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One thing Julie remembers best about her mom is that she was always writing.
She had this little red notebook in her purse that she was constantly scribbling down lyrics in. She’d make these lists that she never actually remembered to take with her to the grocery store or she'd leave little, yellow sticky notes on the fridge and in lunchboxes as little encouragements.
She also journaled regularly, if the box of diaries now living under Julie’s bed is to be believed. And though she hasn’t been able to bring herself to read them just yet, she loves knowing that they’re there for her when she’s ready; that there are probably still little notes to be found hidden in the crevices of their home. It makes her feel like there are pieces of her mom still left to discover, like she’s still here with her.
When Julie was nine years old, her mother gifted her with a pretty acrylic box and the instructions to fill it with everything most important to her.
“There’s something special about writing things down,” her mom told her. “ With just a pen and a piece of paper, you have the power to take your most special wishes and most beautiful dreams and put them into the world. That’s magic, Mija.”
When her mom dies, Julie worries that all the magic left in the world has gone with her.
She stops believing, stops singing, stops spending hours crafting lyrics and melodies in her mind, but even grief can’t stop her from dreaming. Julie learns quickly to hold on to any happiness she can find in the months after she loses her mom.
So when a rare moment of magic manages to find it’s way back to her, she does the only thing she knows: she writes.
Julie writes poems about the people in her life who mean the most. She draws and doodles when words just aren’t enough.
Even if she’s isn’t sure she wants to call it magic anymore, her dream box keeps filling up with stuff that doesn’t make her sad, but even that hurts sometimes because there’s no one left to share those dreams with anymore.
Then she joins a ghost band with three dead teenage boys and her mom sends her signs from beyond and Julie and her friends all save each other through the power of friendship and music. Her heart feels full again in a ways she didn’t think was possible and suddenly, magic isn’t that hard to believe in anymore.
Her ghost boys as it turns out are as big a blessing as they can be an annoyance sometimes. All three of them change her life.
In Reggie, she finds the sweetest soul and endless laughter and a very specific, yet underappreciated form of intelligence. In Alex, she gifted endless encouragement and pride and the kind of bravery that’s contagious.
In Luke, she finds a kindred spirit.
She finds someone who not only sees her pain, but understands it, respects it. She finds someone to confide in, to share the words written on her hear and in her dream box. Someone unafraid to give her space when she needs it. She finds soft smiles and stolen moments and the beautiful kind of hope that hurts to hold on to, but she knows would hurt worse to let go of.
But, for as much magic and love as they’ve given her, there’s also headaches. They’re loud, rambunctious teenage boys with endless energy and no sense of boundaries, who find amusement in making her look like she’s gone off the deep end in public.
She tells them repeatedly to stay out of her room. (They don’t).
She tells Luke to stay out of her dream box. (He doesn’t).
The first time she realizes he’s still going through her stuff when she’s not around is after their show at The Orpheum. She’s still buzzing with leftover performance energy and the very specific kind of excitement that comes from not having to watch your ghost band getting zapped out of existence.
She’s told her boys that she was going to bed twenty minutes ago, but she’s still wide awake, scribbling furiously, her hands struggling to keep up with the words her brain is throwing at them.
Julie has a lot of feelings about her band turned friends turned family, and she needs to write them down so she’ll remember how happy she feels right now, how magical.
When the words out of her mind and onto the page, and she finally feels calm enough for her exhaustion to catch up to her, she folds up the poem with the words facing out and places into her dream box before promptly crawling underneath her blankets.
It’s a couple of days after that before she opens her box again to file away a picture she’d drawn during study hall. She plans to be in and out of her room, so she can head out to the garage for band practice, but the poem she’d written the other day catches her eye.
In the margins by her words, she spies the sloppy, nearly illegible handwriting that she’s come to know as Luke’s. He’s made notes on her poem and she isn’t sure what to think about it as she unfolds the paper and takes a seat on her bed.
As she works to decipher his chicken scratch, she realizes that he hasn’t made notes at all. He’s answered her.
He’d read the poem that she’d poured all her excess energy and the love she held for her friends into on the night she’d nearly lost them all and he’d replied with a stanza of his own, detailing the ways she saved them too.
It warms her heart and in-spite of his complete invasion of privacy, Julie finds she can’t fight the smile that takes over her face. She feels warm and happy and loved.
She’s fifteen minutes late to band practice because despite the fact Luke’s words have left her speechless, she needs him to know that she’d read them and how much they matter to her and how magical they make her feel. She encapsulates his addition to the page in an intricately drawn heart before placing it back in her box. In the corner of the page, she writes stay out of my stuff xo.
Luke takes this as encouragement.
He keeps adding to her poetry and the lyrics that she writes. Little additions in the margins of the page or in the spaces between the lines of her writing. She keeps a pen and a pad of sticky notes on her self next to the box now so he can comment on her doodles without messing up the pages.
Sometimes he writes her notes just because. Simple things like:
You killed it at practice last night.
Or
I’m bored and I wish you didn’t have to go to stupid school every day.
