by Laura Miller
“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll be right there.”
I turned around again and glanced one more time into the mirror and then at the angel in between my fingers.
“I feel like I can’t get to you fast enough,” I whispered under my breath.
Then, I slid the pin back into my pocket and pressed it against my heart.
...
“Good morning, New York City,” I yelled into the microphone.
Just then, a roar of screams echoed off the tall buildings that surrounded us. It was loud—louder than I had expected. And there was a row of people pressed up against the stage below us—girls, guys, kids.
I looked back at Chris and smiled.
He nodded his head once and smiled back.
“This is our first time in New York City,” I yelled into the microphone again.
The crowd screamed louder.
It seemed as if every time I said the words New York City, the volume of the place increased ten times. I waited for the cheers to die down a little, and then I continued.
“We’re just some small-town, Missouri firefighters who decided one day to start a little band, and we’re happy you invited us into your little town,” I finished.
I smiled then and lowered the mic as the crowd seemed to erupt. And within seconds, Matt started a count, and a melody came pouring through the speakers surrounding us. I readjusted the strap across my chest; my guitar was slung behind me. Then, I casually touched my heart, feeling for my guardian angel, before I gripped the mic with both hands and brought it to my mouth. And just before my first words pushed past my lips and out into the crowd, I thought about her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jessica
I had just gotten the last of the cords wound up and off the stage, and Daniel and Chris were taking what was left of the equipment to the truck. Matt had already taken off. His cousin was getting married in Springfield the next day, and he was driving through the night.
I stuffed the final cord into a plastic container and hoisted the container up into my arms when I heard my name. The voice was soft and kind of timid.
I turned, and through the dark with only glimpses of red and white stage lights, I made out a girl.
“Jessica,” I said.
I watched her shy face grow a smile.
“You’re back in Missouri,” she said.
I lowered my eyes as I felt a smile creeping to my face. It felt good to be home.
“Yeah, we got back earlier this week,” I said.
“Well, I was in the area, and I saw that you were playing, and I just thought I would stop by,” she said.
Just then, Daniel came in through the back door and stopped in between us. He looked at me and then at Jessica and then back at me again.
“Uh, I think we’ve got everything loaded,” he said. “Is this the last one?”
His eyes were planted on the plastic container still in my arms.
“Uh, yeah,” I said.
He grabbed the container.
“We’re going to go ahead and take off,” he said, looking back at Jessica and then at me. “You’ve got your car, right?”
“What?” I asked.
“Your car—to get home,” he said.
Daniel flashed me a cheesy grin.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, nodding my head.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said.
Then, he bobbed his head at me, smiled at Jessica and then hurried again toward the back door.
My eyes followed him until he disappeared.
“You guys are really good,” Jessica said.
I met Jessica’s gaze again.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling and tossing my eyes to the floor.
There was silence between us for a moment.
“Look, I know this place is closing, but I saw a diner at the end of the street,” she said. “Maybe we could catch up.”
I looked up and caught her soft stare.
“Uh, sure,” I said, nodding my head.
For some reason, I felt strangely awkward around her all of a sudden. She didn’t seem to be with Jeff. I wasn’t used to her showing up without him.
“Okay, well, let’s go this way,” I said, eyeing the back door.
She smiled and then walked toward the exit. I followed after her but then reached out and pulled the door open for her.
“So, this is how you avoid all of your adoring fans,” she exclaimed.
A coy smile was planted on her face.
I laughed.
“Of course, didn’t you see the ten people that were in there?” I asked. “It would have taken us at least two, whole minutes to get to the front door.”
Jessica’s smile widened. She seemed confident again—a little closer to how I had remembered her from that New Year’s Eve night years ago.
“You are crazy,” she said. “Will, I don’t know what you 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 time now, and I just can’t hold onto it anymore,” she said.
I swallowed the fry and sat back in the booth.
“Remember New Year’s Eve years ago?” she asked. “The night you said that you weren’t ready for a relationship yet?”
I wished I didn’t, but unfortunately, I did remember it.
I nodded my head.
“Well, I didn’t understand until later,” she said. “I put the pieces together, and Jeff, without telling me outright, helped me fill in the holes along the way.”
She paused for a second.
“And I guess I’m just wondering if you’re ready yet,” she said.
Her eyes remained in mine. I shifted my weight in the booth and struggled to take a staggered breath and then to say something. But I had no words.
After a moment in my eyes, Jessica found the spot on the table in front of us again.
“It was Julia, wasn’t it?” she asked, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.
Her eyes turned up, and I met her gaze again.
“The girl on your dashboard and the girl from the party,” she said. “And she was the one at your ceremony and with you in the hospital that day—that was her, wasn’t it?”
I swallowed hard. All the things I thought she hadn’t seen, she had.
I lowered my head and then slowly nodded. Then, I heard her softly clearing her throat.
“It still is, isn’t it?” she asked.
I gradually looked up and met her eyes. Then, I nodded a second time.
“Do you think she’ll come back?” she asked.
I sat there motionless for a moment. That question always made my heart sink. Eventually, though, I shrugged my shoulders.
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head.
I watched a sad smile form on her lips.
“You must really love her,” she said.
I took a deep breath and then slowly nodded my head once again.
“I do,” I simply said.
...
