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“You said Carrie’s dad was gay,” Luke says, clearly choosing his words carefully. “Does he just like, tell people now?”
“Uhhhh, kind of,” Julie hedges, because the exact circumstances of Trevor Wilson getting outed in the press are probably not what Luke needs to hear right now. Julie doesn’t love thinking about it either; she still remembers Carrie kicking her out of her house when the news broke. She was never invited back. Carrie stayed home from school for a full two weeks while she and her dad laid low, and when she came back, she didn’t want anything to do with Julie, or anyone else.
-----
Julie’s morning is normal, with absolutely zero signs she’s stepped into a parallel universe, so she’s understandably caught off guard when Carrie comes up to her at her locker at the end of the day, no pastel sidekicks or smug confidence in sight.
“Hi Julie.”
“...Hi Carrie,” Julie says, confused. Carrie swallows, composing herself before plastering on a smile and pressing on.
“My therapist thinks it would be a good idea for me to reach out to you, for some reason. So I’m reaching. Out.” She stands there, and Julie can see through the cracks in her performance. Carrie is nervous. She thinks Julie is going to reject her.
That’s a new one.
“Never mind,” Carrie says. Apparently Julie was taking too long to answer. “I don’t know why I even bothered.” Carrie whirls on her heel and starts to walk away back down the hall.
“Wait!” Julie calls. She knows if Flynn was here, she’d be elbowing Julie in the ribs demanding to know what she’s doing.
The thing is, though, she and Carrie were friends once. They’d hung out all the time together, they played music together, they were always there for each other. Sure, Carrie puts on a front now, but Julie used to really know her. She’s seen Carrie vulnerable. She knows that deep down, Carrie is capable of actual human emotions, like sadness and fear and anxiety. And right now, she looks like a mess of all of them.
Carrie turns back around. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t so much as quirk an eyebrow, but she turns around.
“So you’re reaching out. What exactly does that entail?”
“Uh, well,” Carrie fumbles, reaching up and toying with a strand of hair. It’s a nervous habit Julie recognizes even from back when they were friends. She always used to twirl her hair if she lied to her dad about something or when they talked about boys. “She didn’t really get that far. She just thought I should say, like, hi. So. Hi.”
“Hi,” Julie repeats. “Is that all you wanna say, or...?”
“I really liked your performance the other day,” Carrie offers.
Yeah. Definitely a parallel universe.
“Thanks?” Julie says, still not sure if there’s a punchline coming.
“The guys sounded great. And you. You sounded great.” Julie looks Carrie over, but she doesn’t see any signs of sarcasm.
“Thanks,” she repeats. “I think that’s the first time you’ve said something nice to me in years.” Carrie winces.
“Yeah,” Carrie agrees softly. “Uh. I’m. Sorry about that.”
“Okay...” Julie says, because seriously, what else can she say to that? It’s somehow both more than she ever expected to get from Carrie and nothing at all, not even close to making up for the years of going out of her way to put Julie down after everything they’d been through together.
“Hey you!” a voice calls, and Julie snaps out of her spiral. Flynn is bounding over to Julie’s locker happily, backpack slung over her shoulders, with the kind of carefree grin only the end of the school day can bring. She’s almost next to Julie when she registers the other girl standing there. “Is there a problem?” she asks, all the gentle affection she’d had in her voice before gone.
“Carrie was just telling me she liked the Julie and the Phantoms performance the other night,” Julie tells Flynn smoothly. “Right Carrie?”
“Mmhmm,” Carrie says quickly, nodding. Flynn narrows her eyes.
“Is that right?” she asks. She circles Carrie slowly, looking her over critically like there will be some obvious physical sign that Carrie has been replaced with an alien or something. “You feeling okay, Carrie?”
“I’m fine,” she snaps. Flynn still looks skeptical, but she abandons her investigation to cozy up with Julie instead, and Julie instantly feels better.
