My Butterfly Page 10

  “Will, I can’t do this…,” I heard her start to mumble into my chest.

  “What, babe?” I asked her.

  She was quiet except for the sniffles.

  I squeezed her tighter and stroked her pretty, long hair.

  “It’s okay, Jules,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  I took in a deep breath and then slowly let it out.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” I whispered again, closer to her ear. “Everything’s okay.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cold

  “Hey,” she said.

  I switched the phone to my other ear. It had been a couple of weeks, but I felt as if I could still hear the cracking and the popping of that fire in one ear.

  “Hey. How was your day?” I asked.

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

  “You know, pretty much the same too,” I said, as I kicked off, first, one shoe and then the other. “I had to get to class early because…”

  I stopped. There was something off in her voice.

  “Is something wrong, Jules?” I asked.

  There was a pause. Pauses like that weren’t ever good.

  “It’s just that…I can’t…,” she started and then stopped.

  I waited for her to finish. Instead, there was silence.

  “You can’t what?” I asked.

  I heard her take a breath.

  “I just feel like we’ve grown apart,” she said.

  Her sentence was straight and to the point, and it completely derailed me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I know that sounds really cliché, but I don’t know how else to say it,” she said.

  I felt my heart momentarily take a break in my chest. Then, I took in a deep breath and then slowly let out a sigh.

  “Jules, I know it’s been hard, but…,” I started to say but then let my words trail off.

  “It has,” she said.

  There was another moment where there was only silence before she continued. I had no words, so I just listened.

  “It’s just that I’ve been busy with track,” she said, “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…”

  “Jules, is this about our anniversary?” I interrupted. “Jules, I’m really sorry, and it wasn’t my intention to have us spend it in a hospital…”

  “No, Will,” she said.

  Her words were soft and sincere.

  “This is not about that,” she said and then paused. “It is, but it’s not.”

  My eyebrows darted to the center of my forehead. I could see them staring back at me now in the mirror as I started to take in shorter, shallower breaths.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s just…It seems like it’s a chore for you.”

  “What seems like a chore?” I asked.

  “Us, Will,” she said.

  Her replies were getting shorter and shorter.

  “I don’t fit into your life anymore,” she continued.

  “Jules,” I softly said and then stopped. “Jules, that’s not true, and I’m always excited to see you. I’m just tired sometimes.”

  I took in another deep breath and then let it slowly escape past my lips before I continued.

  “You don’t have to answer to fire calls at two in the morning just to go back to bed and answer another one at five,” I said.

  “You’re right, I don’t, and I understand that,” she said.

  She sounded slightly irritated now.

  “But since you’ve been doing that, you’ve never found a way to make it work,” she said. “You’ve never found even the tiniest bit of energy for me. Will, I might 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,” I said, my voice trailing off.

  “How, Will? How do you try?” she asked.

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

  I heard her sigh on the other end of the phone.

  “First of all, you don’t stay up,” she said. “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 felt my patience waning even as my heart was stabbing at the inside of my chest.

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

  My words had grown cold, and I knew it. I was on the defensive, and at this point, I didn’t quite know how to get back to the other side.

  “Really?” she asked. “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.”

  Do what anymore? What was she talking about? Was she talking about us? She couldn’t do us anymore?

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  She didn’t say anything. I took another deep breath, held it and then let it out, as a remnant of patience returned to my voice.

  “Jules, it’s us,” I said. “It’s us, Jules. You can do us. We know how to do us.”

  I heard her sigh.

  “Maybe we should take a break or something,” she said.

  Her voice had grown so soft I could barely hear it now.

  “You mean break up?” I asked her, slowly lowering myself to the mattress.

  “Well, just to give us some time to think about it,” she said.

  “I don’t need time to think about it, and Julia, you and I both know that there is no such thing as a break. There is only a breakup. Is that what you really want?”

  There was that deafening silence again, and I couldn’t believe what I had just asked her.

  “Yes,” she stuttered, eventually.

  My heart started to sink deeper into my chest. She didn’t mean that. She couldn’t have meant that.

  “Yes,” she said again, more firmly.

  “Jules, what are you saying?” I asked.

  I waited seconds, but she didn’t answer, and suddenly, I knew. She wasn’t saying that she didn’t fit into my life anymore. She was trying to tell me that I no longer fit into hers. She was saying she didn’t want a firefighter; she wanted a lawyer. I let out a frustrated sigh. It had always been that. It will always be that.

  “Well, I guess that’s it then,” I said.

  The words stung even me, but I didn’t care. She would figure out soon enough that no one could love her like I could—not even a fancy lawyer.

  “I guess so,” she softly said.

