Butterfly Weeds (11 page)

             
“Hey, Honey. Happy Anniversary,” I said, bursting with excitement.

             
“Happy Anniversary to you too, Babe,” he exclaimed. “I really wish that I could be there with you right now.”

             
“I know, me too, but I’ll be home in two weeks, and we can celebrate it then. I promise,” I said, trying to remain as optimistic as humanly possible.

             
“I still think that you should skip practice this weekend,” he said, chuckling. “Who has
practice on a Saturday anyway?”

             
“Crazy people who can tolerate running in circles just a little more than the average person,” I playfully countered. “But if you skip your exam Saturday, I’ll skip practice.”

             
“Okay, you got me, but you better believe that two weeks from now I’m going to be about all the Jules-deprived I can possibly be and still be breathing, so you better get your cute butt out of Columbia as soon as you possibly can that
day,” Will demanded playfully.

             
I could tell that he was smiling on the other end of the phone.

             
“Don’t worry. I’ve already got a list of things that I need to pack, so as soon as class is done, I can throw everything into a bag and head out the door,” I informed him proudly.

             
“You and your lists,” Will teased.

             
I laughed.

             
“That’s why you love me, Honey. You need an organized mess like me to keep your life together. How was your day, by the way? I never
…,” I started but then stopped.

             
“Hold on, Jules,” Will said abruptly.

             
I could hear the dreaded set of tones ringing in the background through the receiver. The sound made my heart sink.

             
“Jules, I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to go. Can I call you later?” he asked hurriedly.

             
I hesitated but then gave in.

             
“Sure,” I said somberly – out of pure habit.

             
I realized, like many times before when those same set of tones went off, that a response of
sure
was my only option. I knew he had to answer the call. I knew someone else needed him more than I did at the moment, but I couldn’t help but wish he didn’t have to go. I had come to dread the high-pitched succession of tones that signified his district and that set him scurrying for
his keys and then out the door.

             
“Thanks, Jules. I love you. Bye,” he rambled off hastily.

             
Before I could say goodbye as well, Will was gone, and the o
ther end of the phone was dead.

             
Taking a deep breath and then slowing letting it out, I stared at a spot on the beige-colored wall in my dorm room, feeling defeated. Then, after a long minute, I set the phone down onto the
bedside table beside me.

             
I understood his position. I understood what his job entailed – what his dream entailed. Yet a selfish part of me still wanted back that time when he didn’t have to leave at a second’s notice.

             
I sighed, lay down and pulled my covers up to my face. Rolling onto my side and curling up, I reached for my cell phone on the nightstand and brought it close to my chest. He would call me later, I knew, and I would be waiting. I might not hear the call, and on the slight chance I did, I probably wouldn’t remember the conversation. Nevertheless, I would be waiting.

             
I
pictured myself standing on one side of a cliff, and him on the other side, as I unconsciously scanned the words on a page in my textbook. I couldn’t reach him, but I was trying. He was there. I could see him, but there was no way to get to him. In between us stood only two, towering walls of rock just far enough apart that a jump across the dark, bottomless cavern was surely not in either one of our best interests. But if I could only reach him, my world would be perfect again, I pleaded as the letters on the page blurred to unrecognizable blobs.

             
Though I had tried desperately to ignore the extra miles and the new, abbreviated visits and phone calls, I knew that my fears were slowl
y but surely catching up to me.

             
I saw the possible end a little more each day, and the more I thought about it, the more the thought pierced my heart. I ran the idea over in my mind, over and over again, yet I couldn’t quite believe wholeheartedly that it truly was the end. Will had been my prince charming, my only desire. I had never pictured myself with anyone else, and I still could not. I felt desperately heartbroken and lost for the first time in the years that I had known him because, deep down, I knew, somehow, he had slowly faded away from sight in my rearview mirror – like the rest of my high school life. I wanted him back, and even though I believed that he continued to dwell in my heart somewhere, I also feared that quite possibly we had outgrown each other. Can you do
that? Can you outgrow someone?

