Summary

In "Summer!s Passage, Southern California, 1990" Gonzalez, who is a college student just about to turn 20, leaves his home in Riverside, California, to visit his family in Indio, California. Before leaving, however, he has a dramatic breakup with his lover. The two men have been together for a year and a half and this is their third breakup.

They have had a high-charged relationship. His lover has left hickeys on Gonzalez's back that they call butterflies. The making of the butterflies was painful, but Gonzalez endured it. He thought that the fact that the marks look like butterfly wings was a sign that he and he lover were meant for each other as he dreamed of having a tattoo with monarch butterflies on his back. This happened at the beginning of their relationship...