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The swirl of chalk dust itches at her nose as Julie James hurriedly finishes the sentence she feels like she’s been scratching out for hours, the board giving a screech of protest as she clips a period onto the end of her words. Chalk. Seriously. Talk about feeling like she’s still in 1997. Still, Julie slips the half-spent piece into the pocket of her jeans, rubbing her palms together as she turns back to face her students. Several are dutifully writing the most recent words down in their notebooks or typing quickly into their tablets or laptops but more than a few have already checked out. The sound of restlessness pervades the room, chairs creaking from continual shifting; sniffling, coughing, throat clearing. More than a few eyes are slipping toward the windows with higher frequency.
“Still with me, guys?” Julie asks, quirking an eyebrow as she looks out at the class in front of her. “Usually when I talk about a cross-country murder spree, I have a more rapt audience.”
This at least catches a few more students, the more bashful ones, who pull their attention from the windows and back to her. Not that Julie can fully blame them. It’s Friday, in the middle of July, and the sun is shining, the breeze smelling of warm asphalt and brittle grass, the sounds from the quad drifting in on the wind. All of it absolutely tantalizing.
For a minute, Julie feels like she loses her train of thought, faltering as she stares back at all these eyes staring at her. Despite her years of teaching, it still happens, that surge of imposter syndrome that makes her want to absolutely dissolve into a panic. What the hell is she doing here and why is she standing in front of all these people trying to make them take her seriously? But she clears her throat, half cocking her hip so that she’s skewed back toward the board. Cheating toward the audience, she knows Helen would’ve called it.
Julie swallows, taping at her words with the tip of her fingernail. “The concept of trauma wasn’t exactly on the forefront of everyone’s mind in the 1950s, especially when it came to the impact that continual abuse and exposure to violence would have on the brain and on people’s behavior. So many people considered Caril Ann Fugage to be equally responsible for the murder spree that captivated the nation.”
Bless the girl sitting in the front row staring at her with rapt attention. When she notices Julie’s eyes settling on her, she actually nods, the subtle little gesture of encouragement that helps with that nagging doubt in the back of her mind. Julie flickers a smile back at her before letting her eyes continue to roam across the room. “Since most people believed that Caril Ann went along willingly with her boyfriend, who was much older I have to add, they figured she was a willing participant. Coercion, fear, intimidation…none of it was taken into account.”
From the back of the room, the door creaks open and Julie’s eyes flicker upward as she says, “Not to mention the fact that her trauma and how it might’ve altered her actions and reactions was never even considered. After all, Caril Ann had-”
Julie falters when she notices who has walked into the room. Ava. Julie feels all thoughts of the Starkweather Murders flitter out of her mind as she looks at Ava, standing in the back of the classroom with her shoulders slightly rounded, arms crossed over her chest. The apologetic stance of someone who wants to try and make themselves as unobtrusive as possible.
Julie clears her throat, glancing away from Ava and back toward the board in an attempt to recapture her focus. The words seem completely alien to her now, despite the amount of times she’s taught this class, this little history lesson in trauma. Almost of their own accord, Julie feels her eyes slide upward once more, to where Ava is leaning against the back wall, waiting.
“You know what? It’s Friday…it’s summer…” Julie clasps her hands together, shrugging. “What do you say we leave the murder talk for Monday and call it early, huh?”
The clear relief and surprised excitement that spreads through the room is enough to make Julie feel less like a shitty, self-serving teacher. In fact, she thinks she might’ve just become a few people’s hero, given the way they’re all smiling at her as they collect their stuff, funneling toward the back of the room and the door as though they think she might change her mind. Julie gives a few smiles, a few have-a-good-weekends to some of the more active and eager students, but even the most dutiful note takers don’t linger for long.
As the door creaks closed behind the last of them, Julie slips the chalk from her pocket, settling it into the tray at the edge of the board. She reaches for the eraser, not turning around as she hears the sound of approaching footsteps.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lesson, Professor James.”
When Julie looks over her shoulder, she can see the smile on Ava’s face that she’d heard in her voice: teasing and crooked, as self-assured as the shine in her eyes. She’s no longer wearing the sling that had been a third wheel on some of Julie’s visits and she’s dressed like a human being intending to reenter the world, trading in her leggings and loose shirts for what Julie assumes is a designer top and skirt. Armor, the professor in her thinks, not entirely unkindly.
