Chrysalis Read online

  Chrysalis

  a novel by

  Theresa Dale

  Copyright © 2020 Paper Doll Publishing

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Note: the city names of Ottawa and Toronto are used with respect and in admiration, but any content beyond their names is strictly fictional.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover art by PEI artist Jeff Kelly. http://jeffkellyart.com/

  ISBN-13: 978-1-989897-01-0

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-989897-02-7

  For the butterfly in every one of us.

  Thanks to the amazing Jeff Kelly for the cover art.

  Thanks to my editor, Celia Speirs, for her consistently excellent work.

  Finally, thanks to Trey for insisting I write his story next.

  Also by Theresa Dale:

  That Summer

  Bird With A Broken Wing

  Rose’s Ghost

  Heather’s Grave

  Dmitry’s Shadow

  Rose’s Ghost – the Trilogy

  ◆◆◆

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Also by Theresa Dale:

  Chapter 1 – Pablo

  Chapter 2 – Swoon

  Chapter 3 – Trey

  Chapter 4 – Geoff

  Chapter 5 – Tiff

  Chapter 6 – Intermission

  Chapter 7 – Maizie

  Chapter 8 – Remembering

  Chapter 9 – Malachi

  Chapter 10 – Waking Up

  Chapter 11 – Missing

  Chapter 12 – Taxi

  Chapter 13 – Lacy

  Chapter 14 – Trey

  Chapter 15 – Waking Up

  Chapter 16 – Change

  Chapter 17 – Katie

  Chapter 18 – Sugar Maloney, PI

  Chapter 19 – Trey

  Chapter 20 – Tiff

  Chapter 21 – Maizie

  Chapter 22 – Malachi

  Chapter 23 – Sugar

  Chapter 24 – Lacy

  Chapter 25 – Trey

  Chapter 26 – Malachi

  Chapter 27 – Lacy

  Chapter 28 – Trey

  Chapter 29 – Sugar

  Chapter 30 – Jude

  Chapter 31 – Trey

  Chapter 32 – Sugar

  Chapter 33 – Malachi

  Chapter 34 – Tiff

  Chapter 35 – Trey

  Chapter 36 – Jason

  Chapter 37 – Sol

  Chapter 38 – Geoff

  Chapter 39 – Trey

  Chapter 40 - Trey

  Chapter 41 – Malachi

  Chapter 42 – Tiff

  Chapter 43 – Kelly

  Chapter 44 – Jude

  Chapter 45 – Malachi

  Stay in touch

  Chapter 1 – Pablo

  “Trey.”

  Trey awoke with a start. “We here?” he mumbled.

  Pablo frowned and pulled the brim of his cap down on his forehead. It was a nervous habit, and Trey always made him nervous. It was strange – he’d seen a lot in his career as a cabbie, but nobody made him uncomfortable like Trey did. It wasn’t because he was a prostitute, or that he was often high or passed out by the time he got him to his destination – it was because when he wasn’t high, he was wonderful. He was special. But his choices brought him way down, lower than who he really was inside. He destroyed himself every night, and Pablo knew that if he carried on, his phoenix-like ability to rise up again the next day, even more magnificent than the day before, would one day fail him.

  “Here, baby,” Trey slurred, waving a twenty over the divider.

  “It’s only three ninety-six, Trey,” Pablo said firmly. “I’m not taking your money.

  “But I have so many!” Trey fell back into the seat, his shiny red (and somewhat smudged) lipstick turning his smile into something less than sexy. “So many money!” he giggled as he swayed.

  “You OK, Trey?”

  He smiled on, raising his fishnet-clad legs in a lascivious ‘V’ as he licked his lips, his eyes on Pablo’s in the rear-view mirror. His tiny denim shorts barely restrained parts of him that were certainly not female, though his clothing would seem to indicate otherwise.

  “You’re gonna ruin my roof with those heels, Trey,” Pablo said calmly. He turned around, looked him in the eye. “Why do you do this?”

  “Just wondering if you’ve changed your mind.” Trey laughed and lowered his legs, then swooped forward to kiss Pablo on the forehead. He smelled of sweat, but not his own.

  “I’ve told you before, Trey; I’m not gay.”

  “And I’ve told you before –” Trey poked him gently on the tip of his nose, “– that I’m not, either.”

  Pablo shook his head in confusion, then turned back to the steering wheel. “It don’t make no sense to me,” he said. He’d said it before. “But you do you, T.”

  Trey laughed again, his smile revealing more smudging of the red lipstick, but on his teeth, this time.

  “I hope you’re going home, ’cuz it’d be a sorry soul who’d pick you up right now,” Pablo said, too tired to be gentle.

  “Home,” Trey scoffed, then leaned forward again. “Besides, you’d be surprised what people want when they’re desperate.”

