by Laura Miller
My eyes traveled from her hand to the color in her eyes. Then, I cautiously climbed onto the car’s hood, leaned my back against the windshield and made myself comfortable, all the while, trying my best to conceal the object in my hand.
“Did you know I was here?” she asked.
There was a suspicious air attached to her question. I was quiet for a second but then turned my face toward hers.
“Of course. Where else would you be?” I asked.
I watched her pause in what looked as if it was a thought.
“But how? I never…,” she started.
“Oh, you want to know how I knew you came at all?” I asked.
“That would be a start,” she said, shooting me a coy smile.
“You promised,” I said.
“Wait, you remembered that?” she asked.
“Of course, and from the looks of it, you did too,” I said, gently elbowing her arm.
“A promise is a promise,” she said so softly I almost didn’t hear it.
There was silence for a second then—that perfect kind of silence, when it almost had a hum of its own.
“But seriously, how could you have known?” she asked.
I paused and met her eyes again. She looked puzzled. I missed that puzzled face of hers. I missed all of her faces.
“Did you see the camera guy scanning the crowd?” I asked.
“Umm…yeah, I guess I might have noticed him,” she said, slowing shaking her head.
“Before the show, I gave him a photo and asked him to look for you,” I said.
“You didn’t?” she demanded.
“I did,” I said. “And turns out, he’s got a good eye.”
I gave her a wink, shrugged my shoulders and then sent a wide grin up into the heavens.
I felt her eyes linger on me before, eventually, her head fell softly back onto the windshield.
“You never cease to amaze me, Will Stephens,” she said, laughing softly to herself.
I listened to her soft laughter until it faded. Then, there was silence again—well, except for the crickets and the tree frogs. It had its place, but I wasn’t much for the quiet in this stage of the game.
“Did you hear the last song?” I asked.
She took a moment before she spoke.
“I did,” she eventually whispered.
“I meant every word of it,” I said.
“It’s a beautiful song, Will,” she said, slowly nodding her head as she spoke. “And how does ‘the one’ feel about this song?”
My head shifted to the side, and my eyes darted to her eyes. She looked serious. But it was too late to stop the smile already squeezing past my lips.
“I don’t know, Jules, how do you feel?” I asked, chuckling to myself.
I watched her let out a slow, uneasy breath before she locked her stare onto the moon again.
“You’re the one, Jules, and I should have told you years ago, but I knew it wasn’t the right time. I knew that you weren’t ready yet.”
Her eyes quickly darted toward mine again.
“Ready?” she asked. “Will, what…”
She let her words trail off.
“Jules, you’ve always been the only one for me,” I confessed.
I stopped then. I knew I had to tell her everything now, but I had to start from the beginning. I sucked 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 left. Dreams would always end with you, and then mornings would steal you away with a cruelty that haunted my days. The start of each new morning, Jules, pained me as I opened my eyes only to face my merci
less reality. No matter how hard I tried to push you to the back of my mind, you always found a way back to the forefront. You always won,” I added, gently nudging her arm.
She lowered her head and smiled, as my eyes found the tops of my boots and locked onto them.
“I eventually learned to live as normally as possible again,” I went on. “I learned to get out of bed and to put on a smile everyday, though even in my laughter, my heart ached. And I learned to hide my hurt when someone asked about you or mentioned your name, which they often did and still do. I mean, Jules, even hearing your name in the grocery store would send me into a crazy, downward spiral that usually ended with Jeff acting as my badly equipped therapist.”
She cocked her head to the side and caught my eyes, but I only nodded my head and sucked in another deep breath, as I tried to smile.
“But I slowly learned to live a quiet existence without you by my side, carrying the heavy burden that was my secret,” I said.
I stopped then for a moment before I continued.
“Then one day, I received an answer to my prayers—in the form of a business card,” I said, starting to laugh. “It sounds crazy, I know, but it was almost as if fate had conspired for us, Jules. It took me a little while to realize it, but once I had, I was on a mission. Jules, I took the offer for you. All of this—the performing, the tours, the songs—is for you. I did it all to bring you back to me.”
“What?” I heard her softly ask. “How could you have done this all…?”
I listened to her words trail off.
“I had just finished recording your song, and I knew that it would only be a matter of time before you’d come back,” I said. “After all, you promised.”
A happy smile finally broke free from my face.
“Jules, I’ve already waited too long to tell you this…,” I said and then stopped.
I reached behind me, grabbed the butterfly weed and placed it in between us.
“Julia, when I said that I would love you until the last petal falls, I meant it,” I said. “You’re the answer to my every prayer.”
She took the stem into her hands and gently caressed its silk flowers.
“Will, where did you find these?” she asked.
I smiled wider.
“Under that raggedy, old teddy bear of yours and some track medals,” I said. “I had some help.”
I watched her lips turn up into a smile, as she stared into the flowers for a long moment.
“Will,” she eventually said. “I’m not the same person I was when we were in high school.”
Her confession took me aback.
“Well, Jules, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly the same person that I was ten years ago either,” I said, with a half-smile. “I’m here fighting for you, aren’t I?”
A coy expression shot to her face.
“I’m just trying to tell you that you might not be saying all these things if you really knew me now,” she said. “You might not even want a girl like me anymore.”
She peeked at me from behind her big eyelashes.
“Hmm,” I said, nodding my head in a pretend, reflective thought. “Then, just who is the new Miss Julia Lang?”
I watched her eyes quickly travel back to mine. She looked a little surprised.
“Well, okay,” she eventually said.
She took a second, and I watched as she inhaled a healthy dose of the night’s cool air before letting the breath pass through her lips again.