“Oh, I don’t think it was you,” Julie says, though it feels almost like a lie. She goes back to erasing the board, shrugging. “I think summer classes are a unique kind of torture.”
“Probably not so bad with a professor like you,” Ava remarks and Julie presses her lips together and ignores the tickling at the nape of her neck. “You seem like you know your stuff.”
Julie finally allows herself to turn around now that she’s affixed her expression into a smirk and there’s nothing left on the board to give herself plausible deniability. “You sound like a desperate undergrad trying to talk your way into my class after registration,” she remarks. “Thinking about going back to get your Masters?”
Ava shakes her head even as she slides into one of the empty desks, folding her hands across the top like a dutiful student. “You’d probably hate me as a student. Never met an eight AM I didn’t hate with a passion.”
Julie quirks an eyebrow. “There’s ways around that type of self-flagulation, you know.”
Ava quirks an eyebrow. “Where’s the fun in that?”
That tingling at the nape of her neck is back, only it seems to have brought more than a few friends with it. Julie hopes Ava doesn’t have some sort of cosmic ability that lets her sense the overpopulation of butterflies churning in her stomach, or the way her palms suddenly feel itchy and hot. “So why are you here? If not looking to pursue higher education?”
Sighing, Ava’s expression finally shifts toward something less than confident, the edges of her mouth tightening. “I’m actually heading back to New York tomorrow morning. I wanted to say goodbye and maybe grab a coffee or something?”
Those butterflies and oh-so-annoying little tingles disappear quickly and it’s surprising, how the surge of disappointment takes their place so quickly and completely. It’s ridiculous is what it is. Disappointment? At what? Ava, a girl she’s known for all of three weeks, coming to say goodbye? Julie hopes it doesn’t show on her face, lest Ava notice, wonder about it.
“Sure,” Julie says lightly, shrugging as she turns toward the teacher’s desk to gather up her things, “but the coffee in the student center is pretty shitty.”
“Well, how’s the company, at least?”
Julie slips her bag over her shoulder, fixing Ava with what she hopes is a breezy, unbothered expression. “Considerably better, I hope.”
Ava smiles, standing, and just a few of those butterflies make a reappearance. Thankfully Ava turns to lead the way out of the room and Julie is able to compose herself, to study the loose knot of Ava’s hair as she follows behind her rather than her brown eyes. Those eyes have lingered on the edges of Julie’s thoughts far more often than she’d like to admit, even to herself. How Ava had looked, eyes rounded with fear and worry, during that first meeting not far from where they are now. The desperate fear in them when Julie had found her in Ray’s Bar and had seen in Ava’s expression the look of someone certain they were not going to survive. The weary relief of the survivor in the hospital, stitched up and already healing and rosy with the news that Danica had also survived, that she wouldn’t be alone like Julie had felt as she’d watched the police men with stony expressions carrying Helen’s body, draped in a sheet, from the hull of a boat. Bright and wry every time Julie had seen her since, sparkling with a cleverness that Julie imagined had gotten Ava into and out of more than her fair share of adventures. She’s become particularly observant since her first run-in with Ben Willis, and maybe even more so after what happened with the man and his son, and so Julie chalks it up to that and nothing more: the keen observations of someone who has perfected the art of people reading as a method of literal survival. Why else would she be paying so much attention to Ava’s eyes, after all?
Outside, the day is even nicer than it had looked from inside the classroom. The breeze is hot but frequent enough that it doesn’t feel oppressive and the smells of the grass baking all day in the heat is truly one of her favorites in the world. It reminds of her of childhood, when everything seemed so easy and safe, and that, along with the way that dappled morning light sometimes falls through the trees in her backyard or the blush of purples and pinks in the evening summer sky, reminds her of Helen. She wonders now, too, if it’ll remind her of Ava, and leading the way through the walkways and throngs of students toward the Student Union.
Ava insists on buying, waving away Julie’s reminder of her faculty discount, and they take their drinks back outside, miraculously finding a wrought-iron table unoccupied and mostly out of the sun. Ava sets her matcha down before she drops into the chair, pushing her sunglasses back into her tangle of hair. “You could’ve gotten something more exciting than tea.”
Julie feigns offense, wrapping her hands protectively around her warm cup. “Why do people just assume tea is boring? Isn’t that just tea?” She points toward Ava’s latte.
“I…” She crinkles her nose. “It’s more than just leaves and water,” she retorts playfully.
“I guess you’ll have plenty of fancy and exciting drinks back in New York.”
