My Butterfly

Chapter Seventeen Gone

“So, how’d it go the other night?” Jeff asked as he sauntered into the room, one big foot after the other.

“What?” I asked.

I was finishing up a paramedic class assignment and would rather not hear Jeff’s voice over it, but I knew we couldn’t always get what we wanted.

“The party,” he said.

I stared at the words on the page in front of me for a second longer before I looked up at him.

“You really have no idea?” I asked.

He was giving me a puzzled look.

“No, Jessica seemed kind of down at school,” he said. “I figured she found out you were still in love with Julia.”

I impatiently looked up at him, then leaned back in my chair and rubbed my eyes with my palms.

“Julia saw Jessica holding my hand, and she left the party early with Rachel,” I said. “When I got up to get a drink that last time, I was going to talk to her, but Rachel stopped me. They left right after that.”

“You were holding hands with Jessica?” he asked. “Dude, you weren’t supposed to hold her hand.”

“I know that,” I said. “She just grabbed it, and then all of a sudden, Julia was there in the doorway, and I was screwed.”

“She grabbed your hand?” he asked.

He had a disgusted look on his face.

I audibly sighed.

“Julia left, Jeff,” I said.

“Well, has she called?” he asked.

I flashed him another impatient look.

“No, idiot, it turns out holding another girl’s hand just makes the ex-girlfriend leave you quicker the second time,” I said. “How did I let you talk me into that?”

“Well, they’re supposed to call. They get jealous, and then they call,” he said.

“Jeff, she’s not going to call,” I said. “She’s not jealous. She’s gotta think that I’m the biggest jerk in the world right now.”

He planted his feet in front of me and leaned up against a tall stool.

“Oh,” he said.

His face turned a little more sympathetic.

“Well, that doesn’t sound all bad,” he said. “It means she cares that you were holding Jessica’s hand.”

He had a point — almost.

“But she never called,” I said. “Jeff, I told her that I wanted to marry her, and then a month later, I’m sitting on a couch holding some girl’s hand when she shows up in the doorway.”

“I just don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head. “It always works in the movies.”

“In the movies?” I exclaimed, letting out a frustrated groan, as I threw my head back and rubbed my eyes again.

“I’m doomed,” I said out loud.

“Dude, it can’t be that bad,” he said.

“No, I really screwed this up,” I said. “Rachel made that pretty clear.”

I watched Jeff’s eyes lower to the floor.

“She said something though,” I said, suddenly remembering back.

Jeff’s eyes traveled up toward mine again.

“Who? Julia?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Rachel. She said that I don’t know Jules as well as I think I do or something like that.”

Jeff’s eyebrows furrowed together.

“Well, of course you don’t,” he said. “She’s a girl. They think and feel things on a daily basis that we’ll never think or feel in a lifetime.”

A crooked smile shot to my lips.

“I guess you’re right, buddy,” I said.

Jeff paused for a second then before he opened his mouth again.

“So, you gonna call Jessica then?” he asked, hesitantly.

He was wearing two, sad eyes now.

“No, I told her I wasn’t ready for a relationship,” I said.

He seemed as if he wanted to smile but stymied it.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” he said.

My eyes fell back onto the book in front of me.

“Actually, I was thinking about giving Julia a call in a little while,” I said.

My eyes happened to catch Jeff’s face in midsentence. His features had positioned themselves in a way that just looked strange to me.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you think that’s such a good idea?” he asked.

“And I suppose you have another great plan,” I said.

“No, no more plans,” he promised. “I’m just…I’m not trying to suggest anything, but have you ever thought that maybe the two of you just aren’t meant for each other?”

A scowl replaced my puzzled look.

“Weren’t you the one who said, ‘Take Jessica to the party. Julia will be there. She’ll see the two of you. She’ll get jealous, and then she’ll come running back to you?’ Wasn’t that you?” I exclaimed.

He blankly stared at me.

“Hey, you admitted it was worth a shot,” he said.

“I know, but now you’re telling me to give up on her?” I asked.

The volume of my voice was rising.

“Listen,” he said, “New Year’s Eve was my fault. I’m man enough to admit it. In all honesty, I really thought it would work. I thought it would work for both of us. Instead, Julia hates you, and judging by her somber mood today, Jessica loves you even more.”

He let out a big sigh.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said. “It was a bad idea.”

I cradled my face in my hands and let out a frustrated grunt.

“It’s fine,” I eventually said. “I knew it wouldn’t work, but I did it anyway. Damn it! What do I do now?”

I directed my question not to Jeff but to myself, though I heard Jeff start to stutter.

“Um, I mean, I don’t always have the best ideas or say the right things,” he said.

My eyes, glazed over in sarcasm, found his.

“But I really am just looking out for you, buddy,” he continued. “And no one would be happier than me to see you and Julia together — and Jessica finally wise up and fall for me, of course.”

He stopped and cleared his throat.

“But have you ever thought that maybe Julia just isn’t coming back?” he asked.

His voice had grown sheepish.

“I mean, they go off into that big, college world, and they don’t come back, Will,” he said. “They don’t ever come back. I mean, name someone who’s come back.”

I paused and thought for a second, while names started scrolling through my mind. Most of the names were of people who had never “left” New Milford. The rest were names of people who had “left” and who had never come…

I stopped in mid-thought.

“Jeff, it’s Julia,” I said.

The words were gentle but deliberate.

Jeff paused and set his eyes on me again.

“Will, it could be Juliet, but the fact is, most times, they don’t come back, and you know it,” he said.

I sat back in my chair, as a dull pain began stabbing at the inside of my chest near my heart. Jeff kept talking, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I was starting to feel sick.

“Will,” I thought I heard him say.

“You all right, buddy?” he asked.

My eyes slowly turned up toward him. I must have had an uneasy look planted on my face or something because he was backing away from me and into the stair railing. I could always count on Jeff to run from trouble, even if it meant leaving me in it.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, finally.

Then, I was quiet. Jeff found the stool again in the meantime and slid back onto it. Then, we sat there, wallowing in our own thoughts for a reflective minute.

“I probably should have told you that you were never going to win Jessica that way either,” I eventually confessed.

Jeff’s eyes fell to the floor, and he shook his head.

“You always get the good ones,” he said, starting to crack a smile.

He looked back up at me and then raised the glass of water he had been holding in his hand.

“Here’s to moving on,” he said.

I stared at him for a second, then picked up the bottle of soda that sat in front of me and brought it to his glass.

“To moving,” I said, with a heavy half-smile.