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Julie and Luke were sitting together under the stars having just finished a picnic. They had been going out for a few months now and tried to go on a nice date at least once every couple of weeks. And by an actual date, that typically just meant “anything without Reggie or Alex.”
Julie looked over at Luke, who was grinning up at the sky. Sometimes, she forgot that he was actually older than he was. He looked at the world with a child-like curiosity and was as pleased as a child at every new discovery. There was a deeper level to it for him though. With Luke, you could tell he faced every day just thankful that he got the chance to. Suddenly, Julie realized that it was time.
She had realized it weeks ago and was pretty sure that this conversation would go well. She felt like she had a fairly good grasp on how Luke felt about her. If Luke Patterson was anything, subtle was not it.
“Hey, Luke?” She asked.
Luke turned his head and grinned at her. “Yeah?”
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
Luke sat up, suddenly concerned. He ran through the last couple of weeks in his head, trying to figure out anything he could have done wrong. He was pretty positive that Julie didn’t know about Reggie’s latest bout of scaring her aunt, and couldn’t think of anything else that had happened recently.
“Okay…”
Julie took a deep breath. “I love you.”
Luke’s eyes went wide. “Oh.”
Julie was starting to get nervous. “Oh?” She asked, flashing back to almost a year prior when she had a very similar reaction to Luke asking her to join the band.
Luke stayed silent, staring ahead at nothing. Julie went on to damage control.
“You don’t have to say it back or anything, if you don’t. I mean, if-” But Luke had poofed out before she could figure out what to say.
Luke had been kicking himself for the last week, ever since that disastrous date with Julie. She had been avoiding him, and it was making him miserable (along with everybody else). The boys weren’t used to things being off between Julie and Luke, and it felt as though something drastic had shifted in their small universe. One day when Julie was at school, it got to be too much.
Luke was sitting with his guitar and notebook, moodily staring at the paper. Alex and Reggie stood on the other side of the room, taking turns shoving each other toward Luke. Eventually, Reggie pushed a bit too hard, and Alex stumbled forward. Luke looked up.
“Okay,” Alex sighed. “So we’re doing this. What’s going on, Luke?”
Luke looked back down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Reggie and Alex went and sat on either side of Luke.
“Luke, we spent 25 years in a room together. I think I can tell when you’re lying,” Reggie prompted.
“Can we really count that as 25 years though?” Luke asked.
Alex hit him on the arm. “Don’t change the subject. What happened last week between you and Julie?”
Luke groaned, flopping his head back on the couch. “She told me she loved me,” he admitted.
Reggie and Alex turned to each other, eyes wide.
“And?” Reggie asked.
Luke rolled his head to stare at him. “I poofed out.”
Alex jumped off the couch. “Dude!” He yelled.
“I know! Trust me, I know,” Luke agreed.
“Okay so this is bad,” Reggie said. Alex and Luke glared at him.
“No wonder she’s seemed so upset,” Alex added.
Luke just groaned again.
“You do love her though, don’t you?” Reggie asked. He wasn’t just joking earlier. He wasn’t great at reading situations, but Reggie was pretty sure that he was at least decent at reading Luke. And part of that meant knowing he was in love with Julie. It was an established fact between all of them, even if no one had really admitted it until this point.
“Of course I am,” Luke muttered. “I just panicked all of a sudden.”
Alex sat back down next to him. “Why?”
Luke exploding, a week’s worth of fears all coming out. “Because what if we go away again? One day, either I’m going to be gone or Julie’s going to leave me. And if she loves me and I disappear, it’s just going to hurt her more. I feel like all I do is just mess up when people love me and end up hurting them. I don’t want that to be how she remembers me,” Luke finished quietly, staring off.
Alex and Reggie thought for a minute.
“You’re not going to let that keep you from being together though, are you?” Reggie asked.
“Of course not,” Luke answered. “I just don’t know how to fix this.”
“Just tell her that,” Alex told him.
“I don’t know how,” Luke admitted.
Reggie grabbed Luke’s guitar. “Yes, you do.”
Luke knocked on the door of Julie’s room.
“Come in!” She called. He took a deep breath before entering.
“Oh. Hi,” Julie said, sitting up from where she was drawing in her sketchbook.
“Hi,” Luke replied.
“Do you… need something?” Julie asked, looking everywhere except for at him.
Luke shook himself, gathering up his courage. “Yeah um. Can you meet me in the studio in a couple of minutes?”
Julie blew out a deep breath. “Sure,” she said, getting up.
Luke poofed back out to the studio, pacing in circles until she entered.
“Okay Luke, what’s up?” Julie asked.
“Right. Here, sit,” he started, guiding her over to the couch. He picked up his guitar and stood in front of her.
“Okay…” Julie said, wondering where this was going.
“I’ve been trying the entire week to figure out what to say to you after our date, and I just couldn’t figure out the words. So, I decided to sing them instead.”
Julie settled into the couch, realizing that this was one of the times where she needed to give Luke his space to think.
After a second’s hesitation, Luke began to play.
I dreamed I was missing
You were so scared
But no one would listen
Cause no one else cared
After my dreaming
I woke with this fear
What am I leaving
When I’m done here?
Before Luke could even get into the chorus, Julie started to tear up. Despite her own fears around losing those close to her, she hadn’t thought about how Luke may have a similar fear, though in a very different way.
When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I’ve done
Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed
And don’t resent me
And when you’re feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
Leave out all the rest
Julie sat quietly throughout the rest of the song, wondering how she hadn’t picked up on any of this before. She was afraid of losing Luke, of course. But she also realized that if anything ever did take him from her, she would be left with nothing less than wonderful memories of him. If she had learned anything in her 16 years, it was to be grateful for the time she got to have with the people she loved, even if it was too short.
Forgetting
All the hurt inside you’ve learned to hide so well
Pretending
Someone else can come and save me from myself
I can’t be who you are
I can’t be who you are
Luke’s voice broke a bit on the last line, and that was when Julie realized that Luke was crying as well.
“Luke,” Julie cried, jumping off the couch and wrapping her arms around him, eternally grateful that she got to do that now.
“I love you too, Julie,” he mumbled into her neck. “And it scares me so much.”
Julie laughed, pulling back to stare at him.
“I think if it didn’t scare you, it wouldn’t be love,” she admitted. “I’m scared too, all the time. How could I not be? I never heard of a ghost that was so bad at surviving being a ghost.”
Luke just laughed, holding Julie tighter.
“But I love you. And if something does happen, that’s what I’m going to remember. And the bad things? I’ll be happy when I remember those too. Like the way you leave the fridge open just to stare at the food. Or the way you plunge bravely and recklessly ahead into everything you do. Even the way you can’t share a single serious emotion unless you put it into a song. You don’t need my help leaving behind reasons to be missed, Luke. You do it yourself, every second of every day that you get to be here.”
Luke buried his face back into Julie’s neck, beginning to cry again. “I never want to leave you, Julie.”
“I never want you to go,” Julie admitted.
Luke leaned back and cupped Julie’s face. “Then I’ll stay. As long as you still want me around. No matter how many evil magician ghosts I have to fight off.”
Julie and Luke stayed there quietly holding each other as Reggie and Alex, who had been spying from the loft, quietly high-fived before poofing out. Order was restored. And, Reggie would bring up at the band meeting later that day, completely blowing his and Alex’s cover, they had a fantastic new song for their setlist.