Page 116 of The Butterfly Killer

Marcus pursed his lips and slowly nodded. “And how much of his decision was your suggestion?”

Patrice sighed. “Look. I know you like to throw yourself into your work, but that’s not the solution. It might seem like it’s making things better, but that’s only avoidance. The problem will still be with you. Instead, you won’t be able to see when it’s gotten worse because you’ll be so used to ignoring it.”

Marcus chuckled. “Spoken like a true doctor. Are you trying to get your psychiatric masters too?”

“Don’t act like that.”

Marcus stopped laughing.

Patrice turned his head upwards, blinking rapidly as his eyes seemed to glisten.

“I didn’t think you were coming back.” His voice broke. A slight tremble ran through his body and to his fingertips.

Marcus didn’t think before he grabbed Patrice’s hand.

“I thought I would never see you again.”

Patrice couldn’t hold back his tears anymore. They spilled down his cheeks. He tried to wipe them away, but when he did, more came falling down. Marcus wrapped his arms around his friend, the first intimate touch he’d received or given since Roman.

He didn’t fail to notice how different this was. There was no power-imbalance. There was no risk and no games to be played. Marcus wasn’t doing this to manipulate and he wasn’t being manipulated.

Still, even as he hugged his dear friend, consoling him as he wept into his chest, he longed for the other version of touch he wasn’t going to find here.

“And sign here please.”

Marcus picked up the chewed hospital pen again and scribbled something that looked somewhat like his signature. His thoughts were miles away as he thought about getting on a plane and eventually falling into his own bed.

Patrice patted him on the back. “I’m going to the bathroom before we head off. Wait for me outside. I won’t be long.”

Marcus nodded as the woman behind the desk took the papers back from him and put them away into a file. Patrice gave him one last reassuring pat before he started toward the bathrooms.

Marcus peered around the busy hospital for a moment. The voices and noise were in the background, a slight buzz as he became more numb to the world. He thought when he stepped out of the hospital room there would be a change. He foolishly thought things would be better once he rejoined the world. He still wasn’t entirely there. He still had time to reassimilate.

He held his bag of dirty clothes to his chest. Patrice had wanted him to throw them away, but he’d refused. It was trauma they would say. He couldn’t fully detach himself from that version of him that was still hurting.

The bright sun was blinding as it shined through the sliding doors. He begrudgingly walked toward it. A part of him wanted to go back to the room. It was like the last shredded piece of Roman’s dictated world.

Marcus snorted at himself. Roman’s world? When did the cartel business become Roman’s? This was bigger than a copy cat serial killer. It didn’t matter that Marcus had been a cog piecethat led Roman to begin working with them. Roman was nothing to them as was Marcus was nothing to?—

“No,” he muttered to himself. He clenched his teeth as he stood in front of the doors. He closed his eyes for a moment, hating that his thoughts had gone there.

He took a deep breath and let it out in the next slow seconds. When he opened his eyes again, he stared upward at the bright blue sky and the even brighter sun. It blinded him once more and he wished he had the strength to keep looking until his retinas were completely burned. He wished to be blind. That way, nothing of this inadequate world would remind him of the broken one he was leaving.

“Oh, sir!”

Marcus was just about to step through the doors when someone grabbed his arm. On reflex, he snatched his arm away.

“Sorry,” said the woman from the desk. She blushed as she held out a yellow note. “There was a message left for you.”

Marcus took it, avoiding touching her hand. She gave a tight-lipped smile before she rushed back to her desk. Marcus watched he go before he looked down at the note.

If you want to see me again, there will be a car parked out front.

His heart dropped into his stomach.

There was no question as to who “me” was in this case. Roman.

There was no hesitation this time. He rushed through the doors thought he knew it was stupid of him. If there really was a car waiting for him, he couldn’t leave to see Roman. Patrice was waiting for him. His old life was waiting for him.

---