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You hadn’t expected much when you returned, this time.
Only the same picket-fenced mundanity of East Highland was what you had in mind. Kids you knew back then all had moved their separate ways, dispersing across the nation for brighter opportunities.
You, particularly, had scored a scholarship to an art school in nearby Pomona. Despite your desire for distance, you didn’t want to leave your dad bereft in that hell while you were 6 hours away in San Francisco like Kat (oh, you wonder, still, if she would like to catch up sometime). Plus, you read that the college’s financial aid is great, so you took a lengthy swing.
It’s quaint, cute, and your roommate is nice enough, so you settle. Summers and holidays are 45-minute drives (yup, you’ve gotten your license, too, albeit for an ancient car) to your dad’s house, home-cooked food that you stubbornly refuse to reminisce about, and trips to grocery stores where you always seem to run into Rue.
Caramel curls pulled from her face in a blue claw-clip, limber frame blanketed in a 3-sizes-too-big hoodie, furry Crocs that slap on the tile like woodpeckers against trees, yet you can’t help but smile in tandem with her, more than a common courtesy. You two don’t talk, even here for more than a few minutes, as much as you hoped, but you could resign to that. You find out that she’s taken up several odd jobs with community college to support her family and she’s been clean for 3 years now; you were almost jumping with joy.
She has moved on, fluorescent in the dairy aisles you skim through, each time. Maybe in the back of your mind you wonder if she remembers how her hands felt on your skin, or how gently your lips dragged against her face, along her jawline (oh, fuller now, you see). You wonder if she could articulate that; bring up what you dance around given the circumstances, then and now. She doesn’t, of course, thus you retreat to your dad’s house with groceries consuming your itchy palms, each time.
And that was that.
You think about the others, too. You admittedly weren’t close with many, but you are thoroughly acquainted with Instagrams and the like. You learn through a midnight lurk of Cassie Howard’s that she followed Nate to North Carolina, dear God, and you almost shut off your phone there, since you’ve previously tried to scrub his unfortunate existence from your brain. Thinking of Cassie inevitably leads to Maddy Perez, who hasn’t posted in 6 months, you see, and you let yourself wonder about the last time you two have spoken—
Oh, brighter news: Lexi’s Stanford-bound, and a part of you warms at the Howard sisters being on potentially better terms, you think. Lexi was a sweet girl, you recall, she deserves the world.
You have no clue what Elliot’s up to, and quite frankly you don’t care; you threw him to the curb 2 months post-graduation, you haven’t heard from him since. Kat’s in San Francisco again, and your conversations with her were just as glazed over as they are with Rue. She needed time to explore herself without the constraints of suburbia - at least, that’s what she said. You saw BB walking down main street into the local convenience store - of course it’s still there in the same place - and maybe you would’ve waved had she not been so in-and-out.
As your penultimate college summer spins to a close, your car breaks down. You’re not particularly angry - the fucking thing had its good years - but hearing a strangled cough seep from your engine as you push your keys in the ignition will never provoke a decent reaction.
You opt for a train station instead for your ride to Pomona, despite any memories that persist, because you’re already a bit pissed and you don’t feel like talking up some sleazy Uber driver while your own car gets looked at. It’s a 20 minute walk if you’re fast enough and you get a better view of the nightlife on a train, anyway. You embrace your dad as warmly as you always do, promising to FaceTime and stay safe, before you’re off.
White shields your face, and you’re amused at how the station seems to bustle, as you recall its past isolation. People cluster around its edges, leaning on bricks, some holding phones to their ears and some holding suitcases heavy enough to have them lurching over the tracks. You fish your headphones from your backpack, connecting to Arlo Parks, involuntarily striding towards a bench you caught in your periphery. Except—
“What the hell,” a hiss you catch, “watch it!”
Your mouth opens to apologize, there’s suddenly a sting in your shin, and fuck, who did you just bump into?
There’s someone there, already. A woman. She isn’t sitting down. She’s pressed against the bench’s upholstery, hair cascading a black and red ombré over her shoulders. Everything floods your memory, overwhelming your other senses.
You would never forget her, of course, but the Maddy Perez you knew would be the last person you expected to return. She left the moment she had the chance to, and she didn’t really say goodbye.
While you weren’t angry at all - you couldn’t ever be with her - the Jules from those few years ago sits in a corner of your brain and scrolls through her notifications, hoping for a text or a phone call or a picture back, just so she doesn’t look like the desperate loser she knows she is.
Though, when Maddy finally meets your gaze, softened, your feet move before you can think, and heat burns your cheeks.
You tower over her, always have, but her arms pull you in like a vase and you feel yourself shrinking, laughing against her skin.
“Maddy,” she can’t see the smile splitting your face yet. “Oh my God.”
“Hi,” you grapple tighter when she speaks, “it’s been too long.” She smells like vanilla, just how you remembered. Vanilla, wow, almost tangible, like those mindless car rides around town the week after her own graduation (oh, that’s right, she was a year older), or those moments spent in your room, while the world was asleep and your dad was spent on the couch. She would be sprawled out on your bed or in the driver’s seat, smoke wafting from heart-shaped lips, and you would feel light-headed for days following, hearing her laugh ricochet across the corners of your mind, lacing her hands with yours when you shut your eyes.
