BURNT BUTTERFLIES

Sunlight’s fingers were determined to infiltrate my closed eyelids. I covered my eyes with my arm, but I couldn’t regain the sleep I desperately wanted or the escape I needed from another day of battling against barren trees and restocking the storeroom. Though, and I could not deny my heart this truth, I thoroughly looked forward to the potential of the date I’d made with Zyaire. The scorching sun already filled my room with the heat of the day, and I’d blame it for driving me from the comfort of my bed, when, if I was being true to myself, it was his strong shoulders and promise of company calling me from my deep sleep. I’d decided six months ago, long after the end, there was no romance left in a world barely surviving, but today hope slept on my doorstep. 

When he whispered “Lyra.” My name out of those lips nearly landed me head over heels. I couldn’t let this strange man abscond with me, heart and soul, not until I was certain he was a faithful, kind man. Surviving devastation always welcomed the scoundrels of the earth and rarely blessed the kind ones. I steeled myself with that truth, using it to build bars around my heart and protect me from losing my footing. 

If he indeed slept the night on my front stoop, while I rested easy inside, then there was no avoiding him. His warm brown eyes were the first I’d seen in a long while, other than my dad whom I lived with. A smile slid onto my face. Zyaire was clearly not the type to take a hint. 

Running from him yesterday left my legs aching today. A man in the woods tracking me while I worked was too easy to mistake for some nefarious creature. How was I to know he’d been sent by our distant neighbor Franklin MckVicker and needed help? Strangers can’t be trusted these days, not since the end of most of the population. I twisted trying to loosen my sore back from our scuffle in the woods. He shouldn’t have chased me. He did more damage than I wanted to admit. Skies, I was waking after sunrise instead of before. 

Didn’t he know the world ended a year ago? Entertaining strangers, feeding anyone other than family, was not on anyone’s to-do list. No. Even with a shortage of people, the focus remained resolutely on survival of the fittest. And I was not fit. Yesterday’s jaunt through the woods was indication enough. Yet, those brown eyes sent my stomach swirling. They were the reason I allowed him to stay and sleep outside. Was he outside waiting for me? Would he hear me moving around now I was up? 

I wished for a mirror. Remembered selfies and laughed, then sighed, rolled my shoulders, and focused my attention on the solid wood barring his entrance to my home. Should I check if he was awake? What would he think of me coming to him rumpled and soft with leftover sleep?

There was something idiotically romantic about a man willing to sleep on the stoop under the stars just for a date with me. As if he was both impenetrable to enemies and peacefully wise enough to study the stars before drifting into dreams all while doggedly determined to spend time with me.  

I closed my eyes against the foolishness, but my memories painted across the backs of my eyelids, his dimpled cheeks, strong chin, and broad shoulders. He’d weaseled his way through my defenses and released butterflies to do his bidding. I turned to the kitchen, grabbed two cups, and began to prepare our breakfast. 

Through my small kitchen window, the stillness of a dead forest stretched as far as the eye could strain. Sunlight poured out its scorching wrath against Vermont’s well-named mountain, Terrible Mountain. In another month, we’d wake to ice encasing every barren branch, and as the sun crested the horizon, the terrible world would thaw in a dance of prisms and droplets. 

It was the image of hope. I refused to let go of hope. Something more than survival had to exist somewhere outside of the life we’d built at the foot of this mountain. There were surviving trees to the north. So then, fish must still swim. Deer had to graze in a field, maybe not nearby, but somewhere. Because if they did, then I’d one day meet someone. Thieves and deviants can’t be all that was left, I was a prime example there must be more. Was Zyaire more? I stopped, but not before my heart tripped.

I’d mentioned my hope to my father. He’d smiled, a worn-out flat line. I only recognized it as a smile because his eyes crinkled. Yes, all the death took its toll on both of us. He told me, hope was both beautiful and dangerous, but “without hope, we’d not be who and where we were today, so hope on.” 

I glanced at the door. Would Zyaire stir and peek through to find me? Would he knock and upset the quiet of the morning? Would we kiss today? Was it really so bad to be alone but safe? I spun to my work, busying my hands. It certainly was a tremendous risk to face the unknown chaos of a world gone bad with the innumerable variables another survivor brought into the equation. 

Before I drew my gaze back to breakfast, three knocks resounded at the door. 

“Morning.” His husky voice through the door sent shivers dancing along my spine. 

I was suddenly terrified he’d go. “Come in from the heat.” It was the first time in a long time I experienced excitement, which in itself was frightening. “Doors unlocked.” It would be terrible if he burned to a crisp out there after surviving a year in this inhospitable clime. 