Or
I like the way you fixed your hair today.
They never talk about those. She tries not read into them. (She fails).
She has this song in her head that she’s been trying to work out since her performance in dance class with Nick. She’s got the melody down by heart now, but the words keeps slipping away from her.
She's started dreaming of it at night now, but the longer she’s awake, the harder it is to hold onto.
Julie starts sleeping with a notepad by her bed.
She wakes up in the middle of the night and she barely has time to wipe the sleep from her eyes before she’s rolling over and filliping on the lamp. She needs to get this out before she forgets again.
Here in front of me
Shining so much brighter than I have ever seen
Life can be mean so mean
But when he goes, I know he doesn’t leave
She gets part of a verse written down before the dream starts to slip away again and she’s so frustrated because she must have imagined this song a half a dozen times by now, so why doesn’t she know it by heart yet?
Tired and irritated, she puts what she has in her dream box before she give back into sleep.
She check the dream box everyday for the next week for notes from Luke and she’s as disappointed to find nothing there as she is every morning she wakes up having not dreamed of their song.
It takes a week and a half before her dream finds her again and she’s so excited when she wakes up that she nearly faceplants when she rolls off the bed to get to her dream box.
Unfolding the page she’s been working on, Julie ignores the sting of disappointment she feels now every time she doesn’t find Luke’s sloppy scrawl next to her own. Instead she focuses on writing down the next section lyrics before they fade away too.
The truth is finally breaking through
Two worlds collide when I’m with you
Our voices rise and soar so high
We come to life when were
In perfect harmony
She doesn’t check the box for the next three days, not wanting to face another week without messages from Luke.
In person, there’s nothing out of the ordinary,
They have band practice with Alex and Reggie, the connection she always feels and their infamously intense eye contact are all still in tact. He still participates in group hugs where they all relish in the fact that they can actually touch now. Still wraps his arm around her shoulders when they sit on the couch together.
He still sneaks into her kitchen right in time for her bedtime snack every night to poke fun at the fact that she has to have a bedtime snack. They still talk and laugh and it’s perfect, except for the fact that she’s too afraid to open her dream box and find nothing new.
The option to keep avoiding it is taken away pretty quickly the night she wakes up with a gasp and a new piece of her lyrics puzzle. She uses the notepad beside her bed again, too tired to fetch the paper she’s written the rest of the song on. She’ll add these lines to it later, she decides.
We say we’re friends
We play pretend
You’re more to me
We’re everything
When she gets up the next morning, she pulls her box off the shelf to add the words she dreamed last night.
She’s so excited to see handwriting that isn’t her own that she unintentionally lets out a shriek.
It only takes a moment before a knock sounds on her bedroom door and her father’s poking his head in. “Mija? You okay in here?”
Julie smiles, bashful at being caught in her moment of excitement. “Yes papa, just though of a really good lyric.”
She watches her father’s face rearrange from concern into a look that she associates with pride. He smiles, seemingly pleased to see that she’s still writing music. He holds a hand up in fake surrender as he back out of her room, pulling the door with him. “Don’t want to interrupt the creative process. Come and get breakfast whenever you’re ready.”
He shuts her door back as he leaves. Julie sighs grateful for the privacy. She clutches the paper closer to her chest and takes a moment to compose herself before laying it flat.
He's written small enough to fit in space just above the first couple of lines she’s written.
Step into my world
Bittersweet love story ‘bout a girl
Shook me to the core, voice like an angel
Never heard before
And it’s so perfect. She’s so in awe that she can’t even begin to freak out about the fact that’s she’s almost positive he’s written the lines she’d daydreamed weeks ago.
Without thinking she writes another set of lines near the bottom of the page. She doesn’t need to dream again to know they fit.
Love me as I am
I’ll hold your music here inside my hand
When she gets home from school the next day, she’s delighted to find more of his handwriting intermingled with her own.
You set me free
You and me together is more than chemistry
She spends a few hours with the guys, but she’s eager to get back to the safety of her room. It takes a few hours to tie all of their words together. She adds the bridge, rearranges the order of the stanzas once, then twice, until she feels it’s perfect.
She barely sleeps at all, too excited over her hard work. A dream they’ve written into the world.
Magic.
Her intention is to get up before sunrise and head out to the garage, but she sleeps too late, too tired from staying up half of the night, so she has to make it through the whole day of class before she can get her hands on her piano.
She bounces her leg so much under her desk, Flynn threatens to tie her feet together if she doesn't cut it out.
When she finally makes it home, she drops her backpack off at the front door and retrieves the lyric sheet from her dream box before heading straight to the garage. She opens the door with so much vigor, it catches even her off guard.
Luke, who’s been sitting on the couch strumming on his guitar, stands and places his instrument on the coffee table in front of him.
He looks concerned and she feels her cheeks heat up, embarrassed at her haste to get to him. She manages an awkward chuckle and a soft “hi.”
He returns the gesture, features turning up into a warm, amused smile. She gets caught up in it for a beat too long.
“Uh, are the guys here?”
