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It happens so fast.
One minute, Luke’s watching Julie as she sings her heart out on stage. Completely mesmerized by her talent and her beauty.
Looking back later, Luke thinks that’s what the problem was. He’s always been too enamoured by Julie--too amazed by her to realize she wasn’t indestructible. She wasn’t permanent. She was fragile , even; more so than he was, because he was already dead. She never seemed breakable; the wrecking ball of talent was the one doing the destruction, breaking hearts with tragic songs and blowing minds with her incredible voice. He forgot that Julie, no matter how tough she seemed, still needed to be protected. Accidents could still happen.
One minute, Luke’s watching Julie--and the next, the lighting rig collapses from the ceiling above them.
It happens in slow motion. The shrieking of metal bending and warping as it breaks from the rest of the rig. The gasps of the crowd. The scream scratching its way up Luke’s throat. The lighting rig phasing harmlessly through himself and Reggie, decimating their instruments on the way down--shattering things, snapping them into pieces. His guitar falls from his hands in one of the strangest sensations he’s ever had: the lights going through him, making his body feel warm from their previous usage of spotlighting Julie, while the same light fixture splinters the guitar into a million fractions. He’s a ghost, he’s used to phasing through things when he chooses to.
It doesn’t phase through Julie.
She looks up only moments before it crashes down. Their frontwoman has enough time to throw her arms over her head before the heavy lights are hitting her, followed by the steel of the rig. Julie crumples to the ground with a scream Luke knows he will never forget.
Almost instantly, the cheers and joyful, encouraging yelling of the crowd are replaced by horrified screams. Alex stops instantly and stands, running around the drum set and jumping down the platform to join them on the main stage. Reggie sprints to Julie, to the mess of steel and wires and lights and machinery Luke still doesn’t understand.
But Luke cannot move. He’s frozen in shock, body still as stone. His mind whirls frantically.
She’s supposed to be invincible. Julie doesn’t break, doesn’t fall, doesn’t get hurt. She has an incredible grace Luke has always envied, moving across her kitchen the same way she moves around a stage; she exudes power and confidence, walking through the world like she knows who she is, and won’t be stopped by anyone or anything.
(Luke knows most of that is all in his head. He’s been in love with her since she first walked through his ghostly body in her kitchen while making a sandwich. He’s a little biased, so sue him.)
“JULIE!”
Somehow it’s Carlos’ voice that breaks through Luke’s shock. He knows that Julie’s family comes to most of her gigs, and Carlos enjoys filming them for his YouTube channel. Intellectually, he knows that they were here today, watching them.
But it’s the reality check of Carlos screaming his sister’s name that gets him moving. Luke races over to the wreckage. Reggie and Alex are crouched on either side of Julie, half phasing through the rigging. Over the years, they’ve learned how to control their tangibility so it’s practically second nature to them, allowing their bodies to occupy both empty air and filled space. Luke drops to his knees beside Reggie, hands fluttering over it all, unsure of where to start.
“Julie?” The scream tears from his throat, his voice joining Alex and Reggie’s panicked yells. “Julie, please say something.”
There’s no movement from the girl below them. Julie’s left arm is pinned underneath her, right arm laying over her head but bent at an awkward angle. Her legs are splayed out, and Luke can see blood pooling from a gash in one of her legs, probably from one of the lights.
“Is she breathing?” Reggie gasps, and Luke bends closer, trying to see if her chest is rising at all. He’s never really thought about the fact that he breathes because it’s routine, something he doesn’t question doing; Julie breathes because she will die if she doesn’t.
Long, tense moments pass as Luke searches for signs of life. He moves his hand carefully to her face, hoping against all hope she’s still alive. A warm breath hits his palm as it hovers over her mouth, and Luke sighs in relief.
“She’s breathing,” he reports.
“We have to get this off of her,” Alex says. His face is pale, terror in his eyes. They look over as the security team races to the stage. Their faces are stoic, both men calm in the face of this disaster. When the band met them before the show, Gus and Trey had reassured them of their competence. Now they get to see them in action, and a detached part of Luke’s brain commends them for staying calm. Because he is anything but calm.
“Two of you help lift, one pulls her out.” Gus says, moving next to Alex. “We called 911, but it’s gonna be a few minutes before they get here.”
Luke spots Julie’s white microphone near Alex’s feet, and he almost passes out right there. Because that microphone was in Julie’s hands mere minutes ago. And now, her fingers are probably crushed by the rigging, and what if--
Luke stops himself from considering the possibilities. Get Julie to safety first, panic later.