I loved my life with my dad, the silence, the things I could count on. I needed to collect yesterday’s wood and dry it on the rack, check on the indoor garden, and cool the water bins that collected yesterday’s scalding rains. It was the work of survival. My hands moved over my morning routine. The familiarity of the work lulled me into a comfortable silence despite his presence. 

My eye caught on the golden-brown skin illuminated by the long fingers of sunlight filtering through the window, dust motes dancing in worship around him. Every inch was made of lean, cut muscle, strengthened by our survivor’s war with the world. I slowly dragged my eyes up until they snagged on those same shoulders I’d admired yesterday. Belatedly my mind made sense of the vision before me, barely glimpsing the shirt draped over his shoulder, I spun around, my heart stuttering. Barely pulling it together, I’d neglected to wish him a good morning. I couldn’t behave like a responsible person if he didn’t put some clothes on. “It’s nice-” Really very wonderful to have a half-naked man in my home. I kept my eyes trained on the ground as I spun halfway back, “to um, see you-” I gaped at the beautiful expanse before me. 

“Hm.” A knowing look passed across his face.

“What?” Heat raced across my cheeks.

His chin dipped and he worked to stifle a grin, but it popped sexy dimples just the same. “Good morning.” 

My hands stilled, my jaw agape. I caught myself, closed my mouth, and attempted to respond. “Sorry. Uh-Breakfast is almost finished.” I spun to put my hands back to work. 

“Take your time. I’m in no rush.” The husky words rasped into my kitchen. 

They slipped like the perfect wine curling warm and languid throughout me. “I have a lot to do today.” 

He dragged the chair from the island and sat. His brown curls drifted over his brow.

I studied him out of the corner of my eye as he rested, bent at my counter. “Did you sleep?” I yawned. 

“Yeah.” He glanced up.

I turned away thankful that with so few people left, and no one manning the stores, food was easy picking, but it didn’t mean we had enough to support a stranger. At least, I had something to offer today. I reached for the muffins at the top of the cabinet, but knocked a heavy tin to the ground, smashing my toe. “Sun’s ablaze!” I cursed. 

“I got it.” He swept up the evil tin, placed it back, and grabbed the package I’d been reaching for. 

We’d be in for complete end times if the stores were bare. The ground couldn’t provide much, and the few things we grew inside, protecting it from the scalding rains and scorching sun, were not enough to sustain--

“You really get focused on your work don’t you?” 

Again my heart jolted. It was nice to have company, but even better to have someone strong, able-bodied, to fight back the devastation together. Despite his newness, I already felt safer in this empty world. 

He laughed, filling the room with a husky warmth and hope, sending butterflies fluttering inside me. “Come, sit with me. I’m starved for company.” 

“In a minute.” I could identify, though. With a few natural disasters, women had been set back two hundred years, making existence ten times more dangerous. I placed our cups of coffee on the counter.

This. This voyage into the unknown was going to leave me changed. I could feel it growing inside of me. It wasn’t something I’d remember and laugh about. No, my heart wanted something that barely existed anymore. I’d either be destroyed or recreated. A year ago, before the end, we’d go on a simple date, and I’d think nothing of it. But Zyaire might be the last good man I see. 

The thought cut me off at my knees making more out of this breakfast than was fair. 

“Your eyes are racing across so many thoughts. Can’t we just have coffee and talk.”

“Nothing is like it used to be.”

“True.” He sat back and stretched, staring up at the ceiling, his words coming slowly. “It has forced us to appreciate each moment and not waste anything.”

My stomach soured. I’d survived when others hadn’t. “I will not waste anything.” My to-do list comes to the forefront of my mind. “And I do not have a lot of time to sit and yammer.”

A lopsided grin pulled one dimple into clear view. “Of course. I could help before I get on my way.”

“What?” He was only staying a day? “I mean. Well,” Not what I expected or wanted him to say. “Yeah. That would be nice. I thought you needed help with something, that.” I tried to smile, act hospitable, but it was wonky on my face so I let my eyes drift to the window again. It was overwhelming to hold his gaze. 

“Lyra.” 

My name on his lips pulled me back to him, and I couldn’t help but get caught on his lips. Would we kiss? My heart leaped. 

His brown eyes darkened and as he dipped his chin, I couldn’t help but wonder what he saw when he saw me. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome. Noone’s waiting for me on the other end of my journey. I asked McVicker if he knew of some friendly faces. He recommended you guys.” 

I shook my head, staving off the pang of disappointment. “It takes so much to survive. In a world bent on ending us, it’s wise to seek friends.”

“It wasn’t like this before the fires, the virus, the things that decimated everything.” He paused as his eyes fell to the coffee in his hands. 

He suffered too. “What did you do before?”

“Fought for our country.” 

I nodded. My woodsman was a hero - is a hero. “Everything has changed.” Together we mourned in silence staring at nothing, lost. 

