But Scarlett… my poor Butterfly… what was she thinking? What had happened? I wanted to ask her so badly, but I didn’t want to pressure her and push her away. I could only imagine the personal torture she was putting herself through. I had caught her a few times at dinner the night before, relaxing and letting go for a bit as she joked around with my sister’s family, but then a pained expression would steal her smile and I knew she was thinking about whatever was troubling her. I just had no idea what it was exactly.
I hoped a day out driving and some fresh California air would at least help her forget for a little bit. I knew I needed it as well because I had been tense as fuck since she had called. When I had left the book and note on her car, I really hadn’t expected to hear from her. I had thought with the whole
Evie
one year thing that she would probably be struggling, and that book had helped me find solace and support during the rough family times I had gone through recently. But to hear from her that very night, and then less than twenty four hours later, to have her at my sister’s house on the West Coast, was just pure craziness. I wasn’t sure what it all meant, or if it would lead to anything at all, I just knew that I had to take advantage of the time I had with her. I had laid out my feelings for her that day in the music shop, she knew where I stood, and I wasn’t going to push her on that. She needed an escape, she needed someone to talk to that wouldn’t judge her, she needed a true friend… and I had vowed to myself the day I hurt her, that I would be there if she ever needed me again.
After we were both settled in the Jeep, I turned to her and cupped her face in my hands, forcing her to look me in the eye. “I’m not
gonna
pretend that I’m happy about what you told me, but I want to try and understand why you did it. I’m not
gonna
judge you cause God knows that I’ve made some pretty awful decisions, but maybe if you told me the whole story, I could give you some helpful insight or advice. You don’t have to, but I just think it might help you feel better to get it off your chest.” She sighed and closed her eyes, clearly in agony over the whole thing. I kissed her forehead and released her cheeks from my grasp. “Whenever you’re ready Butterfly.” I started the engine, backed out of the driveway, and headed to Malibu Canyon.
Neither of us said anything for the first twenty minutes of the drive, but it was a comfortable silence. We just listened to the radio, I sang along to the songs that I knew, and she watched the scenery passing out of the window. When the latest Robin
Thicke
hit,
Blurred Lines
, came on, I naturally sang along with the catchy lyrics and even started dancing in my seat a little bit. I saw her try to sneak a peek at me out of her sunglasses and hide the smile threatening her lips. Seeing her face light up fueled the obnoxiousness of my performance, so I went all out as I sang the song for her.
A few seconds later she gave in and turned to watch me make a fool out of myself. I had pretended not to notice that she was paying attention, keeping my focus forward as I bopped up and down in my seat singing as loud as I could. At the part where he says, “You the hottest bitch in this place,” I abruptly turned to her and yelled it with a ridiculous look on my face. She couldn’t hold it in any longer, she fell over laughing. I tried to continue on, but couldn’t help but join her in hysterics after asking her “What rhymes with hug me?”
It wasn’t until the song was over that we were both able to sit upright and breathe normally without cracking up again. I looked over at her with a forced serious face and she nodded back at me with a similar expression, acknowledging that we were over it.
“You know that doesn’t make sense?” she blurted out. “Fuck me
doesn’t
even rhyme with hug me.”
That was all it took to get us going again. We spent the rest of the trip laughing and coming up with phrases that rhymed with
hug me
. Seeing her content and carefree during those moments filled my heart with joy. That was the Scarlett that I had missed, the Scarlett that I wanted back.
When we got to one of the top lookout points, I pulled the jeep over and parked it so we could get out and walk out to see the Pacific Ocean. Luckily, there wasn’t any fog that early in the morning, and we had a clear view of the beach and water. We stood side by side, soaking in the beauty of the landscape.
“It makes me feel so small,” she whispered.
Instinctively, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to me. I had an overwhelming need to take care of her that surprised even me sometimes. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s so big… It just reminds me of how insignificant my little self is on this big planet. There’s billions of people that live here, each of them has their own problems, their own worries.” She leaned her head against my shoulder and continued, “Sometimes I get so caught up in myself and what’s going on with me, that I forget the big picture. You know that until you said something, I hadn’t even realized that Tuesday is the one year for
Evie
. I mean how could I not even have realized that? What kind of person have I become? I fucking slept with the love of her life less than a week before that!” She twisted out of my grasp as her voice continued to get louder and louder throughout her rant.
“Scarlett, we all get lost in ourselves, stop beating yourself up,” I tried to reason with her.
“Did you fuck your best friend’s….” she stopped mid-thought and snorted. “Never mind, I’m asking the wrong person when it’s appropriate to fuck other people.” She turned around and began to stomp towards the car.
“That’s fair!” I yelled at her and she stopped walking but kept her back to me. “I know I fucked up Scarlett, and if you want to talk about it, I’m more than happy to. I’ve had to live with the guilt and hurt for the last year too, and I thought we had gotten all of our feelings about this out, but if you want to revisit it, we can. I don’t think that’s
gonna
make you feel any better about the situation you’re in right now though. I’m here to try to help you in any way possible because I love you and it kills me to see you in pain. All I want for you is to find happiness, even if it costs me mine.”
Slowly she began to turn around, and I prepared myself for her to lash out once she was facing me, but instead she walked up to me and looped her arms around my neck in a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around her waist and picked her up off the ground, holding her against me securely.
“Let’s go sit on the beach and I’ll tell you everything,” she whispered.
