Beautiful Butterfly Field

Warnings: drama, arguments, pretty fucking sad if you ask me...

Words 2254

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Rosie sits calmly in her high chair, watching her mother, Jenna, prance around the kitchen. Her father is not downstairs yet, she doesn't know what he is doing, but she knows that it's the same thing every morning.

Her father seems to be terrible with time management. Tyler always seems to get ready five minutes AFTER he is supposed to leave for his work. Rosie doesn't know what her daddy's work is, all she knows is he repeats it over and over to her mommy as if it's supposed to win the argument.

"I have to go to work, Jenna. I will be late if I sit there and help you with that." Rosie doesn't like how he sounds when he talks to Jenna like that. He sounds frustrated towards Jenna. Rosie doesn't know the entire story, but it always seems as if her mommy is doing everything for her. Rosie hardly sees her daddy anymore, only when he's running around the house to get ready.

She sometimes sees him at night, but it's always passed her bedtime when she does. She always acts as if she's asleep because she feels like if her parents knew she was awake, they would explode with nerves and stress. She could already hear them arguing through her bedroom walls around midnight.

Rosie is only three.

Rosie turns her head when she hears her father's footsteps frantically clumping down the stairs. One of his feet is covered in a sock, the other one actually has a shoe on.

His shirt is unbuttoned and his pants are barely pulled above his waste. Rosie looks over to her mommy to see her let out a stressed, disappointed breath.

"You should've gotten up thirty minutes ago when I woke you." Jenna mutters quietly, almost as if she doesn't actually want Tyler to hear her. He does though, and he stops in his tracks to defend himself.

"You're right. You're always right, Jenna." He snaps, "I definitely should've gotten up thirty minutes ago, giving me exactly two hours of precious sleep. That's exactly what I need going into the studio."

Rosie doesn't know what any of this means, but she's sided to it by now. They seem to have the same talk every morning.

"Well you didn't have to go to bed at five o'clock in the morning either, Tyler!" She snaps back, throwing her hands up. She walks back towards the kitchen tower, and Rosie watches as she smashes up some avocados.

"You know I have trouble sleeping, it's not my fault! This would be a lot easier if I didn't have to deal with all of this shit!" Tyler shouted, his shoe being thrown aggressively to the floor.

Jenna throws her hand up, pointing the spoon at Tyler. Rosie watches as her mother's face turns blood red, "not in front of Rosie, Tyler! I told you!"

Rosie turns her head to see Tyler storm over to the couch, pulling on his shoe that he had thrown on the floor mere seconds before. "No, Jenna! I can't deal with your crying right now."

He quickly gets up, throws on his jacket and slams the door behind him, leaving Jenna and Rosie there.

Rosie watches her mommy from a distance. Her mother reaches her hand up towards her mouth, covering her mouth with her wrist as her hand hold the avocado covered spoon. Her face is red and her eyes are watering. She's shaking for a couple seconds until all of the sudden a small sob escapes her lips.

She sucks in a shaky breath before grabbing the bowl of smashed avocados and bringing them over to her three year old "here you go, Rosie." Her squeaky voice says.

Rosie remembers when she was littler, her mother would always give her her avocados with a smile on her face and a song in her voice. Where did that go?

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Jenna puts Rosie to bed, with her Barbie sheets and pink nightlight.

Before Jenna can even get a word in, Rosie asks the same thing she does every night, "is daddy going to sing to me?"

It is her favorite thing before bed, and a couple months ago, it just stopped suddenly. She doesn't understand why, she just hopes and prays that he will be there to sing to her tomorrow night.

Jenna looks down, a hurtful expression showing up on her face. That expression is normal to Rosie, she doesn't understand why Jenna looks so sad. "Not tonight, honey. He's still at his work."

Rosie has always been afraid to ask this, afraid of what her mommy might say. "Will he ever sing to me again?"

Jenna's face turns red, but it is not as bad as it was in the morning. "I don't know, baby. I honestly don't know."

"Why not?" Rosie can tell her mother is getting upset, she doesn't understand why. She is so confused, it all makes no sense to her. Why can't she just be happy? Why can't daddy just be here? Why can't mommy and daddy be happy together again?

"It's- it uh..." Jenna searches for the best words, she knows she should be honest to Rosie, even if she's three. "Daddy just as been through a lot since Josh... you remember Uncle Josh?"

"He's in that beautiful field with butterflies, isn't he?" Rosie asks, "where daddy can visit him anytime he wants?"

Jenna nods her head slowly, "yes, and daddy has been pretty busy lately with keeping up with his work himself. Since Uncle Josh can't help him anymore." Rosie can see her mother's jaw tighten, and she gulps. "He has been at meetings most of the days, the rest of the time he's been with Uncle Josh in that beautiful butterfly field."

It sounded wonderful to Rosie, she didn't understand the sadness laced in her mother's voice. "The beautiful butterfly field is heaven, you said?" Rosie asks, remembering back to the time they were at that field. It was a beautiful field. It had mountains as the background, flowers and butterflies were everywhere you looked. In front of Rosie, she remembers seeing daddy in a chair, his head in his hands. In front of daddy she saw a big hole with a box inside. Mommy said they were at a funnel, or something like that.

"Yes, that is where Josh is. He is in heaven." She gives her daughter a small smile, and Rosie returns it with a big one.

