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Luke groaned for the fifth time in an hour. “Why can’t Julie just drop out of school?”
“What part of ‘school comes first’ did you not understand, dude?” Alex asked. They were all hanging out in the garage, waiting for Julie to get home. It was a big day for them, as their families were planning on getting together to discuss what exactly should happen with them. After all, they were still minors, even though 25 years had passed. To say that they were feeling a bit impatient would be an understatement.
“I know, I know, but it’s just so boring without her here,” Luke complained.
“Well, our lives are about to get a lot more boring if our families decide to separate us,” Reggie pouted.
“That’s not going to happen,” Luke said.
“At least you guys have parents to go to,” Alex grumbled.
“Dude you have like… 50 different houses to choose from. My mom and sister live in a tiny apartment . They don’t have room for me.”
“They’re not going to separate us! Julie wouldn’t let that happen.” Even as he said it, Luke couldn’t help picturing living with his parents again. It was a nice picture, but he was still 17. He just didn’t want to end up fighting them again.
“Maybe, okay. Maybe we can try to argue that we need to stay together for the band,” Alex said.
“I have an idea on the perfect person to argue that for us,” Luke grinned.
When it finally came time for the meeting, it turned out to be a very good thing that Ray had gotten a larger table. Ray sat at the head of the table, with Julie on his left. On Julie’s side sat Jane Peters, Reggie, and Alex. Across from them sat Luke on Ray’s right, with Emily and Mitch Patterson, and John Mercer. Flynn sat at the other end of the table, there to “represent the best interest of the band.” She’d been calling herself the band’s glue ever since Luke had called her that afternoon, and she was now going to make sure they all stuck together.
Flynn clapped her hands twice, lounging back in her chair, “Alright people, let’s get this meeting going.” Julie rolled her eyes at Flynn’s antics, but was secretly glad to see that Flynn definitely wasn’t going to have an issue standing up to everyone’s parents if it came to that.
“...Thank you for that, Flynn,” Ray nodded, taking over the conversation. “After talking with the kids, they told me that you were the people who should be involved in this discussion. While I’ve loved having the boys here, I wasn’t sure if any of you might want them home again.”
It had been a month since they had reconnected with their families, and while they certainly felt more comfortable around them than they’d ever hoped they would, there was still a distinctly stiff atmosphere in the room. Everyone remained silent for a moment after Ray’s opening statement, but it was not because they had nothing to add. Everyone had come into this meeting with a different plan, it was merely a matter of choosing the time to air it.
“It would be nice to have Luke home again,” Emily started.
“We all want to stick together though,” Luke argued.
“Luke, let me handle this.” Flynn lifted her hand up to him before turning to Emily. “What Luke is trying to say is that they all want to stick together.”
“That is literally what he just said,” Alex sighed.
“Yeah, but it did sound better when she said,” Reggie countered.
“I know that’s what you all want, but you’re all still so young,” Mitch sighed.
“We did leave home like 25 years ago though,” Reggie countered.
Jane raised an eyebrow at her son. “And look how well that turned out.”
“That may not have been the best defense to use,” Alex muttered.
Luke ran his hands down his face before turning to stare at his mom. “I don’t regret leaving home then, mom. I regret how things ended between us, but I don’t regret the leaving, even if it did end with us dying.”
“What do you mean?” John asked.
“I just feel like it’s something that I had to do. I couldn’t stay there anymore, and I don’t want to feel like that again. I want to make the choices now.”
“I don’t regret leaving either,” Reggie said. “I don’t think I would have ever left if I didn’t leave then.” Reggie looked around at everyone at the table. “If I go back now, I don’t think I’ll ever leave again.”
Everyone looked to Alex. “I mean, I didn’t really have a choice in leaving. Mom and Dad kind of decided that for me, and it’s not like anyone else was exactly opening their doors to me except Bobby.” John flinched, and Alex tried not to notice. He loved being back in touch with his siblings, but it was going to take more than a group hug in the garage to repair the damage they did.
“I’m not saying this to hurt anyone,” Alex started again, “but I don’t want to be put in that position again. I have a home here, with the Molinas. I have my brothers and Julie and Flynn, and I know that they accept me.” He made eye contact with Julie. “No matter what. That’s more than I can say about anyone else I’ve ever known.”
“It’s not that we don’t love you guys, or that we love the Molinas more. But we’ve made our home here, long before the Molinas did. And we’re going to stay,” Luke declared firmly, before adding, “Unless… unless Ray and Julie decide to kick us out.”
“That would never happen,” Julie assured, wiping at her eyes. Ray was looking a bit teary himself.
“You will always have a home here if you want it,” he added.
Jane, Emily, Mitch, and John sat for a minute, contemplating. In their minds, the boys were still the 17-year-olds they had been in 1995; just some teenagers chasing dreams and pretending at adulthood. But they were starting to realize that perhaps the years in between had aged their minds far more than their bodies. While they might make mistakes fairly regularly, they’d started to learn along the way. They’d fought to get here, and they weren’t going to let go of what they’d gained easily.
