My Butterfly

Chapter Thirty-Six Ticket

It was five o’clock in the morning. I was staring into a laptop’s screen; my hand was on the touchpad; my finger was hovering over its little, right button; and an arrow on the screen pointed to a box that read: confirm. I had been in the same position for forty-five minutes straight.

I sucked in a deep breath and then forced it out. I didn’t know if it were my watch’s incessant ticking that was driving me mad or the fact that I hadn’t pushed the button yet.

I knew I couldn’t let her marry him. Maybe she loved him. The thought made me swallow hard. But what if there were still a part of her that loved me too? I couldn’t rely on my plan now. I would never be able to live with myself if it didn’t work out and she married him without me taking the chance that I might very well lose her twice. I needed to talk to her. I needed to tell her everything I never told her in all the years that we had been apart.

I quickly pushed another breath of air past my lips, and without a second thought, I forced my finger down. And suddenly, the word confirm lit up on the screen.

The flight was in a week and a half. I glanced at my watch. It was five after five. I looked toward the back of the bus. Daniel was sprawled out. His legs were stretched the length of a seat, and he was knocked out with his mouth open. I was surprised he wasn’t drooling yet.

I closed down the computer and set it onto the floor underneath me. Then, I readjusted my pillow, shifting it so that it rested up against the side of the bus. We were opening for Ren Lake in Memphis the next day and driving through the night to get there.

I lay on my back and stretched out my legs. The seat wasn’t long enough, and part of my legs and my feet hung off, but it worked. The little bed compartments on the bus made me feel claustrophobic, so I preferred the seat instead. And I never thought that I would ever long to be on one of those old beds in the fire station, but compared to this bus, I’d take them any night.

I pulled the seatbelt clip out of my back and shifted in the seat again. Most times, there was a comfortable enough, and I thought I just might have found it. I rested my head back onto my pillow and closed my eyes.

A week and a half.

I felt my lips turn into a smile. In a week and a half, she would know everything.

“How was Memphis?”

I looked up to see a brunette coming out of the gas station. I slid the nozzle into the tank and secured the lever to the handle.

“Rachel,” I said. “Just the person I wanted to see.”

She planted her feet in front of me, threw her hip into the side of my truck and crossed her arms. She had a questioning look on her face, but she seemed to shake it off before she spoke again.

“Well, how was it?” she asked.

I smiled.

“It was great,” I said.

“How many numbers did you get this weekend?” she asked.

My eyes darted to the ground, and I shook my head, feeling a little bashful all of a sudden.

“I knew it,” she said, grinning. “Thousands, huh?”

I laughed, and she narrowed her eyes again.

“Now, why did you want to see me?” she asked.

“Oh,” I said and then paused. “I bought a ticket.”

She cocked her head a little and drew her face closer to mine.

“A ticket?” she asked.

“To San Diego,” I said.

Her puzzled look started to melt into something else. I waited for her smile — that one she got while meddling in someone else’s business and not caring who saw her enjoying it. But that smile never came. Instead, her lips parted, and her eyes fell into some kind of sad state or something. Then, I watched as she sucked in some air through her teeth and shook her head.

The lever from the gas pump suddenly flew up and made a thud. My eyes fell for an instant onto the lever but then immediately returned to Rachel.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Will,” she said then, sounding strangely uneasy.

I angled my head slightly to the side. At the same time, my heart started this slow, methodical beating, as if it were preparing for bad news.

“Well, she is always throwing out invitations, and I thought, I’ve never been to San Diego; I might as well go now before she graduates and moves somewhere else, you know?” I half-lied.

Rachel’s eyes remained in mine. She was making me nervous. I watched her take a deep breath and then let out a sigh.

“You should probably give her some time,” she said.

She looked at me as if I were some abandoned puppy or something. And Time? What the hell was all this talk about time? Is it never the right time for anything? I was beginning to think that waiting was nothing but a fool’s game — either that or it was genius. But either way, it sure wasn’t fun.

“Wait,” I said. “What?”

She stared at me with a blank expression.

“You do know, right?” she asked.

My eyes narrowed.

“Know what?” I asked.

My heart almost couldn’t take the suspense. Know what?

She continued to stare at me for a few more seconds, and then suddenly, her lips started to turn up into a smile.

“Wait, why did you buy a ticket to San Diego?” she asked.

My puzzled stare was turning bashful fast.

“I, uh, thought it might be nice to see San Diego, and it might also be nice to have someone show me around that knows it,” I lied again.

I shifted my weight to my heels. I did really hate lying to her, and I had been prepared to tell her everything, but that was before she had scared the hell out of me with that depressed look of hers at first.

“Hold on,” I said. “What don’t I know?”

I watched her quickly draw a half circle around us with her eyes. Then, she brought her face closer to mine.

“She broke off her engagement,” she whispered near my ear.

My mouth fell open.

“What?” I asked.

She leaned back and simply nodded her head.

A smile tried to push its way to my face, but I quickly hid it as best as I could by throwing my gaze to the ground.

“Why?” I asked her, lifting my eyes again.

Rachel took in a deep breath through her nose.

“I’m not quite sure exactly, except that he just wasn’t ‘the one,’” she said, holding up quotation marks with her fingers.

I thought about it for a moment — let it process — before I lowered my eyes and found the asphalt near my feet again. And within seconds, I felt Rachel’s hand on my shoulder.

“Give her some time, Will,” she said.

I started to smile to myself as Rachel walked away.

There was that time word again. But this time, it didn’t bother me nearly as much.

I watched Rachel get into her car and pull away, and when she was out of sight, I let the sides of my mouth turn up until they couldn’t turn up anymore. So, it would be more than a week and a half before she would know everything now. That thought sobered me up a bit. But now, at least, I had time to get my plan together.

“Time,” I said, under my breath, as I shook my head.

Time seemed as if it were the answer for everything these days.