They’ve never made any effort to hide their relationship at school—but of course there’s a big difference between holding hands in the hallway sometimes and holding hands in front of the girl who’s been nothing but a bully to both of them for ages. She knows this, and Flynn knows this, but Flynn seems to be taking it as a challenge, and Julie is happy to go for the ride. When she glances back at Carrie, Carrie appears to have zeroed in on the way the girls fit together, the way they touch with familiar ease. Julie wonders if somehow this will be the thing that makes Carrie snap back into herself, but once again, she surprises her.
“Do you guys want to hang out?” Carrie asks. Flynn snaps her head so fast to give her an incredulous look that Julie’s worried she’ll have whiplash. She gets it, though.
“You want to hang out with us?” Julie asks dubiously.
“Only if you want to,” Carrie says quickly. “Just for a little bit?”
Julie turns to look at Flynn, who has the worst poker face ever. She’s looking at Julie with wide eyes and a crazy expression, and Julie feels like she’s looking in a mirror of her own feelings. But she looks back at Carrie again, who somehow still looks hopeful, and anxious, and she hears herself saying, “Okay.”
“What?!” Flynn says immediately. “Jules, are you insane? This is Carrie. Like Carrie Carrie.”
“Yup,” Julie agrees, shrugging. Carrie’s surprise is obvious on her face—so is her relief. “I don’t know what your game is, Carrie, but if you want to lower yourself to hang out with two losers for an afternoon instead of bullying the other girls in your dance group, who am I to stop you.” Flynn laughs, looking at Julie fondly, and Julie really wishes she could kiss her right now. “My house?” she asks instead.
“Sure!” Carrie says, enthusiastic now that she’s finally processed this is actually happening. “I can drive.”
“So weird,” Flynn whispers, but she links arms with Julie as they follow Carrie out of the building, and Julie feels like she can handle whatever Carrie might throw at them with her girlfriend by her side.
-----
Being in her house with Carrie is deeply strange. It’s made stranger by the fact that she has memories of Carrie here from before. Carrie in the living room for movie night, Carrie in the kitchen laughing so hard milk comes out of her nose, Carrie falling asleep first at sleepovers in Julie’s room. Julie’s only known the boys for a short while, but she’s known ghosts since Carrie stopped coming over.
“Wow,” Carrie says, looking around, and Julie thinks maybe Carrie’s having a similar reaction to being back after all this time. “It hasn’t changed at all.” Flynn bristles, looking for the insult in that, but Julie understands. She’d felt the same way when she followed the boys to the Wilson’s house months ago.
“Do you want anything?” Julie asks as she throws her backpack to the side and slips off her shoes. It’s a question for Carrie only; Flynn has already gone to the kitchen for her customary afterschool snacks, at ease in the familiar house.
“No, that’s fine,” Carrie says. She’s still standing awkwardly by the door like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to come inside. Julie wonders if maybe Flynn’s vampire theory from last year was onto something.
“So,” she tries, looking from Carrie to the kitchen, where Flynn is still puttering around reheating leftovers. “What did you want to do?” Carrie blinks back at her.
“What?”
“You asked us to hang out,” Julie says. “Did you have anything in mind?”
“Oh,” Carrie says, looking lost. Seriously, how does this girl function? It’s like she woke up and forgot how to be mean, and then forgot everything else. “Not really. I just thought it might be nice.”
“Nice?” Flynn asks, coming back into the living room with a plate of tamales from the day before. “Since when do you care about nice?” Carrie huffs an impatient sigh.
“My dad stuck me back in counseling with my old therapist and it was her idea to talk to you, okay? Don’t blame me.”
Flynn smiles. “I’m still blaming you,” she says cheerfully. She settles on the couch and says, “I’m going to put on a show, and if no one says anything in the next sixty seconds, it is going to be Riverdale.”
“No, I’m so behind,” Carrie whines, and Julie laughs not at Carrie, but with her.