“Alright,” Emily finally began. “Alright. But I have a condition.”
“Me too,” Jane added. “It’s something Emily, John, and I had already discussed.”
“We want the boys to go back to school,” John clarified.
“What?” The boys shouted at the same time that Julie and Flynn yelled “Deal!”
“What do you mean, ‘deal?’” Luke asked them.
“That’s super easy. Plus, this way you guys won’t be stuck at home all the time. You’ll be with me…”
“Deal!” Luke declared.
“Wow, Luke. So strong.” Alex shook his head. “How would we even get into school? We aren’t exactly, you know, legally alive?”
“That’s easy to take care of,” John answered. “My wife Leanne, your sister-in-law, is the superintendent for the district. She said she’d pull a few strings.”
“And after we have you all in school, we’ll get started on taking care of all the other paperwork issues,” Mitch said.
“Going to school will be a great way to get to know your nieces and nephews better, Alex,” John argued.
Reggie perked up at the mention of Alex’s family, who he had started to get closer to since the first time they all came over. “Deal!” He yelled.
Alex whipped his head around. “No! But deal! But stay away from my niece dude!”
“Perfect, so it’s settled then,” Emily declared, starting to gather her things.
“We’ve already got you set to start on Monday,” John added.
“Flynn and Julie already agreed to take you school shopping tomorrow.” Jane grabbed her purse and made her way to the door.
“You boys didn’t think you’d be the only ones calling in help, did you?” Ray asked.
“And we’ll see you tomorrow for Sunday dinner, Luke,” Mitch called from the door.
Flynn and Julie just grinned at each other before racing upstairs.
Luke looked at Reggie and Alex, all sitting mouths agape. All three had gone rather pale.
“What… just happened?”
“I still don’t see why we need to go back to school. We’re technically like 42,” Alex grumbled. He and Reggie were hanging out in the garage on Sunday night, their bags of clothes and school supplies sitting practically untouched in the corner of the room. Flynn and Julie had had them shopping for hours earlier in the day, playing dress-up with them like they were human dolls.
Luke was currently wearing one of his new outfits at the dinner he was at with his parents, Julie joining him. Out of all of them, he had put up the most fight to Flynn’s “vision”, as she called it, forcing Flynn to yell in the middle of Hollister “It’s 2020, Luke! You need to be more Harry Styles, less Kurt Cobain!” The comparison would probably have held far more weight had the boys actually had any clue who Harry Styles was.
Their bags now held far more expensive pairs of artfully ripped jeans and sleeves, but they all managed to bring in a bit of their own style, with fanny packs, leather jackets, flannels, and vests.
Now, they were all just waiting for the next day to start, and Reggie and Alex were both feeling a bit restless about it, though their reasonings were drastically different.
“Why are you so upset about it? I love this plan, and I didn’t even like school before,” Reggie asked.
“I don’t know,” Alex sighed. “Maybe my head’s still stuck in the 90s. And I might be a little worried that everyone else’s is too.”
“What do you- Ohh. I get it.” Reggie nodded. “I don’t think that will be a problem. Julie said people are totally accepting now. She was actually explaining this thing to me the other day, and I wanted to ask you about it. It’s called b-”
“Hold that thought, Reggie. I just got an idea!” Alex interrupted.
“Oh. Okay. What is it?”
“We should try to fix our little identity problem! One less thing to worry about, you know?” Alex was sitting up on his bed now, knees bouncing.
Reggie shrugged. “Alright. But how?”
Alex thought for a moment. “We should call the DMV.”
“I’ll go get the phone from the house!” Reggie jumped up, eager to help his friend. He returned a minute later.
Alex held the phone in his hand. “Reggie. What’s the number?”
“Right!” Reggie dashed out of the room again, this time returning with the phone book.
“Okay. Okay. I’ve got a plan.” Alex reached for the phone and dialed the number, putting it on speaker.
“Hello, California Department of Motor Services. This is Clarissa. How may I help you?”
“Hi hello okay. So, I was just wondering how I could get a new social security card?”
“Alright, well, you’ll have to file a form with the federal office of social security. You’ll need your birth certificate-”
“What if someone didn’t have their birth certificate?” Alex interrupted.
“Well, then they would need some other proof of identity, such as a driver’s license…”
“And what would you need for the driver’s license?”
A pause on the other end. “Without a birth certificate, you would definitely need a social security card.”
Reggie groaned. “Okay, well, what if, say, someone had none of that. Like. Absolutely no proof of identity, What then?” Reggie asked
A longer pause. “Sir-”
Alex hung up the phone before the lady could finish speaking. “Okay, so they definitely think we’re trying to get fake identities now.”
“Yep.”
“That really didn’t calm me down. At all.”
“Yeah…”
“Let’s not tell Julie and Luke about this.”
“Agreed.”
In their heads, the boys had been picturing a movie star start to their first day of high school. They would walk in with Julie and Flynn, Julie leading the pack. All eyes would turn to stare at them. Mouths would drop, and they wouldn’t even notice. Somehow, for some reason, their hair would be blowing back. All of this would be in slow motion.
