The Butterfly Keeper

18

EIGHTEEN       

      SEBASTIAN'S NAME tastes wrong in my mouth, but I don't let it get to me. His eyes spread at the mention of his name and runs his tongue over the top row of his teeth.

      He moves his plate aside and stretches his head up so his eyes can flicker around the ceiling rather than on me. "You have it wrong." He says, faint.

      "Then?" I challenge, sinking my nails into the side of my thigh.

     "You really don't remember meeting me," Sebastian looks down at me and pauses for a moment. "Do you? That first time?"

      The corner of my nose slightly twists as I shake my head. "I never met you before that day you took me."

     Sebastian stays still for awhile with his lips pressed and eyes on me before reaching over  to take my plate, along with his, and getting up from the table to set them inside a bucket. Turing his back at me, he grabs the sponge from off the counter and lather it's with soap, and begins washing my plate first.

     "It was summer," He cleans the front of the dish again. "The day was long and humid. You were at the museum with your mom."

      "What museum?"

      Sebastian puts my dish into another bucket and rinses it. "The Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion. The one that's down a street from you."

      I plow my nails deeper into my skin and wedge my lips apart in both pain and confusion, shocked about how much he knows about me. He turns his head over his shoulder, worried about my silence, and burrows his look into me as if trying to read my mind. His eyes slightly droop when he realizes I don't remember him being there. It looks like some part of him is refusing to believe that there's no memory of him before that day at the art department.

      "Your mom took you into the butterfly pavilion first and let you wonder around alone. Your dad had recently bought you a small camera and wanted you to use it, but you left it on a bench outside." Sebastian speaks low and steady as he puts the plates down and turns to me. "Instead, you traced the wings of the butterflies that were on the flowerbed in the air with your finger. You were silently singing their names to them and giving them last names, creating families for them."

      I take my hand away from my thigh and bring my legs up to the seat of the chair, tightly inching my knees closer to me. Up till I was thirteen, I played this game where I would give insects names and make up families and stories of their lives as caterpillars. I never told anyone about this. None of my friends knew, not even Avery.

      Noticing my shocker, Sebastian's mouth twitches into a small smile, looking complacent.

      "I later found out those surnames you gave the butterflies were names of your friends from school. Anyways, you were so distracted that you almost tripped on a rock and bumped into me. I'd gone there looking for a job and was sitting on the edge of the flowerbed. You looked at me, and for some reason, you asked if I lived here." Sebastian lightly shakes his head, remembering, and lets out a soft breath of laughter. "I think it had something to do that I was the only grown up there at the moment. I told you that I did and we talked about the butterflies. You told me stories about their lives before–when they were caterpillars."

      Placing a palm over a knee, I tightly squeeze the top of it as I watch Sebastian dimly smile at the memory, his eyes eyes lighter and clearer than ever. My stomach weights down, suddenly becoming too heavy as my heart begins to race. I remember this memory, but not him in it.