"It sounds magical!" She says, letting out a giggle.

"Mm, well it's time for bed for you." Jenna mutters quietly, pulling up Rosie's sheets to her chin. "And you better not turn off the baby monitor tonight."

"I didn't!" Rosie whines, and Jenna looks at her sternly. It seems as though every other night the baby monitor has been turned off, Rosie swears she hasn't touched it.

"Goodnight kisses..." Jenna sings with a grin.

She leans up and kisses Rosie's forehead, then her lips, and then pretends to bite at her stomach, making Rosie giggle and curl into herself. "Goodnight!" Rosie screeches as she is being tickled, and Jenna gets up and walks out of her room with a smile on her face, shutting Rosie's door behind her.

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Rosie likes this time of night, almost every night she is woken up around 2-3 to hear her door being up slowly, and shut quietly.

She doesn't open her eyes, but she can hear and almost feel someone's presence as they reach on her nightstand and shut off the baby monitor. She can feel someone sit down beside her legs, the weight making her roll slightly towards the person.

She opens her eyes slightly to see her father's figure, he leans down and rubs his hand on her forehead and moves her bangs out of her face. "I love you, Rosiegirl, you know that right?"

She doesn't answer, because she doesn't want him to know she is awake. She doesn't know if he wants her to be awake or not for this.

"It's just a rough time. We'll get over it. Your mom and I..." he whispers, almost mutters as if he doesn't want Rosie to hear. "We're going through something. I think we'll get through it, I hope we will." He pauses, "it just hasn't been the same without..." another pause, "it's gotten harder. I think we'll get through it. I think we will."

Rosie tries her hardest to keep her eyes shut. She's confused again. Why not just make it simpler?

His voice is lower now, almost shaky, "I don't want you to go through divorce."

Rosie can't help but open her eyes at that, "what's diborce?" When she opens her eyes she sees her father with wide eyes, and he seems taken back.

"Oh, baby. I didn't know you were awake." He says, leaning in to kiss her forehead.

"What's diborce?" She asks again, and Tyler sits there, frozen in his place.

She doesn't know what divorce is... Tyler hopes she never knows what it's like, so much so that all of the sudden something dawns on him.

He controls that future, he controls that specific thing in her life. She won't ever have to experience switching through different houses, or deciding who to stay with next week. She won't have to go through that because her parents love each other, all it is is a rough patch. If they have to go back in time and dig down to find those buried feelings for each other, then that's exactly what he will do. Anything to make sure his daughter doesn't go through it.

"Daddy?" Rosie calls, bringing him back to reality.

"I love you Rosie. I promise you, I love you and your mother very much, you know?" He says, getting down on his knees to be level with Rosie. "I would never leave you two, for anything."

Rosie's small hands meet Tyler's cheeks and she squeezes them, "you think too much daddy. Just make things simple."

Tyler gives Rosie a small smile, "I'll try, baby."

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When Tyler left Rosie to go to sleep, he walked into his bedroom and stood in the doorway, looking at Jenna sleeping. You would never know that she's been crying all day from where he's standing. You would never know the empty pit in her stomach constantly, the longing for some sort of interaction with him, at least an conversation that doesn't turn into a fight.

Tyler stands in the door way, like many other nights, contemplating on whether he should wake her up and engulf her in thousands of hugs and kisses. He ponders if he should tell her how much he loves her and misses her company. But he is just so worried that it will end just how all of their other discussions do. With a damned fight.

But tonight he has a different mindset. He doesn't care how many times they fight, he will try to understand her view, if only she'll understand his.

He lets out a breath, licks his dry lips, and walks fully into the room. It's almost as if the entire atmosphere changes, the sound of the roaring fan is the only thing Tyler can hear.

Tyler climbs onto the bed, putting a warm hand on her shoulder. She is turned away from him, on her side. "Jenna," he whispers softly, shaking her gently. "Jenna," he says again before finally getting a moan in response.

She turns to face him with a deep breath, furrowing her thick eyebrows at him. She hums tiredly, concern fills her eyes.

"I'm really sorry I haven't been around." Tyler says, looking down at the sheets. "It's been really hard and I forgot where my priorities were."

"Ty,"

"No, Jenna, let me finish." He holds his hand up for her to stop talking, "I just... let me explain myself before we start to bicker about it." He takes a deep breath, "Josh... he was such a big part of my life, so much so that everything reminds me of him." He's croaking his words out now, but he keeps spewing them quickly, "work was that distraction, you know? I wanted to be strong for you and Rosie, I didn't want you to think I couldn't handle this. I had so many people counting on me, so many things building up one after the other until finally I couldn't handle it anymore and I had to shut everything out. It seemed as though the only way to keep him off my mind was if I put all of my focus onto one thing, and that one thing was work... or music." He pauses, his chest is lifting up and down quickly and he tries to hold back his tears. "I ended up pushing you and Rosie away, because I didn't want you to see me like this... god, Jenna, I am in a terrible mindset. I don't know what to do with myself!" Tyler's eyes are completely filled to the brink with tears at this point, and Jenna throws her arms around him, pressing his face onto her shoulder.

"Oh, Ty..."

"I just miss him so much... I miss him so much."

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Another dead Josh one... don't ask me why. I promise I love Josh so much, that's probably why I'm writing these because it makes me sad and I like it hehe :)