Butterflies & Characters

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.

  Butterflies & Characters. Copyright © 2021 by Liz Hsu.

  Edited by Rachel Lynn Solomon. Cover by Sumo Design. Interior Book Design by Break Through Author.

  Published by Li-Mei Publishing, 2886 12 Mile Road, P.O. Box 721414, Berkley, MI 48072-9998. For information, visit www.lizhsubooks.com. All rights reserved including the right to manufacture in any format, sell, or distribute copies of this book or portions of this book.

  ISBN: 978-1-7365434-1-2

  To my past students, who inspired this, and all young people living with chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases. I’m with you. We deserve to love and be loved—and have love stories told about us.

  To my husband—wo ai ni!

  AUTHOR’S NOTE...

  The romance and story are fictional. Liz has several diagnosed autoimmune diseases, including Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). The medical issues all reflect a modified medical experience of hers over the course of the last 20 years. All names of characters, medical professionals, and locations have been changed.

  “Rayanne!” Jeffery drawled out my name like most people around here, giving it a true Southern twang. “So nice you could finally join us, honey!”

  I stuck my head out the door of Ross’s black four-door truck, my feet hitting the gravel with a cloud of dust. Nothing said summer quite like the familiar sands of Tybee Island just down the road from my house, even if nothing about the sun had seemed mundane recently. And this Sunday afternoon, if the parking lot was anything to go by, the beach would be packed.

  I waved with a huge grin as I secured my beach bag, craning my neck to look at my hulking best friend and neighbor.

  Ross threw his arm around my shoulders and hollered back, “My girl’s been working. Shit, man. You knew that.”

  “All right, I know. But we missed you,” Jeffery said as he tugged me away from my boyfriend and into his massive embrace. He’d always been bigger and taller than me. Now, as a linebacker, he was easily twice my weight.

  “Ugh, you’re sweaty, Jeff,” I said, pushing away, but I secretly didn’t mind.

  He had such a cozy place in my heart, like a big brother. He was the one person I could depend on in my life. He might have blushed, making me feel a smidgeon of remorse. Usually, I was the self-conscious one, not him.

  Then he tipped his ballcap, always the Southern gentleman, to my closest girlfriend and our classmate, Carolyn, as she slithered out of the back of the truck flipping her long, dirty-blond hair.

  “Jeffery,” she said without bothering to glance his way.

  I sighed. While we ran in the same circles and both were my closest friends, they weren’t friends with each other. Not at all.

  Jeff had warned she was a fake flake when she befriended me days after Ross asked me out. She’d whined my best friend was an idiot before I told them both to shut it around me. Jeff was my oldest and most reliable friend, but Carolyn was one of my only girlfriends. As a kid I’d always liked bikes and playing tag more than dolls. And I’d used to be shy enough it could come off as stand-offish.

  “All right, Ross, let’s get the cooler,” Jeffery said, shuffling up dust with his huge feet and drawing me from my pondering about why we couldn’t all be friends.

  With that, Carolyn and I turned back to the truck to unload while the boys and their friends hauled the heaviest items—sexism perks at their finest. I plucked at my three-quarter sleeve and adjusted my sunhat, making sure it was ready for the windy gusts the boardwalk would get nearer the waterfront.

  Carolyn looked over and muttered something like, “Only you,” under her breath.

  Her words sent me stumbling slightly on the rough wood of the boardwalk. Lately my cheeks and biceps had been reddening so fast when I was outside. I’d been working at a brunch restaurant downtown and had missed a lot of the Savannah summer sun and almost all our friends’ beach trips. And when I’d been running in the afternoons, I’d started wearing one of the “sun long sleeves” that I’d bought, along with a ballcap. My knees had been bothering me out of nowhere, too. I hadn’t mentioned it to my mom or stepdad, Mark, yet. They both seemed to roll their eyes whenever I asked for anything.

  “You like my hat?” I tried to joke, tilting my head in what I hoped was a diva-like way. I probably looked like an idiot, but Carolyn laughed.