Ava picks up her drink, swirling the ice around as she tips the cup. “You could always come visit and find out for yourself.”
It’s difficult to tell if Ava is offering in sincerity or just continuing to tease her. Sure, Julie thinks it would be safe to say that they’ve become close-ish over the past few weeks. Bonded quickly and irrevocably in the way that only shared violence can connect someone. But she isn’t sure if she should be taking Ava’s offer seriously or if she should be reading deeply into anything Ava is saying. Or that she should even be considering it, a little trip away from her life here for a few days.
“I did live in Boston for a while,” Julie points out. “It’s not exactly like I’m just some small-town girl.”
“Not the same,” Ava says decisively.
Julie tilts her head, eyebrows lifting. “They are kinda known for their tea there.”
Ava furrows her brow thoughtfully, tapping her finger against the pressed line of her lips. “Yeah, because they threw it in the river, right? I think that speaks for itself.”
Julie can’t help her laugh, a surrender as well as an expression of amusement. “Okay, fine, you win.” She holds up a palm, shaking her head as she grins. “Let me just drink my boring old lady tea in peace.”
Ava snorts, leaning back in her chair. “I would hardly call you an old lady.”
Julie glances away, out toward the quad and all the students likely contemplating skipping their afternoon classes in favor of continuing to lounge in the grass, rather than look at Ava. It gives her a plausible deniability. If she doesn’t see Ava’s expression then she won’t have to obsess over what each minute flicker at the corner of eye or lip might mean. Of course, she’s making plenty of assumptions in even anticipating that there’s anything to see at all.
“So,” Julie says when the silence begins to feel stretched rather than comfortable and it’s clear she should be saying something rather than just indulging in a few pathetic mental wanderings. “Back to New York. I bet you can’t wait to get out of Southport.”
That’s a feeling Julie certainly has plenty of experience with.
Ava sighs, twisting her mouth as she considers her answer. She reaches for her drink but just keeps her fingers curled around the sweating plastic cup, her nails the smooth velvety crimson they’ve been for as long as Julie has known her. For all she’s been through, Ava certainly is not the type to let her appearance betray what’s going on in her mind, which Julie is almost envious of. Her younger self could’ve used a few pointers in that department.
“I…it’s going to be weird, I guess? Like, yeah, everywhere I look now I think about my friends being murdered in addition to the terrible thing we did so…there’s that?” Ava squints in the sun, looking up from her cup and in Julie’s direction. “It’s going to be weird to leave Danica. I feel guilty.”
Julie nods, reaching across the table without thinking to lay her fingers against Ava’s wrist. “Guilt is normal, especially in a situation like this. But you aren’t a bad person for taking care of yourself and prioritizing your need to get back to your regular life.”
Ava’s amused expression seems mostly for show, stretched a little too tightly across her features and not quite meeting her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she mutters gamely. “And I guess it might not matter anyway. She’s talking about coming up to New York.”
“Oh really?”
Julie isn’t sure what her tone betrays but it seems to be something, because Ava smirks and rolls her eyes. “I know…codependency, right? Trauma-bonding?” She teases and Julie feels heat color in the center of her cheeks.
“I didn’t say anything,” Julie retorts, giving Ava that palm open gesture of surrender once more. A deflection, given that that’s exactly where her thoughts had jumped to, like this is all just a lecture she’s preparing to give in a few weeks. “Trust me, I know exactly how trauma-bonding works.”
Ava lifts an eyebrow but says, “After…everything…I don’t know that Danica really has any reason to stay in Southport anyway,” which Julie assumes is a show of restraint for Ava, considering the sparkle of curiosity in her eyes. Maybe she’s just presuming to know Ava better than she actually does but Julie would be willing to bet another round of bland Student Union cafe drinks that there’s plenty of unasked questions there at the tip of her tongue.
“I get that,” Julie says, nodding, nursing her cooling tea. “Sometimes a change of scenery really is exactly what you need.”
Nodding, Ava contemplates her half-empty cup, the ice slowly starting to melt inside. She drags a rounded nail along the condensation on the side and Julie watches for a beat, two, uncertain when the sight of slender fingers adorned with a cluster of rings and crimson nail polish became the type of thing to captivate her. She forces her gaze away, glancing once again toward the quad: the students resting and studying and talking and humming with life.
“That’s how it was with you and Ray, huh?”
And there it is. Julie almost smiles to herself. Maybe she does know her stuff after all.