“What episode? Flynn’s seen it all but I only saw the first season.”
“It’s my job in this relationship to bring you art,” Flynn calls from the sofa, already queueing up the show. Carrie’s eyes are bright when she looks over at her.
“We can start season two,” Carrie says hesitantly, moving towards the living room and glancing back at Julie like she’s asking for permission. Julie nods, and Carrie curls up in an armchair. Julie joins Flynn on the couch.
It’s absolutely surreal, the whole situation, and what’s weird is it starts to feel normal after a few minutes, sitting in her living room watching tv with Flynn and Carrie. They barely say anything at first, watching in silence as Archie suffers onscreen. Eventually, though, he says something dumb enough that Flynn cracks up, telling him off like she usually does when they watch together, just the two of them, and the air seems to lighten. Julie chimes in with her own commentary, and then she and Flynn are laughing together like always, Flynn curled up against Julie’s side, their hands intertwined.
“There she is,” Carrie says suddenly, startling Julie. She’d honestly kind of forgotten Carrie was here.
“You would love Cheryl,” Flynn snorts.
“I just think she’s—I like her outfits,” Carrie says.
“Really?” Flynn asks, gesturing to the bland white high-necked dress Cheryl’s currently wearing.
“Okay, this is a bad example,” Carrie agrees. “But it’s not her fault. She literally just survived a house fire. Who’s gonna look their best after that?”
“Honestly she’s kinda killing it, makeup-wise,” Flynn concedes. “Like, I know it’s because this is a tv show and she has a stylist, but her lipstick is perfect.”
“Right!” Carrie says, laughing. “She’s a style icon.”
It’s easier, after that. Carrie fits in, kind of, adding to the conversation and even cracking Flynn up with a perfectly timed joke at Betty’s expense. They go on to the next episode without a second thought, without even having to ask, and it’s kind of nice. Of course, if Julie thinks about it for more than two seconds, it’s extremely weird. But she’s trying to just go with it, for now.
“Ugh,” Flynn says, checking her phone. “I have to go, mom’s here.” She squeezes Julie’s hand before letting it go, standing up from the couch and heading to the door for the task of getting her extremely fashionable and extremely impractical boots back on.
“Bye!” Carrie calls from the chair, waving. Flynn shakes her head, still baffled by the situation, but she waves back. Julie follows her over to the door.
“Bye,” Julie says, leaning in for a quick kiss. Flynn smiles at her, booping her on the nose to make her laugh before leaving. “Tell your mom I said hi!” Julie calls out the door after her. She watches her go, lingering in the doorway until Flynn’s mom pulls away.
“So,” Carrie says, and oh, right, she’s still here, in Julie’s living room. “You and Flynn are...” she trails off like she’s hoping Julie will finish the sentence. Instead, Julie folds her arms and looks back at her, leaning against the front door. This isn’t gonna fly as long as she’s in Julie’s house. She has home field advantage.
“What, Carrie?” Carrie doesn’t say anything else. “Okay, what’s your deal? Because I know your ex-boyfriend’s dads, and I know your dad too, so what? Are you only cool with gay people if they’re older than you? Or guys?”
“Stop,” Carrie says, sounding actually upset. “I don’t think that. You were there when everything happened with my dad, you know I’m not like that.”
“Actually, I don’t know anything, because I wasn’t there. You kicked me out, and you never really talked to me again.” Julie really thought she was over it by now, that the sting of Carrie cutting off their friendship without looking back had gone away, but it’s all back now, and she’s not sure if she’s tearing up because she’s angry or because she’s sad. “You were my friend, Carrie. I could have been there for you. I wanted to be there for you.”
