The Evolution of a Drowning Butterfly

Chapter Eleven

We found ourselves at a small, grey house with red shutters. It was like it was right out of a storybook. But I didn't see it for long. My sobbing had drained my energy and I quickly drifted off into a deep sleep between the moment we pulled up and the moment Jay tried to help me down. I felt him lift me from the seat, but couldn't bring myself to open my swollen eyes in my grogginess.

I awoke about two hours later surrounded by foreign objects. In a chair to my right, Jay was looking down at his phone. And on a chair to my left sat an almost familiar-looking woman reading a magazine.

I sat up slowly and stretched my stiff back.

Jay lifted his eyes to look over at me and smiled.

"Morning, sleepy head."

I grunted and rolled my eyes in response.

My eyes wandered from the lady to Jay, back to the lady.

"Jay, the poor thing looks as confused as a daisy. Why didn't you tell her where you were taking her?" the woman said.

As Jay and the woman argued, I wondered how exactly a daisy could be confused. Before I could analyze the comparison any further, Jay interrupted my train of thought: "Rose, this is my mother, Margaret."

"How do you do?" the woman, now known to me as Margaret, asked extending her hand.

"Oh.. umm..very well, thank you," I lied in a polite manner. First impressions are everything.

"Such manners," she said, eyebrows raised, turning to Jay, "Nothing like the last one," she added obviously carrying a disappointment with presumably Jay's last girlfriend. But I wasn't a girlfriend was I? We had never really discussed our relationship status. I wasn't sure if I was ready for that sort of commitment. A commitment like that requires trust. But then again, when I felt betrayed and like I couldn't trust anyone, I picked up the phone and called Jay.

But even so, I still quickly corrected her assumption by saying, "We're not-"

"Not yet," Jay interrupted, a smirk tickling at his lips.

I had a feeling that interruptions from Jay were going to be a regular occurrence. I rolled my eyes.

"Well, I'd better take you back," he said, and I agreed even with the dread of seeing my family that was tightly clenching my innards.

After I said thanked Margaret, Jay led me to his car, and took me to my "home."

Parked in front of my house, I summoned the courage to ask the question that had been itching at me since I looked around his house.

"Your parents don't have any pictures of your sister around?"

Jay stared at his hands and simply shook his head.

"Okay," I said awkwardly.

Jay leapt out of the car to help me down once again. Before we walked to my door, he wrapped his arms around me, placing his hands on the small of my back, and hugged me tightly. It was the kind of embrace that said, in a way, "I won't let go."

"It's gonna be okay," he said, "It always is."

I smiled softly, and nodded my head slightly.

He grinned, squeezed my hand, and walked away. Everyone always walks away.