Julie looks back at Ava, lifting an eyebrow. “You mean the trauma connection?”
Ava shrugs, at least looking slightly abashed for her question.
“I…probably,” Julie admits, rather than spin the pseudo fairy-tale version that she’d often told in her younger years, painting herself and Ray into something more than just drawn together by the murder of their friends and the awful thing they’d done that night. “If…we had never…done what we’d done that night I think we would’ve drifted apart anyway. We just…we weren’t right for each other. But it’s seductive, in a way, someone who understands the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. It’s hard to separate that from logical thinking.”
Ava tilts her head, her hair spilling down her shoulders. “Seductive?”
Immediately, Julie can feel that heat in her cheeks once more, is certain it’s evidence on her skin. “Okay maybe that’s a…weird choice of words,” she admits. “But you know what I mean. Ray understood all the parts of me that I wish weren’t there at all and he was okay with them. That seemed like the most important thing…for a while.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Ava murmurs. “I can’t imagine trying to explain any of this to…anyone. So will it just be this big part of my life that I’m lying about for the rest of my life? Or do I just, like, hang around some attempted-murder-victims support group or something to find the right person?”
Julie chuckles, shaking her head. “Not sure they have those. But that would make it easy, huh?”
“I mean…this kinda is, right?” Ava gestures to the two of them. “You get it.”
The flush spreads down the back of Julie’s neck. She can feel it trailing down her back like the caress of fingertips along her spine, her head suddenly echoey and off kilter. Like she’s just walked into the middle of something she hadn’t even known was waiting there in front of her.
Before Julie can attempt to fumble out a response, to reorient herself, Ava says, “I’m not really sure I ever said thank you, by the way. For…for coming after me, at Ray’s. And…I know you guys have history, good or bad, and I…” Ava shrugs, looking away so that all Julie has is her profile, the way she’s clearly trying to master her expression to keep from giving anything away. “You didn’t even hesitate to help me and…thank you. For coming.”
Julie nods, not entirely sure she trusts herself to say anything. She thinks a lot about that night, twenty-eight years ago, when she and Ray had stood together on the dock and watched the police gathering evidence and collecting the bodies of their friends, untangling a severed hand from the netting. How Ray had put his arms around her, how good it had felt to give her weight over to him, to let him hold her. That had been the start of it, she figures, that night, that moment, how she’d wondered how it would ever be possible to have anyone hold her like this again. How she’d felt almost tied to him, because he had been there and known and had seen what she had, how he would hold her still in the weeks and months to come, when she fell apart over the memories of that hull and of Helen, losing Helen for good. But now, she thinks of something else, how the memory of that night has been colored with another, how she knows now how it feels to be the one holding up that weight. Ava, leaning into her on the floor of the bar, trembling and sweating as they’d listened to the steady approach of sirens. The relief they brought and the relief, too, that came from feeling Ava’s quick, animal pants of breath against her side. How she had taken Ava’s weight, held it, held her, until it had become necessary to let her go once more.
“I wanted to make sure I said that,” Ava adds, “before I left.”
Once again, Julie nods, swallowing around the tightness in her throat. “You’re welcome.”
And maybe it’s ridiculous. A silly thing to say to someone who had just thanked you for saving their life when there was clearly no other choice. But it’s all Julie has to offer anyway.
Ava smiles, relieved, shoulders slipping slightly like she’s just taken a weight off them. She finishes the rest of her matcha, wrinkling her nose at the cup in disappointment. “Okay. Enough of that. Tell me about your classes.”
It’s an obvious change of subject but Julie allows it, mostly because she isn’t sure she can take much more of this trip down memory lane anyway, all these unearthed thoughts of Ray and that summer and Helen and what has become of all of them. It’s nice to pretend, even for a while, that she and Ava would be regardless of the circumstances. That something other than murder would’ve brought them here.
Eventually, though, the light begins to deepen and thin and Ava glances down at her phone with a flicker of disappointment. “I should get going. Danica and I are having dinner.”
Julie nods, immediately attempting to grab hold of her own disappointment and shove it down. “Of course. It’s getting late.”
Ava stands, slinging her purse over her shoulder, and Julie follows suit. Ava takes their empty cups, tossing them into the garbage as they head back across the quad in the direction of the visitor’s lot.
“Thanks for coming by,” Julie says, wishing the words didn’t sound so silted and brusque. “You’re going to be okay, Ava.”
