My Butterfly

in a breath and swallowed hard.
    “Jules, I know I let life get in the way of us, and I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry. But I didn’t take the record deal in search of some kind of fame or elusive fortune or anything like that. I didn’t take it for me, Jules. It’s been great. You were right; it’s all been great. But you know that I would have been just as happy to spend the rest of my days playing my guitar for my number-one fan.”
    I turned onto my side and faced her. Her eyes were still on me.
    “But when I realized that I might not even get that dream—my dream of playing for you for the rest of my life—I remembered a promise you had made to me,” I said.
    I paused and watched as a word formed on her soft lips.
    “Why did you wait so long to tell me this?” she asked. “I had thought that you had moved on. I moved on. I almost got married. You know that.”
    Her voice was stern, but I felt the corner of my mouth slowly lifting into a boyish grin despite it.
    “Yeah, seeing the ring hurt just a little,” I said.
    Her expression didn’t change, and then I knew she wasn’t in the mood for any of my stupid jokes. I lowered my eyes and then took a deep breath and slowly forced it out.
    “You know, Jules, I wish I could say that I knew all along that you wouldn’t go through with it—that you wouldn’t marry him—but I didn’t know for sure,” I confessed. “I just prayed like hell that you would realize he wasn’t the one for you.”
    I watched a smile fight its way to her pretty face. It was playful but also laced with sarcasm.
    “Thanks, Will,” she said. “I’m glad I had your best wishes.”
    My eyes fell to a spot on the sedan’s hood before they returned to her.
    “I’m so sorry, Jules,” I said. “I hadn’t really realized how fast everything had gone until it was too late. I was so busy trying to find a way to get you back—listening to every piece of advice from every person who would give it—that I kind of got lost along the way.”
    I stopped to take a breath.
    “And Jules, I knew you had wings—wings like no one I have ever met,” I went on. “You had your dreams, and they were bigger than this town, and they were bigger than me. I knew that, and I knew you. I would have loved to follow you and to be with you when you graduated college or got into law school or passed the bar. I would have loved to be there with you living your dreams. It kills me that I wasn’t.”
    My smile faded then, and my eyelids fell over my eyes, as her soft voice hit my ears again.
    “Will,” she said, “when it was all said and done, it hurt, and I was hurting. I just needed time to figure things out, but that day—that day we broke up—it was like you had already given up on us.”
    I forced my eyes open.
    “Jules, I was foolish,” I pleaded. “I shouldn’t have let you walk out of my life. I should have protested. I should have fought for you, but I was young, and I thought you would change your mind in a short while and come back to me. And more than that, I was selfish. I wanted all of you, and I wanted you to want me too. And, believe me, I wanted to tell you. God knows I wanted to tell you so many times, but you see, I had to wait. I loved you too much to lose you twice.”
    There was silence again as my last few words fell off my lips and hit the empty space between us.
    “Will, I loved you,” she eventually said.
    Her words were gentle, but they still managed to sting.
    “We were going to get married and grow wrinkly together,” she continued. “But you made me a different person, Will. I was fighting for survival in the last days we were together. You made me never want to hurt like that again.”
    I watched her chest rise and then fall. Then, her eyes seemed to get caught on a spot somewhere up in that big sky.
    “Jules, I’m so sorry,” I pleaded. “But you’ve got to know that the longer I waited, the more my heart broke.”
    She turned to me again, and I caught her stare.
    “My ship sank, Jules, and my plan failed, and before I knew it, I was lost without you,” I continued. “Even though I could no longer wrap you up into my arms or kiss your pretty forehead, I still saw you.”
    I paused for a moment and swallowed hard before I continued. I could feel the lump forming in my throat.
    “You haunted my nights and then even my days,” I said. “I lived for sleep at times when you would come to me, and it would be just like you had never