My Butterfly

Prologue

I’ve only got one story to tell, and it’s about a girl, and it starts with you. But first I’ve got to do this one thing because I worry if I wait a second longer, I’ll lose even more of what I’ve already lost. I promise, though, there is a method behind my madness. And if everything goes to plan, you’ll see why very soon.

But like I said, I’ve got this story to tell, though I don’t yet know the ending. All I know is that it can end only one of two ways — with or without you. But despite which way fate will have it, the way I see it, I’m left the same — still in love with the one that got away.

You’ve given me hell, Julia Lang, just by being you. But then what’s love if it ain’t worth the fight? And I’ve got some fight still left in me.

“Are you ready, Will?” a young man with shaggy hair asks from the other side of the glass.

I anxiously readjust the big microphone hovering above me.

“Yeah,” I eventually say.

A restless sigh is attached.

“Okay,” I hear the man say, “I’m going to start the track.”

I look through the glass and slowly nod my head.

My palms are sweaty; my heart is pounding. But it isn’t the young man on the other side of the glass or the taller man sitting next to him who is making me sweat. It isn’t even that I am about to sing in front of them or that I am here at all. In fact, now, right now, I only have one thought cycling over and over in my mind. The only reason I am standing here, gripping an old, metal pin as if it were my lifeline, praying my silent prayers continuously in my head and replaying all the memories that have led me to this place is for a chance that she will hear this song.

I suspect that she doesn’t know it’s coming. But I also pray that she hasn’t forgotten her promise. I pray silently that this song will make her stop, will make her remember — a different time, years ago, lifetimes ago.

A soft melody starts playing in my headset. I press the metal pin tighter against my palm. I am waiting for my cue, my lips almost touching the mesh in front of the mic. Then, suddenly, as if by instinct, my mouth opens, and my first words fill the tiny, soundproof room. And my only thought is: Here goes everything.