“Reggie, you help Alex lift, I’m gonna pull Julie out of there.”
Reggie stifles a sob but agrees and stands up, moving to join Trey opposite Alex. Alex counts to three, and they all heave in tandem. There’s some gasps from the crowd as the ‘holograms’ pick up the rigging, but Luke doesn't have time to do damage control for the crowd. The debris lifts slowly, and as soon as he can, Luke slips his arms carefully under Julie’s armpits. He tugs her away, wincing at the trail of blood left from her leg. When he’s far enough away he gently lowers her back to the ground, keeping her head cradled against his body.
Alex and Reggie drop the rigging and run to Julie, leaving the security guards, who let the rigging land with a thud. There’s screams from the audience again, but Luke doesn’t care about them. He taps Julie’s cheeks, keeping up a litany of pleas. “Come on Julie, please open your eyes. Julie, can you hear me? Julie, say something, please.”
He’s joined by his bandmates circling him. Reggie’s face is blotchy and tears stream from his eyes, while Alex is shaking.
Luke never thought, in a million years, that this would happen. Even with how crazy he and his friends are, they’ve never had any major accidents, save for Reggie falling out of a tree when they were ten. Luke and Bobby used to get into fights at school, and Reggie had his parents’ problems taken out on him, but realistically, he’s never seen anyone this broken before.
And how could it happen to Julie? His shining star, the leader of their band, the one who makes him not just a better writer but also a better person. Julie, the girl who sees music just the same way he did, who understands his desire to connect with people, who accepted three strange ghosts into her life with very little consideration, the girl who loves Reggie and Alex just as much as he does.
The girl he’s fallen in love with, who greets him good morning with a smile and a kiss, and gives him warm hugs when he’s upset, and punches him lightheartedly as she teases him about his handwriting, and with whom he shares deep, meaningful kisses where he feels like the world around him is forgotten and she becomes his world.
And his world has stopped, because Julie still won’t open her eyes.
“Julie?” Alex grabs her hand, and Luke has only heard his friend this afraid once before: in an alleyway long ago where they all laid on the ground with stomachs heaving and hearts slowly stopping. Luke can feel history repeating itself, and he can’t let that happen.
He sobs as he kisses her forehead. “Julie, please open your eyes,” he begs.
And finally, finally, her eyelids flutter, and she blinks up at Luke.
Reggie lets out a relieved laugh. “Julie? Can you hear me?” he asks.
Her eyes screw shut as her face crinkles in pain. “Reggie?” she whispers.
“We’re all here,” Luke promises. “It’s okay.”
“JULIE!”
Ray’s yell splits the silence. He’s made it to the stage, running over to their band, to his daughter. Carlos is sprinting alongside him, face full of tears.
“She’s alive,” Luke says, eyes fixed on the mixture of relief and terror in Ray’s face.
They drop down before them, Ray taking Julie’s other hand. She squeezes it as she registers who it is. “Papi?”
“I’m here, baby, I’m here.”
“Ambulance is five minutes out,” Trey informs them. That’s not fast enough, Luke thinks. He wishes he could just poof Julie out of here and straight to the emergency room. Unfortunately, they aren’t able to poof a lifer anywhere. Teleportation seems to be a ghost-only power.
And yet, Luke would give Julie every ounce of his ghostly abilities right this second for the chance to help her. His heart aches, watching her twitch in pain against him.
“Jules, what can I do to help?” he asks desperately. Her left hand leaves Alex’s and grips her elbow with a low moan of pain. Her arm isn’t bent at a weird angle anymore, but it’s obviously still causing her grief.
“Just stay,” she grits out. “Don’t leave me.” She shakes her head at the thought, then whines.
“Hey, hey, don’t move,” Luke says instantly. He pushes her hair away from her forehead softly. “I’m not going anywhere, don’t you worry. Only a few more minutes till the ambulance gets here.”
Luke’s afraid of silence. He hasn’t always been afraid, per say, but he’s never enjoyed the stillness and nothingness silence brings. That’s part of why he loves music so much. Luke loves how music can reflect emotions: loud, crashing music for when he feels anger and the need to hit something; quiet, calm piano or violin when he’s trying to think of lyrics to create, or needs some peace; fun, upbeat rock or pop to groove to, when he’s having fun with his friends and enjoying life.
