My Butterfly

town.
    ...
    Donna’s was filling up, no doubt because of all of the people in town for the parade. Julia and I quickly found a corner booth and slid in. A few seconds later, I watched as a shorter boy with shaggy hair and a Donna’s Café polo noticed us and shuffled toward our booth.
    “Hey, man, congrats on your guys’ win,” the boy said after he had planted his feet at the end of our table.
    I looked up at him. He had a cheesy grin on his face, and he was wearing a pin with our mascot on it.
    “Thanks,” I said, through a smile.
    “Hey, Adam,” Julia warmly said.
    “Hi, Julia,” the boy replied, cowering a little.
    He looked at her a little too long with that cheesy grin of his. Julia had already returned her eyes to the menu, so she didn’t even notice. I cleared my throat, which seemed to do the trick. It broke the boy’s stare, and he started instinctively scribbling something onto his little notepad. It couldn’t be words.
    His pen eventually stopped, and he looked up and caught my stare. I was pretty sure I had a puzzled, though now slightly intrigued, look on my face. It was interesting how he had been so drawn to her to the point that I might as well have been invisible. But I couldn’t be mad at him. He probably only saw what I had always seen in her.
    “Uh, I’ll just give you guys some time to decide then,” the boy said, smiling awkwardly.
    I watched him jam the little pad of paper back into his pocket and scurry off.
    My eyes fell back onto Julia then. She was still looking at the menu. I had a smile on my face that I couldn’t imagine wiping off.
    “Cheeseburger or chicken strips?” she asked me, without looking up.
    I heard her, but her words sounded more like a song than a question, so I failed to answer her.
    Her eyes eventually turned up toward mine, and soon, her lips broke out into a smile.
    “Cheeseburger it is,” she said.
    She glanced at the paper menu one more time and then slid it behind a ketchup bottle against the window.
    “So, how does it feel to be a state champion?” she asked.
    My eyes faltered, and a laugh followed.
    “Pretty good,” I admitted. “But I’m not so sure it’s better than this.”
    She stared at me for a second and then laughed.
    “You’re ridiculous,” she said. “I know that every one of you guys have been dreaming of a basketball state championship ever since the day you picked up a ball.”
    I lowered my eyes and chuckled to myself.
    “Julia Lang,” I said, pausing and then returning my eyes to hers.
    “If you only knew how many cheesy Valentine’s cards I wrote you that never reached you,” I said.
    She stopped and sent me a slightly puzzled look.
    “Yeah, I know it might seem like I’m head over heels for a girl I barely know, but I know more about you than you think,” I said.
    “Really?” she asked.
    She sat back in the booth and smiled, in a challenging kind of way.
    “Really,” I said.
    Her suspicious eyes locked onto mine.
    “You guys ready to order?” asked the boy, in a high-pitched, cracking voice.
    He had reappeared from out of nowhere.
    Julia looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back, held his stare a second too long, then quickly hurled his gaze in my direction.
    I knew I must have given him a puzzled look again because he quickly forced his eyes back to his notepad and started scribbling nonsense again.
    Eventually, my puzzled stare left the boy and caught Julia’s bright green eyes, and I smiled.
    “I’ll have the cheeseburger with fries,” she said, her eyes still locked in mine.
    I’ll have the same,” I said, only taking my eyes off of her long enough to make sure the shaggy-haired boy had gotten our order.
    He finished scribbling onto his pad and then quickly disappeared.
    “So, we played on tractors together when we were kids,” she said, now resting her elbows on the table, her hands under her chin. “That hardly counts as ‘knowing me.’”
    I chuckled and sat back in the booth.
    “Okay,” I said. “Fair enough. What about the basketball game in junior high when you broke your arm?”
    I watched her brows dart together and her eyes squint a little.
    “You were there?” she asked.
    “I was,” I said. “I had my mom drop me off. We almost got lost finding the place. Turns out, those little, rural schools are pretty well-hidden.”
    She slowly sat back in the booth again. She seemed to be thinking—back, maybe.
    “You didn’t cry,” I said.
    Her lips started to part into a