53 Letters For My Lover by Leylah Attar Read Free Book Online Page A

“He’s so cute!”
    “Hey, Jayne?” I asked. “Have you ever seen a red butterfly?”
    “A red butterfly?” She turned around. “Does that even exist?”
    “Sure does.” Troy poked his head into the study. “I saw one just this morning.”
    “Yeah, right,” replied Jayne. “What’s it called then?”
    “A Beetroot Butterfly.”
    I stare at the red Monarch before me now.
    “You made it up? There’s no such thing as a Beetroot Butterfly?” I ask over the sound of blood rushing in my ears.
    “Oh, but there is.” He catches the color wash over my face. “And I’m looking at her right now.”
    The seconds stretch out indefinitely, leaving me suspended, floating mid-air, weightless, breathless.
    That’s when the butterfly decides to come out. It perches on the edge of the box, wings folded flat, with white spots that stare at us like fake eyes. The majestic valley calls, but the butterfly clings to its mesh cage.
    “Fly, dammit, fly!” says Troy.
    The Monarch spreads its wings, taking in the warmth of the sun before touching them together and flying away. It rises before us, a fragile wisp of crimson against the vast valley.
    “I wonder if she’ll make it,” I say.
    Every year, Monarch butterflies migrate south by the millions, a round-trip journey of many thousands of kilometres.
    “No one butterfly completes the whole trip,” he replies. “It takes four or five generations.”
    “That’s sad,” I say. “And beautiful. If she stays, she dies. If she goes, she dies.”
    We watch it glide lower, and lower still, until it disappears into the backdrop of autumn leaves.
    “We all die, Shayda.” He turns and looks at me. “It’s about how we choose to get there.”
    “Is that what this is about?” I ask. “You want me to choose?”
    He pulls the edges of my coat together as the sun begins to set and a coolness settles in the air. “It’s not about what I want. Or what anyone else wants. What do you want, Shayda?”
    “Don’t,” I say, feeling tiny headed flowers of hope push through long-forgotten graves. “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”
    “When it comes to you, I’m blind, Shayda.” He lifts my chin. “I just see you. Not a mum or friend or wife or co-worker. Just you, Shayda.”
    With the setting sun in his face, Troy’s eyes look like the tops of two blue umbrellas with dark pin point centres and spokes of gold. The glints in his hair soften his features, making him seem infinitely more vulnerable.
    “You just see what you can’t have,” I reply.
    “Maybe. Or maybe I’ve carried you with me for so long, there’s no room for anyone else.”
    I suck in my breath. “You’ve made me out to be something I’m not. It’s all in your head.”
    “That theory went out the window the moment we kissed. And you know it too.”
    “It’s just physical attraction, Troy. Nothing more.”
    “Fine,” he lets out a ragged sigh. “Then let’s have a wild and crazy affair. Get it out of our system. Anything would be better than this. This half-living. This damned yearning.” His thumb traces the curve of my lips. “I can’t stop thinking about you—your touch, your taste, your smell.”
    I close my eyes as he runs his finger down my neck.
    How do you deny a living, breathing feeling? How do you hack it and kill it and bury it so that it never surfaces again?
    “Stay away from me.” I wrench myself away from him. “I don’t want anything to do with you, Troy.”

8. Not Like This

    October 9th, 1995
    “Happy Thanksgiving, Shayda.” Jayne hugs me at the door. “And Happy Anniversary!”
    “Thanks. Happy Thanksgiving to you too.”
    Hafez, Natasha and Zain follow me inside. I take the brownies to the kitchen.
    “Smells wonderful, Elizabeth. Thank you for having us over.”
    “Oh good! You brought my favorite.” She beams.
    “Shayda, Hafez.” Bob calls us into the living room. “Good timing. Troy was just about to leave.”
    I freeze.
    Troy?
    “Come look at