“No, Alex is out looking for his ghost boyfriend.” He reaches up to rub the back of his neck, looking sheepish as he admits, “And I think Reg is actually following your dad around today.”
He looks like he expects her to comment on that, but she really doesn’t have the time it’d take unpack all that is Reggie right now. Instead she changes course. “I need to play something.” She waving the piece of paper, she’s holding in her hands, but it doesn’t appear register.
He looks confused and she watches as his eyes flicker towards the door like he isn’t sure if she’s asking him to give her space.
It’s the last thing Julie needs, so she holds up a hand as a pause to try and keep him from poofing anywhere too soon. She moves towards the piano bench and she gestures for him to join her.
He takes the seat next to her and she can feel his eyes on her, but she keeps hers trained on the instrument in front of her.
“I’ve been hearing this song in my head for weeks now. It’s been driving me crazy. I hear it when I zone out in class and when I sleep.” When I look at you. She breathes out through her nose anxiously as she unfolds the paper and runs her hand over to relieve it of it’s wrinkles out over the smooth top to her piano. Beside her, she feels Luke stretch up to read over her shoulder. “I’ve had a hard time remembering all of the words though,” she continues. “They’ve been coming to me in pieces and it’s so crazy because you filled in the gaps so perfectly. Like you’re in my head. And I just- I want us to play it.”
She chances a glance in his direction, and he’s looking at her in that way she’s grown fond of, but isn’t quite what to make of. She knows that it’s soft and she’s only ever seen it directed at her. It makes her feel warm like the sun.
He nods, once, in a sort of jerky movement before he’s reaching over for the lyrics sheet.
Julie takes a deep breath. “Okay, so I hear it like…” and she plays. Luke doesn’t need to be told when to come in or what parts to sing and it’s beautiful. Maybe it's not magic in the way she believed when she was a child; maybe instead, it's a testament to how well he pays attention or how well they've come to know one another, but she thinks, isn't that it's own kind of magic?
By the time they’re done, he’s got himself angled towards her. They’ve been singing to one another and his face is so close to hers, she can feel his breath warm on her face.
He breathes out her name, but she doesn’t wait to hear what’s supposed to come after.
In probably one of her bravest moments, she closes the distance and presses her mouth to his. It feels like every sappy teenage romance novel she’s ever read, but better. It's a little reckless and in the moment, but also feels like something that's been in the making for awhile now. She isn’t thinking about how she’s never done this before or how they don’t know how much time they have or what's she's supposed to do with her hands. She thinks Luke as she wraps her arms around his neck and tangles her fingers in his hair, and that’s all.
He places his hands on her arms and for split second she worries he’s going to push her back and tell her we can't, Jules, but he doesn’t. He wraps his fingers around her wrists and returns her kiss with a gentle pressure of his own.
When they pull back, she’s met with wide eyes. He doesn’t let go of her wrists, keeping her arms where they are pressed against his shoulders. She anxiously twists his hair around her fingers.
His eyes flutter shut for a moment, and when he opens them again he’s more composed, but she still sees the fear. She wants to reach out and smooth the wrinkles forming in his forehead; she wants him to flash her another crooked smile.
“Julie, I’m-“ dead, the word hangs in the air unsaid. She doesn't need to be told the only reason why they can't. She's thought about it too much already.
“I know,” she replies.
He sighs, like he thinks she’s not getting it. He tries again. “And you’re-“ alive, he doesn’t say it out loud either.
“I know,” she responds and she’s grateful she manages to sound more patient than she actually feels.
“There's so much we can't do,“ he speaks quietly, his fingers tightening momentarily on her wrists. "How can we have something that's real when I'm not? When you have to fake a phone call to talk to me in public? When you have to literally convince every person you tell about me not to send you straight to a shrink? Or when I can't take you out or-"
“I don’t care about that,” she tells him gently, cutting him off. “It doesn’t matter. You’re real to me. You’re alive to me. And you make me feel alive and happy. That’s the most real thing I know, so I don’t care.”
His features take on this look akin to awe. She’s seen it before on the porch after she visited his parents, in the garage after she asks him to pass along her message to her mom, on stage when she’s hit a particularly impressive high note. It’s addictive, so she doesn't stop there.
She hopes he never stops looking at her like that.
"Doesn't this feel real?" Julie asks him as she moves her arms from where's they've been resting on his shoulders to grip his hands in hers. She runs her fingers across his knuckles after she pulls them into her lap.
Luke nods. She watches him visibly swallow.
"And this?" She leans up to press her mouth to his again, quick and chaste. When she pulls back, he nods. She watches as his eyes flick back and forth between her own. "I just want to try. That's all I'm asking."
He doesn’t say anything and that makes her feel nervous. It sits like heavy in her stomach, so she tries to throw him a lifeline. An out. “Unless-“
He cuts her off with another soft kiss, his hands still settled in hers. “Okay, Jules." He pulls a hand from her grasp to tuck her hair behind her eyes, one corner of his mouth lifting up. "I’m here as long as you and the cosmos or whatever will let me be. I’m in.”