My Butterfly

bear that always sat in the corner of the room. And while I didn’t so much miss the bear, I did miss everything else—everything that made this room Jules’s.
    I watched Mrs. Lang pull open the closet door and tug on a beaded strand, which immediately lit the little room.
    “Now, I know I saw them when I was packing away her things, so they’re in here somewhere,” she said, pulling down a shoe box from a shelf. “ Somewhere is the keyword.”
    She smiled at us and opened the shoe box.
    “Here, Mrs. L, I’ll help you look,” Rachel said, jumping up from the bed.
    I glanced at the two of them in the closet, rooting through years of Julia’s life, now in boxes.
    “Let me know if I can do anything,” I said to them, rocking back on my heels.
    They were talking quietly to each other, so I wasn’t even sure if they had heard me. I felt uncomfortable all of a sudden being in Julia’s room without her being there. My eyes wandered around again, as I fell into the place on the bed that Rachel had just been. The room was painted a light greenish color now. The curtains were all white and in that material with all the holes in it. And there was a big picture of a field of flowers. The flowers were purple. Maybe they were for Jules—a lasting piece of her favorite color when everything else of hers was in boxes.
    Suddenly, I heard giggling from the closet, and then I felt a soft, stuffed thing hit the side of my head.
    “Remember that?” Rachel asked.
    I collected myself and then spotted a small, stuffed animal that kind of resembled a cat lying on the floor. I smiled and bent over to retrieve it.
    “Julia loved that thing for some reason,” Rachel said.
    I ran my fingers over the stuffed animal’s glass eyes and sewn-on nose. Furballs. It was uglier than I had remembered it; though, the memory was far from ugly. I smiled to myself.
    “I think I found them,” Rachel screamed just then.
    My eyes quickly turned up toward the closet just in time to see Rachel pull out a bouquet of butterfly weeds from a cardboard box. She smiled and held the flowers out toward me.
    “Your flowers, sir,” she said, with a big grin tattooed to her face.
    I stood up, walked over to her and took the flowers into my hands. The last time I had held them, her jeep was packed, her smile was wide, and her dreams were waiting—to escort her right out of my life.
    “Now, go get your fight, Will,” Rachel said, squeezing my arm.
    I looked up at the two of them and smiled.
    “Thank you,” I said, before returning my gaze to the butterfly weeds now cradled in my hands.

Chapter Forty
    The Concert
     
     
    “H ey, Rach, you made it,” I said.
    “Of course I made it,” Rachel said, shooting me a strange look.
    She eyed me up and down once.
    “She’ll be here,” she eventually said.
    I shifted my weight and tried to force a smile.
    “But how do you know?” I asked.
    “I know Julia,” she said. “She didn’t have to say she’d be here for me to know she’d be here.”
    There were too many heres in her sentence, and I got lost somewhere in there, but it didn’t matter. I knew the moral of her story. I just hoped it rang true.
    Suddenly then, Rachel grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to her.
    “Now, if you don’t tell her that you love her TONIGHT,” she whispered near my ear, “I’ll cut your balls off and sell you for bacon.”
    I was tongue-tied when she finally released my arm from her death grip, but sometime during her threat, a happy grin had also managed to find its way to my face.
    “Now, go break a leg,” she said, shoving me hard in the bicep.
    I shook my head as I watched her dance to her seat at the front of the stage. Then, I took a deep breath in and caught a glimpse of the guy I had been looking for.
    “Uh, hey, Alex, got a favor for ya,” I said, grabbing his attention.
    Alex stopped and faced me.
    “Whatcha need?” he asked.
    I pulled out a photo of Julia from the inside pocket of my jacket and held it out to him. He took it in his hands and examined it.
    “Pretty girl,” he said and then looked back up at me.
    I smiled to myself.
    “You mind telling me if you see her in the crowd?” I asked him.
    He slowly nodded his head.
    “Sure, Will,” he said.
    Then, I brought my face closer to his and lowered my voice.
    “Is there any way you could let me know if you happen to see her during the concert?” I asked.
    He looked into my eyes and then back at the photo.
    “Uh, yeah, sure,” he