Free Chasing Butterflies by Terri E. Laine Page B

dinner. Dad wasn’t home, or at least his truck was missing. Mom lay in the bed looking frail. I hated how fast things had changed.
    “Kelley?”
    I sat. “Yes, Mom. How are you feeling?”
    She reached out and took my hand. “Better. Tell me about your day. Your aunt informed me you missed dinner.”
    “It’s cool. I ate dinner with a girl from school.”
    Her eyes perked up before they softened. She squeezed my hand. “Kelley, I know girls flock to you like pigeons. But you need to be smart. Don’t be like your father. A pretty face and he forgets himself.”
    I didn’t respond. We both knew Dad cheated on Mom. Why she stayed, I didn’t understand. Plus, her statement was a departure from the day before when she acted as though me finding a girl was a good thing. Maybe that’d been for my aunt’s benefit.
    “It’s not like that with this girl. She’s got a boyfriend. She’s just helping me get caught up with classes.”
    “Oh, that’s nice.”
    It had been. But seeing Mom put everything in perspective. She hadn’t said it, but I assumed that’s what my aunt wanted her to tell me. I’d used the library computer when I left lunch early to do some research. I’d found out that although MS wasn’t deadly, there were the rare few who did die from complications related to the disease. Mom followed that pattern. She was going to die. I could see it in her eyes and the way she held my hand.
    I lay in bed that night, tossing my football up in the air. I needed a plan, and I needed a job. If Mom did die, I wanted to be able to be on my own. And wasn’t that a sucky way to think about things, which only made me think of my dead brother and how very alone I was.

Silence rang out like a school bell on the other end of the phone. I’d called Debbie once I got home.
    “Well?” I demanded.
    Debbie said nothing at first, which made me want to reach through the phone and smack her. “I can’t believe you called him out on it in the middle of a classroom.”
    “I didn’t mean to.” I hadn’t. “But you know I’m not the type to smile in someone’s face and talk behind their back. I just blurted it out. So were you telling the truth or not?”
    There was a pause, and I was about to demand an answer when she finally spoke.
    “It’s complicated.”
    A huff escaped my lips. “Complicated. I think it’s an easy yes or no. Did he or didn’t he—”
    “No,” she blurted. “No, he didn’t try to rape me.”
    I fell back on my bed with the phone pressed to one ear, and I covered my eyes with the other. There was no way to understand.
    “Why?” I asked softly.
    “Why?” she repeated, only grating on my nerves.
    “Why did you lie?” I didn’t get it. I didn’t get her.
    “Because I was embarrassed. He rejected me and told me to be more like you.”
    He’d told me he’d said that. But I still didn’t quite comprehend why she would make up a lie that big just because he compared her to me in some way. It seemed stupid. Was she lying about that too? Could I even trust her? My thoughts circled to the offhand comment Trina made about not trusting people close to me. Had she meant Debbie? What did she know?
    “When I told him I didn’t want to because I was a virgin, he basically wrote me off. So I tried.”
    “Tried what?” I asked tiredly. I knew I should be more sympathetic, but I couldn’t muster the energy to do so.
    “To give him a blow job. But I failed at that too. That’s why my legs were dirty. He had to jack himself off because I couldn’t even get that right.”
    She’d seen him naked? Why did that bother me? And not for her sake, but a jealousy that she’d seen him bubbled up in my chest.
    “Why do you allow yourself to get in these situations?”
    “Because I’m not pretty enough, okay? You’re like my parents. You see something no guy sees. The only thing I have to offer to keep their attention is sex. And I’m a virgin.”
    Her sobs broke through the hard feelings I had