Chapter Text
Some loves never fully disappear.
A year and a half after heartbreak, Julia has rebuilt the pieces of her life with quiet resilience. She has a growing bookstore, a steady new relationship, and a fragile sense of peace. But when the past resurfaces, first as a face on a screen and then as a name on a wedding guest list, she is forced to confront what she thought she had buried for good.
**A/N: While this story can be read as a standalone, I highly recommend reading the prequel, The End of Beginning, first to experience Julia and Joe's journey from the start.**
Julia Reed — Main Character
Joe Keery — Julia's ex-boyfriend/Love interest
Chloe Martinez — Julia's best friend
Ryan Reed — Julia's brother
Ben Holloway — Julia's current boyfriend
Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the individuals depicted in the above images, Joe Keery or any other celebrity, TV show, or movie mentioned in this work. All characters and events in this fictional story are created for fun, and no harm or defamation is intended.
December 2024 (1.5 years later)
It was strange how life could look almost the same on the outside even after everything inside you had changed.
Julia stared out the frosted window of her apartment, a mug of tea cradled between her palms, watching the faint dusting of snow settle on the sidewalks below. Lights from the shops across the street blinked warmly against the evening gray, people bundled in coats and scarves bustling past. From here, her life looked peaceful, even perfect. But she knew the truth: that the last year and a half had been anything but easy.
The months after her breakup with Joe had been some of the darkest she’d ever known.
At first, she'd convinced herself she could handle it, that bottling it up would somehow lessen the hurt. Chloe had tried to persuade her otherwise, pleading gently, “You have to tell him, Jules. He deserves to know about the miscarriage."
But Julia had been stubborn, too weighed down by guilt, anger, and grief. She hadn’t wanted to face Joe’s heartbreak on top of her own. So she buried it deep and chose silence instead.
For a little while, she and Joe had tried to stay in contact. Tentative texts here and there. Half-hearted jokes. Check-ins that felt both comforting and excruciating.
Until one night, after another short and stilted conversation, Joe had finally said what they both knew was coming.
"I love you," he wrote, "but I can't do this. It hurts too much."
And just like that, he was officially gone from her life.
She sometimes wondered if he thought she hadn’t loved him enough. The truth was, she had loved him too much. So much that it had broken her to lose him.
In the quiet that followed, she had crumbled. Depression wrapped itself around her like a heavy winter coat she couldn’t take off. The miscarriage haunted her. Every cramp, every moment of blood and panic, seared into her memory. Therapy became less of a choice and more of a necessity. It took months of painful honesty and slow healing before she began to feel like she could breathe again.
A few months after the breakup, Ben (the magazine journalist who wrote the feature on her store) started coming around the bookstore more often.
At first, Julia assumed he simply liked the cozy quiet of the shop, the way many of their regulars did. But over time, it became obvious. Ben wasn’t just browsing. He lingered a little longer with each visit, asked thoughtful questions about her favorite books, and offered quiet, knowing smiles that made her feel seen in a way that surprised her.
There was something comforting about him. Ben was safe, steady, and patient—qualities Julia hadn’t realized she was so starved for until they were right in front of her.
Still, every now and then, she’d wince remembering Joe’s teasing remarks about “the guy with the crush.” It felt too pointed now, like he’d seen something she didn’t want to.
Eventually, Ben asked if she wanted to grab coffee sometime. She hesitated, unsure whether she was ready for anything more. But in the end, she said yes.
Their relationship had unfolded slowly and gently.
Ben knew about Joe. At least the version Julia had chosen to share. She told him they had ended things mutually, that life had pulled them in different directions. She didn’t tell him about the miscarriage, not at first. But when she did, Ben had simply held her hand across the table, his blue eyes steady and soft.
"I'm here," he said. "Whatever you need, I'm here."
Julia had leaned into his kindness, letting herself be comforted.
But some part of her heart, she knew, had never fully let go of Joe.
It wasn't Ben's fault. It wasn’t even her own.
Some loves simply burn too bright to be extinguished completely. Still, life had moved forward.
The bookstore had flourished more than she ever expected. With Chloe managing marketing and a small staff handling the day-to-day, Julia had been able to step back from working the floor as much. She focused instead on expanding the store’s community presence by hosting author events, weekend art fairs, and book clubs. She even began hanging her own charcoal sketches on the walls, tucked between the bookshelves. To her surprise, some of them even sold.
The first time someone bought one, Julia cried.
Art became her therapy as much as her actual therapy did.
Some days, she still felt the old ache gnawing at the edges, the reminders of what she had lost and what might never be again.
Life had settled into a rhythm.
Ryan and Chloe had their baby girl, Rebecca, who they lovingly nicknamed Becky. Julia adored her niece more than anything. Watching Ryan with his daughter, seeing Chloe's bright smile as she fussed over tiny dresses and barrettes, filled her with a bittersweet kind of joy.
