My Butterfly

myself, having just added up the math mid-sentence, and allowed my eyes to rest on her.
    She was searching on the stage now, probably not even paying attention to me. I smiled as I watched her turn over sweaty, hockey jerseys just before scrunching up her nose and flinging them back down.
    “I’m not leaving here until I find that ball,” she said.
    I took a second to think, and after a quick moment, I had a plan.
    “I’ll help you find it,” I blurted out.
    I anxiously looked around the gym. I knew I had to find that ball before she did or my plan would be foiled, and she would be out the door to help Jeff, who, by the way, has had an A in math since the first grade. In fact, he was the reason I had passed algebra in junior high. That little weasel.
    Suddenly, my eye caught a white, round object out of its corner. I looked closer and spotted a ball tucked away behind a set of bleachers on the other side of the gym. I glanced back at Julia. She was rooting through the ball closet near the stage. I slowly started to mosey my way over toward the ball, trying not to bring any attention to my find.
    “We’ll find it,” I reassured her.
    I eventually planted my feet in front of the ball and acted as if I hadn’t seen it.
    “Hey, why don’t you go look out in the hallway, in case it bounced out there or something,” I said. “I’ll look for it under these bleachers.”
    She looked my way with a disheveled face, almost as if she had just noticed that I was still there. But then, without a word, she sauntered off into the hallway. I watched her disappear behind the glass-paned doors, and then I quickly reached for the volleyball and scooped it up. I turned it over. It was her ball all right. Her name was etched in its stretched material in black, permanent marker, right above her volleyball number. I spun it around in my hands as my eyes darted toward the glass-paned doors again. Then, my mind in auto pilot, I scanned the room, thinking. I saw bleachers, some exercise machines and a couple of wooden blocks—none of which would work. I let my head fall back in desperation. And then I saw it—the rafters high above me. There was already a ball stuck up there, and this one would give it some company. I took the volleyball in one hand and arched it behind my head. Then, I lobbed it up into the air. It hit a beam in the rafters and came colliding back to the hardwood floor. The ball bounced only once before I scurried over to it, scooped it up and glanced again toward the doors. There was still no sign of her. I retook my place and tried it once more. This time, the ball hit the inside of one of the beams, slightly knocked the other ball and then wedged itself in between the ball already there and the beam. Success.
    “Will,” a voice suddenly called out from behind me, causing my body to stiffen.
    I turned quickly on my heels to Rachel standing there, staring at me. She had a questioning look plastered across her face, and I couldn’t tell what she was questioning exactly—why I was throwing a ball into the rafters or why I was standing there alone staring at the rafters. What had she seen?
    “Hi, Rach,” I stuttered.
    She squinted her eyes, as if she were shaking off a thought.
    “Have you seen Julia?” she eventually asked.
    I thought about her question for a second. If Rachel were to find Julia, she might tell Jules what I had just done—if she had, in fact, seen what I had just done—and then I’d be busted. Or she could end up chauffeuring Jules off somewhere to look at shoes or a furry caterpillar or something until Julia forgot about her ball and had to go see Jeff. And then I would have thrown that dumb ball up in the rafters for nothing.
    “Uh-uh, nope, haven’t seen her,” I said, being careful not to look her in the eyes until after I was done lying.
    She stared at me with a suspicious glare.
    “O-kay,” she said, her eyes burning a hole straight through my forehead. “Well, if you do, tell her I’m looking for her.”
    “Will do,” I said.
    Then, I smiled at her and casually strolled back toward the stage.
    When I reached the base of the stage, I turned and glanced back at the doorway that Rachel had just been standing in, staring at me with her cat eyes. She was gone. I let out a sigh of relief.
    “It’s not out there either,” I heard Julia say.
    I quickly turned my attention to the other side of the gym.
    “Here,” I said, holding out my phone. “Call Jeff. Tell him that