Butterfly Weeds (31 page)

             
“So, no one there even knows if he’s dating anyone?” I continued, somewhat surprised.

             
“Nope, and I’ve asked,” Rachel confessed.

             
“I’m sure you have,” I said, smiling again. “That’s really odd though – that no one knows.”

             
“Yeah, I know it is, but what about the concert?” she asked, getting back to her mission. “I’ll be there, and you don’t even have to see him if you don’t want to. Well, off the stage anywa
y,” she reassured me.

             
I wanted to trust her, but something ultimately kept me from feeling completely convinced that I wouldn’t be stepping outside of my comfort zone.

             
“Rachel, it’s a long trip,” I said in my last plea for her to surrender the battle.

             
“Okay, okay,” Rachel said, backing off. “Just think about it. You wouldn’t regret it.”

             
I paused and smiled.

             
“Okay,” I promised half-heartedly. “I’ll think about it.”

             
“Alright, well, have a good night. Oh, and Julia…,” she started.

             
“What?” I asked.

             
“Don’t forget to wear something cute to bed…,” she began.

             
“I know – because I could meet Prince Charming in my dreams or something like that,” I finished, giggling slightly.

             
“Yep, you said it. Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” she rambled off. And then, she was gone.

             
I smiled, knowing for certain that my friend had not changed a bit since high school, as I sat back in my chair and glared up at the spiteful clock on the wall again. Gone now, was any desire to start the paragraph for the fourth time at the top of my computer’s screen. By now, I knew my thoughts had scurried off to some place else, as a sigh fell through my lips and I wondered if I would ever really know the identity of the girl behind the song – or if it even truly mattered.

             
T
he next couple of weeks flew by, and I hadn’t so much as thought about the concert or the song or Will, for that matter. The case that had consumed my life since I had taken the job was edging to a close, and I reveled in the thought of never having to hear the names Snyder and erosive chemicals in the same sentence ever again as I sat on my screened-in porch sipping a sweet tea and listening to the couple of crickets in th
e tree outside of my apartment.

             
Though I tried not to think about it on my days off, my mind nevertheless would always slowly drift to thoughts of the case.
Although t
he loose ends still needed tying up, for the most part, it had been a success. The defendant, Snyder, had agreed to pay a small fortune in
economic benefits to members of the fence-line communities affected by erosive chemical runoffs into a local marsh area. Justice had finally found its day, I thought, as I watched a pack of clouds move across the sky off in the distance.

             
I took another sip of tea and wondered if we would be so fortunate in our next case. But, of course, that was impossible to figure out now, and my
mind reminded me of that by making a violent u-turn in a whole, different direction.

             
What would it be like to see him again – to watch him onstage?

             
He had made it. The thought still sounded surreal and foreign in my head, but it didn’t really surprise me. It had never surprised me. I had always known that he had it in him, that one day, it would just take
someone else finding it in him.

             
The sound of my phone ringing from inside my apartment halted my swirling thoughts. I set my glass of tea down onto the small, glass table beside me, crawled out of my comfortable lounge chair and scurried back inside and down the hallway, like a little lemming, following the sound of my ringer. By the time I had reached the other side of my bed, the ringing had stopped. Without hesitation, I picked up the phone. It was a text message from Rachel. My eyes followed over the letters as I read:

             
Still thinking? It’ll be fun!

             
I smiled and held the phone in my hand as I slipped away into another thoughtful trans. Rachel couldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let it go, I knew. It was a valiant effort, but a valiant effort in vain all the same. The case was too close to being finished. Sure, I didn’t have to be present to tie up the loose ends. Most of my work was done through emails and faxes anyway now. However, I felt better being able to run to the office if I really needed to, and besides, it would be good for me to get a head start on research for my next case. Flying home for one day to see a concert one night just didn’t sound that practical right now.

