Page 11 of Sincerely, Butterfly

“Then you’re in for one hell of a night.” Wesley takes a final puff before tossing the butt of the cigarette onto the ground. “Come on. Let’s go set up and then come back for this piece of shit.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Jasper asks, taking another look at my Jeep. “Where is she?”

Wesley looks around, his brows pulling together. “She should have passed by here already. I told her to scram when I interrupted them.”

Shit, shit, shit!

What if they start looking for me and find me spying on them? I can’t let that happen.

Biting my lip, I creep back over to the first car I was hiding behind, the one closest to the school entrance. I wait there until all three of their backs are turned away from me before standing and walking to my car.

My heart thunders in my chest with nerves and excitement.What if they talk to me? Oh god, I hope I don’t actually pass out.

Or worse, cum on the spot.

Relax, Nola, you’re starting to sound like a psychopath.

I mean, I was already fairly certain I am one, but they don’t need to know that… yet.

At the sound of my footsteps, the three of them look my way, knocking the air clean out of my lungs.

Chewing on my lip, I avert my gaze, staring down at the ground. They say nothing as I approach my car.

There's no way I'm going over to them to say hi. That would be weird, right? To just randomly start talking to them after years of only exchanging the occasional word.

Okay, so it was more like Sylas saying something to me, while my cheeks burned bright red and my voice disappeared, leaving me unable to speak and all too flustered by him. They’re the only people who affectme like that.

It hasn’t always been like this, though. We grew up together, and my father has worked for their fathers for as long as I can remember.

Some of my fondest memories are of the occasional nights when my dad and I would attend a party that one of their families hosted. My mother often chose to stay home. She was much too sweet and innocent for the likes of those people. She never felt comfortable, and my father never forced it.

However, I was always fascinated by the inner workings of the elite.

The guys are only three years older than me. When I was five, they were eight. We were the only children who attended the parties, and they always asked if I wanted to play. I’ve never been happier than the times we spent hours in the garden playing hide and seek in the maze at Jasper’s place.

Things changed when I turned ten, and they turned thirteen. Overnight, we went from friendship to nothing. They ignored me at parties from then on, remaining at their fathers’ sides while the men talked business.

I tried asking them to play with me only once after that. In response, Jasper curled his lip into a sneer, looking down his nose at me with disgust, and told me to grow up. He took great pride in telling me that they were no longer kids and this was the real world.

After that, I stopped attending the parties with my father.

For the longest time, they wanted nothing to do with me, and they let me know I no longer meant anything to them.

So why, as soon as I started high school, did I start to feel them watching me?

Every time I felt eyes on me, I’d look around, and one of them would be there; in the hallways, the parking lot, they were watching me.

And for some fucked up reason, I loved their attention.

Not long after, I realized the reason they were watching me was because they were protecting me from the shadows.

And that's when my obsession began.

Despite not knowing why they ended our friendship in the first place, I chose to believe it was because of the life they grew up in.

They were always meant to take over and be something bigger,and even though my father is a part of that world, I wasn’t. I didn’t belong there.

Maybe this whole time it wasn’t because they hated me, but because they wanted to protect me. At least that's what my delusional mind has settled on.