You didn’t want to pull away this soon, before she’s looking up at you as if she’s studying something. You run your fingers through your hair a bit self-consciously, hoping you don’t look a certain way given your baby tee and ankle-length skirt. Your fingers reach your scalp, tumbling clumsily to your ends, and you wonder if she’ll say anything; if she’ll talk about how long your hair has grown, or the sodden blue propped on your eyelids, or, most importantly, why she would be here.
She doesn’t, not how you wanted. “How have you been?”
A coquettish wagging of your platinum eyebrows suggests a multitude of sexual escapades common for girls your ages. Escapades that, mostly, don’t exist; you can’t remember the last time you got any action. Good action, that is. The handful of guys who fumbled with their zippers or refused to touch you didn’t count. You can’t remember the last time you snuck a girl into the bathroom, either. But you flash a grin, anyway, because Maddy Perez is still standing in front of you and waiting for an answer. Comparatively, she’s probably like some sex goddess, an Aphrodite trodding amongst her diligent disciples, bronze fingers drumming over thousands of piqued cheeks.
“How haven’t I been, girl?”
Maddy Perez rolls her eyes, scoffs, shoves at your arm. “Shut up.” Maybe you could sink into this brief comfortability. You don’t, though, of course. Instead, she continues to talk. “I mean, that’s good, Jules. I’m happy you’re having fun out here.”
Having fun. You smile. How little she knew, but you could never blame her for it. Questions leave your mouth before you can tell yourself to stop. “Yeah, yeah, but what’s bringing you all the way back?”
“My mom died on the 2nd.”
The suddenness of it all, the brusque flatness of her tone, has you stumbling slightly over yourself like a baby deer who’s lost its footing.
“Oh.”
“A car accident,” her lips fold.
“Maddy, I—“
“It was only for a couple days. I could’ve stayed right where the hell I was. I shouldn’t have felt obligated to anything, anyone,” she isn’t looking at you anymore, “but I did. Still.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
You stare at her for what seems to be the longest moment of your life. Her eyelashes batter against her cheek, orange in twilight, and little wisps ghost from her mouth. You’re helpless, placing your hand on her shoulder, rubbing in shaky ovals. “That’s horrible.” You see her nod her head. You keep apologizing because you don’t know how to say anything else, and she doesn’t cry.
She's never cried in front of you, you realize, not even when the shit with Cassie hit the fan or when she was with Nate. She had never really spoken about Nate, though, not that you would ever bring him up.
You weren’t expectant of anything. It’s just one of those thoughts you linger on in the instant she graces you with an emptier look back.
“It’s fine. Whatever. Brings some closure, I guess.”
You don’t probe. You know better, just wish the circumstances could’ve been different, because now maybe she’s associating probably one of the shittiest times of her life with seeing you again, and your heart sinks to your knees.
“I, um,” she hauls her bag (Louis Vuitton, of course) over a glistening shoulder, gazing towards a train roaring, distantly. God, you hadn’t even perceived time the way you should’ve, and now you lacked a second to spare. “It was really nice to see you, Jules.” Sorry I didn’t keep in contact. Sorry our first meet-up in God-knows-how-long had to end this way. Sorry if I won’t ever see you again after this. Did I tell you where I live now? Where I work? Would you mind? Would you care?
A conglomerate of things she’s never said. You don’t wish for their existence, necessarily, as she’s most likely processing a sullen whirlwind of emotions right now, but they would be nice to hear. A reaffirmation, probably. You get a little pissed at the notion that she owes you something; you don’t want to be selfish, but a part of you is. A part of everyone is.
The train station explodes with life as the carts pull in, passengers pooling through doors, into night. “This is mine,” she nods forward as if you didn’t know, and hadn't been keeping track since you heard it beckon you towards the exit. “It was really nice to see you.” She said that already. “Missed you. Bye, Jules.”
She pulled you by your elbows into this quasi-embrace that made you shiver, planting a kiss on your cheek which flung you back years prior. You are Jules from then; scrolling through her text messages, looking up at Maddy from her vanity, applying red to her eyes in senior year the way she remembered Maddy doing. It’s strange how simply a look at someone - at her - could revert you to square one.
You told yourself you weren’t expecting anything. How could you bypass that now?
Now Maddy is gone. You watch her reflection in the train’s window disappear gradually until you can no longer make out individual faces. You still have to wait for your train, since the one scheduled for Pomona arrives at 8:15. People crowd around your form, scattering like mice towards the station’s railing, no glances thrown behind themselves, all enclosed in their own universes.
She didn’t look back as she departed. The selfish side of you twists itself, shatters its own skull, throws its phone at the wall, for every precedent circling its brain. Maddy is gone, and you both are sitting here staring in the direction her train rushed toward.
In the heat of your own thoughts, you realized you hadn’t said goodbye.