  “You can pull it off.” Then she added, “like a Swedish model.”

  I managed a fake laugh instead of cringing. I was five-nine, and though I was skinny, just like my biological father, even if I could be, I’d never want to be a model—I didn’t like too much attention on me. I didn’t know why, but recently Carolyn had been teasing me more and more about my dad’s heritage. It made me uncomfortable.

  Everyone knew I was a big oops from my mom’s one and only summer abroad. My dad was Swedish, and a few weeks of dating and a broken condom had led to me and her crushed dreams—or so I’d been told numerous times. He hadn’t wanted me. She liked to remind me of that fact. And I looked just like him. I had his bright summer-sky blue eyes and almost white-blond hair, versus my mom’s honey-hazel eyes and bottle-blond brunette roots. My three half-siblings—Gracie Mae, Mary Beth, and Matthew—all took after Mark with brown eyes and curly dark hair. I’d finally been able to call myself a blond, not the unusual platinum blond, last year for the first time in my life as my hair had naturally darkened a smidgen.

  “Shoot!” I yelled as a gust caught my hat. I clutched my head frantically before securing it in my beach bag with a frown.

  Sweat was dripping off us all by the time we hit the end of the sand dunes, and no one dared take off their flip-flops so far from the water in the South Georgia July heat. The sand was hotter than a firecracker.

  Finally, we spotted what looked like half of the Tidemarsh High football team and cheerleading squad—Ross’s regular crew, with me just by association. Sometimes I’d swear I’d been happier when it was just Jeff and me biking, singing Florida Georgia Line, and watching cheesy romances with his big sister. But where I hated attention, Ross loved it.

  Rainbow shades of bikinis decorated bronzed girls who’d commandeered almost all the beach chairs while the guys tossed a ball back and forth. Almost everyone was as brown as a biscuit after weeks of tanning or working as lifeguards. Except me. I opened up my chair as Carolyn did the same on the opposite side of the group, after some nodded greetings. I settled in, getting my hat back out of my bag and staring at the gray Atlantic I’d barely seen this summer. Some boogie boarders claimed my attention, reminding me of summers past. I’d always loved the water. I sighed a little wistfully. Summer was already drawing to a close and I’d barely dipped my toes in the warm surf.

  Ross’s broad shoulders suddenly blocked my view. He gave me that cocky smile of his and knelt in front of me, sandy blond hair falling into his blue-gray eyes. He was the best-looking boy I’d ever met. Unfortunately, he knew it too.

  “Are you going to take off your shirt or do you want me to?” he asked, leaning in and running a hand along the hem in a way that made me shiver with the mix of feelings he always gave me.

  I shook my head at his flirting but handed him my hat and stripped to my coral bikini before stuffing my shirt in my bag. I prayed my arm wouldn’t act up. Ross’s eyes roved over me o
nce as he dropped the hat back on my head and leaned in for a teasing, open-mouthed kiss. I returned it, not wanting to fight the day before I left for almost two weeks, even though I’d told him a time, or ten, how much I hated PDA.

  “There’s my pretty girl,” he said with a grin as he stood and went back to the ball tossing, sending me one last heated look that promised he’d be back for more later.

  I reapplied my 70 SPF, to everyone’s amusement—they used tanning cream or nothing at all. I blamed it on my fair coloring, even if I’d swear I used to turn a more pleasant golden, but the sun had been bothering me too much lately to ignore.

  For me, today was this summer’s last beach trip. Not that it mattered, since down here you could swim till October. Tomorrow I’d be flying to see my dad in Michigan before we continued on to Stockholm to stay with my grandparents. I’d never been one hundred percent comfortable with my dad, and my mom said he only brought me along for my grandparents’ sake. Yet he always acted happy to see me, and Lord knew I loved seeing him.

  I attempted to exhale my negative thoughts—I’d never had a bad time with Dad. I was already tired from my five o’clock wakeup for the breakfast gig I worked, so with my hat mostly covering my face, I gave in to the drowsiness and found myself nodding off to the girls’ chatter, the rhythmic slap of the waves on the shore, and the cries of gulls overhead.