“He never told me,” Carrie bursts out, and now she’s crying too. Flynn would probably blame it on Mercury being in retrograde or something, and Julie’s kind of inclined to agree; this is beyond weird. “He never said anything about it to me before, and I had to find out on the internet while I was hanging out with my best friend, and I...” Carrie cuts herself off, choked up. So Julie waits. “I was scared, okay? And embarrassed, and stupid. And I had been thinking for months about how to talk to you, if I even wanted to talk to him right away, and then it was so much so fast. I spent all this time not knowing what to say to him, and not knowing what he would think, and then it turned out he he’d been sitting on that the whole time and if I had just known—”
“Talk about what?” Julie asks with a frown. “I thought you just said you didn’t know.”
Carrie looks up at her, looking absolutely pitiful from crying and from dredging up years-old family drama.
“Not about him,” she says quietly.
A year ago, Julie probably would not have been able to draw any conclusions from that tiny bit of not-information from Carrie. She’s barely given Julie anything to go by, and that’s probably on purpose. But the thing is, Julie’s recently had three of her closest friends come out to her in rapid succession, not to mention coming out to herself, and she kind of feels like an expert at this point. So.
“You wanted to tell me about you,” Julie finishes for her. An olive branch. Carrie nods, still not willing to speak, but at least she’s done crying. Julie exhales heavily. “Okay. That’s a lot.”
“Please don’t tell anyone,” she says, frantic. “I know—I know I don’t really have any right to ask you to do anything for me. And I swear I didn’t reach out to you just so I could dump this on you and then swear you to secrecy. I just...” Carrie shakes her head. “I saw you and Flynn together and it brought back everything.” Carrie’s picking at the blanket under her absentmindedly, looking more stressed than Julie’s seen her in years. It’s almost nice seeing her be a person again.
“I’m not gonna tell anyone,” Julie tells her. “Because that would be messed up. And because I don’t care. Because you’re still the same person you were before you told me, and that person is someone I try not to think about at all.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Carrie says after a moment. Then she jumps up from the chair, grabbing her purse and her jacket all in a rush. “This was really stupid, I’m gonna go now.”
“Okay,” Julie agrees. “But Carrie?” Carrie pauses in the middle of her attempt at flight. “Am I the only person you’ve told?” She nods. “Wow. Uh, thank you, I guess, but why haven’t you talked to your dad now, since everything else is out in the open?” Carrie laughs.
“Are you kidding? Nothing is out in the open. He still doesn’t tell me anything, really. I’ve kind of just assumed, I don’t know, that some guy broke his heart and he never got over it, or something, because it’s not like he dates or anything. He’s so quiet about it still.” Julie thinks back to when Luke came out to her, the way he’d completely deflated when he thought about whatever it was that he and his old bandmate had together, and she wishes she could hear Trevor’s (or Bobby’s or whoever he really is) side of the story. Not that there’s any way she could go about that that won’t make her sound crazy. “Him being gay is the reason I can’t talk to him about me. It was...it was bad, Julie. And I know him. He’ll flip out about not wanting it to happen to me too.”
“I’m sorry,” Julie tells her, because she is. She may not love Carrie as a person, but that doesn’t mean she can’t recognize how much her situation sucks. She’s sorry for Carrie, and she’s sorry for her dad, too. Julie’s seen how much work Reggie and Luke and even Alex have had to do to get to a good place with their identities, and Bobby doesn’t have the benefit of spending most of his time with people from a newer generation. With a group of people who are figuring out how to be gay too.
“Don’t be,” Carrie sighs. She looks tired. “I just feel so stupid...I mean everyone who’s been important in my life is gay. I don’t know why it’s so hard to talk about.”
“It’s hard,” Julie agrees. “You should talk to your therapist about it.” Carrie bites her lip.
“Maybe,” she hedges.
“And you should talk to your dad. When you’re ready. I know you’re worried about it, but I used to know your dad too. And he loves you. Okay?”
Carrie thinks about this for a minute, her eyes distant. Then she seems to compose herself, giving Julie a quick nod and clutching her bag a little tighter.
