My Butterfly

said, smiling wider.
    I followed her stare to a spot on the table then and watched as her smile started to fade. It looked as if she were thinking about something.
    “What?” I asked her.
    Her eyes quickly flashed back to mine.
    “Oh, nothing,” she said. “It’s just that it went by so fast.”
    I nodded my head as her eyes lingered for a second in mine.
    “Do you still play sometimes?” she asked.
    I pushed my lips together, thinking about the band and our weekend nights.
    “Sometimes,” I said.
    “Good,” she said, smiling again.
    I locked my eyes in hers then.
    “You know, I bet doctors come home smelling worse then ashes,” I said, cracking a smile. “Have you ever smelled the inside of a hospital?”
    “Will,” she playfully scolded.
    “Okay, okay,” I said. “But don’t say I never warned you.”
    She shot me that cute, pouty face that she stored in that arsenal of expressions she owned. She must have known that she was killin’ me. I let my eyes linger in hers a second too long, but she didn’t seem to mind. Jules was still in there somewhere. I took a deep breath in and then gradually let it out, as a knowing smile found its way back to my face.

Chapter Twenty-Three
    Fall
     
     
    “Y ou were on his emergency contacts,” I heard a voice say on the other side of the curtain.
    I felt my heart speed up, and my eyelids instantly fell shut. Emergency contacts . I had forgotten about that. I sat up straight and tried to make out my reflection in the black, television screen. I probably looked like hell.
    I combed back my hair with my fingers and then listened for Jules’s voice, but for several moments, there was only silence. My eyes darted back and forth from the curtain to the only piece of the door that I could see, as I anxiously rubbed my palms against the white blanket, subconsciously smoothing out its deep wrinkles. Then, finally, her thin frame emerged from the temporary wall. And her eyes instantly caught mine.
    “Hey, are you okay?” Julia asked.
    Her voice was soft and shaken. I was pretty sure I was expecting her to be pissed that I had uprooted her from doing whatever she had been doing more than a hundred miles away.
    “I’m fine,” I said. “If I would have known that they were going to call you, I would have told them not to.”
    “No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s okay. I mean, they really couldn’t tell me anything on the phone. What happened?”
    “Just an unlucky step, which led to an unlucky fall, that’s all,” I said. “In reality, it’s all kind of a blur. I remember feeling the heat from the flames. I remember stepping backward, and the next thing I remember is being here, in this bed.”
    “They said that it knocked you out, and your wrist…,” she started, her eyes falling to the cast on my arm.
    “Yeah, it’s broken, but it should heal pretty fast,” I said.
    I watched as she tried to force a smile.
    “Listen,” I said, “I’m really sorry that you had to drive all this way. It’s stupid. I’m fine. And it’s stupid that I even have you on the list. You were just the first person I thought of. It was a while ago, out of habit, I guess,” I lied, “and you never expect to ever have to need that list…”
    “Will, stop,” she said and then rested her hand on my good arm. “I’m just happy that you’re okay. You could’ve been…”
    I met her gaze.
    “But I wasn’t,” I said.
    I rested my eyes in hers and took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. Moments passed before either one of us spoke.
    “The nurse said that you were wearing this when you came in,” she eventually said, opening her palm up to me.
    Inside, was the silver pin with the angel pulling up the firefighter. I took it from her hand. My eyes traced every line that made up the metal pin, trying to recall, first, the moments that led to my fall, and second, the percentage of good men and women who didn’t make it past a fall like that. And after a minute, I looked back up to find Julia’s eyes clouding with tears.
    “Jules,” I said, trying to reach for her but getting pulled back by the IVs still attached to me. “I wear it all the time. I’m here because of it. I’m fine because of it.”
    My eyes followed over the sad lines in her face.
    “Come here,” I said then, gesturing her closer to me.
    I scooted over as much as I could in the tiny bed and used my good arm to pat the small space on the mattress I had just made for her.
    She