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“... perfect harmony!” Luke and Julie smiled at each other as the final chords of Julie’s new song rang out in the studio.
“That was awesome, Jules!” Luke congratulated, walking over and throwing himself down on the couch in the garage. Julie went and sat next to him.
“Thanks. It was just something that popped into my head,” she blushed.
“How’d you think of it?” Alex asked, swirling on his guitar stool.
It had been a few weeks since the night at the Orpheum, and there hadn’t been much change in the condition of the boys since then. No one was really quite sure what was going to happen next, but they were making the most of the time that they had. Which was why Julie decided it was okay to show them Perfect Harmony, and hope that none of them made the connection that it was about Luke (or, maybe, she did want them to figure out it was about Luke. She was still trying to figure that one out).
“Oh, you know, it was just something that came to me. Thought we could use a cute little ballad.”
“Right right,” Reggie nodded, wiggling his eyebrows at Julie. “A cute little ballad about two singers. Who say they’re just friends. Seems totally random.”
“Shut up, Reggie.” Luke nudged Julie with his shoulder. “I think it was great.”
“Thanks, Luke.”
“Of course you think it was great, you think everything Julie does is great,” Alex pointed out.
Luke shrugged. “That’s because everything Julie does is great.”
Julie blushed even more, looking at the floor and away from Luke. “Come on, that’s not true.”
“It is totally true!” He argued. “Literally everything you do, you’re amazing at.”
“You’re pretty amazing, too,” Julie muttered. “At everything you do, I mean.”
Now it was Luke’s turn to blush and look away. “Thanks.”
Alex and Reggie rolled their eyes and tried to muffle their laughter from where they stood by Alex’s drums.
“Julie?” They heard Flynn call from outside.
Julie stood up off the couch, shaking herself slightly. “Gotta go, guys.”
Luke bounced up too. “Where are you going?”
“I have homecoming tonight, remember? I’ve gotta go get ready.”
“Oh. Right. Well. Have fun.” Luke walked over and began fiddling with his guitar.
Julie waited for a minute, biting her lip and staring at Luke. Reggie walked over and hit Luke on the back of the head. He looked back up and at Julie.
“What’s up?” Luke asked.
Julie glanced at the guys, and Alex gave her a thumbs up from behind one of the drums.
“Well, it’s just. I mean, with homecoming tonight…”
“Yeah?” Luke stood up again, setting aside the guitar and crossing his arms, his brow furrowed.
“Well. Well I mean. It’s just me and Flynn going, you know.”
“You too should have fun,” Luke smiled.
“I can’t watch this,” Alex muttered, burying his head in his hands. Reggie went and hit his head against a wall.
“...Yeah,” Julie sighed. “Yeah, it should be fun. I’ll see you before?”
“I’ll be here,” Luke assured. Julie sighed one more time before leaving the room.
“Wonder what that was about?” Luke frowned, fiddling with his writing notebook and pencil.
“You’re joking,” Alex deadpanned.
“No? She was acting really weird.”
“Dude,” Reggie crossed back over and hit Luke on the head again. “She was trying to ask you to the dance!”
“What? No she wasn’t.”
“She definitely, definitely was,” Alex supported. “Or she was trying to get you to ask her.”
“Oh,” Luke frowned again.
“Oh?” Reggie asked, sitting down against the wall next to Luke.
At that moment, Willie popped into the room. Alex smiled and stood up as soon as he saw him, crossing over to be beside him and grabbing Willie’s hand.
“Hey,” Willie smiled.
“Hey.” Alex glanced around once shyly before leaning forward and kissing Willie quickly. He smiled even wider. They’d been seeing more and more of each other in the couple of weeks since the Orpheum. According to Willie, Caleb had been suspiciously absent since that night. Everyone was hoping that he had simply realized he lost and was giving up on them. No one was exactly convinced by that, but at least the temporary break allowed for Willie and Alex to actually be together for the moment.
“Ready to go?” Willie asked. Alex nodded.
“Where are you guys going?” Luke called.
“The art museum,” Alex responded, getting ready to poof out.
“I’m guessing it’s closed?” Reggie asked.
Willie grinned at him. “Of course.”
“Be back in time to see Julie before her dance!” Luke reminded him.
