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The sound of her phone vibrating against her desk rips her attention from her book. Her feet are curled under her to keep her toes warm, her knitted blanket draped over her lap, a steaming cup of tea on the table to the left of the armchair she’s sitting on. She’s in the middle of the book’s most intense scene, but the loud noise bothers her more than she can bear, so she reaches over.
A quick glance at the caller ID makes her hand freeze midair, even though she’s not the least bit surprised. She hasn’t had the chance to change his contact photo yet - it’s still the candid photo Flynn snapped of them when their entire friend group went to the town fair last summer. Her face is turned towards him, like she’s in the middle of telling him a secret, and his face shines with the widest smile. His nose is scrunched up in the cutest way. She hates that just the sight of the photo makes the corner of her lips curl up in the smallest grin.
But the reminiscent, distant feeling of happiness doesn’t appear alone; it’s partnered with a residual anger she’s harbored for possibly too long over the past few months, all coming to a head just a mere 24 hours ago.
It’s not that she’s not happy for him, for them - God knows they deserve the recognition they are finally getting. Years of pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into the band shot them to the place they are now: the opening act on a nationwide tour. She takes pride in knowing that when they blow up for real, when they have chart-topping singles and best-selling albums, she’ll be able to say she was one of their original fans. This opportunity is just a step for them to get there.
But it’s hard to feel happy for someone she barely recognizes.
Because the Luke she knew wouldn’t give up that easily. The Luke that she fell in love with doesn’t just throw in the towel. He fights and stumbles and gets back up and continues to push until everything is at it’s best, until he is at his best.
She can’t help but wonder if this was his easy way out. If the tour was the perfect excuse to bring it all to an end, to stop the inevitable suffering they were both facing as the distance between them only grew with every tour stop. Nightly hour-long video calls turned into brief phone calls every few days, only to be diminished into clipped text conversations a few times a week. Maybe he was right, Julie wonders, maybe this was the next natural step to take in the deteriorating progression of their relationship.
(Another part of her ponders if she held on for too long, that maybe she refused to let herself see when it began to crumble. It felt better to be surprised by the end of it, pretending that she never saw it coming, to make him feel guilt for ripping the rug from underneath her when she had one foot off of it the whole time.)
But regardless of it all, he’s the one that pulled the plug in the end. And that thought is what hurts her most.
Because she remembers how people always said how infatuated he was with her. She’d often tease him after catching him staring at her for a moment too long, sending him an expression with a scrunched nose and small smile, equal parts embarrassed and flattered by his blatant desire for her. By no means was she any better than him at hiding her affection, but she’d just grown to believe that he loved her more than she could ever love him. If she loved him to the moon and back, he’d love her for lightyears.
That perception of him in her head doesn’t coincide with who he is now — an aloof, chaotic storm, always passionate about the next best thing. It’s astounding for her to think how much has changed since they started dating close to two years ago, when his passion for her was as grounded as his passion for music.
He’d eagerly grab her hand anytime he found the chance, whether it be short commutes between their classes, their walk to the parking lot, or on a stroll through the park by her house. He would slip notes into her locker, ranging from outlandish doodles to sweet lyrics he’d conjure up in his mind when zoning out in class. Their friends constantly teased him about it but he paid them no mind, shrugging it off and only doubling down on his devotion to her. He made her feel so loved.
It always baffled her that his tendency to flaunt their affection in public didn’t translate to their time alone at first. His legs were always bouncing, his hands fidgeting at his sides, his eyes darting around the room to avoid holding eye contact for too long. She thought it was cute for a while, until she itched for something more. In fact, it took them three months to even kiss. But when they finally did, the dam didn’t just break, it shattered.
It was like he itched to have some part of him touching her at all times, a hand on the small of her back, his head resting on top of hers, an arm thrown over her shoulders and her body tucked into his side. Whenever they found a moment alone, his lips would find hers in an instant, her hands immediately roaming to clench at his shoulders, as if to hold on to something tangible before he swept her into a fantastical world with his kisses.
The memory of the way he’d hold her so gently while absolutely domineering her in the same way sent shivers up her spine. She brought her hand to her lips, feeling the ghost of him for just a split second. Her eyes made its way back to the phone screen, the picture still flashing, taunting her, daring her to answer.
Loving him was like a double-edged sword. On one hand, they loved each other fiercely. But on the other, it translated almost perfectly into fiery discussions that led into arguments, whenever they happened. They were always over small things: her taking a long time to get ready, him forgetting to bring a jacket only to complain about the chilly weather. More often than not, they’d end with an apology and a steamy make-out session and everything would return back to normal.
Except one time, it didn’t.
