Read Online Butterfly Dreams by A. Meredith Walters - Free Book Online Page B

would have had the chance to critique or compare her food-prepping skills.
    “I hate lasagna.”
    “Since when?” she scoffed, her eyes narrowed.
    “Since always.”
    The whole world knew I hated lasagna. But Sierra didn’t. Or if she did, it hadn’t mattered.
    And right then, that stupid fucking lasagna said everything I couldn’t about our relationship. That after almost two years, she had no idea what foods I hated. That she had never bothered to know.
    Or even worse, she totally disregarded it.
    I thought I had loved her once.
    But I knew now that what I had once felt had nothing to do with love. It was attraction, sure. A sexual chemistry that had made it easy to overlook the less palatable sides of her personality.
    But never love.
    That was something I realized that I had yet to experience.
    She took my plate with the lasagna I hated and walked it purposefully across the kitchen. She lifted the trashcan lid and dumped the contents inside.
    “You don’t have to do that—”
    “It’s not like you’re going to eat it, Beckett. So what’s the fucking point?” she yelled, slamming the dish in the sink with a loud clang.
    “This isn’t working, Sierra,” I said without preamble. I hadn’t been expecting to say that. Not like this. But the words sort of tumbled out.
    We’ve wasted so much time being miserable.
    Sierra stood at the sink, her face flushed, her chest heaving. When she looked at me, her eyes were on fire. “You’ve changed, Beck,” Sierra said, sounding so, so angry. And she was right. I wasn’t the same guy she met in the park all those years ago.
    “I know,” I responded a little defensively. This was the crux of our problem.
    I had changed. And she hadn’t. And we just couldn’t sync back up. Not that either of us was really trying to.
    “You expect me to still be the Beckett who plays basketball with his friends and plans backpacking trips for the summer. I’m not that guy anymore, Sierra. And I know you can’t be happy with the person I am
now.
”
    Sierra snorted and rolled her eyes, which pissed me off. But since I was going through with this, I might as well attempt to do it civilly. Even if Sierra seemed incapable of doing the same.
    “You’re not happy, Sierra. I know that—”
    “Don’t put this on me, Beck. Don’t you dare! This is all about you. You had that heart attack and you changed.”
    “Damn right I changed, Sierra! I almost died! I don’t think you get that!” I yelled back. I felt a brief stab of pain in my chest and knew I should calm down. I couldn’t afford to get worked up.
    Sierra threw her hands in the air. “You think I don’t know that? You won’t let me forget it! It’s there, all the time! Your heart attack. Your poor, pitiful heart. Woe is me. Wah, wah, wah. Cry me a fucking river! Well, screw you, Beckett!”
    I pressed my palm over my chest and took a deep breath, willing myself not to fly off the handle. I felt light-headed again and closed my eyes briefly.
    Think about pink bunnies and pretty beaches,
I thought.
    Sierra continued to scream at me and I just breathed through all of it, hoping I wouldn’t keel over at her feet because I was damn sure at this point she’d leave me there to die.
    “Look, I’m not going to argue about it. If you could stop yelling for two minutes and think about it rationally, you’d see I’m right. You don’t want to be here with me. You don’t want to be shackled to a guy who can’t do the things you want him to do.”
    Sierra narrowed her eyes. “I would have been happy to be
shackled
to a guy who couldn’t play basketball on weekends or go backpacking in the mountains. It wouldn’t have bothered me one bit, Beck.”
    She dropped her plate in the sink where it cracked into pieces. If that wasn’t symbolic, I didn’t know what was.
    “I just don’t want to be shackled to
you,
” she spat out.
    “Okay then,” I muttered, not even hurt by the truth I had already known.
    “And to think I