             
I felt lost in my racing thoughts at my small, dorm room desk when my cell phone burst to life.

             
Startled, I set my pencil down onto my economics textbook and glanced at the phone’s screen. My eyes caught his name stretched across the display window, and my heart fluttered and then sank. I took a deep breath, and then I carefully pressed the small, emerald button. I both feared and knew what I had to do next.

             
“Hey,” I said, sounding unusually heavy-burdened.

             
Despite my somber tone, Will started the
evening conversation as usual.

             
“Hey. How was your day?” he asked.

             
“Same old, same old,” I replied. “How was yours?”

             
“You know, pretty much the same too,” he said but then paused.

             
“Is there something wrong, Jules?” Will asked.

             
The tone of his voice customary to our usual conversations had by now lost its luster too, and I cringed when his lukewarm words reached my ears.

             
I wondered for a moment if I should say it – say everything that I was thinking. Did I really want to? Was I prepared for where it might lead? I had no idea, but finally, I just bit the bullet and opened the floodgate.

             
“It’s just that I feel like we’ve grown apart, and I know that sounds really cliché, but I don’t know how else to say it,” I gushed, without holding anything back.

             
I stopped, waiting for Will’s response. It surprised me at how easily I had spit out the words, but what surprised me even more was that with the feeling of brokenness and uneasiness that followed also came a tremendous sensation of relief for having finally voiced my thoughts to him out loud. Nevertheless, I waited, hoping he could convince me that it was going to be okay and that we would make it, even though I feared that, this time, even he might not be able to convince me.

             
His sigh shattered my cascading thoughts.

             
A sigh?

             
His simple exhale was worse than a shot right to the heart. Instead, it was a white flag – as if he had just admitted defeat, had just given up on us – and half-heartedly at that.

             
“It hasn’t been the same, has it?” he questioned me then. “I know it’s been hard.”

             
He sounded solemn and, at best, disconnected as the words fell out of his mouth. My heart sank further inside my chest. He knew too, I knew then. But what was it that I knew again exactly? What exactly had gone wrong?

             
“It has been hard,” I agreed softly. I was motionless, stunned.

             
And then there was silence – until I couldn’t ta
ke its deafening sound anymore.

             
“It’s just that I’ve been busy with track, and you’re doing your training, and when we do finally see each other, I feel like you aren’t really even that excited, and…,” I said, letting my words trail off.

             
Oh, gosh. I had said it. I had administered the first strike. I stopped and waited in terror for his rebuttal.

             
“Jules, I’m tired,” he interrupted. “You don’t have to answer to fire calls at two in the morning just to go back to bed a
nd answer another one at five.”

             
I jumped right in then without hesitating.

             
“You’re right, I don’t, and I understand that,” I said slightly angered. The terror was melting into blind confidence. “But since you’ve been doing this, you never found a way to make it work. You never found even the tiniest bit of energy for me. Will, I may not be answering fire calls, but I’m working my butt off up here. Plus, I’m the one driving home to see you every month. You’re never here. I feel like I’m the only one trying anymore.”

             
“I try,” he said softly.

             
“How, Will? How do you try?” I pleaded.

             
“I stay up and watch movies with you,” he protested.

             
“First of all, you don’t stay up. I know you’re sleeping. Secondly, I don’t want to always watch movies. I want to get dinner. I want to go dancing. I want to do things,” I continued to plead.

             
“I have a job, Julia. You’ll understand how that works someday,” he said coldly.

             
My anger was hitting its peak.

             
“Really? Will, this has nothing to do with me going to school or you having a job, and you know it – and I can’t do this anymore,” I protested firmly.

             
The words just fell out of my mouth as if I only had this one, last chance to say everything. I kind of thought that I would feel liberated having said them, and I had, but that moment had come and gone. Now, I just sat there terrified – of my own words – not really sure if I even believed them myself.