Page 125 of Butterfly Effect

Wade rubs an oval into his forehead. “Fucking hell. Did Vaughn do something?”

“Good guess, but not today. Today’s depressive episode is compliments of my mother.”

“Gabe.”

I have nothing to lose.

“I was four. Remember that picture on my birthday? I had just turned four.” A resurgence of tears blurs my vision as I gaze past a watery blob-like Wade. “I’m not sure how soon after, but Dad found her cold one morning. She killed herself.”

“Holy fuck.” He drops to a squat, palming the rim of the tub.

Pent-up resentment boils and blisters, spewing onto the wrong person. “How’s that for ananswer?” I yell, shoving my hand through the water, hurling a mini wave onto him, and dousing his shirt. “Now you know why I’m fucked up. Does that make you happy, Wade?” My voice cracks, dry, hoarse, and itchy from the raised tone. “To know I’m such a piece of shit, my own mother couldn’t deal with raising me?”

His mouth downturns before he goes upright and steps into the tub, dress shoes, suit jacket, and all.

“No,God. It fucking breaks my heart.” He kneels and leans forward, trapping my naked body between his limbs and sloshing water onto the tile. “I can’t stand seeing you like this.”

My head lolls to one side, unsure if these tears are old or new. “I needed her. I was a baby and needed my mother.”

Wade pushes his forehead to mine.

My shoulders shake out sob after sob. “I need her now. I’m thirty-two years old—and I don’t have a clue who she was—what parts of me are hers—outside of these fuckingfreckles. I needed her to be there and share herself with me, and she was so—fucking—selfish— she couldn’t bear to live for me for another day.”

He peels away his jacket and shirt, standing to rid all of his clothes while the cold water drains away, and sneaks in behind me as hot water replaces it. “It’s not your fault.”

“Then why does it feel like it?”

Our legs stretch in parallel, his outlining mine. Lush lips sit against my temple, one of his strong arms curled across me, keeping my back against his warm front. “I see a lot of myself in her. She lost her family too young. But I loved her. Dad was devoted to her. Why wasn’t it enough?” Slow breaths steady mine, his soothing heartbeat like a salve to my ache. Almost, anyway.

“She didn’t bother to stick around to walk me down the driveway on the first day of school, or watch me develop a passion for basketball or grow six feet tall, graduate uni, or get my dream job. She didn’t congratulate me when I fell in love or wipe my tears when I was forced to fall out of it. She’ll never watch me grow in my career, and I’ll never get to see her grow old…Why did she rob me of that, Wade? Didn’t she love me? Is it so hard to love me?”

“It’s not,” he murmurs.

“No? Then why did Kurt fuck around?”

“Because his tiny prick has bigger issues than you do.”

“Funny. You’re a jerk, but funny.”

“Whatever you say, Freckles, but I’m here. And I’m not leaving.”

His promise acts a salve on these hidden scars, too, so I stay in his arms as long as possible.

Eventually, he goads me out of the water with a warmed robe. He finds himself another and doesn’t seem to mind how ridiculously short and snug the fuzzy purple robe is on him.

“What?” He catches me staring.

“Nothing.” I point to the dryer in the bathroom closet. “Set it to permanent press, or your clothes will be ruined.”

He does. The machine whirs.

“Listen, Freckles. This is a nice laundry room, but you gonna show me around? It’s my first time here.”

My place is nice, but it’s no penthouse. We go through the main living spaces, my lackluster office, the small balcony, and the bedroom, where an embarrassingly large amount of laundry piles on one side of the bed.

The last room has my nerves rattling in my gut. “And this” —I push open the door— “is the indoor greenhouse.”

Balmy, humid air circulates within the plastic-covered framing, imitating tropical weather. Sun lamps hang over the rows and shelves of my plants.

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