  There was an awkward pause, and it scared me. I couldn’t remember the last awkward pause I had had with Jules. In fact, I wasn’t sure if we had ever had one. It made me nervous, and the nerves made me spit something out without even thinking.

  “Take care,” I said.

  There was a quiet moment then—one of those quiet moments when you could hear the crashing and caving in of your world and nothing at all, all at the same time.

  “You too,” she eventually whispered.

  Her last words came out sad, and immediately, I wanted to take everything back. I didn’t want our conversation to end like this. I didn’t want anything to end, and I didn’t want to hang up. I pulled the phone away and looked at its display. She hadn’t hung up yet either. I brought the phone back to my ear, and as soon as I had, I heard it go dead on the other end.

  I tried to say her name, but nothing came out. And for the first time, I noticed I hadn’t been breathing. I sucked in a quick gasp of air and tried again.

  “Julia.”

  There was no answer. I slowly lowered the phone to my lap and stared at its display for a minute before my hand found my face in frustration. I rubbed my eyes, let my head fall back and then eventually forward, and then I habitually ran my fingers through my hair.

  They might be college-e
ducated and have fancy cars, but I knew Jules. I knew everything about her. I loved everything about her. That had to count for something.

  I took a deep breath in through my nose and slowly let it escape past my lips. Then, my eyes rushed to the phone in my hand again. She would call back. She was going to call back any second. And she would tell me that she hadn’t meant what she had said, that she wanted me and that she loved me.

  Another five minutes passed with my stare frozen on the phone’s display before I rested my finger on the button that would speed-dial her number. But just before I was able to follow through, I heard my tones go off in the other room. And what was left of my heart sank to the deepest pit of my chest.

  “Damn it,” I shouted out loud as I squeezed the phone in the palm of my hand and thrust it hard against my thigh.

  Then, I hurled my hands to my face again and rubbed my eyes before standing up, shoving the phone into my jeans pocket and hurrying toward the tones.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Schemes

  “Will, there’s this girl from my class that I want you to meet…,” Jeff began, even before I could get my jacket off.

  “Uh-uh,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Come on, man,” he said. “She’s got long, brown hair. She’s getting her nursing degree. She’s sort of athletic. And have I mentioned, she’s beautiful?”

  I was still shaking my head when I pulled a can out from his refrigerator.

  “What does ‘sort of athletic’ mean?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, sending wrinkles to his forehead.

  He sounded irritated that I had asked.

  “Like she can throw you your keys, but don’t expect her to throw you a football,” he said.

  “Aah,” I said, smiling.

  I pushed down the tab on the can and took a swig before I noticed Jeff had grown quiet. My eyes quickly scanned the room and found him in the corner staring at me.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Well, what?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting some kind of an associate’s degree or something and not checking out all the girls instead?”

  “Hey,” he said, “my parents want the degree, and I’ll do it, but if I’ve gotta do it, I’m not gonna do it with a blindfold on.”

  I laughed.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “But if she’s so beautiful, why are you trying to set her up with me? Why don’t you like her?”

  He paused.

  “Because she likes you, you idiot,” he said, in a way that sounded as if he was annoyed to have had to say it.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, swinging over the arm of a chair in the living room and falling into it. “What’s not to like about you?”

  “Well, that’s what I said. But she saw you last weekend, and now, all of a sudden I’m her best friend—but not in a good way,” he said.

  I turned my face back toward him and caught him rolling his eyes.

  “She’s friends with me only because I know you,” he said.

  “Last weekend?” I asked, under my breath.

  He nodded his head and moved into the kitchen.

  “Yeah, she must have seen you playing golf or something,” he said, now taking out two slices of bread from the bag and slapping a piece of cheese on one slice. “She works at the golf course.”

  “Hmm,” I said, flipping on the television.

  “Anyway, what do you say?” he asked.

  He was still fumbling around the kitchen.

  “About what?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not a matchmaker. I’m just the messenger. What do I tell her?”

  I glanced back and shot him a puzzled look. He caught my eye and stuffed half of the sandwich into his mouth.

  “Dude, you have a really big mouth,” I said, chuckling. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “I’ll t-ell her you’ll c-all her,” he said, sounding slightly exasperated.

  I could barely understand him with his mouth stuffed full of sandwich.

  “Jeff, I’m not gonna call her,” I said. “Anyway, don’t you like her? You call her.”

  “She likes you, toolbag,” he said, sending the loaf of bread—bag and all—my way.

  The loaf hit the can in my hand and spewed liquid all over my tee shirt.

  “What the hell, Jeff?” I said, sitting up and whisking the drink off of my shirt.

  “Look, you want Julia back?” he asked.

  I stopped brushing off the liquid and looked up at him again.

