My Butterfly (35 page)

“What?” I heard her softly ask. “How could you have done this all…?”

I listened to her words trail off.

“I had just finished recording your song, and I knew that it would only be a matter of time before you’d come back,” I said. “After all, you promised.”

A happy smile finally broke free from my face.

“Jules, I’ve already waited too long to tell you this…,” I said and then stopped.

I reached behind me, grabbed the butterfly weed and placed it in between us.

“Julia, when I said that I would love you until the last petal falls, I meant it,” I said. “You’re the answer to my every prayer.”

She took the stem into her hands and gently caressed its silk flowers.

“Will, where did you find these?” she asked.

I smiled wider.

“Under that raggedy, old teddy bear of yours and some track medals,” I said. “I had some help.”

I watched her lips turn up into a smile, as she stared into the flowers for a long moment.

“Will,” she eventually said. “I’m not the same person I was when we were in high school.”

Her confession took me aback.

“Well, Jules, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly the same person that I was ten years ago either,” I said, with a half-smile. “I’m here fighting for you, aren’t I?”

A coy expression shot to her face.

“I’m just trying to tell you that you might not be saying all these things if you really knew me now,” she said. “You might not even want a girl like me anymore.”

She peeked at me from behind her big eyelashes.

“Hmm,” I said, nodding my head in a pretend, reflective thought. “Then, just who is the new Miss Julia Lang?”

I watched her eyes quickly travel back to mine. She looked a little surprised.

“Well, okay,” she eventually said.

She took a second, and I watched as she inhaled a healthy dose of the night’s cool air before letting the breath pass through her lips again.

“Well,” she said, meeting my eyes, “for starters, I make a living arguing. Not many people understand why I do it, and it’s tough sometimes, but I love it.”

I kept wearing my smile as she continued.

“And I don’t wish on stars anymore or entertain fairytales, and I can’t remember the last time that I climbed out of a window in the middle of the night,” she said. “Oh, and I’m a vegetarian now.”

She lowered her eyes.

“And I don’t believe that there is a perfect someone for anyone,” she softly said.

I sat back against the windshield again and let my eyes stare off into the black distance. She had changed a little, that’s for sure. No meat? No meat at all? No cheeseburgers?

“A vegetarian? Really?” I asked.

Her eyes searched mine
. I could tell that she was trying to judge my reaction.

“That is a big change all right—but I’m afraid that you’re going to have to do a little better than that if you want to scare me off, Miss Lang,” I said.

Her eyes smiled then, even though her lips refused to waver.

“Look, Jules, it really is simple,” I said. “See, I’m in love with the person you can never outrun. I’m in love with you, Julia.”

She was quiet for a good minute, and I watched as her eyes searched my own. Somehow, I just knew that she wasn’t buying my confession.

“Will,” she said, finally, taking a deep breath, “I just think…I think that it has been a long time. We’re two, different people now, despite what you might think. We’re not two sixteen-year-olds. It’s been ten, long years, Will. And you have your life here, and I have mine in
Charleston. You fight fires and have an amazing singing career. And I have a great job doing something I love also.”

She paused and bit her bottom lip and then returned it to its natural place again. I barely noticed that she had stopped. Something was telling me that I didn’t want to hear the rest of her story.

“You see,” she continued, despite my silent protests, “no matter how you look at it, our lives just don’t match up anymore. I mean, there was a time that I really wanted them to—to match up—but that was some time ago.”

Somewhere in her last, few words, my eyes had fallen to a dark place on the car’s hood.

“I just don’t think it would ever work, Will,” she said. “We’re living our realities now. Besides, it just makes sense that we couldn’t have possibly known what was best for us at sixteen.”

She was quiet then for a moment, but I couldn’t find any words.

“But I promise you that you’ll be with me in my dreams,” she eventually went on. “When I rest my head on my pillow each night, when time is all my own to escape the world and dream, I’ll meet you there. We’ll both be sixteen, and we’ll be happy, and we’ll do all the things we used to do. We’ll climb out windows, and we’ll wish on stars, and we’ll watch old movies and make fun of Jeff.”

She stopped again, and I met her eyes.

“What we had belongs in dreams and meeting there each night seems to work well anyway,” she said, with a soft smile. “But, Will, as for us in this lifetime, we’ve just changed too much, become two, different people and followed two, different paths. It’s life, Will, not a fairytale.”

I swallowed hard.

“Why did you come back, Jules?”

“I made a promise,” she said, in almost a whisper.

“But why now?” I asked.

“It’s a good cause, Will,” she said.

I sat there frozen for a moment. Did she really believe what she was saying? Or was what she had said only what she had told herself to believe?

I let out a heavy sigh.

Either way, it seems as though it ends the same.

Eventually, I turned toward her and took her hand in mine and gently kissed the back of it. She looked a little thrown off, but she let me hold her hand all the same.

“Julia,” I said, meeting her eyes again, “you have been my world since I first laid eyes on you, and you may not realize it, but I have taken you with me every day in the last decade. Please know that there is not one moment that I stopped loving you. You are the reason for my smiles and my songs. You are my hope and my inspiration. My heart has only beaten for you. I do admit that I had my doubts, none of which involved my love for you. I did worry that you had forgotten me and that you had forgotten what we had, but just being here with you now, it’s proof. It proves to me that you haven’t. I see no change in your eyes, and it’s the most comforting feeling I’ve ever known. Jules, please know that I will love you unceasingly for many lifetimes to come.”

