Craving Dragonflies Read online

  “Ashton!”

  She caught my wrist.

  “Hurt.”

  She shoved me back.

  “What have you been doing?”

  I splayed my fingers as a few red ants crawled over me.

  She caught my ear and tugged, dragging me back outside.

  “I told you to stay clean.”

  I stumbled into the yard near where I watched the ants crawling over a hill. Then I’d stuck my hands in, curious what it would feel like.

  Cold water hit me, making my eyes water. Ants and dirt washed off me until I stood all wet.

  I shivered under the sun as my tears felt hot on my skin.

  “Look at your hands,” she yelled.

  They were as red as her mad face.

  “Take off those wet clothes,” she said.

  Why was she so mean? I didn’t ask and did as told.

  “Stand there.”

  Was I bad? Was that why she didn’t like me?

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  That didn’t turn her frown upside down. Instead, she marched inside. I didn’t move. I didn’t mean to be bad. Maybe if I stayed put, she’d be happy. She took a long time to come back. When she did, I was dry.

  “This is an important day.”

  I nodded, not understanding what that meant.

  “You will be on your best behavior.”

  I nodded again.

  Then I did something bad. I leaned into her.

  The sting across my face brought more tears.

  “Look at what you’ve done.”

  She stood. Her shirt was wet. This mad face scared me. She spun and stomped into the house.

  When she came back, she wasn’t nice.

  Her pinches hurt as she helped me dress and comb my hair. She held my neck hard as we went back into the house.

  “Now, you will sit here and be quiet. Say nothing. Touch nothing. Do you understand.”

  I bobbed my head.

  “Say it,” she demanded.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good boy.”

  The man who arrived later I’d never met before. He took my chin between his fingers and inspected my face the way Mom checked me every day for dirt.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  I looked at Mother to make sure it was okay to speak. She nodded.

  “Ashton.”

  His touch hadn’t hurt, but then he moved away with Mom.

  “Are you sure he’s mine?”

  Mom sounded different like he made her happy. “Of course.”

  “I will want a test,” he said.

  I didn’t understand what that meant.

  “Test all you want. He’s yours.”

  “Why tell me now?”

  “I thought I could take care of him myself, but he’s a handful. And after I heard you and your wife can’t have kids, I thought you should know you have a son.”

  He looked at me. I smiled, hoping he would say yes and be my dad.

  “If he’s mine, I will take care of him… and you—”

  “Do you want your son to grow up here?” Her hands spread wide. “He deserves more, don’t you think?”

  “If he’s mine, he will want for nothing.”

  Then the man was gone.

  Mom came over and bent down so that her face was close to mine. She pushed at the hair that had covered my eyes.

  “Soon, we will be out of here and you will be useful to me.”

  She smiled, but it made me feel cold inside.

  5

  Willow

  * * *

  I watched his beautiful face disappear around the corner.

  “Is that…” Celeste trailed off.

  I whipped my head in her direction. “Who?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not interested in him, are you?”

  “Who?” I asked again, my focus slipping as the alcohol coursing through my veins had my thoughts scattered.

  “Oh, sweetie.” She shook her head in disapproval. “Don’t get your hopes up for that one. He doesn’t play for our team.”

  I blinked, unsure I heard her correctly.

  “What?” I heard myself asking.

  She placed a hand on my shoulder. “He has something more in common with me.” My brows knitted together. “You know Sawyer.” Everyone did. He was the kind of guy people wanted to be around. “He watches Sawyer as much as I do, not that I blame him.”

  My mouth slightly parted before several thoughts connected. My savior. He’d stopped me from hooking up with Trent. That was the other boy’s name, right?

  “You don’t know that. Besides, if he does, so what?”

  She patted me like I was a small child who didn’t understand.

  “This isn’t just me. His exploits with Sawyer are legendary. Though not once have I heard about him and some girl without Sawyer. It’s kind of sad.”

  For whatever reason, I didn’t like her talking about him like that. Yet there was something so tragic yet beautiful about his eyes. Besides, she was making me feel stupid.

  I jerked out of her grip. “I’m ready to go,” I managed to say, only slurring a little.

  My anger wasn’t so much for her but my own idiocy. I’d thought because of the way he’d looked at me and stopped me from getting with the other guy, he liked… And when my eyes had dipped, I’d assumed all that he was packing was for me. But why should I think that? What boy had ever liked me? Maybe his reaction had been for the guy who helped me.

  “Don’t tell me you thought…” she said, speaking what I thought.

  I backed away from the sudden burn of embarrassment. The sting at least had cleared my head some. Celeste was many things, conceited and spoiled, but she wasn’t a liar.

  “I’m ready to go.”

  “Come on. We just got here,” she said to placate me.

  That was an overstatement on her part. She probably hadn’t gotten all the attention she craved for the night.

  “What happened to the other guy I saw you talking to?” she asked.

  Just a reminder of what a colossal mistake I’d made. I’d let nameless boy scare off Trent who’d actually seemed interested in me.