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“Hey, I’m just a professor, remember?” Julie smiles. “I can recommend some great research studies if you ever need help getting to sleep at night.”
Ava grins. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
They’ve reached Ava’s car and Ava turns, resting her hip against the side of the trunk, facing Julie. “I was serious, you know. You should come to New York. I’ll buy the tea.”
And, the thing is, Ava looks like she means it. There’s nothing in her face that speaks to obligation or that strange sense of gratitude that feels all-important now but that might fade with distance and time. It’s almost as though she expects, hopes, that Julie might pull out her phone and book a plane ticket right this very moment.
Or maybe that’s just an assumption, once again. Maybe it’s better to just assume she’s reading too much into that smile, that slight crease of eyebrow. Otherwise….well…Julie isn’t entirely sure what it would mean if Ava was sincere.
So Julie just nods, smiling. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
They hug and Julie allows herself to linger, if just for a moment, because of the way Ava’s body softens against her own, molding to the soft curves of who she is now. Ava’s perfume smells sweet, spicy, lingering in Julie’s nose even after they’ve pulled away once more. Julie misses the weight of her, the warmth.
“Okay,” Ava says finally, decisively, nodding once. “I guess I’ll see you.”
Julie presses her lips into something she assumes passes for a smile. “Take care of yourself.”
This gets a more genuine, wry smirk from Ava as she slips her sunglasses back down onto her face. “No promises.”
The smile lingers even after Julie finds herself behind the wheel of her own car, heading back toward home as the sun paints the sky with streaks of pink.
The sight of the rain sluicing down the windows is far more entertaining than the words of the department head, who has been going on for so long that Julie truly isn’t sure what the topic of his current monologue is even about. Even thought the day is far from as brilliant and inviting as that summer afternoon two months before, Julie certainly has a deeper sympathy for her students and their longing to be anywhere but within these four walls.
Judging by the slack, bored expressions of her fellow colleagues, Julie isn’t the only one wishing the drudgy of this weekly meeting would come to an end. Maybe there’s something to be said about virtual schooling after all…no one to pull her into these endless faculty meetings.
Finally, it seems like the speech might be coming to an end, the department head pausing as he consults his notes, flipping through the pages. “Oh, one more thing,” he says, much to the clear disappointment of those seated around the table. “There’s an opportunity to attend a workshop in New York City in a few weeks. Speeches, seminars, that kind of thing. It might be beneficial to send someone from our department as a liaison so…let me know if you’re interested.” He nods, satisfied, flipping his notes closed. “Okay. See you all next week.”
As she stands, gathering her things, Julie allows the words to roll around in her mind. New York City. Huh. She takes special care to slowly pack up her belongings, even checking the time on her phone twice, and it seems like a sign from something above that, in all her dallying, no one else bothers to go talk with the department head. And so, purely because it probably would look good if someone from Hoffman were to make the effort to attend this all important conference, Julie heads over to intercept the man before he can slip out the door.
“Roger,” Julie says, stepping out into the hall when he holds the door open for her, turning back to face him, “about that conference…I would be interested in possibly attending.”
And see, she is a good colleague. So selfless and helpful. Because Roger clearly looks relieved by her words, like it had been too much to hope that someone might pounce on the opportunity to rub elbows with countless other academics. “Oh?”
Julie nods and she can’t back out now, not when her gesture is clearly so appreciated. “Sure. I’m sure my students wouldn’t even mind missing class for a bit.”
“It’s just a three-day thing,” Roger says as they head down the hallway toward his office. “But if you’re really interested I can register you, send you the info.”
There’s a strange little flutter right against her heart, a tantalizing tremor that she hasn’t felt since she was young and dumb and scared and maybe a little bit in love too. “Yeah, absolutely. Seems interesting.”
Roger lifts an eyebrow and Julie hopes she hasn’t over sold it, but he doesn’t seem to suspect his selfless, helpful employee of any type of ulterior motive because he just nods. “Check your email, I’ll forward the info.”
“Great. Thanks.”
It isn’t until a few days before she’s set to leave, once the readings have been assigned and the students told of their good fortune and Julie has pulled her suitcase from the guest room closet, that Julie sends off a text to Ava, telling her that she’ll be in the city for a few days. It feels better that way, almost, leaving it up to fate. Not making it into a big deal, something they have to plan and schedule and coordinate. A casual by the way, putting the ball in Ava’s court.
