Flutter (The Discover Series) (48 page)

I knew the answer. It was where he spent most of his days. It’s not like he had kept a ‘Do not Enter’ sign on the door, but it was implied. I had tried going into his office once when he had gone out, I thought maybe there was some clues to what he wasn’t telling me in there, and that’s when I had found out that he kept the door locked when he wasn’t in the room. Of course it had made me even more suspicious and curious, so I had looked up a video on the internet on how to pick a lock, but either I wasn’t doing it right or Andres had some kind of special lock because I had zero luck getting it open.

“Yeah for a while” He said, bringing me out of my bubble. “I have to go out for a while, but I’ll probably still be here before you leave, and home before dinner.”

“Okay then.” Leaving him to put away the equipment from our workout, I made my way back to my bedroom so I could get ready.

I tried to make the task of getting ready as fast as I possibly could, but the minute I had stepped inside, I was back to having the strength of a newborn baby. I knew working out was meant to be exhausting, but the way I felt seemed to be a little excessive. My body shouldn’t have the ability to defy the laws of gravity that I thought were kind of unbreakable.

After my shower, I dried off and got dressed. It was getting tiresome to have to spend twenty minutes in my closet, just to find something to wear that would hide the marks destined to label me as a walking freak show if anyone saw them. Once I was dressed, I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, it was the only way I wore my hair these days. It was too long for me to have the patience to do anything that required a style that didn’t leave me feeling worn out when I was done. I reapplied the cover up to my eyes that my shower had washed away, and made a mental note to stop at the store for more soon. It would be my third one this week.

Leaving my room, I walked into the kitchen to make myself something quick to eat- since my workout burned most of my calories from breakfast -and grab something to snack on during work later. Scott had dropped by every day I worked this week to bring me lunch and visit with me for a while. I knew why he did it, and even though there was no need for him to
babysit
me, I didn’t feel the need to mention to him that he had nothing to worry about. Things were somewhat back to normal, and bringing up a subject that was taboo to Scott would only make things weird again. I pushed aside the thoughts of
him
before they could fully register, take over, and invade my brain like a parasite.

Andres was no where insight. I figured he was probably in his office by now, or still cleaning up after our workout, but I was pretty sure I had it right with the first one.

I cleaned up the mess from my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, grabbing a napkin and placing the sandwich inside, I grabbed my bag and keys. Heading for the door, I tried to shake the weird feeling that was creeping over me.

It was telling me I was going to have a long day, and that was never a good thing.

Ignoring the sensation was getting harder to do the further I got into town.

I tried to pretend my frustration came from anything else, but that actual source itself, like the eight stop lights I managed to catch on my way here, or the construction work that led me to a detour. Let’s not forget to mention the three stop signs that everyone and their dog was crossing, and now lack of parking near the bookstore. The universe was definitely trying to send me a message this morning:

Dear Sara- You should have stayed home today, Sincerely, Your Bad Luck.

When I finally found a parking spot a block away from work, I knew it was pointless to try and avoid the inevitable. I tried to disregard it, push it away until I could no longer feel the electric purr coursing to life all around me, but the minute I got out of the car, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I had to sit back down for a minute. The influence of the strange flutter that was connected to Adan was quickly taking a toll on my already weak body, and I hoped sitting here for another minute would help me gain back some of my strength.

Just because he hadn’t been around the past two weeks, didn’t change the way I reacted to him. Feeling the depth of my reaction to him now, I would say the distance had only made the reaction stronger. I looked up and down the block, and through the windows of my car, trying to spot him.  I couldn’t see him anywhere, but I knew he was around, whether he was here for me or just around, I didn’t know.

Part of me wanted to linger around, hoping I would run into him or he would find me, but I knew that would only make things harder. On me for sure. After the last time talking to him, I had spent most of that day and night literally feeling sick to my stomach at feeling the loss of him. That same night, and the next two nights, I had silently cried myself to sleep. It was the kind of gut wrenching crying you did when you wanted something so bad, but knew you could never have it. It had hurt so bad, but by the fourth night, I told myself it was time to end the pity party I had been throwing myself, and get over it because I knew that it wasn’t healthy for me to be so dependant on someone I barely knew. So for the sake of all woman kind, I pulled on my big girl panties and ended my self inflicted torture.