SCARLETT
Telling Ash everything from the first time I met Bentley up until the time I called him to come and get me was like lifting a huge weight off of my shoulders. I didn’t feel any better about the situation or my decisions, but I felt so relieved to have just told someone about it. He sat looking at the waves crashing on the shore and listened to the entire story without saying a word, so when I finished, I had no idea what to expect him to say.
“Butterfly, how do you view yourself?”
“What do you mean? About what I’ve done?” I asked disgusted.
“No, in general, you as a person,” he answered as he twisted to face me. “Who are
you
? What do
you
want in life? What makes
you
happy?”
“I don’t know…” As I thought about the questions, I realized that I really didn’t have a good response. “Music makes me happy. Friends make me happy.” I looked down at the sand where I had been nervously tracing designs with my fingers and toes. “Sand makes me happy,” I joked trying to lighten the conversation.
He sat looking as if he was contemplating a serious thought. “Well, than you should be Jimmy Buffet when you grow up,” he said unable to keep a straight face.
“Shut up! Ass!” I laughed as I pushed him in the shoulder making him lose his balance and fall into the sand.
He sat up and acted like he was going to do the same to me but instead grabbed my elbow and pulled me closer to him. Being around him just for the previous two days had me remembering how much I had missed the time we had spent hanging out together.
“Seriously, Scarlett. You really need to figure out the answers to those questions. I’ve had to do a lot of growing up over the last year, and I realized that I had to focus on living my life the way I wanted to. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be selfish, but you can’t let others dictate your happiness. Like Aristotle said ‘Happiness depends on ourselves.’”
“You’re always so philosophical,” I whined.
“It what happens when you study it in school,” he retorted jokingly. “Maybe you should listen to some of it though, most people think those guys were pretty smart for a reason.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’ve
gotta
figure out what in the world I’m
gonna
do. I need to talk to Mason, Max, Mina, everybody really. There’s not much I can resolve until I do that. I learned that months after
Evie
died and I ran away. I wished so badly that I had at least said goodbye to all of you. I wished that I had given you a chance to say whatever you wanted to say. And I felt so guilty about giving
Mase
my virginity and then disappearing on him…” The words came out of my mouth before I even realized it.
“What did you just say?” Ash interrupted. His face was stone cold serious.
“What do you mean?” I squeaked.
“You just said that you slept with Mason and then disappeared on him? So the night that you came to my house, you gave him your virginity? Fuck Scarlett, please tell me you didn’t just say that.”
Not sure how to respond, I just sat there quietly. He ran his fingers through his hair while shaking his head back and forth.
“After you came to my house, you went over there, didn’t you?!?” The anger was evident in his voice. “Tell me the truth Scarlett.”
“Yes.”
“
Fuuccckkk
!!” He growled. I could see his jaw grinding back and forth so I reached up and gently placed my palm on his cheek. He stopped immediately, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He turned his face into my hand, kissing my palm. “I’m so sorry Butterfly.”
“I know. Me too.”
We spent another thirty minutes or so at the beach, but didn’t talk any more about that night or my issues with Mason and Max. We changed the conversation to music and new songs that we had learned to play. Talking about playing guitar made me miss it and made me miss playing with Ash. From the first time we had hung out, there was always something about him that made me want to be the best person I could be. It always amazed me how incredibly intelligent he was, not to mention the musical and artistic talents that he had, and he hid it all behind messy, long hair and flip flops.
As we drove back to the house, he asked me when I wanted to go to back to Houston. I decided that I wanted to be back by Tuesday afternoon, so that I could do something on my own to pay my respects to
Evie
. That gave us one more full day in California and I talked him into taking me to
DisneyLand
. I figured we could both use
a day
acting like carefree kids before going back to being adults.
That night I wanted to ask him to sleep in the bed with me, but I was scared to… scared he would say no and scared he would say yes. Instead I stayed up reading the book he had given me. It was much shorter in length than I had originally thought, but much deeper in meaning than I had anticipated. Reading about Jonathan’s journey through life and his ultimate ability to understand the importance of self-love and forgiveness gave me hope that I would be okay when all was said and done with this mess I had created.
The following day, after breakfast with the entire family before they left for school and work, Ash and I made the hour long drive to the park. I had thanked him for the book, letting him know that I had really connected with it and would definitely be reading it again. He explained that his mom had given him the book the previous summer when he was going through a hard time. I had heard snippets here and there about something that had happened, everyone
eluding
to something that had happened, but I still wasn’t sure so I decided to ask.
“Can you tell me what happened with your parents while I was gone?” I asked hoping he would open up to me. “I’ve heard both you and
Crys
say something about it, and I didn’t want to assume incorrectly.”
He seemed a bit apprehensive at first, but after a few moments, he opened up. “Basically my dad is a fucking dick. He always has been, but for a long time I just didn’t know any better. He controlled my mom for nearly thirty years, not allowing her to have friends or a life of her own while he ran around on her constantly. The stories I could tell you about him and other women…” He shook his head in disgust. “Anyway, he asked me to pick up one of his girlfriends at the airport and I told him no, so we got in this big argument that my mom walked in on. I just told her everything, I was tired of lying for him; I had been doing it from the time I could remember.”
“I’m so sorry, Ash,” I said as I leaned over and rubbed his arm.
He looked down at my hand touching his skin and smiled. “It’s okay really. Things are much better now. My mom is on her own and doing really well, and I have no contact with my dad. I allowed him to use me as his puppet for long enough and it feels great to finally live for myself. That’s what I want for you, Butterfly. Fly with your own wings.