“Well,” she said, meeting my eyes, “for starters, I make a living arguing. Not many people understand why I do it, and it’s tough sometimes, but I love it.”
I kept wearing my smile as she continued.
“And I don’t wish on stars anymore or entertain fairytales, and I can’t remember the last time that I climbed out of a window in the middle of the night,” she said. “Oh, and I’m a vegetarian now.”
She lowered her eyes.
“And I don’t believe that there is a perfect someone for anyone,” she softly said.
I sat back against the windshield again and let my eyes stare off into the black distance. She had changed a little, that’s for sure. No meat? No meat at all? No cheeseburgers?
“A vegetarian? Really?” I asked.
Her eyes searched mine. I could tell that she was trying to judge my reaction.
“That is a big change all right—but I’m afraid that you’re going to have to do a little better than that if you want to scare me off, Miss Lang,” I said.
Her eyes smiled then, even though her lips refused to waver.
“Look, Jules, it really is simple,” I said. “See, I’m in love with the person you can never outrun. I’m in love with you, Julia.”
She was quiet for a good minute, and I watched as her eyes searched my own. Somehow, I just knew that she wasn’t buying my confession.
“Will,” she said, finally, taking a deep breath, “I just think…I think that it has been a long time. We’re two, different people now, despite what you might think. We’re not two sixteen-year-olds. It’s been ten, long years, Will. And you have your life here, and I have mine in Charleston. You fight fires and have an amazing singing career. And I have a great job doing something I love also.”
She paused and bit her bottom lip and then returned it to its natural place again. I barely noticed that she had stopped. Something was telling me that I didn’t want to hear the rest of her story.
“You see,” she continued, despite my silent protests, “no matter how you look at it, our lives just don’t match up anymore. I mean, there was a time that I really wanted them to—to match up—but that was some time ago.”
Somewhere in her last, few words, my eyes had fallen to a dark place on the car’s hood.
“I just don’t think it would ever work, Will,” she said. “We’re living our realities now. Besides, it just makes sense that we couldn’t have possibly known what was best for us at sixteen.”
She was quiet then for a moment, but I couldn’t find any words.
“But I promise you that you’ll be with me in my dreams,” she eventually went on. “When I rest my head on my pillow each night, when time is all my own to escape the world and dream, I’ll meet you there. We’ll both be sixteen, and we’ll be happy, and we’ll do all the things we used to do. We’ll climb out windows, and we’ll wish on stars, and we’ll watch old movies and make fun of Jeff.”
She stopped again, and I met her eyes.
“What we had belongs in dreams and meeting there each night seems to work well anyway,” she said, with a soft smile. “But, Will, as for us in this lifetime, we’ve just changed too much, become two, different people and followed two, different paths. It’s life, Will, not a fairytale.”
I swallowed hard.
“Why did you come back, Jules?”
“I made a promise,” she said, in almost a whisper.
“But why now?” I asked.
“It’s a good cause, Will,” she said.
I sat there frozen for a moment. Did she really believe what she was saying? Or was what she had said only what she had told herself to believe?
I let out a heavy sigh.
Either way, it seems as though it ends the same.
Eventually, I turned toward her and took her hand in mine and gently kissed the back of it. She looked a little thrown off, but she let me hold her hand all the same.
“Julia,” I said, meeting her eyes again, “you have been my world since I first laid eyes on you, and you may not realize it, but I have taken you with me every day in the last decade. Please know that there is not one moment that I stopped loving you. You are the reason for my smiles and my songs. You are my hope and my inspiration. My heart has only beaten for you. I do admit that I had my doubts, none of which involved my love for you. I did worry that you had forgotten me and that you had forgotten what we had, but just being here with you now, it’s proof. It proves to me that you haven’t. I see no change in your eyes, and
it’s the most comforting feeling I’ve ever known. Jules, please know that I will love you unceasingly for many lifetimes to come.”
I took a shallow breath and then let it quickly escape before I continued.
“Jules, but no matter what big dreams you’re living or what lucky guy you end up marrying…”
My voice cracked, and I tried hard to swallow the growing lump in my throat.
“Please know that I love you,” I continued. “Even if I have to do it in secret—or in dreams—I’ll love you forever.”
Then, I set her hand gently back down onto her bended knee and slowly slid down the hood of her rented sedan. And when my feet hit the ground, I turned around one, last time.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you in my dreams,” I said.
I tipped my baseball cap toward her. Then, I started to turn but then stopped.
“And, Jules,” I said.
Her eyes darted to mine.
“I believe that there is a perfect someone for everyone, and I know that you still believe that too,” I said. “There is a perfect someone, even if the road to that someone isn’t all that perfect.”
I felt the warm liquid behind my eyes again. It was an all-too-familiar part of our story in the last ten years or so.
Then, I slowly turned and made my way back to my truck. And when I reached its door, I stopped, thought about turning back but didn’t. Instead, I opened the door and slid behind the wheel.
I sat there for a moment, staring into the dashboard, still trying to figure out if my dreams had just slipped away right there on the hood of her car in the middle of this black night. I sat there trying to find the words to say that I hadn’t already said that would make her say that she loved me too. I searched through every moment that I had kept locked away in my chest for the last decade. I searched every piece of us, but I couldn’t seem to find another way to say: Stay with me, Julia. Love me like I love you. Be my world again. Love me.
The turn of the key in the ignition was my head telling my heart it might be over. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t say goodbye. If I was going to leave, if I had to leave, at least I was leaving with one, last tiny hope that this wasn’t goodbye.
I slid Lou into gear, made a u-turn over the uneven ground and then felt the tires hit the loose gravel once again.
