Butterfly (18 page)

A
nd as quickly as the image flashed in my mind, it left. But it left behind a migraine headache. I felt this agonizing pain directly behind my right eye that seemed to circulate to the back of my head and throb.

“Aw, my goodness, that hurts!”

“What's the matter with you?”

“I don't know I got this pain in my head and it's killing me! Oh my goodness, it hurts!” I lay on my side and then covered my head with a pillow.

“Hey girl, you all right?”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Yeah, what's up?” Keisha rubbed my head as I closed my eyes tightly.

“Can you get me some Tylenol out of my medicine cabinet?”

“Okay.”

Keisha ran to the bathroom and brought me a couple of Tylenol pills and a glass of water. “Here you go.”

“Man, my head is throbbing, Keisha.” I sat up and swallowed the pill and then lay back down.

“Just out of the blue, like that?”

“Yes, I don't know where that came from.”

“Just lay down and go to sleep then.”

“I'm not sleepy.” I sat up and laid my head back. “It's kind of going away now anyway.”

“So that came out of nowhere when you was—I mean,
were
—talking about your father?”

“Yeah, I don't know what that was all about. But it's completely gone now.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, I don't feel anything anymore.”

“Man, you need to have Dr. Forrester check your crazy ass out.”

“There's nothing wrong with me.”

“Oh yes it is. You acting like you just had a damn aneurism or something.”

“Now what were we talking about?”

“You told me your father did what he had to do, and I asked you if you thought that your father murdering those people was what he had to do.”

“First of all, he didn't murder anybody. It was self-defense and he was convicted of manslaughter.”

Again the flashback of that night became very clear in my mind. I could see my father on top of the man holding him down, and Ms. Joyce, my younger brother and sister's mother, running and jumping on my father's back. My father stood up and pushed Ms. Joyce off of him and her boyfriend ran to his car.

“Ah, shoot!” I screamed and grabbed my head.

“Did it happen again?”

“Damn! It hurts!”

“Butterfly, are you all right, girl?”

The pain was so intense, I could not even respond to Keisha's question. It was in the same spot as it was before, directly behind my right eye. My vision was blurry and I was a bit incoherent.

“I'm going to get Dr. Forrester!” Keisha stood up and headed for the door.

“No!” I shouted. “No, don't go get anybody!”

Keisha stopped in her tracks and turned around. “This is not the first time this has happened to you, is it?”

“Damn! This hurts!” I clutched my sheets to absorb some of the pain shooting through my head.

“This is not the first time this has happened to you, is it, Butterfly?”

“I can't talk right now, Keisha! It hurts too bad!” I clutched the sheets again as another intense wave of pain hit me.

“Girl, I'm getting help!”

“No!” I grabbed Keisha's wrist and would not let it go. “Ugh!”

“It's something wrong with you, Butterfly!”

“I'll be fine in a minute; it doesn't last that long!” I dug my fingernails into Keisha's wrist. “Oh my God!”

“Ouch!” Keisha shouted. “Let me go! You're hurting me!”

Keisha snatched away from me and I tightened my body and lifted my head from the pillow. “Sheeeeeeit! It hurts!”

I sat still for a while and then the pain subsided.

“I'm telling Dr. Forrester in the morning about your headaches.”

“No you're not.”

“Why are you trying to hide this from them? It could be something serious.”

“If it was something serious, something would have happened already.”

“You don't know that, and if you don't tell the Forresters in the morning, I'm going to tell them myself.”

“Please, don't do that! I'm not going to tell anyone your secret, so please don't tell anybody mine.”

“No! I'm not making that deal with you. If you want to tell my secret, tell it. Because as soon as I get up in the morning, I'm telling Ms. Alicia and Dr. Forrester there's something wrong with you.”

“Do what you have to do.”

The next day, the Forresters had a house full of people for
Thanksgiving. There were Auntie Cynthia, Little Mike and Uncle Mike, Pa-Pa, Auntie Tina and her husband, Mr. Curtis; their three kids, Ariel, Kija and Sasha; Auntie Pam, Keisha, Brit and me. They had three tables set up for the adults, the teenagers and the children.

After we finished eating dinner, the men watched football. Dr. Forrester and Uncle Mike were from Michigan, so they were fans of the Detroit Lions. They had to be real fans because who would admit to being Lions fans?

Keisha was enjoying the Thanksgiving activities to the point where she forgot to talk to the Forresters about my headaches. I was glad because I was not in a mood for serious conversation. I wanted to enjoy the moment and not worry about my everyday problems. It was one of those butterfly moments when I wanted to fly away to my perfect world of being with family and friends for a perfect holiday. And that was exactly what happened until...

“We need to talk.”

I stopped and turned around. “Yes, sir?”

“When were you going to tell me about these headaches you've been having?”

“Keisha told you?” I asked. “Snitch!”

“That's not important; what's going on?”

“Nothing, they are just headaches that come and go.”

“The way I hear it, when they come, they hurt like hell.”

“They do, but only for a minute.”

“Okay, you have a choice, Butterfly. Do you want me to involve Alicia?”

“No, sir. She will have me in a neurosurgeon's office tomorrow morning.”

“Then tell me what's going on, and I want the whole truth.”

“Okay, uh, every time I think about the night when my father
went to jail, I have this vision or flashback like I'm watching a movie. It's like I'm there all over again.”

“And this brings on the headaches?”

“Yes, sir, very painful headaches.”

