Butterfly Weeds (28 page)

             
“You’re probably looking at it,” I said, meeting his gaze again with a smile.

             
“Oh, come on, you’ll need a break by tomorrow night,” he assured me. “You and me – I’ll take you to see some of the sites downtown – a tour of the city. It’ll be fun.”

             
I said nothing at first, as I took a deep breath. I looked at the figure in my doorway and then at my computer’s screen. In the short months after my move to
Charleston
, I had thrown my focus into my work, and it wasn’t hard to do so. I welcomed anything to keep my mind off of my recent past. Though I felt lately as if a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders – like an impending fear of my future had strangely disappeared – it wasn’t exactly as if it had been replaced by something much better. That was the catch. Had I made the right choice telling Brady I couldn’t marry him? I felt as if I had done the right thing, but would I regret my decision later? I knew, in the end, only time would tell. For now, it was just one day at a time, picking up the pieces, moving forward.

             
A night out couldn’t really hurt, I resolved, as I found a stray paper clip and proceeded to unwind it. In fact, it would probably do me some good to get out for a change – see the city for once. And I enjoyed Anthony’s company. We were, after all, co-workers, good friends – nothing more, nothing less.

             
“Okay. Sure,” I said, nodding. The corners of my lips rose slightly. “That sounds like a good idea.”

             
“Good, I’ll pick you up at seven then. Don’t work too late,” he warned playfully, as he tapped the inside of the door frame.

             
I smiled.

             
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

             
A
nthony picked me up at seven sharp the next evening, and we made our way to Sophia’s, a homey, little, Italian eatery, which sat in the heart of downtown Charleston, tucked away behind dozens of hanging emerald vines and stout, brick buildings that dated back to the 1700s.

             
Once we arrived, I followed the petite hostess as she skillfully weaved her way through a maze of outdoor tables, eventually selected one and placed onto its surface two menus.

             
I smiled, took a seat and waited for Anthony to sit down as the small girl vanished back into the maze again.

             
“How did you find this place? It’s almost completely hidden,” I asked Anthony as I opened the thick, hardcover menu.

             
“Oh, it’s been here for years. Hang with me, and I’ll let you in on all of
Charleston
’s little secrets,” he replied, with a soft, coy smile.

             
I smiled again also, trying desperately not to knock anything off of the table or trip someone or something – things I had, sadly, been known to do in his presence.

             
The dinner came, and we ate and talked about cases and our families and our college years, like we were old friends, remembering our glory days. And after dinner, we set out on a stroll on the narrow, limestone and shell sidewalks along the coble-stoned streets, past the shops and bars, taking in the sultry, evening air, along with the gentle, cooling breeze that rolled off of the waves in the harbor.

             
I was doing a pretty good job of maneuvering my small heels over the broken places in the sidewalk.
Charleston
’s sidewalks hadn’t exactly faired the best on the ever-shifting surface of the sea-level city. Nevertheless, I was managing its tiny obstacles, surprisingly, well. Of course, that was until my eyes caught a man that looked like Brady seated at a table in a nearby restaurant. And in the two seconds that it took to realize that it wasn’t him, one of my heels caught the edge of an aging piece of concrete. I stumbled, but quickly caught myself. I don’t even think Anthony noticed. My poise was still in tact – for now.

             
I returned my attention back to my uneven path, convinced now that every strawberry blonde served as a constant, but friendly reminder of what still seems to have been a misstep in this journey I so endearingly call
Life
.

             
I allowed a soft, inaudible sigh to escape my lips.

             
“Anthony, life eventually gets less complicated, right?” I asked playfully then, smiling up at my friend.

             
Anthony stopped to look at my expression. I knew it had to appear, for the most part, happy, but
still a little heavy-burdened.

             
He smiled.

             
“Yeah, I think it does, right before it
gets interesting,” he offered.

             
I paused for an instant and then laughed. I’d take interesting.

             
“Well, Miss Lang, where’s our next stop?” he asked. “And we can ponder all of life’s great mysteries.”

