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Neil.MyNeil.
Neil freaking Summers.
He was a surprise, that was for sure.
He never cursed, or skipped class, or had ever even had a drop of alcohol. He went to church every Sunday(and Monday and Wednesday),was saving himself for marriage, had never stolen a thing in his life, and was the most genuinely good person I knew.
And his father was apreacher,for Christ’s sake. While my parental unit was… well, pretty much the exact opposite of that.
In comparison, Neil was an angel, and I was the goddamn devil, but somehow, we balanced each other out.
Saint and sinner, angel and devil.
A little light to wash out the dark; a little dark to make the light burn brighter.
But we’d already established that I wasn’t as evil as I thought I was, and Neil wasn’t as wholesome, either.
Whatever we were, though, our halves bled together perfectly.
Epilogue
The End
“Did you know that the life cycle of a butterfly is lived infourdifferent stages?” I asked Neil.
He giggled. “Yeah, Olive. You told me that yesterday.”
“But isn’t it so cool?!” I fell back on the grass field at recess, where Neil and I always played pretend and drew dragons and other cool things. “But they totally change, and change again, and changeagain! Into something brand new. They start all over, and then they fly away, way more beautiful than when they started as just a tiny little egg.”
He laughed again. “That is really cool.”
“I don’t think you think it’s cool.” I pouted.
“I do, Olive. I do.”
Neil turned to me with a lollipop held in his smiling mouth.
He’d been back from his summer mission for a week now, and I’d just gotten home from my backpacking trip in Europe yesterday (sans any hot Italian guys, FYI), and I think I was more in love with him now than I was when we left.
His lollipop was pulled from said mouth with a littlepop.
Leave it to Neil to turn something as innocent as enjoying a sucker into something that felt like genuine foreplay. His wholesomeness clashed with his deviant side a little too effortlessly these days, and I almost couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
Neil was sin topped with a halo, walking backward down the sidewalk from my house to his truck—warm eyes crinkled at the corners because of his growing smile. Slipping his hand into his pocket, he pulled out four tiny paper butterflies and halted his steps.
“What are those?” I kept walking until I was right up in his space.
The lollipop went back in his mouth, and I gently tugged it from his lips and put it in mine. Strawberry. And Neil. Yum.
He laughed through his breath, holding the butterflies up closer between us. “These,” he said, pressing his forehead against mine, “are for you.”
I looked up into his eyes with a smirk. “Well, I kind of figured that much. But what for?”
“There are four.” He took a slow, weighted breath and released it. “One for each stage of a butterfly’s life,” he said, stepping away and pulling his sucker with him.
“Thief.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
He continued straight through his smirk. “Four, for a completed metamorphosis and a brand-new beginning, more beautiful than the start.”