When they announced their engagement earlier that year, Julia had been thrilled. Their wedding was now just days away, set for the end of December, right before Christmas. Julia was the maid of honor, already practicing her speech and trying not to cry every time she thought about it.
But not everything had stayed comfortably in the past.
One evening, Julia came home late from the store, brushing snow off her coat and kicking her boots onto the mat. The apartment was warm and quiet, the faint scent of popcorn hanging in the air. She found Ben curled up on the couch, half-asleep with a bowl in his lap, the TV casting soft blue light across his face.
“Hey, you’re home!” Ben called from the couch. “I just started the newest season of Fargo .”
Her steps faltered as her eyes flicked to the screen.
Joe.
Hair slicked back, dressed in his deputy’s uniform, a gun strapped to his thigh. His brown eyes were colder than she remembered, his expression grim and sharp. He looked different. Hardened. But still unmistakably him.
A swell of memories rushed in, sudden and disorienting.
The heat of their reunion in his trailer. Joe still dressed as Gator, kissing her and pressing her against the door. His laughter warm against her neck.
The first night they slept together, their bodies wrapped up in a silence so tender it made her chest ache.
The way he reached for her hand and asked if she’d be his girlfriend. His voice so soft and eager it felt like a secret meant only for her.
The effortless way he made her laugh, the teasing smirks that always pulled her in, the tender way he said her name like she was the only person in the world.
How he made her swoon without even trying.
The ache was immediate, sharp, and overwhelming. Her throat tightened, breath catching as though the air had thickened around her. She blinked, but he was still there on the screen, distant and unreachable. A version of him frozen in time.
Julia froze in the doorway, clutching her bag tightly against her side.
Ben chuckled, completely unaware of the pit that had opened inside her. “Man, I still can’t believe you dated this guy,” he said, tossing a piece of popcorn into his mouth. “He’s actually really good.”
Julia forced a laugh. "Yeah... he is," she said, her voice distant.
Without missing a beat, she dropped her bag on the table and busied herself in the kitchen, pretending to rummage for snacks she didn't need. She couldn’t sit there and watch.
Not with Ben at least.
Later that night, when Ben had fallen asleep beside her, Julia quietly crept back out to the living room. She curled up on the couch, dimming the lights, and finally allowed herself to watch.
Scene after scene, she saw Joe. Not the man she remembered, but pieces of him flickering behind the camera. His smirk. The way he moved. The way his voice softened in rare, quiet moments of the show.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, but she wiped them away before they could fall.
Julia had done so well avoiding Joe online. No Instagram. No late-night Googling. No “just one little peek.”
But she found some things were impossible to avoid. Especially when his song End of Beginning exploded into a viral hit.
A new trend had taken over: his voice echoing through every other reel, every TikTok, every moody video edit.
“And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it
Another version of me, I was in it
I wave goodbye to the end of beginning”
His voice, softer than she remembered, laced with nostalgia and longing, wrapped around her like smoke. It was everywhere. Haunting. Addictive. Inescapable.
The first time she heard it on a video, she nearly dropped her phone.
Each time it played, it pulled her back to that moment in Calgary. Curled up on Joe’s couch, sketchbook in her lap, drawing his character on set, his tired eyes, the curve of his mouth. The track played softly from her headphones while he finished up on set that day.
Even then, the song had made her chest tighten. It had felt wistful, like something slipping away before she could name it.
Now it felt like a ghost.
A version of him, of them , that no longer existed, echoing through the background of a life she was trying to rebuild.
She hadn’t seen him in months, hadn’t said his name out loud. And yet, the world kept finding ways to conjure him back up again. His face on screens, his voice in songs, his name in headlines.
He was everywhere, and still, he felt so far away.
And yet, somewhere in the ache, in the swirl of longing and grief, something else had taken root.
Clarity.
She wasn’t the same woman who had crumbled when they were together. She was stronger now. Grounded. She had rebuilt herself without him. She could miss him and still move forward.
A few months before the wedding, Ryan and Chloe sat her down over coffee.
"Hey," Chloe said gently, fiddling with her engagement ring. "We wanted to talk to you about the guest list."
Julia raised an eyebrow, sipping her latte. "Okay..."
Ryan looked uncomfortable. "We were thinking about inviting Joe."
Chloe rushed to add, "But only if you’re okay with it! We don’t want to make it weird or painful for you."
Julia blinked, surprised by the wave of emotions that rose inside her—nerves, excitement, fear.
She thought about the text Joe had sent her all that time ago. The one where he said he couldn’t stay in touch unless they were to try again.
She thought about his face on the TV screen, so close and yet so far away.
She inhaled deeply and set her cup down.
"I’m okay with it," she said. "Really. Invite him."
Ryan and Chloe exchanged a relieved glance. Julia smiled, a little shakily.
For the first time in a long time, she meant it. She didn’t know what seeing Joe again would bring.
Closure. Chaos. Something in between.
But she was ready to find out.