Butterfly Weeds (35 page)

             
“Hi,” I spoke softly, but cheerfully, trying to appear completely unnerved, feeling like my efforts just might be miraculously working.

             
Will smiled wider and continued to walk closer to me.

             
“Mind if I take a seat?” he asked when he reached the sedan.

             
“Not at all; it’s a rental,” I said, jokingly. Those acting classes I never took were paying off.

             
Will carefully climbed on top of the car’s hood and leaned his back against the windshield next to me, leaving a good foot between us.

             
“Did you know I was here?” I asked him as he made himself comfortable. I hoped that it was just dark enough that he couldn’t see my soppy eyes.

             
Will hesitated for a second, and with a big grin on his face, he settled his eyes on mine.

             
“Of course. Where else would you be?” he asked.

             
I paused.

             
“But how…I never…,” I started. My eyes were narrow, and I looked puzzled, I knew.

             
“Oh, you want to know how I knew you came at all?” he jumped in.

             
“That would be a start,” I said, nodding, the corners of my mouth rising.

             
“You promised,” he said.

             
I froze for an instant.

             
“You remembered that?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

             
“Of course, and from the looks of it, you did too,” he said, leaning over and gently elbowing my arm.

             
“A promise is a promise,” I said softly, secretly recalling my reasoning for being there. “But seriously, how could you have known?”

             
Will smiled. He had a mischievous look on his face.

             
“Did you see the camera guy scanning the crowd?” he asked. He held a half grin on his lips.

             
“Umm…yeah, I guess I noticed him,” I said.

             
“Before the show, I gave him a picture and asked him to look for you,” he said.

             
“You didn’t?” I demanded.

             
“I did. And turns out, he’s got a good eye,” he said.

             
I let my head fall softly back onto the windshield again as I laughed – a sincere and almost comfortable laugh, miraculously allowing some of my nerves to fly away.

             
“You never cease to amaze me, Will Stephens,” I confessed.

             
The conversation stopped then, and a wall of silence filled its place as we both stared into the heavens. A million questions ran through my mind, but I didn’t know which one was more important – besides, the silence was comfortable and almost freeing. Eventually, though, Will broke the quiet.

             
“Did you hear the last song?” he asked. His voice was soft and deep.

             
“I did
,” I said, in almost a whisper.

             
“I finished writing it about a year ago. I meant every word of it,” he confessed.

             
His words hit my ears and sunk deep down into my chest and then out to my limbs, reaching every part of my body that didn’t even feel like my own anymore. I felt like I was completely outside of my situation and only just looking on.

             
And as I waited for his news to settle, I tried desperately to process it piece by piece. At that point, I had been pretty sure that he hadn’t been referring to anyone else named
Julia
– but hearing it confirmed, I strangely felt a fresh wave of nervous joy and curiosity overtake me, which left me only with more questions – questions that I knew would have to wait for now, at least.

             
“It’s a beautiful song, Will,” I said sincerely, nodding my head slowly
. My response was safe, I knew.

             
Will nodded his h
ead but remained silent.

             
“And how does ‘the one’ feel about this song?” I asked him pointedly, slowly
beginning my quest for answers.

             
Will chuckled softly.

             
“I don’t know, Jules, how do you feel?” he asked, still chuckling.

             
Startled by his reply, my breaths stopped for an instant. My investigation had backfired. What was he talking about? I turned my head toward the rugged boy from my youth that had now become the handsome man beside me. I could see his piercing blue eyes and a subtle, five-o-clock shadow on his chin and cheeks as a single ray of moonlight danced on his face. His stare remained straight ahead as his sea-blue eyes pierced a spot in the distant sky. Yet, a smile lingered on his lips, and I suddenly felt as if we were sitting around a fire, and I was noticing his blue eyes for the very first time.

             
I let out a slow, uneasy breath before I looked forward again, locking my own stare on the moon. There was no man in the moon tonight. No, it was definitely just Will and I – just the two of us, looking our past square in the face.

