Sierra, before rolling ninja-style out of bed so I wouldn’t wake her up. She was a demon in high heels if she didn’t get enough sleep.

I changed into my running clothes, grabbed a bottle of water, and was out the door.

I remember feeling a little off that morning. Not quite right. But I had brushed it off as not sleeping enough. I had been up late celebrating with Sierra the night before. She had been named assistant manager at the coffee shop where she worked. She was thrilled. I was attempting to be happy because she was thrilled.

Things had been on the track toward good. I was your typical twenty-eight-year-old guy with a decent job as a sales manager for a software design company. Sure, it wasn’t my dream of being a pro athlete or an award-winning photographer, but I couldn’t complain.

I had just moved into a new apartment by the river with my gorgeous girlfriend of nearly two years. She had been hounding me about marriage and kids and white picket fences for almost a year, and I was starting to think maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Then, during my routine morning run through the park by our apartment, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. My left arm went numb. I couldn’t breathe.

I collapsed.

My heart stopped.

I died.

Two women walking their dogs found me. I was told later that while one had administered CPR, her friend called 911. When the paramedics arrived, they were able to get my heart started again.

But I had died.

I had been following the white light. I had been making the final journey. I had been ready for the big sleep.

Then I was brought back.

And my entire life changed in an instant.

While I was laid up in the hospital, the doctors ran a battery of tests trying to figure out why a healthy twenty-eight-year-old man would have a heart attack.

The answer came soon enough and it was one that would impact me forever.

I was diagnosed with a genetic heart defect called arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. What a mouthful, right? In simple terms that the rest of us could understand, I was told that it meant because of a genetic abnormality, which I apparently had my entire life, my heart didn’t function the way it was supposed to. Some of my cardiac muscle was replaced with fatty tissue that resulted in heart arrhythmia, which could lead to heart palpitations and possible death.

Talk about a downer.

The doctors at the hospital explained that with some lifestyle changes and medication I could quite possibly go on to live a long and healthy life.

I then proceeded to freak the hell out.

How could I live with the fucked-up knowledge of impending death hanging over my head every second of every day?

Oh, you want to take a quick jog around the park? Sorry, can’t. I could have a heart attack.

You want me to join in a game of basketball? I’ll have to pass; otherwise I could die before the first layup.

I was most definitely not a happy camper.

The two weeks I was in the hospital had been bleak. Between the intermittent panic attacks and frightening depths of despair, I wasn’t a fun guy to be around.

I had been angry and mean. I had made my mother cry and my little sister, Zoe, refused to come see me. Sierra couldn’t understand why I was lashing out at her when she thought she was being supportive. My buddies Aaron and Bryan had taken one look at all the tubes and monitors and had made some excuse about doing their taxes. I responded by throwing an empty bedpan at their heads.

And the louder I yelled, the less anyone heard me. So I stopped talking altogether. I was a damn mess.

I felt incredibly sorry for myself. Yeah, I became that guy. A big pile of emo douchiness that moaned on and on about how hard my life was and no one understood. In short, I sucked.

What people didn’t get was that I was no longer the Beckett Kingsley I used to be. I couldn’t be the wild guy who threw himself out of airplanes because I felt like it. I couldn’t play a pummel-each-other-until-we-puke game of football with my buddies on a Sunday afternoon. And I most certainly couldn’t go backpacking along the Appalachian Trail with Sierra as we had planned to do in June.

Now I was someone else. Someone who had to constantly worry about taking medications and not to “overexert” myself. I was seriously. Pissed. Off.

I felt like there was nothing left for me. What was the point of living when I had to stop doing so many of the things that I enjoyed? I was doing some serious, hard-core wallowing.

The doctors recommended that I speak to a therapist. Apparently suicide was a concern in heart patients. But I wanted nothing to do with any of that crap. I wanted to feel sorry for myself.

And then one day, pretending to be asleep, I could hear my mom and dad talking quietly. They were whispering so they wouldn’t wake me, but I heard them clear as day.

“I’ve never seen him like this. He’s just given up, Stanley,” my mother wept, her voice muffled. Even though my eyes were shut, I knew that she was crying into her hands. I had seen her do it enough times since I had woken up in the hospital.

“He’s suffered a major trauma, Meryl. We can’t expect him to be smiling and happy. Of course he’s angry,” my dad reasoned.

“It’s more than that and you know it! He’s my baby boy and I know when he’s hurting and when he needs me. But he’s shut us out! He’s cut himself off from everyone! From us, from Zoe, from Sierra. I look at him and I don’t see our Beck. I see a man that’s already died!” Her words gave me chills. Is that what she saw when she looked at me? A dead man?

My mom was still talking and I strained to hear her.

“I won’t be able to survive losing him. I just won’t. He’s breaking my heart, Stan!” My mother’s cries made it hard to catch my father’s response. But soon I could hear my dad’s rough sobs mingling with my mother’s and something twisted inside of me.

I had never heard my father cry before and hearing it then was a much-needed slap in the face. There I was, feeling sorry for myself when I was so damn lucky.

I was alive. I still had a life ahead of me.

It was time to take this heart thing by the balls and deal with it.

And from that moment on I had tried to be as positive as possible. I became physically stronger. Mentally I tried to keep it together. Every morning when I woke up, I said to myself, I’m alive! I played it on repeat over and over again throughout the day.

When I would look around my dismal hospital room, I’d think, My heart’s still ticking. I’ve got this!

When the constant beeping of the monitors drove me crazy, I’d tell myself, At least I can hear them. Because I could be dead instead.

I focused on the fact that at least I still had my health…or what was left of it. I was Mr. Sunshine. I had to be, or I’d lose my fucking mind.

After I got out the hospital, I felt strange…different. It was like returning to a life you realized didn’t belong to you anymore. I was forcing myself to be a person that I no longer was. I tried to feel things that weren’t there anymore.

I came home to an apartment I shared with a woman who I knew didn’t want me there. Because I wasn’t what she had signed up for. She was used to a Beckett Kingsley who ran with her after work, who planned backpacking trips, and who could stay up the entire night screwing her brains out in new and interesting ways.

The Beckett who came home after almost dying couldn’t do any of those things, and it quickly became obvious that Sierra didn’t necessarily want to be around this new guy I had become.

Sierra had never been the patient sort, and I knew that my heart attack had put a strain on how flexible and agreeable she could be. At first she tried. She really did. Those first couple weeks at the hospital, she’d visit me every day. She’d sit in the chair beside my bed and hold my hand. She brought me my favorite pajama bottoms and the book I had been reading.

That was all fine and dandy until I came home and she actually had to live with the invalid. Stuff changed really quickly after that.

I knew that I took a lot of my frustrations and anger out on her. She was easy to lash out at because she was simply there. But she didn’t help matters. She seemed to think that once I was out of the hospital, I should be able to jump back into our life together as though nothing had changed.