  I wasn’t judging him so much as berating myself for being foolish. He’d left without even a backward glance. My hopes had sunk into the pit of my stomach.

  “You can stay. I’ll find a way back home,” I said.

  Her head tilted to the side. “Come on.”

  I shook my head and a wave of nausea rolled through me.

  “You think I’m going to let you go alone,” she said, locking her arms through mine. “You are looking very hot. I caught several guys checking you out. Such a waste we are leaving early.”

  I stroked a hand down to smooth my hair. She’d done a great job of straightening my locks, but they were starting to curl. Still, I couldn’t stay. If I saw him again…

  The walk home was filled with retelling her exploits of the night. She’d tried and failed to gain Sawyer’s attention. Apparently, he’d been too into teasing some other girl Celeste labeled a skinny beanpole. I didn’t ask any questions. My main concern had been not falling flat on my face.

  My thoughts kept trailing back to the mysterious boy with the haunted eyes. Stupid me, I still wanted to know him. More than that, I wanted to know his soul.

  Somehow we’d made it back to the apartment we shared and I crashed. A blinding headache was my morning wake-up call. That didn’t stop me from leaving after I’d taken two aspirin. I had a mission at the lab and grabbed a banana and a bottle of water for breakfast.

  It was early for campus life on a Sunday. Everything was quiet. Nothing stirred outside of the musical chirping sounds of insects. If it wasn’t for the radiating heat, my morning hangover wouldn’t be half as bad.

  I pushed through the double doors of the biology building and walked toward the back and to the right down a long hall to the very end. I keyed in the code on the pad on the door. There was a click that
gained me entrance into the classroom dedicated to entomology students.

  “Willow.”

  My heart stopped and raced at the same time as I glanced around to find Derek at a table in a far corner.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I clutched the dragonfly pendant that hung right about where my heart was beating like it wanted out of my chest.

  The second I took to catch my breath, I’d closed my eyes. I opened them and said, “No problem. I didn’t expect anyone here this early.”

  “It’s ten,” he said.

  That was true. But most everyone was sleeping off the aftereffects of partying. I stopped myself from saying that. Derek was like me. We weren’t social butterflies. I would avoid parties altogether if not for Celeste occasionally coaxing me out.

  I forced a smile, grateful for the aspirin I’d taken. That coupled with eating potassium-filled fruit and chugging down a bottle of water had cleared my head some.

  “Campus is quiet. That’s all.” He blinked at me. Had he said something I missed? “Sorry.”

  “No problem.”

  I shuffled over to my station, staring at all the tiny faces paralyzed in death. I hated their demise could solve many problems our planet would face in the future. I hadn’t killed them and only worked on ones that were already dead. I’d taken many a walk in our campus man-made forest searching for the fallen to study instead of those slain in the name of science.

  “We have a live one,” Derek said, breaking into my thoughts.

  My head snapped up, and with wide eyes I watched as he pointed toward the back closet where specimens were kept.

  Not everyone thought like I did. Many had no compassion for the creatures we studied. On unsteady feet I trudged in that direction. Beyond the solid wood door, racks held insects of all kinds. I passed a tank that held a venomous spider. I couldn’t free it.

  There in the back was a plastic case not much larger than the creature jailed inside. Its wings flapped as the poor thing tried to leave captivity. A dragonfly.

  Another voice pierced the silence from the main room. I silently promised I’d free the beautiful insect and left the closet before the person who’d shown up figured out I’d been the rescuer of many insects left to die in this room. What kind of researcher was I when my bleeding heart couldn’t watch the death of any living thing?

  I joined the growing group in the lab and tried not to look guilty as a newcomer eyed the specimen closet door suspiciously as I exited. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had to finish the lab assignment due tomorrow.

  At my station, I took measurements and wrote in my notebook as I waited patiently. It might have been a few hours later, but someone mentioned lunch. Derek eyed me, but quickly agreed to go grab some with our classmates.

  As soon as the door closed, I made haste to make my rescue. I hadn’t brought my backpack, so I was forced to grab some books and cover the plastic habitat as I made a run for it.

  It wasn’t exactly a jailbreak. But I walked as swiftly as I could, hoping the books would legitimize my removal of the holding cell for one of the most beautiful insects in the world.

  Outside, campus had woken up. I kept my head down and walked the path, heading toward the man-made pond near the forest. It was more of a swamp if you asked me. A class of biology students had created the ecosystem years ago. In fact, the entire area had evolved over the years from experiments created by students, including the woody area that flanked it.

  In my haste, my foot connected with a break in the concrete. I watched in horror as my arms extended on instinct. The books and the dragonfly flew from my hands as I went sprawling like I was diving for a flat-water slide.

  An arm snagged me in mid-air and steadied me as my books skittered across the pathway. The caged dragonfly slid even farther away.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked into the eyes of the guy last night who’d held my head for me as I hurled and my cheeks burst into flames.

  “I’m fine.”

  He hadn’t let go of my hand.

  “I’m Kent, by the way. I didn’t get a chance to tell you that last night.”

  Embarrassment mottled my response.

  “I—I’m Willow.”