“And in our survival, we’ve become stronger, a thing broken but alive.” He spoke to the corner. His eyes lost in the past. 

I didn’t want my first date in forever to fall into the despair of the apocalypse. It had taken enough already. “Hasn’t everyone changed? I’ve held on to hope we will recover, that the whole earth will come back to life after this great cleansing fire.”

His eyes locked with mine. “And you?”

I scrambled to follow. “Me?”

“What did you do before?”

“Oh.” I chuckled. “I was an elementary school teacher.” 

He sipped his coffee not responding, working the hot liquid gold down his throat. Then he takes a deep breath, but before he speaks I cut in. “In your journey, have you seen any signs of new life?” 

His eyes widened and grew very serious. 

His next words may crush my hope, the thing carrying me through the end, or bring to life greater hope, if untrue though it might also be my undoing. 

He nods slowly. 

Something quiet passes across his features, but I missed it so lost in what that simple nod means to me. “Where? What did you see? Was it a deer? Fish? More people?” It’s strange how much you miss the movement of life when so much dies. I took it all for granted for so long. I squared my shoulders. Not anymore. My woodsman was here now, and we both needed to join the present and live in its blessings. 

I stirred to my feet, not wanting to leave his company, but unable to continue to dally when the world and what was left alive was ticking by. 

“What do you need help with today.” He stood and moved to the pantry overflowing with cans and wrapped or boxed items, pulling out two plastic-wrapped muffins and tossing one at me. “I’m at your service.” 

Was it a date if we took care of my to-do list? I felt like I’d lost something, missed an opportunity, allowed my woodsman to slip through my fingers. “But.”

I must have appeared frantic because he took my hands in his warm, work-roughened hands, and moved close enough I could smell the coffee on his breath. I leaned in. 

“We can do whatever you want.” His chin dipped and his eyes slid to my lips. 

My stomach tilted and fell. I slipped closer to him, toeing the cliff and choosing to leap. I dove with the ferocity of a starved woman. Crashing into his lips, our teeth clashing. I pulled away.

But he wasn’t leaving room for my embarrassing inexperience. He pressed me back until the wall stopped me. The things that had grown so important to survival were a vapor in the air. But when I pulled away, the wall was at my back. Every potential nefarious thing Zyaire might be now trapped me against the wall. I shouldn’t have kissed him. We’d shared what? A few sentences. Some coffee? It wasn’t enough. He was a complete stranger. 

I couldn’t breathe. His lips gentled against mine as my mind took over the kiss, dulling my lips, stilling my tongue, tasting how easily I’d been defeated by the simple presence of another human. 

“No,” I muttered into his lips. 

He pulled back and searched my eyes, clearing his throat. “No?”

“No.” Rage steeled my voice and burned across my cheeks like the fires of dried grass. “You don’t get to come in here and take advantage of me.”

He stepped back as if I’d slapped him. “Wh-I. . . Seriously?” He moved back to the counter, picking up his coffee. 

I stormed off, hollering over my shoulder. “Seriously. There’s work to do.” I touched my lips with my back to him. My stomach swirled with the chemistry lingering in the air. I might eventually let him in if he proved himself, but first things first.

His footsteps pursued me, as I pushed through the front door and stopped. He nearly collided with my backside as I sighed. His warmth stilled behind me. He’d collected the wood I’d thrown at the ground when I’d hastily raced into the protection of my home last night.

His presence here simply eviscerated the loneliness, and it was addicting, but he wouldn’t in one fell swoop conquer my survival instinct. Everything we had we built into existence. I stepped to the other side of the woodpile and faced him. A knowing smile graced his soft lips. I cleared my throat, notched my chin, and picked up the top of the pile of wet wood. 

He followed suit. 

Clearly, he was trying to get me. It just wasn’t the kind of getting I’d feared. 

As if he heard my thoughts, he smiled and dipped his chin in what seemed a kind of response. 

Through his curls, an arrow flew, slamming with a shiver into the doorframe behind him. A drop of blood dripped down his forehead. 

He recovered faster than I, sweeping me into his arms and diving for the dark hideaway our makeshift drying shed promised. 

My ears rang in the silent darkness around us. Who shot the arrow? “We’ve lived in perfect safety for a year.” I hissed. “But you arrive-”

He held a finger up to his lips. Through the gaps in the shed, he studied the barren trees. “Fault won’t matter if we’re dead.” 

“Zyaire, a woman is no kind of reason to abandon the squad.” The man’s voice echoed in my ears. 

Zyaire glanced back at me, but without explanation kept vigil at the door, one hand out to make me stay. 

“Bring her out here. We can share.” 

My heart stopped. Hope is dangerous. If I made it out of this, I’d kill him myself, burning every butterfly in the process.