That flutter returns, far more insistent, when Ava sends first just a string of exclamation marks, which Julie assumes is a good thing, before following it up with: I am literally going to blow your mind with how awesome the tea is here.
Julie can’t help the laugh that follows, almost forgetting to be embarrassed about being the type of person laughing to herself over texts in an empty house. Points for commitment.
Good. I am reward motivated.
Julie tucks the phone away, trying not to interrogate the way the smile lingers, even as she focuses her attention on packing.
The downside to this whole plot is that it involves actually having to attend this conference in order to give herself the necessary cover. Thankfully, it ends up being more useful than Julie had dared hope, and not just because it gives her brain something to occupy itself so she doesn’t ponder over Ava’s texts. Her suggestion that they meet up for drinks in a bar that Julie Googled afterward, which is probably an embarrassingly Gen X move, though she wanted to know exactly what Ava envisioned for their little meet up. From the website, the bar had seemed nice, swanky and quiet, not the type of place to have sticky floors or music you had to yell over. This, unfortunately, has left Julie puzzling over a whole new round of questions.
She gets to the bar before Ava, even after stopping back by her hotel to change out of what she’d worn all day to the conference. Dark jeans, a loose black sweater…hopefully the type of thing that speaks to casual, unconcerned…just two unlikely friends meeting up for drinks while being in the same city. The hostess takes her to a booth, which is far more fancy than any bar Julie thinks she’s ever been to, the booth feeling cozy and snug and lit by the soft glow of its own small lamp affixed to the wall in between the two seats. Julie smooths her hands down her jeans, more annoyed than anything else. How annoying that her heart has decided to increase speed…probably from the walk over. How frustrating that it suddenly feels too hot in here.
Julie studies the menu with the attention of a twenty-one-year-old out legally for the first time, contemplating the drinks and their ingredients with single-minded focus until she hears Ava’s voice cut through the low murmur of smooth jazz on the speakers. “Okay, I’m on time but I still feel like I should be apologizing.”
Ava slides into the opposite side of the booth and it’s clear she’s come from work, dressed in slacks and a button down, a blazer clinging to her shoulders. She looks as pulled together as the person she’d known back in North Carolina, but far more professional, and Julie can only imagine the intimidating figure she must cut while facing down the opposition.
“No need to apologize,” Julie says quickly, hoping that she hasn’t been studying Ava for too long or, even worse, hoping Ava hasn’t noticed that Julie has been studying her. “I was early. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to walk here from the hotel.”
Ava folds her hands together, pressing her palms against the surface of the table, and there’s a smile on her face that makes Julie feel prickly with heat all over again. She shifts, uncertain. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Maybe the walk was a terrible idea. She’s probably all rumpled and sweaty and embarrassingly out of her element.
“I just can’t believe you’re here,” Ava says and Julie feels herself relax, just a little, her spine unstiffening. Ava’s expression doesn’t change, that smile and her eyes locked onto Julie. “I honestly figured you were just going to blow me off on the whole visiting New York thing.”
Julie swallows, flipping the menu over, resuming her intensive study. “Well, the conference came up so I figured…why not.”
Ava nods, her eyes narrowing slightly, her focus only seeming to sharpen. “Right. The conference.” After a beat, she adds, “Well. Whatever. I’m glad you wanted to meet up.”
“Of course. I wanted to see you…see how you’re doing,” Julie corrects, hoping the words come out smoothly, genuinely.
Because that is why she’s here, isn’t it? To check up on Ava. To see how she’s doing in her healing process. After all, no one knows better than she how isolating this particular form of trauma can be.
Ava gestures to herself with a flourish, fixing a yearbook ready smile onto her face. “Still in one piece.”
Julie rolls her eyes at the theatrics but she’s sure Ava catches sight of that smile lingering on her lips anyway.
The waitress appears to take their order and while they wait for her return, Julie tells Ava a bit about the conference, trying to make her day sound entertaining to someone who doesn’t spend most of her nights grading papers or pouring over recently published studies to beef up her lectures. But Ava seems interested anyway, listening attentively. Or, at least, watching Julie attentively, her eyes never seeming to stray from Julie’s.
“Okay, enough about me,” Julie says finally, waving her hand as she reaches for her newly delivered glass of wine. “Tell me how you’ve been. How’s Danica? Is she still planning on moving up here?”
“I think so, yeah,” Ava says with a smile, taking a sip of her own drink. “She was here a few weeks ago actually. It was…really good to see her.”