  “I can only imagine,” Pablo said. “Now get out, bitch. I’m tired from waiting up for you.”

  Trey’s laughter burst out of him, making Pablo smile reluctantly.

  “Go!” He motioned to the door.

  Trey threw his lean but muscular arms around his neck. “Thank you, Pablo. You’re my only friend in the world, do you know that?”

  “No, I don’t. Seems to me you got lots of friends.”

  “But only you will wait up for me when I need someone to.”

  “That’s just because I’m a sucker, and my overactive sense of guilt would kill me if anything happened to you.”

  That earned him another kiss, this time on the cheek. He’d learn later that, knowing full-well that this type of attention would thoroughly distract his friend, Trey had slipped the twenty into his shirt pocket as he leaned further over the seat.

  “Ugh!” Pablo protested, waving Trey off him. “Get out!”

  Trey laughed again, but it was less boisterous. Pablo knew this transition. He’d seen it a million times. Trey’s stomach was letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that he needed to sleep soon or he’d be sick. “Thank you, P. Love you,” he said, the new tone of his voice bringing a noticeable pall to the atmosphere inside the car.

  Pablo exhaled in relief as Trey opened the passenger-side back door, letting in the incessant but somehow comforting sounds of the rain. The cool air hit Pablo at the same time as he noticed Trey hugging his sweater around his tall, lean frame.

  He was striking – even the most conservative observer would have to admit that. At just under six feet (six-three including his heels and six-eight including his outrageous afro), his tall, slim body wore anything like a model’s would. His broad, straight shoulders slightly challenged his efforts at femininity on nights like tonight, it was true, and everything else about him screamed for attention, but not in a negative way. He was beautiful, whether he was dressed as a woman or a man. It was him that shone through his clothes and his makeup. His refusal to let anyone take him down. His sense of humour. His fearless displays of who he was at the core: kind, fair, sad. And lo
st, too; oh yes, that was on display at all times.

  Trey leaned into the front passenger-side window. “You working tomorrow night?” The exhaustion in his eyes was showing through the glamour.

  Pablo nodded. “Take care of yourself, Trey.”

  “Why?” the man called back, for he was already sashaying away, swinging his silver-sequined jacket over his shoulder and humming loudly but tunelessly.

  “Because –” Pablo growled in frustration. “Argh, you know why!” He put the car in reverse. “Crazy, wild, bitch-boy,” he muttered, shaking his head. “He’s gonna get himself killed.”

  But he was wrong. Trey wasn’t going to let his life kill him; in fact, he’d save many others before he was done with it. He just didn’t know it yet.

  Chapter 2 – Swoon

  He loved this time of night, when the streets were bare except for those finally heading home after drinking too much at the bar. And the homeless, of course. The addicts. The lost. “We’re always here,” Trey muttered unintelligibly. “Forsaken of the day, keepers of the night.”

  Trey weaved right to left, his heels crunching a bit on the wet pavement which reflected the street lights in an exaggerated fashion. Everything was streaks of white, red, green and yellow. Trey got caught up in it, musing over the artist behind such beauty with a longing so deep it caused an ache in his groin.

  Or that could be from the fact that he’d been overused that night.

  Or an STD; he made a mental note to be mindful of it.

  The rain made the darkness darker and the lights brighter, even though they failed to reach the corners and alleyways as they would on a clear night. But Trey was unafraid. If he were still in Vancouver – well, that would be a different story. He’d have asked Pablo to escort him to his door in Vancouver.

  But this was Ottawa, and anyway, he didn’t have a door here. Well, not really. He could go to Jude’s, but he knew he couldn’t bear the argument tonight. Nor did he have the strength to reject him. He knew he’d be worse for it tomorrow when he crawled back, but tomorrow didn’t matter. Now was all there was.

  Sometimes on these nights, especially when the high was good, he wished he could press pause – just stop everything and be in this space forever. Lights and sparkle, the quiet and darkness between it all. Melancholy. Solitude. It was the place he felt he most belonged. To him, this was home.

  He dug into the zippered pocket on the inside of his flashy jacket for his phone. His only tether to anything resembling a routine. These days, most of his appointments were made online. He wanted to make sure he didn’t need to set an alarm for tomorrow.

  Geoff at noon – probably another shopping trip – and Maizie at nine PM. “Maizie, my daisy, I think that girl’s crazy,” Trey sang. He’d reached the river. He hadn’t realized this was his destination until he saw it. He was grateful to his feet for their excellent muscle memory. He stopped, bending forward just enough to look down at the parts of him that touched the ground. “Thank you, feet. Thank you, legs.” He straightened, taking in the reflections of the lights on the flowing water. “Thank you, water,” he added for good measure. Mesmerized, he knew he’d go no further tonight. He stopped at the first bench he came to, plopping down on it inelegantly, and lost time as he stared at the reflections. Wavering, alive. He saw the other stuff, too. The signs of life beneath the water. A different sort of light. A different sort of colour.