I took a shallow breath and then let it quickly escape before I continued.

“Jules, but no matter what big dreams you’re living or what lucky guy you end up marrying…”

My voice cracked, and I tried hard to swallow the growing lump in my throat.

“Please know that I love you,” I continued. “Even if I have to do it in secret—or in dreams—I’ll love you forever.”

Then, I set her hand gently back down onto her bended knee and slowly slid down the hood of her rented sedan. And when my feet hit the ground, I turned around one, last time.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you in my dreams,” I said.

I tipped my baseball cap toward her. Then, I started to turn but then stopped.

“And, Jules,” I said.

Her eyes darted to mine.

“I believe that there is a perfect someone for everyone, and I know that you still believe that too,” I said. “There is a perfect someone, even if the road to that someone isn’t all that perfect.”

I felt the warm liquid behind my eyes again. It was an all-too-familiar part of our story in the last ten years or so.

Then, I slowly turned and made my way back to my truck. And when I reached its door, I stopped, thought about turning back but didn’t. Instead, I opened the door and slid behind the wheel.

I sat there for a moment, staring into the dashboard, still trying to figure out if my dreams had just slipped away right there on the hood of her car in the middle of this black night. I sat there trying to find the words to say that I hadn’t already said that would make her say that she loved me too. I searched through every moment that I had kept locked away in my chest for the last decade. I searched every piece of us, but I couldn’t seem to find another way to say:
Stay with me, Julia. Love me like I love you. Be my world again. Love me.

The turn of the key in the ignition was my head telling my heart it might be over. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t say goodbye. If I was going to leave, if I had to leave, at least I was leaving with one, last tiny hope that this wasn’t goodbye.

I slid Lou into gear, made a u-turn over the uneven ground and then felt the tires hit the loose gravel once again.

Radio

I
pulled back into the makeshift parking lot behind the stage and killed the engine. Then, I forced out a heavy sigh and lowered my head onto the steering wheel and let it rest there.

“Will,” I heard a voice shout out a second later.

I lifted my head to Chris staring at me from the other side of my window.

“They’re lookin’ for you for the radio,” he said.

I took a moment and then nodded my head.

“Okay,” I said.

I sighed and then slowly pulled on the door handle and stepped out onto the soft soil again.

“They’re around the side,” I heard Chris say.

I looked up at him and nodded my head again. Then, I shuffled around the corner of the stage and stopped. In front of me was a van with a radio station logo painted across its body. Its back doors were open, and there was a guy standing right beside one of the doors talking into a tiny mic that was attached to a big set of headphones. He noticed me and waved me over.

I hesitated, then took a deep breath in and then
slowly forced it out. And before I knew it, I was being escorted to the van and fit with my own tiny mic and set of big headphones.

“This is
98.7 Wolf Country,
and this is Jason David standing here with local heartthrob Will Stephens,” the host said. “Will, tell us what it felt like to sing for the first time in front of your hometown.”

I didn’t say anything at first. Instead, I looked up and caught Matt standing a few yards away twirling his finger in a sideways, circular motion at me. My gaze froze on his moving finger for a second. Then, I quickly forced my attention back to Jason David and cleared my throat.

“Well, it was a pleasure,” I said.

As soon as I had gotten the words out, my eyes lowered and caught the outline of a small box inside my jeans pocket. I took another deep breath and then cleared my throat again and tried my best to force out more words.

“I had my mom and dad and my grandma in the first row,” I said and then stopped.

I looked up and caught Matt’s stare again. Now, he seemed to be nodding me onward.

“And,” I continued, “I looked down one time, and even through the lights, I could see my grandma bustin’ some moves.”

I tried to make the words that came out of my mouth sound happy, though I knew they were soft and unsure as to what
happy
actually was without her.

“So, that was Grandma down there?” Jason asked. “I thought that was your sister.”

I laughed, and it took me by surprise. I wasn’t sure I would be able to laugh again.

“No, seriously,” I said and then stopped.

My voice was still quiet. I concentrated hard on making it more audible.

“It was great, a real treat for me to be here and to play for all of the people who have supported me to this point,” I said.

“Now, Will, let us not forget what this whole concert is about,” he said. “It’s about raising some support for those victims of the recent floods, right? Tell us a little about that.”

“Yeah, uh, this whole night was for those who have been affected by the flooding,” I said and then took a second before I continued.

“My heart goes out to all those who have lost homes or livelihoods, and I’m just asking everyone, even after tonight, to continue to give to local efforts to support victims and to remember to keep them in their prayers,” I said.

“Well, thanks so much, Will, for coming out and speaking with us tonight,” Jason said. “It’s definitely a great cause to support.”

There was a short pause then, and Jason’s eyes quickly darted toward mine. It caught me off guard.

“I just have one more question,” he said. “You didn’t think you’d get out of this interview without me asking it, did you?”

I nervously chuckled, secretly dreading his question.

“No, I suppose not. Fire away,” I said, eventually.

“Well,” he said, “Will, we’ve never heard that last song, and it was pretty obvious to me that it was about a special girl in your life. Care to tell us about that?”

I sat there, frozen and speechless, while the moments of my life with Julia—both the ones I kept close and the ones I still dreamed of—were awakened again inside my chest and now threatened to erupt. I desperately tried to swallow them back down.