             
I set the phone back down onto the bedside table and picked up a pair of pumps that I had carelessly strewn onto the floor the day before. I usually functioned best in a livable chaos; though, I often wondered how I found everything I needed when I needed it.

             
With the shiny, black heels in one hand, I looked up for the miniature string of tiny, round beads that dangled from a light fixture in my walk-in closet. When I spotted it, I gently pulled the cord, forcing the light to illuminate the small room.

             
On the floor, under an ivory bar full of black, gray, navy and tan pant and skirt suits, I found a new home for the shiny, black shoes. Pleased with my efforts at attempting to restore a normal sense of order back into my little apartment, I reached for the string of metal beads again. I paused, however, when my eyes caught a shoe box with a tiny word etched across the side of its pink lid. In permanent, black marker, I read:
Pieces
.

             
Before I could stop myself, my hands left the metal strand and made a beeline toward the small box, located slightly above my head. My fingers slowly pushed over the letters on the lid, and then without another thought, my hands carefully slid the shoe box out from underneath the stack of other boxes and
blankets that lined the shelf.

             
I towed the pink box to my bed and fell onto the fluffy comforter, at the same time, positioning the container squarely on my lap. Slowly opening the lid, my thoughts raced back to college and then to high school and to the treasured few memories that sat tucked away in the little shoe box.

             
Inside, I found my old, high school diploma, a
friends forever
necklace that Rachel had given me our freshmen year and a messy pile of letters, aged ticket stubs and old, fading photos. I took a second to take in the memories converged together at the top of the small pile. A stub for a film that debuted more than a decade ago rested proudly in clear view on top of a Valentine’s Day card with two dancing hearts on its cover. The card shifted my eyes toward the sloppy stack of stationery.

             
“My last pieces of you,” I whispered under my breath, smiling and letting out a deep, heartfelt sigh.

             
I vaguely recognized each card as my fingers slowly flipped through the pile. Each one had a little, heartfelt note scribbled inside, below the printed message, and all of them were singed:
Love always and forever, Will
. I smiled as I read an inscripti
on:

             
I’ll always be your Spiderman, My Mary Jane.

             
Another read:

             
At times, the road will be hard, the days
will be long, and the journey
you’ve traveled won’t feel like a song.
But know that I’ll always love
you, and with love, all is certain.

             
My smil
e widened.

             
“We really were head over heels – and so, so young
,” I heard myself say out loud.

             
Then, my smile faded, and my heart paused when I came across one, specific piece of memory I had all but forgotten about. I stared into the tiny, pink shoe box for almost a minute before I picked up the small, four-by-six-inch photo. The color in the picture had, by now, faded to dull greens and blues, and time had frayed the photo’s edges, but it didn’t matter. The memory was still visible. The picture had been taken the day that I had left for college. Will was standing next to me with his arm around my waist, and in my hands were his orange flowers – his butterfly weeds. I knew the flowers had ultimately found their final resting place in a cardboard box, most likely covered with dust, along with the rest of my treasured memories stored in the back of a closet in
New Milford
.

             
As I stared at every detail in the photo, I remembered back to the day that Will had given me the timeless flowers. I remembered that I had promised him that I would never forget him. A smile widened across my face again when I realized that, just my luck, I had held up my part of the bargain – despite my efforts not to. I had not forgotten him, though he had also made that part nearly impossible. These days, he graced my television screen, my car radio and even the conversations that came out of my all-endearing, yet meddling best friend. Nevertheless, I had kept my promise. I had kept all of my promises I had made to him thus far – except
for one, I suddenly remembered.

             
My heart raced as the memory of the first night I had heard the melody of his now-famous love song came flooding back to me. That fall night, on his back porch, his hand
on mine, I had made a promise.

             
I sat as still as humanly possible then, staring into my bedroom’s beige walls and then back at the faded photo, still resting in my hand. My revelation motivated me and frightened me all at the same time. I continued to sit frozen and silent, until I finally came to one, solid, whole thought.