Instead, they wound up sprinting into the building five minutes before the warning bell. Reggie had overslept. Luke hadn’t been able to figure out what to wear. Alex had flat out declared at the last second that he wouldn’t go. If Alex’s niece and nephew hadn’t offered to drive everyone in two cars, they may have never made it out of the house.
As soon as they made it through the door, their dream vision of high school was officially dead. No one even really noticed that they were there. Because they were joining so late into the school year, they weren’t able to get into the music program with Julie and Flynn and were instead left to the mercy of Alex’s family. As soon as they entered, they all got dragged off into separate directions. Julie and Flynn ran towards the music room, while Alex and Alexis raced off toward U.S. history, Reggie raced Felix to chemistry, and Luke followed Melody, who was particularly good with numbers, to Algebra II.
“Finally!” Luke groaned, plopping down on the lunch bench next to Julie, kissing her on the cheek.
Julie smiled at him, rolling her eyes. “It hasn’t been that long since we’ve seen each other.”
“Not according to Luke,” Alex grumbled settling down on Julie’s other side. “I just got out of Spanish with him, and seeing you is literally all he talked about.”
“What can I say,” Luke winked. “I’m a romantic.”
“Okay, lover boy,” Alexis snorted from where she sat across from Julie, Reggie on one side of her and Felix on the other. Flynn sat at one head of the table, as usual, while Melody sat at the other. “How’d your classes go, Alex?”
Reggie and Felix smiled at each other. They had had most of their morning classes together, which was perfectly fine with Reggie. Alex caught the direction Reggie was looking and sat bolt upright.
“Hey, no, none of that!” He yelled.
Reggie looked at Alex, starting to panic.
“I swear to God Reggie if I catch you looking at Alexis one more time…”
Reggie tried not to sigh with relief. Instead, he just shrugged, leaning back. “What can I say?” He echoed. “I’m a romantic.
Flynn smacked him on the back of the head before Alexis got the chance.
Luke raced to the music room, having just been let out of his last class of the day. He shuddered, remembering the horror that had been his home economics class. Their families had figured out all of their schedules for them, and so Luke, Alex, and Reggie all wound up with 7th period home economics. It had been a disaster. The assignment was cupcakes, but Luke was pretty sure someone would have been better off eating street dogs than the cupcakes.
The day was finally over though, and he was excited to see Julie again. He had mainly signed up for this plan because it meant that they would get to spend more time together, but they barely saw each other all day. They wound up with none of the same classes, and instead just had to talk in passing in the halls. Luke wasn’t positive about who to blame, but Ray seemed like a fairly likely candidate.
Despite his excitement, Luke paused at the door when he spotted Julie and Nick alone in the music room. He trusted Julie completely, but he still didn’t really trust Nick. Julie seemed to also be getting more frustrated with him.
They were folding up chairs together and seemed to be in the middle of a conversation.
“So, have you thought any more about what I asked you?” Nick asked.
Julie set her teeth. “Nick, you know I’m with Luke now. Please stop asking me out. You make it really hard to be your friend.”
What? Luke thought. Nick has still been asking her out?
“I just don’t see how long you think this thing between the two of you is going to last,” Nick shrugged.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not like you love each other, right?”
Luke and Julie both froze, and Luke got closer to the door, listening intently to Julie’s next words.
“I mean. Well. I haven’t said anything to him-”
“Oh. I see. That’s fine. Whatever. Doesn’t mean he loves you.” Nick started moving towards the door, too quickly for Luke to jump back out of the way.
Nick paused when he saw Luke listening in, and turned back to Julie. “Or trust you, apparently,” he laughed, leaving them behind.
Luke rushed into the room and grabbed Julie.
“Julie, I have to tell-”
“There you are!” Reggie called, rushing into the room with Alex. “This school is so big, we’ve been searching forever for you.”
“What is it?” Julie asked.
Alex cut right to the chase, looking at Luke. “Did you open your backpack, after you grabbed it from your locker?”
Luke shook his head. “No, I grabbed it and raced right here after class.”
“Dude, open it,” Reggie commanded.
Luke shrugged his backpack off and unzipped, gaping at what sat inside. He pulled out a packet of identity documents, the same ones that Reggie and Alex now clutched. It was everything they needed.
“How?” Luke breathed.
“I don’t know, but it feels pretty illegal,” Alex answered.
Luke smiled, shaking his head. “Another thing not to question.”
The boys started walking out of the room, and Julie stooped down to put her sheet music binder back in her backpack.
“You coming, Jules?” Luke asked.
“Yeah, just a minute.”
The guys shrugged and went to find their other friends while Julie finished gathering her things. She unzipped her backpack and gasped at what she saw inside.
She pulled out the same packet of documents, but these ones were for Willie. She had still never seen him, but she knew before she had even read the name who they were for. Unlike the others, however, there was a note on this one. She would have ignored its message, but she couldn’t. She figured if there was a note in her mother’s handwriting saying “hide this”, it was probably for a pretty good reason.