Silence has none of these things. There’s emptiness. Nothing is happening to keep his attention focused, and he can't sit still for even a minute when there’s silence.
So for the next five minutes, he talks to Julie, to Ray, to Alex sitting beside him. Luke has no idea what he says, because it’s just noise to keep the silence at bay while they wait for the ambulance. There’s no noise from the crowd to drown himself in, and the only noises from Julie are ones of pain that send bolts of terror through him. So he talks.
Finally, the emergency team comes, and they ask questions. “How far did it fall? Where was she hit? Did anyone else get hurt? How long was she unconscious? Has she moved her head? Can she move her arm?”
The questions blur into meaningless noise, and Luke thinks he might hate this more than silence. Because nothing makes sense. He can’t form words anymore; his mouth seems to have stopped working.
Alex and Ray answer the questions, and Luke watches helplessly as they bring a board to lay Julie on. They slide her from his grasp, keeping her head and neck steady, and then a brace is brought and put around her neck. They move the board to a stretcher and then the stretcher moves off the stage and out the doors to where an ambulance is waiting.
Luke follows the stretcher outside, ready to climb into the ambulance with his girl when he’s stopped by Reggie throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Ray and Carlos are gonna go with her. We can meet them there.” If Reggie wasn’t holding him, Luke would collapse right there. As it is, he tucks his head into his friend’s shoulder and hugs him tight.
“I can’t lose her, Reg. I just can’t.”
Reggie pulls him closer. “I know, Luke.” They stand clutching each other, trying to draw strength from the other. They both send up silent pleas to whatever power brought them to Julie wouldn’t take her away.
~~~
Julie’s out of emergency care and in her own room. Luke overhears the doctors telling Ray it will be “touch and go for a while, but she’s stable for now.” It lifts his heart, and he reports back to Reggie, Alex and Carlos in the waiting room. They all sag in relief, and Carlos asks, “When can we go see her?”
“Right now,” Ray answers, walking into the room. “I figured you went ahead and told them, Luke.” He nods, and they all follow Ray down the hall and to the stairs.
They reach Julie’s room (Room 238), and Ray stops them just before they go in. “I know Luke’s already seen her, but for you three, it might be hard. It’s okay to feel a mixture of emotions, and if you need to cry, or leave for a little bit, that’s okay too.”
Luke had almost left when he saw Julie lying in that room the first time. All the machines hooked up to her, doctors and nurses working around her as they stopped the bleeding in her leg and checked her body for other trauma Luke didn’t know a thing about. He managed to stay an entire two minutes before a nurse kicked him out, but it was long enough to make him sick to his stomach.
They enter the room, and Julie’s face splits into a smile. It seems so at odds with the white, sterile room surrounding her. But Julie always brings warmth and light to any situation, and somehow, even with the heart monitor steadily beeping, she gives Luke a sense of peace he only finds when he sees her.
Reggie bounds over to her bed. “Julie!” he says, and Julie gives a little laugh at his enthusiasm.
“Hey Reg, how’s it going?”
“Much better now,” he says, and carefully lowers himself down to give her a hug. Her right arm is in a cast, but she hugs him back with only a slight grimace.
They separate, and Julie says, “Come here Carlos,” waving her brother over. His face is still pale, but he moves forward to greet his sister. Luke can’t imagine what the little dude must be going through; the fact that they lost Rose in a hospital just like this must be bringing back terrible memories.
Luke lets Julie visit with her family and the other boys, using every ounce of patience he has to give them space. All he wants to do is scoop her up, make her better, and never let her go again.
Finally she searches the room for him, and her face softens in that way it only does for him. As scared as he’s been all day, he can’t help himself when his face begins to match her own.
“Hey you,” she says, voice soft and filled with love. Luke slips into Reggie’s spot by her side, his friend gladly giving up his seat. “Gotta save the best for last,” she continues.
He smiles at her, feeling overwhelmed by her love. He knows, of course, that she loves him--they’ve told each other how they feel, and she knows that he feels the same--but sometimes it really hits him all over again. Julie Molina loves him.
“You know it,” he jokes, and she giggles. Her laugh is the best sound in the universe, and Luke never wants to stop hearing it. He almost did stop hearing it, and his mind shudders at the what-ifs.
“Please never do that to me again,” Luke whispers, running his thumb over her hand. “I can’t bear to lose you.”
Julie gives him a small smile. “Next time I plan on being crushed by some lights I’ll give you a heads up.”