  And now that he was looking, he raised his eyes to the condos on the other side. There were signs of life there, too.

  He raised a hand in front of his face and was surprised, as always, to find that he, too, lived on. Orange and white, clockwise, swirling. His energy looked strange. Well, different, anyway, than most.

  Vertigo twirled in his head and all around him. He lay down on the bench, stretching his jacket over himself, and dropped immediately into sleep.

  Or passed out. Depends on the observer.

  Not an hour later, he woke to someone picking up his legs, sitting, then letting them rest again on a cold lap. He gazed at his company in the dull light of the streetlamp. “Lacy?”

  She was crying.

  “What up, baby girl?”

  “Ah, same old shit.”

  “Gary again?”

  She nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “Lay down, love.”

  She let herself bend at the waist until her head rested on his hip. “You smell weird.”

  “Fucking Bryson. Sweats like a hog.”

  She giggled, her jagged breath moving her body against his. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to my place.”

  He didn’t answer; just waited for her to sit up.

  “Come on, Trey. You know this bench isn’t going to let you rest.”

  “I was doing just fine before you got here.” He smiled up at her, but lazily.

  “You alright?”

  He nodded, and the world spun as he did. “Wait,” he said, rolling over to puke.

  “Fuck!” Lacy took a wide step to the side.

  “Looks like I gotta switch benches, now.” He spat. “Shit.”

  “You know if the city guys find you again, they’ll call the cops.”

  He closed his eyes. Breathed in the cool air. Imagined it filling his lungs. “Come to think of it, an actual bed doesn’t sound bad at all,” he muttered. “But you’re gonna have to help me walk.”

  “What’s got you spinning tonight?”

  He breathed in. Pondered. Shrugged.

  “Seriously?”

  He held up an index finger. “I know there was a needle,” he said, then inhaled sharply as a lightbulb lit up in his brain. That was why his groin hurt.

  “Fuck, Trey. You’re too smart for this,” Lacy muttered as she pulled him up. “Too pretty, too.”

  “Thank you, baby,” he managed, looking up through false eyelashes. One veered to the diagonal.

  “Fuck,” she said again but laughed. “I can’t resist you, Trey. Nobody can.”

  He let her pull him up, then sat again. Draped his upper body over his thighs to reach the straps of his heels. “Walking in these is no longer possible.” He looked up at her, the world tilting nauseatingly. “The profanity, Lace!”

  She sighed.

  “It doesn’t become a lady,” he finished, then burped.

  “Neither does that.”

  “Touché,” Trey muttered, amused.

  “Let’s take the bus,” Lacy said, looking toward the road.

  He stood, his shoes dangling from his fingers delicately. “Aaaahhh.”

  “Better?”

  He nodded. “I can walk if you can.”

  She nodded back.

  “What happened with Gary?”

  She shook her head, folding her arms over her chest.

  “He breaking his promises again?”

  She swiped a tear away. “Asshole.”

  He draped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re cold.”

  They walked in silence for a time until a bus turned the corner behind them. Trey flagged it down, which usually never worked, but they happened to be close to a stop.

  Lacy frowned at him. “Thought you could walk?”

  “Bus sounds good, after all, Lace,” he said. He felt his eyes drooping. His face. His spirit. “Shit,” he said as she took his hands to pull him up the stairs.

  “Profanity,” Lacy sighed.

  “She…he drunk?” the driver demanded, but his tone was forgiving. The bus was empty, save a sleeping guy in the back.

  “Maybe a little,” Lacy grunted as she lowered him into a seat. “But that’s not his main problem.”

  The driver closed the door, looking at Lacy in the mirror as he pulled back into the street. “What is, then?”

  Trey heard her say, “Sadness” through a thick wall of drug-induced cotton insulation that had wound itself around him like a soft tortilla. Trey’s stomach clenched at the image, but it was impossible to tell whether it was from hunger or revulsion. “Sadness,” he m
umbled feebly. Streaks of yellow-smeared pain and disenchantment on the backs of his eyelids distracted him. Sadness could be yellow, sometimes. When it came with sickness. Distress. “Fucking sadness,” he said again, then he was gone.

  Chapter 3 – Trey

  Every time.

  Every time he woke up and realized he was alive, he was filled with a myriad of emotions. Hungover and sick, he was ill-equipped to reinforce his armour before his first coffee. Coffee to wake him, Oxy to put parts of him back to sleep again, and later, whatever he could get his hands on to obliterate him.