Changers

16. The Butterfly Effect

A doorbell woke me up.

I looked around, disoriented by the unfamiliar white curtains and grey bedsheets. My brain slowly acclimatized.

"Pren, it's for you," Fitz said from the hallway. She opened the door to my room, her curly head emerging. "It's Beau."

"Why is he here?" I tried to ask casually. Neither Fitz nor Joelle knew about what happened at the picnic. The memories of their hushed conversation from the night hit me. "What does he want?"

"He didn't say. Maybe you should go out and talk to him. He looks..." Fitz trailed off, looking at me from the door. I knew she was gauging for a reaction, but I controlled my expression to remain neutral. "I don't know, weird."

"I'm coming out," I said and grabbed the sprawled robe on the armchair.

Beau stood in the open doorway erectly with his hands hanging stiffly like two branches by his sides: the poster child for extreme discomfort, and maybe Canada Goose.

"I want to talk," Beau answered my question before I asked it. "In private."

I followed him outside and closed the door behind me.

He exhaled loudly. "I'm sorry about the other day."

He was apologizing. He was over it. That was good. A part of me wondered what changed. I shut that part down quickly, all but strangling the thought into disappearance.

"But I meant every word. I do feel a magnetic attraction to you. I did ever since the first time I met you."

He watched me earnestly.

"How can you say all of this knowing that Luis and I are in love? Not even just in love; we are twin flames. I don't understand what part of you thinks it's acceptable to say this kind of thing?"

"The part of me that knows you can't help but agree with what I'm saying. You came here to run away from Luis. Isn't that true?" His green eyes peered unquestioningly.

"I did not run away from Luis," I felt my voice rising, the anger from the other day at the picnic resurfaced. "I needed to clear my head."

"You had to run away from him to clear your head," he clarified with the same, condescending tone he used at the banquet the night I first met him.

"Not necessarily," I said through clenched teeth. "I'm figuring out a few things in my life right now. I don't need your input or questions."

"Oh, you mean the girl you found in the church? Is that one of the problems you are facing?" He said matter-of-factly.

He left me stunned. "How do you know?"

"I overheard Caroline discussing it on the phone with you. And then, naturally, she explained it to me and told me who she really was." He shrugged.

"Why did she think she had the right to tell you?" I felt hot anger rising. I felt angry at Caroline for opening her big mouth, Beau for confusing me, myself, the situation, everything.

I watched him shrug again in a dismissive way that suggested he didn't care about the details.

"You don't even care about her," I said. The realization hit me like a train; Caroline meant nothing to him.

"That's not true," his eyes sparked in a way I had never seen before. "It isn't that I don't care about, it's just that I feel something towards you I can't explain."