Alex rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
Luke and Reggie sat in silence for a minute after Alex and Willie left, staring around the garage. Finally, Reggie couldn’t take it anymore.
“Okay, so why don’t you ask Julie out?” he blurted.
Luke turned his head to stare at him. “What?”
“Julie. And you. Together. Dating. Being all Alex and Willie on me. Why is that not happening?”
Luke shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh come on Luke, you know what I’m talking about.”
“It’s complicated,” Luke sighed, banging his head back against the wall.
“You like her, don’t you?”
Luke bit his lip, looking away in the other direction.
“Luke, you can tell me. I already know that you do. Everyone knows that you do, dude, it’s not really a secret.”
“Of course I like her,” Luke muttered.
“And she likes you.”
“You don’t kno-”
“Yeah I do. I might not be ‘smart’, but I definitely know what that song was about. Who it was about.”
“...yeah. I mean, yeah, you’re right. I’m pretty sure she likes me back.”
“So why don’t you ask her out!”
“It’s not that easy.”
“How. In what universe is it ‘not that easy’! You like her. She likes you. Boom. Love marriage long life and little Lukes and Julies closed story.”
“It’s not that easy,” Luke ground out, standing up again, “Because Julie and I couldn’t actually do any of that. It’s not that I don’t want all of that. I want all of that, with her, so badly I feel like I’m going crazy. But you and I aren’t alive, Reggie. And yeah, so she can touch us now. We’re still dead. I could never marry her, or grow old with her, or have a life with her. We’re stuck at 17 Reg, and she’s so fully, completely alive.”
“And you don’t want to hold her back,” Reggie clarified.
“Exactly.”
Reggie stood up and grabbed Luke’s shoulders, making him make eye contact. “Dude, listen to me. That isn’t your choice.”
Luke took a step back, crossing his arms. “What?”
“You don’t get to decide that you’re holding her back! I mean, maybe all that stuff you said is true. So what? Regardless of the future or whatever, she still loves you right now . It doesn’t matter whether you date her or not, she is still going to love you right now, and still going to not date anyone else, and still be around and wait around for you and make her life around you, and all of us, because she loves you and she loves this band. So if she’s going to be around anyways, and is still going to love you anyways, why don’t you actually date her and do something that makes you happy.”
Reggie panted as he finished his speech. Luke stared at him, mouth agape.
“Hey, Reg?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re stupid.”
“Thanks. So are you going to go talk to her?”
Luke bit his lip, looking at the door. “...not yet.”
Reggie groaned. “Did you not hear anything I just said?”
“No, I did. I just… I gotta think first. I’ll be back before the dance, okay?”
“Just go tell her!” But Luke was already gone.
He went to Venice Beach. When he was a kid, he loved coming to the boardwalk with his parents. He would gorge himself on cotton candy and fatty foods while listening to the boardwalk buskers and wishing to be one of them, ride the rides until he felt sick, play arcade games until his allowance money ran out, and run around on the beach until the rest of his energy would run out as well. He would stare out at the horizon and imagine that one day, he would sail off by himself, and go as far as he could away until he found something new. Then, after his dad loaded him in the car, he’d fall asleep on the ride home, and always wake up nice and cozy in his own bed with no memory of how he got there.
As he got older, he always liked the idea of going to the boardwalk for his first date. Of sharing that good memory with somebody that he loved, of taking them into that space that he had felt safe, the spot he had felt limitless. But then he had left home, and all the memories had turned sour. There was never time for a girlfriend in his life. Then there wasn’t any life.
He sat on the railing and watched the couples on the boardwalk. There was a couple in the middle of what appeared to be a vicious dance dance revolution battle. A girl playing all of the carnival games, shoving giant stuffed animals into the arms of her boyfriend as she won more and more of them. Two boys kissed at the top of the ferris wheel. One couple shared a milkshake and a plate of fries (throwing more at each other than they ate). Two girls walked hand in hand down the beach, until one picked the other up and carried her into the ocean, kissing her as the waves crashed. All of these people living in their own bubbles, worlds orbiting each other without realizing they were there.
But what could Luke and Julie ever do together? There was no food he could eat, no fear he could feel on a ride. Julie would always have to play a game alone. Whether against her or with her, there was nothing that Luke could ever really do to help her. He would never tire out on the beach, and at the end of the day, he would never again wake up safe and warm in his own bed. All he could do would be to go, and to never stop going.