             
I smiled at him and then lifted my green eyes to the heavens as I contemplated our next ad
venture.

             
“How about…,” I started.

             
I was beginning to feel an emotion that bordered carefree, and it was nice, for a change. In fact, for a minute there, Anthony had me forgetting completely about the complexities of life – forgetting about missteps and uneven sidewalks. But then, something changed again.

             
Before I could finish my sentence, my thoughts quickly hit a brick wall, as if the wall had just jetted up from
the earth right in front of me.

             
“Will,” I said so softly the word was barely audible.

             
I felt my breathing quicken, and for a moment, I said nothing. My words were too busy watching my past elbow its way to the forefront of my mind. But this time, it wasn’t the so-recent past that haunted. It wasn’t another strawberry blonde. No, this was a past of a more distant nature – and I neither expected it nor welcomed it; though, I couldn’t hate it either. It was just there, armored and now staring at me in the main corridor of my mind, and it was as if I were its prey, standing opposite of it – unpro
tected and vulnerable.

             
In an instant, my world had grown unmistakably silent, and the streets, the water, the skies had all turned painfully still as I dug my tiny heel into a small opening in the broken sidewalk. I had been taken prisoner, and now, the only thing that mattered in all the world was hearing the soft melody that poured from an unfamiliar, dark-colored sedan that rested nearly a block up from where Anthony and I stood.

             
“Julia, are you okay?” I could hear Anthony faintly ask in the background, battling against the melody’s lyrics for my attention.

             
Though my body was numb, and my eyes were still locked onto the old sedan, I struggled desperately to form wo
rds – words, any words at all.

             
“Hmm?” I answered in a soft, unusually quiet voice, audibly distracted.

             
“Are you alright?” he asked again, cautiously.

             
I swallowed hard before I tried at speaking again.

             
“I’m sorry,” I managed to say. “I just…that song.”

             
Anthony hesitated.

             
“I hear the music. What about it?” he asked.

             
What about it? Only my world crashing in on me; my heart pounding holes into the walls of my chest; the sound my breaths made tunneling wildly through my lungs. I knew he hadn’t heard any of that, but it had felt as if he should have all the same.

             
“I know it,” I replied, serene and slow. The melody still played in my ear like a time machine transporting me back years and onto a porch one particular, autumn night.

             
A part of me longed desperately to stay for awhile and find out what could have been had it really all been different; but alas, life was calling to me from the other side.

             
“Is this one your favorite” Life, also known as Anthony Ravenel, asked curiously.

             
“No,” I lied softly. “It’s not my favorite.”

             
Anthony paused for a moment in what could have been reflection.

             
“Do you like the a
rtist then?” he whispered back.

             
I unintentionally and tightly squeezed his hand. Yes, somewhere in there he had taken my hand. I’m not sure how. I’m not even sure when, a
nd I’m definitely not sure why.

             
Anthony’s question stung my heart, yet I continued to stare at the sedan, still straining to hear the melody over a set of horse hooves, people chatting off to the side and boat horns in the distance. I had heard the song before, or I had heard the first two stanzas before anyway. Regardless, I had heard it, and it had been my song – my song – and he had finished it. That’s what had made all the difference. That’s why I was standing breathless. That’s why I was coming unraveled in the middle of
a familiar, downtown sidewalk.

             
I labored to hear every last bit of the lyrics and the deep, seductive voice from my past, even as the traffic light flashed from red to green and my mobi
le juke box began pulling away.

             
Where was it going?
I protested.
And why was it taking my song?

             
My heart leapt toward the melody, now fading into the muffled sounds of its background. It took everything in me not to follow its lead. I watched the sedan longingly, my eyes chasing it with my intense, green irises deeper and deeper into the city. Then, just as quickly as it had come into my life and had stolen me away, it was gone and gone with it was my song, and all I could think about was how much I wanted it back.

             
I
watched him walk away for a couple of seconds before I turned and slid my key into the lock.