  “Invite this girl to the New Year’s Eve party,” he went on. “It doesn’t have to be anything serious. Julia comes. She sees the two of you together. She proceeds to do the whole jealous-girl thing. Then, above-mentioned girl sees that you’re a toolbag because you’re still in love with your ex-girlfriend. Then, I look like a saint—next to you, of course. Ergo, I win. You win. We both win.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Julia’s coming?”

  I sat up and watched him walk back into the kitchen.

  “Yeah, she’s coming,” he said, opening the refrigerator door again.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  My questions for Jeff, nine out of ten times, were laced with suspicion. I could never tell if he actually knew what he was talking about or if he was just flapping his jaw.

  “What?” he asked.

  “How do you know Julia’s coming?” I asked again.

  He popped his head up from behind the refrigerator door.

  “Oh, I think Rachel mentioned it last week or something,” he said and then buried his head back into the refrigerator again.

  I sat back in the chair.

  “You never ended up calling her, right?” he asked.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Julia,” he said. “You never called her? She hasn’t called you? You guys are still broken up?”

  I half came out of my trance and nodded my head.

  “Yeah, I…,” I stuttered. “What if I call her, and she says the same thing? I don’t know if I could hear that again. And I still don’t know what I could say to change her mind. I don’t know. She sounded sad, but she wants…”

  I looked up and found Jeff giving me a blank stare.

  “She’ll call,” I said, giving up and turning back toward the television’s screen.

  “Yeah,” he said. “She’ll call after you show up to the party with Jessica.”

  I shook my head and started flipping through the stations. I assumed Jessica was the name of the girl he couldn’t stop talking about.

  “I’m not doing it, Jeff,” I said.

  I watched from out of the corner of my eye Jeff sprawl his skinny, lanky body across the couch.

  “So, Julia is going to be there,” I mumbled to myself.

  Jeff ignored me, but I expected him to. I methodically flipped through the channels looking for a game, knowing full well that the only place my mind could possibly be was on Jules and on how much I missed her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Girl

  “Hi,” I heard a soft voice come from behind me.

  I turned to see a brunette with a wide smile staring back at me.

  “Hi,” I said, slowly reaching down to pick up another ball.

  “I’m Jessica,” she said, extending her hand before I could reach the ball.

  I stood up straight and met her hand with mine.

  “Will,” I said and smiled.

  She stepped back, and I went back to the bucket of golf balls. Then, I set one of the balls onto the tee, positioned my feet and shoulders, cocked back my driver and swung.

  “Not bad,” she said.

  I turned to see the girl still behind me.

  “Thanks,” I said, looking back at her with a modest smile.

  “I think I’m friends with your friend, Jeff,” she said then. “He’s in one of my classes.”

  I took a second look at her. Jeff. Of course. This was the brunette who
worked at the golf course that he had been blabbering about. Despite Jeff’s endless chatter, I had never called her.

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked, acting as if Jeff hadn’t told me everything about her already. “Jeff’s a good guy.”

  I turned back around and grabbed another ball.

  “Do you need any more balls?” she asked.

  I looked at my bucket, filled to the brim with little, white balls. Then, I glanced back at her and smiled.

  “No, this should do it,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything as I set another ball onto the tee, repositioned my feet and shoulders again, arched my driver back and then swung hard.

  “Okay, well, if you need anything, just let me know,” she said.

  I turned back toward her and caught her grinning with that same, wide smile back at me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Then, I smiled, picked up another ball and set it onto the tee.

  ...

  “Hey, I think I saw that girl who you were talking about the other day—your friend that works at the golf course,” I said when Jeff reached the steps of the porch.

  “Yeah?” he asked. “Isn’t she cute? You ask her to the party?”

  “Whoa, slow down,” I said. “I said I saw her. I didn’t say I asked her to marry me.”

  “Wait, you didn’t ask her out?” he asked.

  He waited a minute as he stared me down with his goofy expression that I was pretty sure meant he was displeased with me. I laughed inside my head.

  “Man, come on,” he said, letting his head fall back. “Just get it over with. If you wait too long, you might lose your chance, and she’s not going to want to hang around me anymore. And then, you’ll have no one to take to the New Year’s Eve party, and you’ll lose Julia forever?”

  I looked at him sideways.

  “You really think that would work?” I asked.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Don’t you think Julia would just get pissed if I show up at a party that we went together to for years with another girl all of a sudden?” I asked. “I mean, we just…”

  “Broke up,” he said, finishing my sentence.

  “It’s just a break,” I said.

  “Dude,” he said, “you guys aren’t together. And yeah, it’ll work. Girls always get jealous of other girls when they see them with their exes.”