It had been two weeks since I had seen Adan, correction, I thought angrily, it had been two weeks since that day in the ally that I had
spoken
to Adan, and it had only been a few days after that, that I had seen him all over Jasmine. Okay maybe I was being a little dramatic, it was more like Jasmine was all over him, but he didn’t seem to mind too much when she had walked up to him, throwing her arms around him and his around her.

It’s not like I had been spying on either one of them, and honestly I could have lived a million times over without needing to have seen them together. I had been at work, checking out one of our regulars, I had walked with her to the door, holding it open for her and her rambunctious three year old, and after waving goodbye to them, I had turned and saw Adan out of the corner of my eyes. He wasn’t looking in my direction, but I had partially hid myself by one of the book cases and watched Jasmine fawn all over him.

I had to control the urge to walk out of work and up to her, so I could scratch her eyes out and the violent desire had been so crushing, I had been blinded by it. Literally! It had been like pulling the sun down around me, the light had been so overpowering, I couldn’t see straight. My body had burned with the rage building inside of me; my blood had boiled turning a white hot lava, that had surged ferociously through my veins, threatening to erupt from the palms of my hands.

When my vision had finally cleared and I was no longer seeing red, I felt embarrassed and was glad no one had been around to see my emotional break down, including Maggie who had been upstairs doing innovatory until she had emerged from her work to check on things, and me. I was grateful she had unknowingly waited until I was in control again before coming down; she had looked concerned, but made small talk about the weather. She asked if I had noticed how bright it seemed outside that day, and I hadn’t until she pointed it out. For the rest of the day, that’s all any of the customers that had come in could talk about, everyone found the heat maddening.

After a few more comments about the sun from Maggie, she had turned to leave, but not before throwing another worried glance at me, obviously I wasn’t very good at fooling her. When I had turned my attention back to Adan, I was surprised to find him staring in my directions. He couldn’t see me, I was sure, even if I hadn’t been hiding, he was too far to focus on me, and he didn’t even know I was working today. I felt better when he untangled himself from Jasmine and put space between them, but I wish it had been that easy to forget the image of her touching him.

I hadn’t seem him again since then, nor had I felt him this strong, and that only meant one thing.  He was close by, and the way my senses were screaming right now, I knew he was
really
close. Getting out of my car, I clicked the lock button on my keys and turned to dash
toward
the bookstore before I lost all of my will power to continue to stay away from him.

Too late, Sara, Sincerely, you know who.

Flutter

Sixteen

Happy Birthday

My mad dash turned into a screeching halt.

I was nearly thrown back from running into Adan’s chest, which felt like a brick wall. I didn’t need to look up to know it was him. I could easily tell by his intoxicatingly familiar smell, the feel of his body against mine.  The way my body was raging out of control right now, you would have thought I had been slamming shots of straight espresso. Apparently two weeks of ‘Adan detoxing’ was not enough to fight off the cravings I was experiencing now.

One of his arms slipped effortlessly around me and his other hand caught my elbow. My nerves exploded under the slide of fingers against the sensitive part of my skin. The tips of his fingers moved just inside the edge of my sleeve.  I could feel the hand print just inches above reacting and I snatched my arm back.  I knew he hadn’t felt the disturbing sensation, but I didn’t want to feel it either.

He still had me around the waist so I didn’t get very far after pulling my arm away, and he didn’t seem to care that I was trying to move away from him. If anything he tugged me closer to him. I was trying desperately to avoid eye contact, but I was slowly losing the battle of will against my own body as my eyes fought to devour the features of his face that I had achingly missed. I could feel him staring me down, waiting for me to break. I was trying to think of something clever to say, but my mind was in utter chaos and I was coming up blank every time I tried.

“Running from something?”

Times up!
I thought to myself.

He was still trying to catch my eyes, but I managed to stare at the spot on his neck where his pulse throbbed softly, without going any further north.

“I’m late for work.” I lied.

“Hmm,” He nodded and I could tell by his ‘hmm’ that he didn’t believe me. “That’s weird because I just came from the book store,” he motioned with his hand in the direction of the store, “and Maggie said you weren’t suppose to be in for another twenty minutes and,” he lifted his free arm to look at his wrist, “you still have fifteen minutes.” He dropped his arm and I noticed he wasn’t even wearing a watch!