“What is that you see?”

“I see my father and Ms. Joyce's boyfriend fighting and my dad is on top. Ms. Joyce jumps on Dad and pushes him off of her boyfriend. Her boyfriend runs to his car and comes back with a gun and then I wake up with both of them dead.”

“Do you ever see your father shoot them?”

“No, I never get that far.”

“I think what's happening is that you suffered such a traumatic experience in witnessing the incident, you've somehow blocked out what really happened.”

“Is there anything we can do to stop the headaches?”

“We have to get you to confront what happened that night. I think your mind wants to see your father from such a positive perspective that your subconscious has repressed the reality of what happened that night. It's perfectly normal.”

“Can we keep this between us? I don't want Ms. Alicia and Ma Powell to be worried about me.”

“I'm going to schedule a CAT Scan and see what's going on. If there's nothing abnormal happening, I won't tell them, but if there is, I'm going to have to let them know.”

“That's cool.”

“Let's get back in the house. I'm missing my game.”

“Okay.”

“If you have another one of those sudden headaches, I want you to tell me as soon as it happens. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

•   •   •

I spent the remainder of the semester hitting the books and finished the entire semester with an overall 4.0-grade-point average. My confidence was high and I had actually started to believe that I was going to make it through the school year.

Over the next month, Keisha spent more time with our family than hers. I could see the Forresters' influence in her life. She had become concerned with how she spoke, how she dressed, and her inevitable future. I was proud of her.

She spent Christmas Day with us, but her stepdad took her to Tennessee with him for the rest of the Christmas break. Keisha told me her mother lied to her stepdad and told him she was going to visit her family for the holiday, but she was actually with her schoolteacher at his timeshare home. She often made Keisha lie to cover for her. Keisha hated it!

In January, I was eager to go back to school. Dr. Forrester and Ms. Alicia helped me send applications to major colleges all across the country. Ms. Alicia told me that there was no way I would not be enrolling in a major college in the fall. It seemed like the Forresters were more excited about me going to college than me.

My social life, on the other hand, was quite a different story. I was popular with the girls, but not so much with the guys. Plenty of guys liked me and asked me for my telephone number, but they were busters. I had no interest at all. That was until basketball season and I stayed after school to try out for the spring cheerleading squad. I expected to be cut because I was much taller than the average cheerleader, and the cheerleading coach was the volleyball coach. She had tried to get me on the volleyball team ever since I'd stepped on DCA's campus. I think she had it out for me because I would not play for her.

Anyway, during cheerleading tryouts, I saw this really tall guy that I had never seen practicing with the boy's basketball team.
He was cute, but the way he was dominating on the basketball court was what caught my eye. He was like a man among boys. Everybody was watching him, especially the girls.

“Who is that, Bri?” I pointed to the boy.

“That's Jeremy Winston. He just transferred from New York. You haven't heard of him?”

“Uh-uhn, girl.”

“That dude is bad! They've been talking about that boy coming here for months.”

“For real? I have never heard of him before.”

“You better get your head out of those books and see what's going on out here, Butterfly.”

“Yummy!”

Jeremy was tall. I mean really tall. He was almost seven feet tall, as a matter of fact. I think he said he was six-ten or six-eleven, something like that. He was like a pecan color, with a shaven head. His hair was close shaven, but you could still see hair on his head. He had broad shoulders and a small waist. His arms and legs were long, but his torso was short. He had no facial hair which really made him look young, but he had a deep voice which made him sound mature. I had never been so attracted to a boy in my life.

“You like that, huh?” Bri asked.

“Girl, yeah! That niggah is fine!”

“Are you going to say something to him?”

“No, I'm old school.”

“Girl, you're not old school; you're no school.”

While we were talking, the ball happened to bounce on the bleaches where we were sitting and Jeremy ran over to pick it up. He looked at me and then smiled. He ran back on the court but continued to look at me every now and then.

“I think somebody likes you, Butterfly.”

“That boy's not thinking about me.”

“Then why is he looking at you right now?”

I looked in his direction and he was staring right into my eyes. I quickly looked away. “Oh my God, he is looking right at me, Bri!”

“Calm down, girl, he's only a boy.”

“Okay, I'm calm! I'm calm!”

After cheerleading tryout, Bri convinced me to hang out and watch the rest of the boy's basketball practice. I could not take my eyes off of that boy. During one of their plays, the ball bounced on the bleachers and landed in my lap. Jeremy came over to get it and I tossed it to him. He smiled and then ran back on the court. When the tryout was over, Jeremy came up to me while Bri and I were still sitting on the bleachers.

“What's your name?”

“Shante, but they call me Butterfly.”

“Butterfly?”

“Yes.”

“I'm Jeremy. I have to talk to Coach before I leave, but can you hang around until I finish?”

“Yeah!” Bri interrupted. “She'll be right here.”

“Bri!” I was embarrassed but I composed myself so that I would not look like a big fool. “Jeremy, this is my cousin, Bri.”

“Hi, Bri.” Jeremy shook Bri's hand.

“Hey, Jeremy,” Bri said.

“You're in my Algebra class, aren't you?”

“Yes, I sit two seats behind you.”

“Yeah, that's right. I thought that was you.”

“A'ight then.”

Jeremy looked at me and then smiled. “So how do I get in contact with you after school?”

“What's your email address?” I asked.

“My email address? Email is snail mail nowadays. Got your cell phone on you?”