             
My eyes pierced the night as Will’s voice solicited my attention again.

             
“You’re the one, Jules, and I should have told you when you asked those years ago, but I knew it wasn’t the right time. I knew that you weren’t ready yet,” he confessed then.

             
“Ready?” I mumbled. My word was almost inaudible. I was noticeably shaken as my stare fell from the sky and to his structured face.

             
Will paused and took a deep breath, though his eyes never left the heavens. He seemed to have heard my mumble.

             
“Jules, you’ve always been the only one for me. I let life get in the way of us only to realize that I didn’t really have life without you in it. I didn’t take the record deal in search of some kind of fame or elusive fortune or anything like that. I didn’t take it for me, Jules. It’s been great. You were right; it’s all been great. But you know that I would have been just as happy to spend the rest of my days playing my guitar for my number-one fan,” he said.

             
Will stopped and smiled as he turned his head and caught my froze
n stare, which hadn’t left him.

             
Had he answered my question? What had I even asked? His words were the sound of heaven hitting earth, if it were a perfect world and if we hadn’t just lived the last ten years apart.

             
“But when I realized that I might not even get that dream – my dream of playing for you for the rest of my life – I remembered a promise you had made to me,” he continued.

             
My heart leapt, though I still didn’t quite know how to react. Had he really done all of this for me? Was that even possible? His confession made me either want to pull him close to me and be held in his arms even for just one last time or want to push him away and hate him for the rest of my days for keeping his secret all of these ye
ars.

             
“Why did you wait so long to tell me this?” I asked, puzzled and grateful and flattered and angry with him all at the same time. The words just seemed to fall out of my mouth. “I almost got married. You know that.” A sternness lingered in my voice.

             
Will turned on his side and rested his head on his hand. I knew that he could just barely see the delicate features that made up my face as he spoke again.

             
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “That hurt a little.” He now wore a half grin. “You know, Jules, after I had cooled off from the night I saw you wearing that ring, I had booked a ticket to San Diego to see you – to talk to you, to plead with you to give me another chance.”

             
“A ticket?” I whispered, puzzled.

             
His eyes caught mine again before he spoke.

             
“I did, but then I ran into Rachel the next day, and she told me that you had broken it off. Jules, I wish I could say that I knew all along that you wouldn’t go through with it, but I didn’t know for sure. I just prayed like hell you wouldn’t.”

             
A smile cracked my stoic exterior.

             
“Thanks, Will. I’m glad I had your best wishes,” I said, scolding him, half playfully, half seriously.

             
“I’m so sorry, Jules. I hadn’t really realized how fast everything had gone until it was too late. I was so busy trying to find a way to get you back that I kind of got lost along the way. And in the end, I decided not to go to
San Diego
. I thought it might be too much – you dealing with everything and me. I decided to give you some time. I know that whole situation couldn’t have been that much fun,” he added.

             
“It wasn’t, but I’ve moved past it,” I reassured him. My tone was even and to the point.

             
Will paused for a moment, and silence filled the air again. Then, he spoke.

             
“In the end, Jules, I knew you had wings – wings like no one I have ever met. You had your dreams, and they were bigger than this town, and they were bigger than me. I knew that, and I knew you. I would have loved to follow you and to be with you when you graduated college or got into law school or passed the bar. You passed, right?” he asked playfully.

             
I turned my face toward his and smiled gently again.

             
“I know,” he said, smiling back at me. “See, I would have loved to be there with you living your dreams. It kills me that I wasn’t. But I knew that I would have only slowed you down because my place was here. This was my calling,” he said, lightly tugging on the bottom of his shirt, below the small letters that I could now see that read:
St. Louis Fire Department
.

             
Will paused and looked down at my hand for the first time that night. He seemed to have noticed through the glimpses of light as the clouds rolled over the moon that my left hand now bore no ring, and he smiled slightly. I aimed to stifle his smile. There w
ere still unanswered questions.