  Sun blasted down on me as my hat was suddenly removed. I forced my eyes open to look up into Ross’s blue-gray ones.

  “Want to run?” His question took me a moment to process—I must have fallen asleep.

  I smothered a yawn, nodding as he plopped down beside me, scattering sand across my legs. I toweled off my feet and reached for my sneakers. I did both cross-country and track, and running had always been calming to me—my safe place. Jeffery used to joke that one day, I’d run away.

  Mom hadn’t always been nice to me. I’d grown up hearing her stress about how I’d ruined her life. Even Jeffery had heard it. Heck, our whole dagnab island had probably heard it. I lost count of how many “bless her hearts” I’d heard directed toward Mom, or me. I’d even started kindergarten at age four, though my birthday wasn’t until October forth, just so she could get rid of me a little early. I still wasn’t sure how she’d convinced the school to enroll me, but my mom always got what she wanted. Well, except my dad marrying her. That was probably why she was always bitter when she looked at me: I really did look like him.

  But running was great. I didn’t have to ask for any sports fees, which I knew she’d give me H-E-double-hockey-sticks for, unlike my three half-siblings. Mark would buy anything they wanted. They were his kids. I wasn’t. Mom spent her money on her hair, her nails, and her clothing. She worked just enough in Mark’s dental office for that. Mark paid for everything else. It was a big reason I wanted to be a well-paid architect when I grew up. I didn’t want to depend on a husband like she did. Plus, I loved drawing maybe as much as running.

  Ross laced up as I secured my hat in the bag and threw my hair in a ponytail. As the starting running back and a lacrosse midfielder, Ross was an avid runner too. In fact, we’d met on the track after school, me a shy sophomore on cross-country and him a cool, flirty junior playing football on the field I circled. I’d always been a late bloomer, younger than my classmates, and Jeff had been kind of my best and only friend. Ross and Jeff were teammates, so we’d all started chatting after practice. That led to eating lunch together and flirting in the halls. Last winter, he’d surprised me by asking me out, and we’d been dating ever since.

  I yawned once more as Ross stretched, giving me an up-close view of his golden toned abs and spectacular body. I still couldn’t really believe the “It” incoming senior was my boyfriend. Rich parents, starting running back, stunning looks, and college recruiters watching him with the prospect of a Division I full ride—Ross seemed to have it all. And for whatever reason, he’d wanted “all” to include me.

  As if feeling my gaze on him, he glanced down and gave me his typical lazy grin. That look sent fire and ice coursing through me. Fire, because like most almost-sixteen-year-olds, I was full of raging hormones and maybe wouldn’t mind that gorgeous body all over me, but ice because I was petrified of the recent escalations in our intimacy. I’d been called a mistake my entire life. I wasn’t ready to take the next step, and all that might entail.

  Ross pulled me to him as I stood, and kissed me while his hand slid to the edge of my bikini bottom, guiding our hips closer together. My boyfriend was publicly groping me. Anger and embarrassment flushed through me even before I heard our friends hoot.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said, pushing his chest.

  He sighed and whispered in my ear, “One day, Rayanne. One day. You don’t know what the sight of you in that tiny bikini does to me.” He nibbled my ear, his breath fanning hot on my neck. “It makes me want to do more than look, beautiful.” He drew back and gave me a slow once-over. “Let’s get a move on.”

  My jaw clenched as we fell into a run along the beach. I didn’t want to have sex, though I knew Ross wasn’t a virgin. We’d fought about this since junior prom in April, when we’d been dating for several months. It seemed, at least for him, our handsy time was reaching its limit, and he wanted more than I was willing to give. I wasn’t sure I was ready to let him go, but I didn’t want to keep fighting with him, either. Something had to give. I just hadn’t decided what—my virginity or Ross.

  By the time we’d run almost three miles to the south side of Tybee Island, my knees were hurting again, but I pushed through. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong that they’d been getting so swollen recently, but I didn’t like it. When we made it back, we took our sweaty butts into the warm Atlantic.