I paid the bill and walked Jessica to her car a block over from the diner. I waited as she unlocked the door and slid behind the steering wheel. There were tears in her eyes. I hopelessly watched as she tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand.
This was all my fault. If I could go back and change that night and the days that led up to it, I would. I would do everything differently.
“I’m sorry, Jessica,” I said. “I never meant…”
She waved her hand and stopped me short.
“It was worth a shot,” she said, smiling up at me. “But I should have known that I couldn’t compete with her memory.”
She paused for a moment then before she spoke again. I could still see the tears in her eyes.
“Take care, Will,” she said.
I gently smiled. Then, I watched as she planted her eyes straight ahead and then pulled away.
The walk back to Lou was full of thoughts, but there was only one of those thoughts I just couldn’t shake.
Once I was back inside my truck, I let out a deep sigh and then stared into the steering wheel.
What was I doing?
I was waiting. I was waiting for Jules, on her own time, to realize that she still loved me. Damn, that sounds crazy. But, somehow, I truly believed that she still did, and that in time, she would realize it. Does that make me crazy?
If she could just set aside everything that came with life for just one moment, I believed that she would see what I see. If she could just hear the song—if I could just get the song to her ears—maybe she would stop and remember us. Maybe.
I broke my stare from the steering wheel and anxiously started searching for my phone in the pocket of my jeans. My heart was racing by the time my fingers touched its rounded edge. I quickly pulled it out and glanced at its screen. Then, I rested a finger on the second number. I held it there for long, drawn-out moments before I just simply couldn’t take it any longer, and I sent the phone dialing her digits.
Another second went by before I slowly brought the phone to my ear and took a deep breath and held it hostage inside my lungs. Then, when I heard the first ring, I allowed the breath to steadily escape past my lips. There was a second ring, and my heart sank lower. A third ring rattled through the phone, and my mind prepared for the message I would most likely have to leave. And after another ring, I heard a recording of her sweet voice pick up. Then, all too soon, I heard the screeching sound of the beep, and I froze. I didn’t know if a second had gone by or four or five when my eyes finally fell shut and my mouth opened.
“Julia, I love you,” I said into the phone.
Long moments ambled by before a woman’s voice poured through the speaker and asked me if I was satisfied with my message. I took a second and stared into the phone’s screen. Then, I pressed a number on its dial pad.
I heard the woman’s voice again: “If you would like to delete your message and rerecord, press three.”
My finger hovered over the keypad and then finally forced down a number.
“Your message has been deleted,” the woman’s voice said.
I threw the phone at the passenger’s seat and slammed my palm hard against the steering wheel. Then, I took a deep breath and tried to swallow years’ worth of regret. Knives stabbed at my chest, and I felt a warm liquid collecting behind my eyes as I collapsed onto the wheel. It had been so long, and now, I felt as if I were falling apart at the seams. What if she didn’t come back? What if she didn’t remember her promise? What if I had already lost her? I hated those thoughts, but in reality, none of them compared to the thought of losing her twice.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Even
I opened the screen door and let it swing back into its place behind me as I stepped into the tiny bar. There was music playing on an old juke box, as usual, and the place smelled of burgers and fried food—as usual.
“Hey, Annie,” I said, when I planted my feet at the bar.
“Oh, hey, Will.”
The round woman in her late fifties turned and glanced up at me.
“I’ve got your cheeseburger comin’ right up,” she said.
I smiled at the woman, then turned my attention to the rest of the bar.
The room was dimly lit. It always was.
“Hey, man,” Ben called out from behind the bar. “You off tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Is Rachel here? I saw her car outside.”
Ben’s eyes locked on mine.
“She’s not the only one here, buddy,” he said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him over the music.
I followed his stare to the other side of the room. Then, I saw her. Her face was cast down. I didn’t know if she had seen me. I felt my heart jump, and I grabbed the edge of the bar top as my eyes wondered back to Ben.
“I’ll, uh…,” I said, not even bothering to finish my sentence, as I nodded and took my first step toward her.
Each step after that was like a small journey in itself. My feet were heavy. I couldn’t get to her fast or slow enough. I wanted time to think of what to say, but I also just wanted to get to her.
“Jules,” I said, right before I reached her.
Her name just fell off my tongue, absent of any real brain function, I was sure.
“What? When? How have ya been?” I asked.
I felt the words pile up in my mouth and then just stumble off my lips.
She stood up from the table, and I leaned in and then wrapped her up into my arms.
“I got in today,” she said.
I pulled away and held her shoulders in my palms. She was smiling. It seemed as if there were something behind her smile, but bottom line, she was smiling, and it made me smile too.
I pulled her close again and squeezed her body against mine for another several seconds. It was probably out of character, but damn it, I didn’t even know how to act normal around her anymore.
I spotted Rachel out of the corner of my eye and then slowly released Julia.
“Hey, Rach. How are ya?” I asked, turning my attention to Rachel for a few seconds.
“Good, Will,” she said. “Doing well. Jon says ‘hi,’ by the way.”
“Where’s he tonight?” I asked her.
“Hunting trip,” she said. “Canada. Needless to say, I sat that one out.”
Her eyebrows arched to the ceiling of the tiny bar, and then, a sound from the juke box made me stop. I met Julia’s eyes again. They were already smiling.
“You want to dance…for old times’ sake?” I asked.
