My Butterfly

could see from where you were standing, but from where I was standing, the place was packed, and they were all loving it.”
    My eyes darted to the ground again, as we rounded the outside of the bar and made our way to the sidewalk in front of it.
    “So, what brought you to this side of town tonight?” I asked her.
    She seemed to hesitate before she spoke.
    “Oh, you know, stuff,” she said. “So, how have you been? It’s been awhile.”
    I slowly nodded my head.
    “It has,” I agreed. “I’ve been doing well. I took a leave of absence from the station. They were surprisingly pretty cool about it. We’re doing this tour thing now.”
    She softly laughed, and I turned to examine her face.
    “What?” I asked.
    “It’s nothing,” she said. “I just…you’re such a big deal, and there’s a part of me that feels starstruck, but then there’s that other part of me that doesn’t even realize I’m talking to someone who was just on national television not too long ago.”
    I caught an almost bashful-looking stare beaming from her face, and I smiled.
    “The TV thing really wasn’t that big of a deal,” I said. “Honestly, I just wanted to get out of the dressing room before Chris broke one of the fancy decorations in there and we had to use our money we needed to get back home to pay for it. Really, though, it doesn’t feel any different.”
    She laughed to herself.
    “It’s just kind of surreal, I guess,” she said.
    I felt my smile grow a little bit wider.
    “I guess,” I admitted.
    We reached the diner minutes later, and I opened the door for her again. Then, we found a small table in the back of the room and slid into it. A waitress, maybe in her sixties, sauntered over soon after, flipped open a pad of paper and grabbed a pen from behind her ear.
    “What can I get ya, honey?”
    She didn’t even bother looking up. Jessica smiled at me and then glanced at her menu.
    “I’ll just have a cup of coffee,” she said.
    The waitress’s pen didn’t move.
    “What about you, hon?” she asked, turning her face slightly in my direction.
    “I’ll just take some water,” I said, turning over the menu in my hand. “And maybe some of your cheese fries.”
    The woman scribbled something onto her pad.
    “Thanks,” I said, attempting to hand her the menu.
    She gestured toward the end of the table where a stack of menus already sat and then sauntered off without another word.
    I smiled to myself and then slid the menu behind the ketchup bottle. And when I looked back up, Jessica’s eyes were on me.
    “This is a no-nonsense diner, Will,” she said.
    “I see,” I said, chuckling.
    “So, Jeff said you got a job in South County,” I said.
    She nodded her head.
    “I did,” she said. “Turns out, they were looking for nurses.”
    “How do you like it?” I asked.
    She smiled.
    “I love it,” she said. “It took a little while getting used to the shifts, but now, I can’t imagine working a nine-to-five.”
    “That’s good,” I said.
    The waitress returned then with the coffee and water. She set the two onto the table and disappeared again.
    “So, what’s Jeff doing tonight?” I asked. “Isn’t he usually bumming around with you if he’s not with me?”
    She started to smile, but then it kind of faded.
    “I don’t know,” she said and then stopped.
    “Listen, Jessica,” I said. “I know he likes to talk, and most of the time, he doesn’t know when to stop, but he’s really a good guy.”
    I watched a smile finally find its way to her lips.
    “I know,” she said.
    “Cheese fries,” the waitress said, sliding a platter of fries across the table.
    “Thanks,” I said to the woman, who quickly vanished again without a word.
    “Cheese fry?” I asked Jessica, giving her my best enticing face, while holding out a soggy fry covered in the yellow stuff.
    She laughed.
    “I’m fine,” she said.
    I popped the soggy fry into my mouth.
    “Will,” she said.
    Her voice had changed, and it instantly got my attention. I met her eyes just before they left mine for a spot on the table’s surface in between us.
    “I wasn’t just in the area,” she confessed, returning her eyes to mine. “I heard you were playing here, and I decided to come see you.”
    She paused, but I didn’t say anything. She had gotten serious all of a sudden, and I was trying to figure out why.
    I watched her take a breath and then let it out.
    “I’ve been holding onto something for quite a long