“I think your
watch
needs a new battery because according to my watch,” I lifted my arm and looked at my bare wrist, “I’m late.”

“So that’s your story and you’re sticking to it huh?”

“I really have to go Adan.” Saying his name out loud was bitter sweet.

I wanted to stop resisting his embrace and bury myself inside his warmth, but I knew that was not an option. I attempted to put space between us, but he was having none of it.

“If I didn’t know any better I would think you were running from
me.
”

“I wasn’t, but I am running out of ways to say ‘I’m late for work’ in a way that you’ll understand that
I’m late for work.
”

“It doesn’t sound like you’ve missed me at all Sara.”

Because I couldn’t help it any longer, I finally looked up at him and my breath caught. I had thought he meant it in a teasing way, but he looked completely serious and as miserable as I felt.

The shadows around his eyes were dark, not nearly as dark as mine, but they were still noticeable and his usually bright blue eyes had turned a shade of a steely blue that reminded me of storm clouds. The bottom half of his face showed signs of a light stubble and the temptation to trace my fingers over the lines of his chin and jaw was fierce. His hair was tousled and held no indication that he had attempted to fix it now, or even recently, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to run my fingers through the soft strands.

“I missed you as much as you missed me.”

“God I really hope that’s true.”

“You should have stayed away Adan.” I said the words, but I wasn’t sure that I could completely stand behind them.

“Why? It doesn’t look like it’s been doing either one of us any good and wasn’t that the whole point? Screw good intentions.”

“You’re too dangerous for me to be around Adan.” I tried to hang on to reason, but his words were penetrating through my self-discipline.

“Who me? I’m harmless.” He smiled teasingly at me.

“Not to me your not. I’m with Scott and this time that actually has to mean something. I can’t hurt him again.”

“Are you hurting him any less by pretending to want to be with him? Who is actually gaining anything from this Sara? You don’t want to hurt him, but you’ll be with him by default?”

His words stung and I was getting angry because I knew there was truth behind what he was saying.

“It’s not by default! I care about Scott!” It wasn’t a complete lie.

“If you cared about him you wouldn’t still be with him.”

I did care about Scott a lot, but could I truly deny that I was with him for all the wrong reasons? When I had decided that I was going to stay with Scott, it had been a decision I had quickly regretted and not because I didn’t care for him, but because of the reason I had chose to stay with him. Adan had turned me down and just like he said, I had picked Scott by default and that had been wrong. Every time I had been with him the last two weeks the guilt had slowly been eating me alive. I hadn’t planned on staying with Scott much longer. I knew the right thing to do was tell him the truth and I was going to, I just needed to find the right time.

I had no intentions on telling Adan that though, I didn’t want him to influence my choice. I was choosing to end it with Scott because it was the right thing to do, not because Adan decided he wanted to be with me now. I refused to let myself treat Scott like he was merely a replacement and I had no plans on pushing anything with Adan until after I had talked to Scott and even then I wasn’t sure what I wanted after that. The fact remained that Adan had lied to me and that was the whole reason I had chosen not to be with him.

“Last time I checked, I don’t have an obligation to run my choices by you. You made your choice two weeks ago and I wasn’t a part of it.”

“If I remember correctly, you weren’t exactly in the position to be a part of it!”

“And if I remember correctly, you didn’t exactly ask me what I wanted. You made the decision without me and nothing has changed since then so I don’t really see the point in this argument anymore.” I tried pulling away from him again, but he held fast.

“I’m sorry.” He said softly and my struggle to be free ceased. “Your right, I didn’t include you or ask you what you wanted, but it’s only because I thought I was doing what was right.”

“You can’t just go back and forth whenever you want. You can’t decide after two weeks of no contact that
now
you want to be a part of my life.
Now
you want to fight for me when before you didn’t even put up a protest.”

“That’s where you’re wrong Sara.” His voice was low now.

“How?”

“I’m
always
fighting for
you.
Fighting to keep you, fighting to be with you, fighting for you. It’s a fight every step of the way.”

His words left me breathless. “Why do I have the feeling that there is some hidden meaning in there that I’m not getting?”

“I mean every word of it. Letting you walk away the last time we were together, even if it was only for two weeks, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I won’t let you walk away again.”

“I don’t really see that you have any other choice Adan.”