“I’m serious, Jules.” Luke doesn’t understand how she can be making light of this situation. “You almost died. I thought you were dead.”
“But I’m not,” she says, eyes staring into his, pinning him with love and grace. “We have to take each moment as it comes, and be thankful that we’re here now, together. I’m not gone, which means we can still be together, still live our lives. And we can’t linger on those what-ifs I know are stewing around in that brain of yours, because--”
Luke never gets to hear the end of her speech. Her eyes roll back into her head, and her body begins shaking. The heart monitor starts beeping rapidly, filling the room with its piercing noise.
“Julie?” Luke shouts, standing up but keeping a grip on her hand. This can’t be happening, he thinks as he watches her shake in the hospital bed.
His shout alerts everyone else, who had turned away to give them some privacy. Ray yells for a doctor while Carlos starts crying. All Luke can do is repeat her name, over and over again. What else can he do?
Doctors and nurses rush in and Luke is shoved out of the way. Alex grabs him and pulls him to his chest, but Luke can’t look away. The beeping keeps increasing, and the doctors are yelling to each other, and Julie is just there, body moving uncontrollably and breath coming in gasps.
What did he do to deserve this pain? This punishment? Watching is agony but looking away is not an option.
Then the heart monitor flatlines. Even Luke, who knows nothing medical related, knows that sound. His hand comes up to cover his mouth in shock. The doctors are talking, moving, working, and Julie’s body jerks up and down as they try to restart her heart.
It’s too much to handle. Luke can’t look anymore. He turns into Alex’s chest, pressing his face to the pink hoodie. His hands tighten into fists, because he needs to hold something, but that something is Julie and she isn’t there anymore, she’s gone, why is she gone, how could this happen --
He barely notices when he crumples to the floor, but Alex catches him and slides down with him. Luke doesn’t know when he started crying, but it’s all he can do. His chest hurts and his head hurts and everything hurts.
Because Julie is gone.
~~~
Luke doesn’t trust anything anymore.
He trusted the owners of the venue to be sure their lights would stay hanging. He trusted the ambulance to get there in time. He trusted the doctors to be able to save her. He trusted that she would get better; that her sitting up in the hospital bed, talking and smiling and reassuring him, was a good sign.
Now he second-guesses everything around him. He begs Ray to take the chairs down from the ceiling of the studio, because what if the hooks break and they fall on Carlos? He carefully inspects any new furniture the Molinas purchase, learning how to help Ray build bookshelves and tables from IKEA out of fear instead of a desire to build. Every time Carlos gets a new gaming system, Luke helps him set it up in the living room, unable to chase away the panic that he might electrocute himself in the process. Whenever Reggie or Alex want to jam in the studio, Luke carefully sets up the equipment, only allowing his friends to help if he’s right there with them.
Luke doesn't trust himself anymore. He’s the one that pushed for them to perform that night. He’s the one who didn’t yell in time to warn her. He’s the one that could have said goodbye, could have told her that he loved her one more time.
Now he makes sure to tell his friends that he loves them every single day, even the days where the grief is so strong he wishes he could disappear into nothingness. He worries so much when Ray and Carlos leave the house that Ray buys him a phone so they can stay in constant communication. Alex and Reggie learn to check in with Luke before going anywhere, and they always find him when they’re back home to reassure him that nothing went wrong.
Luke doesn't hear what his friends say. They try to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that accidents happen.
But he’s numb, and he’s broken, and he can’t believe them, he won’t. Everything reminds him of her.
He’ll catch sight of a girl with brown curly hair down the street and remember when he used to tease her about how big her hair used to get, both laughing as she tossed back a quip about white boys and their limp hair. He sees people wearing necklaces with little moons on them every once in a while, and he can’t stop thinking about the day she told him about all the jewelry she wore and what it all meant to her. Every time he spots a butterfly while outside, or someone with a butterfly charm, he thinks of her smile and the bright colors she used to wear. He tries not to remember how beautiful she looked in that final performance, a small butterfly patch adorning her shirt that Flynn had helped her iron on. Sometimes he watches award shows, and someone in the performance will have a white microphone, and he remembers how far her microphone rolled under the metal. Loud noises make him flinch, and it’s months before he can play catch with his friends, because things falling through the air have him staggering backwards and out of reach.
He’s broken, because of her. He trusted her. And Julie’s last words were a lie he can never forget.