The first time they broke up, it’d been over such a stupid fight. In truth, she doesn’t actually remember what the fight was even about, which is how she knows that it must’ve been a dumb reason. All she can recall is screaming and yelling until she’d had enough.
She remembers ignoring him during the school day, the look of desperation for her attention on his face giving her a sense of triumph. But that didn’t do much to quell the ache in her own heart. The breakup may have been her doing, but that didn’t mean she didn’t miss him like crazy.
Alex and Reggie tried to talk to both of them individually, likely because of how unbearable Luke was during the day. She felt pity for them, knowing that a mopey Luke was the worst version of Luke to be around. She waved their pleas off, though in her mind she was a bit more lenient than she let them believe.
The last thing she expected after coming out of an after-school meeting was to find him sitting on the parking lot pavement next to her car. He jumped to his feet, apologies spilling profusely past his lips. She let him go on for a few minutes, relishing in the feeling of having him come back to her before she shut him up with her own lips. She knew that if he hadn’t been waiting for her, she would’ve gone straight to him for the same reason.
After that moment, it was like a switch had been flipped. Suddenly their arguments became more frequent, their fights left unresolved until the following day. Their disputes end in either one of them storming off or an intense, passionate make-out session. When it’s the latter, she’s usually too wired up to realize how they’re beginning to tread in unhealthy territory.
When she looks back, now free from the restraints of their relationship, she understands it. For Julie, that break up had been a wake up call to make her realize how easily she could lose him. But it seemed like for Luke, it had only made him more aware of how easily he could get her back.
And there’s a part of her, buried deep within her thoughts behind layers and layers of denial, that wonders if there was a time after their first few months together where he still carried that fiery passion for her. Where he still burned to be with her the same way she ached to be next to him, where she was always on his mind the way she constantly thought about him. But as she replays the different memories in her head, one thing becomes abundantly clear: as passionate as he could love her, she was always going to play second fiddle to his one true love — music.
The first time she had even entertained the thought was on their six month anniversary, close to the time around their first split. She’d planned the day out: a picnic lunch in the park under their tree, a Pixar movie marathon, dinner at the Coney Island they’d had their first date. The dress she’d picked out was one of his favorites, it’s the same one she wore to the fair in his contact photo.
She waited at the park for nearly 45 minutes, the blanket laid out with all the food plated nicely on top, before he contacted her. All he did was send her a quick text saying that him and the boys needed to practice for a new gig and that he’d make it up to her. He didn’t even say I love you. She left him on read.
Almost immediately her phone vibrated with a smiling picture of the two of them and she picked up, ready to give him a piece of her mind. Her harsh exterior broke when she heard the desperation in his voice, the regret and guilt growing to be insurmountable to the anger she felt. So she forgave him. The boys needed this.
Every time it happens, he calls with the same tone, knowing she’ll break down her wall to let him in. And each time she does. She wonders at what point it became an act, when he realized that just the right pitch and scratch in his pleas to her would do the trick.
It became a vicious cycle: fight, sulk, wait for him to call, forgive, repeat.
The sound of plastic bumping against wood jolts her out of her mind, her eyes automatically glancing at the phone again. She can’t help but feel her heart tug at the expression on both of their faces in the picture on her screen. They looked happy.
She remembers that day with a bittersweet tang. They’d fought the night before when Luke tried to wiggle his way out of attending the fair, citing that there were still a few songs that he needed to work the kinks through. But they’d put off going to the fair until the last day for the same exact reason, she whined. The songs would still be there after another day, the fair wouldn’t.
There’s a twisting in her stomach as she recalls their fight that day, how she feels a familiar squeeze in her abdomen mimicking the pain she felt last night, reminding her that she’s not his first love. She never will be. At what point did she become okay with that? When did she accept that being chosen second was her fate? Is she going to keep subjecting herself to that knowledge when she deserves better?
She imagines that if Flynn were here, she’d be giving her all sorts of dirty looks for the way her mind is maneuvering its thoughts. And Flynn, being the omniscient pain-in-the-ass she is, is right. Julie knows that. She knows that she can’t break it all down, she can’t find out what went wrong, she can’t diagnose what to fix. She knows that there’s no use in trying to remember all the good times in an effort to convince herself to pick up the phone. Because the more she reminisces, the more she’s burning herself with the buried memories of when he’s hurt her.
Her eyes glance at her phone again. She retracts her hand into her lap, her thumb flipping at the corner of the page of the book she's reading.
Fight. Sulk. Wait for him to call.
Something is different this time. Something about it feels final.
The vibrating finally stops. Her phone screen turns black. And Julie lets out a long breath.
**
“Hi, it’s Julie! I can’t come to the phone right now but leave me a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can!”