“I really am sorry, Julie,” she tells her. It burns slightly less this time. “I know I can’t take any of it back. And I know I probably shouldn’t have invited myself over. So. Thank you. For having me.”
“For our first time hanging out in years, it probably could have gone worse,” Julie says with a shrug, and it earns a tiny smile from Carrie before she goes out the front door and heads home.
So. That was bizarre.
She doesn’t know what Carrie’s therapist said that rattled her enough that she became a semi-decent human being for a day, but it must have been intense. And for that matter, why was Carrie talking about Julie in therapy in the first place? It’s confusing and weird and Julie doesn’t want to keep thinking about it, but she can’t help it.
Carrie’s never going to be her friend again. She accepted that awhile ago, after holding out hope way longer than she probably should have. Carrie’s not her friend. Carrie doesn’t want to be her friend. Even today, when the whole world turned upside down or something, she’d barely apologized.
It was a start, though. Something.
Julie tries to shake off the events of the afternoon and texts Flynn, lying on the couch on her stomach and flirting by way of dumb Riverdale memes.
Flynn
So that was super weird right
Flynn
I didn’t even think about the fact that I ABANDONED you with her until it was too late...glad to see you survived
Flynn
OR DID YOU
Flynn
HAVE YOU JOINED THE BOYS ON THE OTHER SIDE
Julie
Yep. I’m a ghost now. Totally a ghost.
Julie
Boo
Flynn
Boo you I was WORRIED
Julie
I’m fiiiiiiiine I promise. Honestly I think you should be more worried about Carrie.
Flynn
HAHAHAHA
Flynn
Did you fight her when I wasn’t even there to see it that’s so disappointing
Julie
No! I just meant she seemed really off
Flynn
Maybe the demon possessing her got freed
Julie
You laugh but there are ghosts living in my garage like
Julie
It’s not impossible
Flynn
I seriously wouldn’t worry about it. Let her figure herself out. ❤️
Julie
❤️❤️❤️
Flynn
👀 you like me or something?
Julie smiles. Even though they’ve been dating for over a month now, the novelty and excitement haven’t worn off at all.
Julie
Maybe
Flynn
Thank god or this would be super awkward
The conversation devolves after that, and then her dad is calling her and Carlos to dinner, and she forgets about Carrie entirely until she’s winding down for the night. She thinks about maybe texting her, but decides against it; it’s not her job to make sure Carrie’s okay. Not after everything. She sets her phone on her nightstand. It lights up a moment later.
Expecting another text from Flynn, Julie rolls over and picks it up, only to find that Carrie had apparently been thinking of her too. She snorts a laugh at the contact name, courtesy of Flynn stealing her phone one afternoon.
👿👿👿
Hey. I just wanted to say thank you again for everything today. I know I was kind of all over the place, and that stuff is weird, but it really meant a lot to me that you still listened.
Despite herself, Julie smiles a little at the message. She hovers over the keyboard, typing a response and then erasing it again, rereading the text two, three, four times. Then she abandons trying to reply completely and clicks on the string of devil emojis at the type of the screen. She deletes them, mentally apologizing to Flynn for erasing her handiwork and types “Carrie” in their place.
It’s a tiny thing. They’re not friends. But if Carrie’s actually interested in trying, figuring out what went wrong and trying to be a good person, Julie’s willing to at least hear her out. And in the meantime, she has Flynn, who was a real friend long before they ever started dating, who helped Julie through the hardest moments of her life, who makes her laugh, who inspires Julie to be better every day. Even Carrie can’t touch that. And it’s easier to feel charitable towards the other girl when Julie is so surrounded by people she loves, and who love her in return, especially when she sees how desperately Carrie wants that too. She’s lonely. Julie isn’t.
And Julie’s happy with herself. She knows who she is, and she loves who she is. She’s happy, and she’s doing what she loves, and she has Flynn. She can take on whatever gets thrown at her next, be it paranormal encounters or even more paranormal encounters with Carrie. She can handle it all.