None of it mattered to Julie though. She didn’t appear to care that he wasn’t truly alive, that he could only give her a half existence. And, Luke had to admit, when he was with her, he did feel alive. Luke did not feel hunger. He felt no sickness, no fear of falling, no exhaustion. But he felt love, and he felt it for Julie. She was everything he had ever wanted, and so what if maybe the dream had to look a little different now? Luke knew what it was to have regrets in life, to have missed opportunities and ones that got away. He never wanted Julie to sit on a pier alone and wonder what if. Perhaps that could be the one thing he really could do for her.
Alex was back by the time that Luke poofed into the garage, scaring him and Reggie, who had been sitting on the couch.
“Dude, where were you? Julie’s going to be in any second,” Alex said.
“I know, I know. I just had to think. And I think I’m going to do it,” Luke responded.
“Do what?”
“Go with her. Ask her out. Everything, anything she wants me to do.”
“What happened to the whole holding her back thing?” Reggie asked.
“No regrets, right?” Luke grinned, just as Julie and Flynn came into the garage.
Luke’s mouth went dry when he saw her. One side of her hair was pushed back with clips. She was in a light pink dress that fell softly above her knees, and was laced up the back. She was incredible. She was amazing, and full of life, and she was going to have the whole world in love with her.
Julie smiled at him when she noticed him staring.
“So what do you think?” She asked.
Alex walked up and hugged her. “You look great, Julie.”
“I’m gonna have to learn karate,” Reggie joked, pulling a pose. “Beat up all the teenage boys.”
Julie laughed. “They wouldn’t even know you hit them, Reggie.”
“Yeah, but I’d know.”
She turned to Luke, looking up through her lashes. “What about you? Planning any karate moves?”
He blinked at her, then cleared his throat. “Of course. You look… you look really nice, Jules. Really.”
She smiled wider, going to tuck her hair behind her ear before she remembered it was pinned up. “Thanks.”
Julie rocked back on the balls of her feet for a moment, looking around the room, her eyes skipping over Luke. She clasped her hands in front of herself. “Well. I should probably go.”
“Yeah,” Luke agreed softly. “Wouldn’t want you to be late.”
“Right,” Julie nodded, starting to turn to walk away.
Reggie was looking rapidly back and forth between Julie and Luke, screaming at Luke with his eyes. Alex pushed him in Julie’s direction, and he grabbed her hand as he stumbled forward.
“Hey, Julie?” he asked.
She spun around, her breath catching. “Yeah?”
She was so beautiful.
She was so alive.
“...have fun. Eat all the food and dance until you can’t anymore, yeah?”
Julie furrowed her brow, her eyes turning down. “Sure thing, Luke.”
He let her go.
Alex and Reggie groaned.
Luke was trying not to think of all the creepy implications of him watching a high school dance from a hidden corner of the gymnasium. He had never been to a dance before, though. He was just curious, really. He wanted to make sure that Julie was having a good time. He just wanted to see.
Julie seemed to have taken his advice, dancing in the center of the crowd and outshining all of them. She gave her all into everything, loving her life with her best friend by her side. She had some other friends around her, people Luke had never seen before who she had probably met after the success of the band.
Suddenly, the song changed, a slower one coming on. Luke took a deep breath. This could be it. He started to make his way into the crowd, but just as he stepped off the wall, a boy approached Julie. The boy was grinning shyly, a bit taller than Julie, with shaggy brown hair. He looked down at his feet as he got up to her, and stuttered something out. She looked surprised for a moment, before smiling at him. She took his hand, and they started to dance.
Luke fell back into the corner again, laughing once at himself, quickly. He couldn’t watch Julie, not right then, but he let his eyes roam over the other people in the room. Some of them were the same age he was when he died. How many of them knew how lucky they were to be there, at that moment? Maybe they were with someone they thought they’d be with forever, with someone they loved, with someone they’d just met and decided to give a shot. Maybe they’d grow old with this person, or maybe they’d just have these years. Maybe they’d just have this one song.
And maybe one day, it could be Luke and Julie.
Maybe one day, it could be Luke.
But not yet.