He dropped his head forward until his forehead was leaning against mine. He was so close that the tip of his nose was touching mine and I could feel the warm vapors of his breath against my lips. It was pure agony having him this close to me, he didn’t know what he was doing to me. “You’re miserable Sara. Why can’t you see that?” He spoke softly and his words caressed my face.

“That has nothing to do with Scott. I’m done making the wrong choices and I need to fix the ones I’ve already made. I have to go now.” He lifted his head and I could feel his arm sliding away without much of a fight this time.

“Bye Adan.” I walked around him, but didn’t get more then two steps from him before he stopped me.

“Sara.”

I turned
toward
him and he was already facing me and whispered.

“Happy birthday.”

I arrived at the store with zero time to spare.

Maggie was checking out a customer when I breezed past the counter with a quick wave in her direction, heading for the back to put my bag away and get my apron. After a check in the mirror, which only confirmed that my face was in fact flushed and that it only managed to enhance my ragged appearance, I walked back to the front of the store tying my apron around me as I went.

Maggie was alone and waiting for me.

“You know I think this is the first time you haven’t been at least five minutes early to work.” She said sarcastically.

“Ha. Ha. Thanks for pointing out how lame I am.” I joked taking a stack of books off the counter that needed to put on the floor.

“Psh! Some people may call it
lame
, but I call it responsible.”

“Me responsible? If only you knew Mags.” I slipped one of the books back into place on the large bookshelf.

“I wouldn’t underestimate my knowledge, Sara. You’d be surprised at what I’m capable of knowing.”

“Is it just me or does everyone I know seem to talk to me in riddles?” I asked putting the last book away.

Maggie laughed. “I think I read somewhere that riddles are the ramblings of a true genius.” We both laughed. “Don’t worry mija, there will be plenty of time to figure out the riddles in life.”

“I hope so Maggie. I really hope so.”

“How are things with Scott?” I knew she was baiting her time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to unleash her curiosity on me.

“I wish I had an easy answer for that question Mags.” I walked over to the counter and scraped my fingernail over the wood.

“There is never an easy answer when it comes to boys I’m afraid.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” I traced the grain patterns in the wood.

“Does your uncertainty have anything to do with a certain handsome blue eyed boy who was in here earlier pretending not to be looking for you?”

And she found her opening. “I’m just so confused Maggie. I don’t see any way that everyone will be happy.

“Learn this now mija and save yourself the trouble of finding this out later: you can not please everyone. The most important thing is to make yourself happy, life is too short to be anything else.”

“I don’t want to hurt Scott, but I can’t seem to stay away from Adan. I don’t know what it is that draws me to him, but whatever it is, its stronger then I can ignore.”

“So stop fighting it. Scott will want you to be happy even if that means being with someone else.”

“I don’t seem him being that understanding.”

“Of course he won’t be happy at first, but I doubt he would like it if he knew you were thinking about someone else.”

She was right, who would want that?

She had already known she was going to end it with Scott, but now she knew it would have to be sooner then later, and after time had passed she would decided what she was going to do about Adan cause staying away from him was not an option. She was hurt with him now, but imagining not being with him ever was something she couldn’t even envision.

“Am I a horrible person, Maggie? I mean I knew how I felt about Scott and Adan, but I ignored it and chose to be selfish.”

“You’re not a bad person, Sara, and you know deep down that your not. You’re young and even though that’s not an excuse, a lot of times with youth follows selfishness, it’s just the way things go. I have faith though that, that trait won’t last long for you.” She smiled warmly at me.

“Well you have a lot more faith in me then I do, but I hope you’re right.”

“Oh and speaking of your birthday.” She said holding her hands up.

I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Uh, I don’t actually remember either one of us saying anything about my birthday.”

“We didn’t?” She asked almost looking genuinely confused. She reached under the counter and pulled out a gold wrapped box setting it down and pushing it
toward
me. “Happy birthday Sara.”

“Maggie you didn’t have to do this.” I ran my finger over the smooth paper and picked it up.

She was beaming at me. “Open it!” She all but squealed excitedly.

“Okay!” I said matching her anticipation.

I pulled open the taped ends of the wrapping paper unraveling it until I was holding a white box in my hand. Lifting the lid, I could see a small blue gem that had silver bands wrapped around it holding it to the small clip and ring.       

It was a charm and it was beautiful.