Page 165 of When the Storm Breaks
The box of butterflies.
Every single one he made for me.
I don’t know why I kept them. I should’ve thrown them away. But somehow, it felt wrong—like they mattered too much.
My fingertips skim the edge of the box.
I shouldn’t reach inside. I know that.
But I do.
I pluck one from the top, turning it over carefully, tracing the sharp, perfect folds with my thumb.
The wings feel weightless in my hand.
And suddenly, I’m not in my bedroom anymore.
We used to drive together.
All the time. It became a part of us—a quiet ritual we never talked about but always returned to.
Sometimes we had nowhere to go, just looping aimlessly through town. Other times, we took the long way, stretching the drive as far as we could, even when we knew it would just end at one of our apartments.
It was never about the destination.
It was about the space we made between.
A world of our own—separate from the neighbors’ noise, the creaking floors, the muffled lives happening just beyond the walls.
It was ours—just existing together.
Existing together was enough.
Haiyden always let me DJ. I started planning for it—curating playlists in anticipation of our next drive so I wouldn’t have to think. So I could justbewith him.
It became my language.
My way of showing him who I was—my moods, my favorite songs, the ones that reminded me of things I loved, and things I hated.
We didn’t talk much during those drives. We didn’t need to.
Not about the big things. Not out loud.
But through the music, I could feel him listening. Like he understood the parts of me I didn’t know how to explain.
He never asked to pick the songs. Never touched the aux.
He just tapped his fingers on the steering wheel during the upbeat ones and reached for my hand during the sad ones.
And always—always—his arm rested across the center console, fingers grazing my thigh, tracing patterns.
At first, I thought it was a habit. Something mindless.
But after a while, I started noticing the rhythm—the way his fingers followed the same loops, the same curves, starting and ending in the same places each time.
Like he was writing something only he could read.
That last drive, it’s like heknewI was catching on. Knew I was wondering if it meant something.
