Hurricane Butterfly by Mechelle Vermeulen Read Free Book Online Page B

up the phone and call?” I glare at him with my arms crossed but he’s not fazed. We sit in silence as he heads out of town, then takes a left and parks up at a beach area. He kills the engine and sits back.
    “There’s a few things you have to know before you throw yourself from the cliff.” He closes his fists around the steering wheel, working his jaw.
    “I’m not-“I start but he lifts his hand to silence me.
    “Okay.” I turn my body towards him, leaning with my back against the door, trying to prepare myself for what he might say next.

Chapter 11
    He takes a deep breath and rests his elbow against the door. “I’ve known Josh since I was fourteen. His mother took me in as a foster child, it was only supposed to be for a year but, I ended up staying with them until I was twenty-one.” He groans as if saying those words physically hurt him.
    “Josh and his father never got on, the old man was fucking hard on him, but not with me. Where he would bark at Josh over any little thing, he’d spend hours talking shit about hiking and stuff with me. I guess we had the same interests, but it was killing his relationship with his son, and it didn’t take long before Josh and I started butting heads. It wasn’t pretty.
    He had a sister, two years younger than us, Lilly. She was beautiful, with long ebony hair and clear blue eyes. She was a sick baby, in and out of hospital, and then in her teens she started cutting herself. Grace, her mom, carted her from the one fucking head doctor to the next, but they kept prescribing the same shit that was supposed to keep her calm. Grace didn’t want that.
    By the time I got there, the family was pretty messed up. Edward was never home, he spent his days and nights at the office, and when he did come home, he would look for shit to start with Josh. Lilly’s arms were full of cuts, and she was depressed.
    She would not come out of her room for weeks. She had a friend, Colby, a real fucking coke-head, but he was the only friend she had. Grace did not want to rock the boat, so she allowed him to visit. Edward had caught him stealing shit from the house, and Josh had beaten him up a few times, but he was like a fucking leach.
    On my twenty-first birthday, Edward got it into his fucking mind to buy me a truck. When he came home with the truck, Josh and him got into an argument. I probably would have done the same. Josh grabbed a bottle from the bar and went downstairs. Edward said to leave him and took me for a spin. While we were out, Lilly called me a few times. She said to come home; there was something she wanted to talk to me about. With the fight between Edward and Josh just before we left, Edward didn’t want to go home just yet.
    I called Josh and told him to check on her, I just had a feeling that something wasn’t right. He didn’t answer his phone, which is what I expected, so I sent him a text, but still no response. I couldn’t get hold of Grace and the housekeeper Annie was off for the weekend.
    When we got home four hours later, Josh had passed out on the couch downstairs. I ran up to her room, but her door was locked. I knocked and called out to her, but there was no answer. I walked back past the window in the passage and saw Colby’s car parked in the back.
    I ran back to her room, by then Josh had woken up. He came up the stairs, calling me names then pushed me away from the door. He swung me around by my shoulder and we got into a fistfight. I managed to push him away and shouldered the door. I could hear water running, coming from her bathroom, I ran across the wet carpet into the bathroom with Josh behind me, and that’s when we found her. ”
    He stops talking, the truck door opens, and he gets out. I am frozen for a moment, taking in the horror of his unspoken words.
    Before I realize what I am doing, I jump out and run over to Ben, who is pacing down the beach. I call out to him but he keeps going. He takes a few more steps then falls to his knees in