My Butterfly

satisfaction, smiled and then returned my head to the windshield.
    “Jules,” I said then.
    She turned her face toward mine, and I locked my eyes in hers.
    “I’m glad you said yes ,” I said.
    She was quiet for a moment.
    “Me too,” she said.

Chapter Seven
    Fireworks
     
     
    J ules tugged at my hand and pulled me forward. I hesitated for a moment to let a little kid with a stick of ice cream in his hand run in between us. There were people all around us and little booths lined the narrow street, selling everything from balloon animals to bratwursts.
    “Look, Will,” Jules exclaimed, scooping up a cat from a big pile of stuffed animals.
    “I want him,” she said, sending me her best pleading face—batting eyelashes, pouty lips and all.
    “You want that?” I asked, eyeing the stuffed cat.
    It looked pretty ugly to me.
    “Aren’t its eyes a little big for its head?” I asked.
    Her own eyes turned down toward the cat clutched within her small hands, and I watched as her fingers carefully traced over the cat’s big, glass eyes.
    “They’re perfect,” she said, looking back up at me. “They remind me of this cat, Furballs, I had when I was little.”
    I couldn’t help but cringe a little at the thought of a real cat looking that ugly. Then, I looked back at Jules’s unwavering eyes and felt a smile breaking across my face.
    “We’ll take Furballs,” I said into the booth.
    The old man in the booth gave me a bewildered look.
    “The cat,” I said, pointing to the stuffed animal.
    “Aah,” he said, nodding his head. “Good choice.”
    I held a suspicious stare on the man in the booth, until I felt Julia’s arms around my neck.
    “Thank you,” she said, into my chest. “I loved Furballs.”
    I laughed. I loved her—and that’s the only reason why ugly Furballs had a home now.
    I handed the man in the booth a bill.
    “Thanks,” I said and then turned back toward Jules.
    “Now, come on,” I said, squeezing her body tightly against mine before reaching for her hand. “You ready for our hike?”
    I watched her turn and set her sights on the towering bluff above us. Then, she took a big, exaggerated breath and then slowly let it out.
    “Come on,” I said. “I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”
    Her eyes immediately grew wide.
    “All the way up?” she asked.
    “Sure,” I said.
    She was grinning and shaking her head by the time I met her eyes again.
    “You would never make it all the way up that bluff with me on your back,” she said.
    “Is that a bet, Miss Lang?” I asked her.
    She smiled wide.
    “That’s definitely a bet,” she said.
    “Okay,” I said. “You and Mr. Furballs, hop on.”
    I clutched the quilt I had been carrying since the car in one arm and hunched over. Then, I felt her weight on my back seconds later.
    “Is Mr. Furballs on too?” I asked, cocking my head to the side and trying my best to look behind me.
    All of sudden, an unattractive cat came flying into my line of vision.
    “All right,” I said. “We’ve got Mr. Furballs. Let’s go.”
    I made my first hundred feet up the path without much trouble, even though every once in a while I had to maneuver over a fallen tree limb or carve my on trail through some overgrown weeds.
    “You still okay?” I heard her ask after I had just successfully scaled a pile of brush.
    “Oh,” I said, stopping for a second. “You’re still there?”
    She laughed and tightened her arms around my neck. I felt Furballs press up against my ear as I started up the path again. The truth was my feet were starting to feel heavy and my quads burned like hell, but this was a bet I wasn’t going to lose.
    Finally, I could see the clearing at the top of the bluff. And there were only about a hundred feet to go, but each step was beginning to take everything in me.
    I heard Julia’s soft laughter behind me again.
    “Will,” she said. “I’ll just walk. It’s okay.”
    “No,” I said. “I’m fine. We do hills like this all the time in basketball conditioning.”
    She laughed again.
    “You run up bluffs, Will,” she sarcastically said, “with people on your back?”
    I stopped for a second.
    “Well, we might as well,” I said, trying my best to laugh through the pain.
    I took another labored step. I was only about ten feet away now and feeling every foot. But just then, my shoe caught a root or something, and I tried to catch myself but didn’t have the energy. I stumbled and realized I was heading right