Butterflies
The Prequel to 'At Home with Alev and Zachary'
by Nyssa Jayne
I watched her eyes flicker open. She tired to smile at me. I would always tell her that she was beautiful, but I don’t think that she always believed me.
“Hey Alev,” I cooed quietly, as she shut her eyes, slowing opening them again. Without speaking, she pushed her hand forth towards mine. I watched her petite little fingers come towards me. I knew that she needed me to take her hand. I kept wondering how all these little, intimate, and romantic gestures were fucking with her fragile, sixteen year-old mind and heart.
Temptation didn’t get the better of me, the need to reach out and grab her hand got the better of me instead. Gently, I hooked my fingers into hers. I watched her body relax a little.
“Morning,” she finally breathed. I managed to grab some eye contact, but then she curled up a little more.
“Feeling any better?” I asked, feeling her fingers lightly against mine.
“I hope so.”
She hadn’t been well last night. After the show, we’d returned to my room for coffee and a pay-per-view movie, except she raced to the bathroom, and was sick for about fifteen minutes. She’d assured me that the reason for her ill health was just butterflies. “Menacing things, always stirring up trouble,” she’d laughed feebly. There wasn’t much else I could do. I was never able to help her. I listened, I told her things that my sisters saw on the latest teenage drama, and I tried so desperately hard to be there for her. I had butterflies too, though. I was in no real position to help her.
It was raining outside. She once told me that rain didn’t do much for her mood. That was probably why she wasn’t smiling now.
I kept telling myself that things were as simple as that.
It was a comfortable enough silence, but the bust that was to take my brotherly bandmates and I across the country on a tour would only wait patiently for so long. I let her hand go and stood up, leaving her in the bed. She pulled her hand back towards herself, as if to say, “I didn’t need you, anyway.” I escaped to have a shower.
My shower drowned out any signs of her. The ten minutes of complete independence each day was always my favourite. She drained me; it was a quick moment of recuperation.
When I was finished, I stepped out of the bathroom to find Alev, still in her pyjamas, sitting on my suitcase.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Clean,” I quipped. “Have you still got butterflies?” She nodded.
“Do you know what I mean about the butterflies?”
The keep you awake, they write music, they pick out crushes and they dictate love.
I know exactly what you mean about the butterflies.
“I think so…”
“They keep you awake and let you down with the flu. They introduce you to knew people, throwing you into uncertainty. They fly away with all control, dictation the one emotion that people will always possess, love.” Alev looked at her feet. “Zac, do you know what I mean about the butterflies?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Alev stood up, handing me my case.
“We’re dragging each other down.” She sighed a very sad sigh. “Goodbye Zachary.”
“Goodbye Alev…”
I picked up my case and left her and my butterflies behind. I had hers with me, and I would make sure to set them free.
Musical Credit
Natelie Imbruglia, 'Butterflies'
From her album 'White Lillies Island
Swallow purple terror candy
Don't forget to breathe
Sickened by the wanting
And drowning from the need
This dichromatic vision
Of one who does not care
To sipping cocktail sedatives
Two months to hide somewhere
Butterflies, butterflies
Cut the stomach out and hand it over
Butterflies, butterflies
My heart will be the brdige that you walk over
The wolf has caught the chicken
And now I feel unsteady
Emotions on the blink again
So kick me when you're ready
Here lies a violet coffin
The death of my control
Along with all my skeletons
They put them in the hole
Sickened by the notion
I give myself again
Choking on the bullet, the gun that's found a friend
So raise your glass to sorrow
And drink to all the pain
Tie a silver ribbon round
The pieces that reamin