  Ross swam nearer as we bobbed in the surf. “I’ll miss you, Rayanne,” he said, pulling my back flush against his chest and rubbing a hand along my stomach. His stubble and lips tickled my neck.

  “It’s just ten days. You know I only get to see my grandparents twice a year.” I hoped this would reassure him. “You have football conditioning. You won’t even have time to miss me.” He sucked hard on my neck, and I smacked his hand on my waist. “No hickeys!” My mom had flipped when he’d left them before.

  He nipped softly once more. “Then give me something to remember you by,” he said as he kissed my neck more gently.

  “Ross,” I said warningly, inching forward. “I don’t want to keep having this fight. Condoms aren’t that effective. When I’m ready, I can go to the Planned Parenthood clinic and start the pill, but I’m not ready yet, okay? I looked it up and I don’t need parental permission, but I can’t use my insurance, so I’ve been saving up.”

  “If the condom breaks, take Plan B. That’s what Stacy did when we didn’t have a condom that one time. Come on, Rayanne, I’ll make you feel so good, I promise. Everyone’s done it.” He nibbled at my neck again as he caressed my stomach under the dark water and didn’t let me pull away. I could feel the hard evidence of just how much he wanted me pressed against me.

  Anger shot through me even as my body responded to his. I didn’t want to hear about what his ex or everyone else was doing. The thought of sex terrified me. I pushed away hard enough for him to let go and said, “Then date them.”

  I fought the surf on my swim back to shore and stalked toward Jeff. It felt like Ross was right—everyone, even Jeffery, had had sex. We’d been dating six months. Maybe there was something wrong with me. I’d ask Jeffery. He’d keep it between us and tell me the truth.

  “Jeff, I have to go watch the sermon from this morning. Can you give me a lift?” Since I worked Sunday mornings, I compromised and watched the church sermon from home. Mom and Mark were very religious. I believed in God, too, but their preacher was so angry and convinced we were all going to hell. I liked Jeffery’s church better, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes, FCA. I could never tell Mom, but I hated watching her church�
��s sermons. Sometimes they even gave me nightmares.

  He arched an eyebrow but jumped right up. “Sure thing, honey.”

  A wet, warm body hit my back as a hand slid around my waist again. “Sit down, Jeffery. I got Rayanne, but can you take Carolyn? I want some alone time with my girl before she heads off to Michigan, Sweden, and everywhere else.”

  I’m sure he does. I’d felt that in the water. I stepped forward, removing his hand even as he threaded our fingers. “Ross, I’ll see you when you get me tonight.” Then I glanced at Jeffery. “Let’s go.”

  Jeffery hesitated, clearly aware he was in an awkward spot, but his loyalty to me over his teammate won out. “Sure thing. Momma needed some ice anyhow. Ready?”

  Ross squeezed my hand almost too tightly, but he managed to say smoothly, “What time?”

  “Eight.” I leaned up and kissed his cheek, not wanting to cause a scene. As I did, I whispered extra softly, “Think about what I said. I’m not ready.”

  He turned his face and kissed me hard, thrusting his tongue into my mouth almost like a promise. He broke the kiss as quickly as it started. I met his eyes and we fought a silent battle. I didn’t think anyone had ever told Golden Boy Ross Gutterson no.

  “Carolyn?” I broke our stare-off, scanning the beach for her.

  “Y’all go on. Jake will take me and Ava,” she said from a few chairs away, without looking up from her magazine. Some friend. Ava, waved bye though, which I reciprocated.

  With that, I bent to collect my stuff. Jeffery had that clench to his jaw he got whenever Ross was publicly handsy, but remained silent as we walked up the boardwalk. As soon as we sat in his car, he rolled down the windows. Dust from the gravel lot quickly clogged my throat but did little to cool the hotbox his beater Honda had become in the scorching Southern sun. We sweated it out in the temporary sauna as the car slowly rolled toward the road.