  His disarming smile relaxed me some until he asked, “How are you feeling?”

  The five-alarm fire in my face returned. Before I could answer him, a long arm attached to another good-looking boy slung around Kent’s neck.

  “Brother. Who do we have here?”

  The guy’s gaze traced down me the way most boys check out my sister.

  “She’s cute,” he added. Then, he held out his free hand to me. “I’m Lance, his brother.”

  I shook it. When neither Kent nor I added anything, Lance jumped in. “So, my brother here is a bit shy. He probably wants to ask you out, right?”

  He eyed Kent, who for a second looked stupefied. When he spoke, it sounded hollow.

  “Uh… yeah. There’s a concert Friday. Do you want to go with me?”

  Once a month or so, indie bands would play on campus.

  Lance panted his brother’s back and saluted us both. “You got this,” he said before leaving.

  We both watched as he walked away as quickly as he arrived. Our words tangled as we tried to speak at the same time.

  Kent proved to be a gentleman deferring to me. “You first.”

  His disarming smile seemed trustworthy, not holding any malice in it. I took him for a nice guy. He had been there for me when I’d gotten sick.

  “It’s okay. I won’t hold you to asking me out,” I said.

  My plastic smile was brittle around the edges as his softened on me.

  “Honestly, I would have asked you even if my brother hadn’t intervened. Do you want to go?”

  Maybe going out with him could help me not think about a certain boy. Though I was probably being stupid, I nodded.

  Looking back, I really couldn’t tell you what made the two of us turn at the same time. The very boy in question scooped up the plastic case that had survived the fall. He stared at the two of us with the same surprise I had in seeing him.

  When I glanced over at Kent, he was already in motion, bending over to gather my scattered books. I’d seriously forgotten about them.

  Despite my momentarily loss of the English language, I robotically said, “Thanks,” to the beautiful boy who had friendzoned me. He walked forward, my breath hitching. A quick glance at Kent and he seemed just as frazzled.

  Kent stood and held out my books to me just as nameless boy reached us, a scowl marring his gorgeous features.

  I reached for Kent’s offering, but kept my eyes on the other boy. Once I had the books, I extended a hand to take a disoriented dragonfly fluttering around in his plastic cage.

  One arch of his brow was all my savior offered us as he let go of the clear box.

  “Thanks,” I muttered again.

  He granted me a tip of his head before disappearing down the path.

  “Do you know him?” I asked Kent, not taking my eyes off the retreating boy.

  Out of my periphery, I caught him shaking his head. I gave him back my attention and we exchanged numbers before saying our goodbyes.

  I clutched my books to my chest with one hand and the case hung by the handle from my other. I took a turn off the concrete onto a well-worn path into the woods that led to the pond.

  It was a bit of a hike as I drifted on invisible clouds. Once again, my thoughts had turned to the guy who wore a frown easier than a smile.

  Just as I was about to reach the edge of the trees into the park area around the pond, a truck pulled up into the small parking area. Two figures got out. I recognized the guy as one of Sawyer’s friends or so it had seemed at the party. The girl held a jar, which confused me for a second.

  Were they here to catch something? Anger built inside of me until the girl began to unscrew the top. Though I was too far to see as she held it up, I guessed
they were there to let something go.

  I moved back behind the tree, feeling like I was intruding on something private. With my back to them, I bent to set down my books. Then I crouched and freed my own prisoner. It took only a second for my disoriented dragonfly to realize he could rise higher than before. When he did, he zipped away faster than my eyes could track.

  I pulled my notebook free and jotted down my observations. Though I hadn’t been as close to the marshy area as I’d wanted to be, my dragonfly headed straight in that direction. His keen senses led him to his new home.

  It made me think of Mom. A reasonable time after my father died, Mom married Dan and we moved in with him and Celeste. I’d never truly felt settled. The big house with all its rooms and fine furnishings had never felt like home to me.

  I wished that something inside me would point home like it had for the dragonfly. There was nothing wrong with Dan or Celeste, but I missed my dad and frankly my mom too.

  Giggles brought me back to the present. I caught sight of the couple clinging to each other in that in love sort of way. Their mouths were fused in an old as time mating ritual. Unfortunate for me, my apartment was in their direction. I’d feel like an intruder if I walked that way.

  Just as I contemplated taking the long way around, their laughter sounded closer. I quickly scrambled to my feet and stupidly did a quick walk-run thing in the opposite direction, unsure why. Instinct? It wasn’t as if I’d done anything wrong, until I tripped for the second time that day.

  6

  Ashton

  * * *

  It was hard for me to believe in anything these days. I couldn’t trust my instincts. I’d thought for sure that guy had been checking me out on more than one occasion. If that were true, why had he asked tire girl out? I couldn’t puzzle out if my anger and disappointment were aimed at him for asking her out or at her for accepting?

  The voice from the past would have me believe I was gay. Yet Sawyer insisted I was straight. I wasn’t sure of anything. My reality held no meaning.

  The hand that stopped me in my tracks didn’t scare away the loneliness; he inspired it.