Julie’s expression softens, something in Ava’s eyes ringing through her with a resounding fullness. Over the years, she and Karla have seen each other far less than Julie would like, but it had always been reassuring, grounding, a reminder that what had happened to the both of them wasn’t the only thing that would ever define their relationship, though sometimes Julie wonders if that might be why they’ve resorted mainly to texts and the occasional phone call. But, even more, in Ava’s expression she recognizes the girl she used to be, so intwined with Helen that just the mention of her might coax a smile onto her face. Only recently has that become the case once more, the pain of losing Helen starting to make room for the memory of what had once been.
“It’s good you to have each other,” Julie says quietly, mostly into the steadily melting ice cubes in her glass.
Ava surprises her by reaching across the table, letting her fingers curl around Julie’s. “It’s good to see you, too,” she says, once again her gaze lingering with Julie’s, holding adamantly. “Seriously. I’m glad you’re here.”
Ava’s fingers are warm against her skin, her thumb pressed to Julie’s pulse point, to the delicate rise of vein and bone. A shiver, liquid and loose, unfurls down her spine and this time when Julie feels her cheeks heat, she knows it’s out of embarrassment that this simple touch, this gesture, can spark such an immediate reaction in her. Honestly…pathetic. But that doesn’t mean she wants to pull her hand away. Doesn’t mean she minds.
“Seemed like the universe was definitely pointing me in this direction,” Julie remarks and that definitely doesn’t help the embarrassment…talking about, what? Fate? Destiny? Maybe that drink is already going to her head, impairing her better judgement.
But at least Ava doesn’t seem to hold it against her. If anything, she almost looks pleased by the statement. She lifts her drink in a sort of salute. “I’ll drink to that.”
Outside, the night has turned almost chilly but pleasantly so, especially since Julie has just spent the last few hours with a heat sneaking up along the edges of her collar, her skin prickly and warm. The city is still humming around them, alive with the electricity that is always so common in myth about New York. Everything is bathed in light, whether it be from the buildings or the billboards, the lights of the cars, the occasional burst of neon. Looking at Ava standing on the curb beside her, Julie isn’t surprised that this is the place where she’s made her home; she’d often thought the same about Helen, that Southport would never be able to hold her. It’s a relief to know that, even if Helen had never truly been able to make it out, the very earth of Southport holding her tightly, that Ava at least would be able to thrive here, and, hopefully, Danica too.
Ava looks up from the screen of her phone before slipping it into her pocket and turning her attention back to Julie. “So. I’m just a few blocks over if you wanted to come by. I got wine.”
Julie furrows her brow, glancing down at her watch. It’s closer to midnight than not and she can still feel the warmth from the few drinks she’s been nursing back in the bar nestling in the pit of her stomach. Still, a polite refusal isn’t immediately springing from her lips. “I…probably shouldn’t,” she ventures. “I’ve got the conference again tomorrow.”
Right now she’s at the stage of late that a few cups of cheap coffee will be able to drag her through tomorrow. But if she stays out much later, drinks much more…well, getting old definitely has its disadvantages.
Ava crinkles her nose, disappointment plain in her eyes. “It’s good wine,” she hedges, a hopeful smile on her face.
It doesn’t feel like Julie is fighting against her better nature as she says, “Just one glass.” In fact, it feels like she’s pretty much a genius.
They take a car back to Ava’s, Ava sitting in the middle of the backseat despite the fact that there’s more than enough room for them to have their own space. But Julie doesn’t entirely mind, not with Ava’s thigh pressed against hers, their shoulders knocking together as Ava plays tour guide, leaning closer to point out things through the window as the driver navigates the blocks toward Ava’s apartment. When they’re standing on the sidewalk outside the building, Julie wraps her arms around herself, tipping her head upward to study the stretch of buildings overhead, hoping to call back some of the warmth she’d been feeling in the backseat. The sky is bright, all the stars smudged out by the artificial light, but there’s still something uniquely beautiful about it. Or maybe that’s just the alcohol making her far too sentimental.
Ava unlocks the front door of the building, holding it open for Julie and then closing it firmly behind them. “I’m on the fifth floor. Sorry.”
The stairs creak with every step, the building old enough that it gives it character -and likely a hefty price tag- and while Julie follows Ava, trying not to start panting around the third floor, she takes note of the small personal touches that her neighbors have added to their doors: autumnal wreaths and colorful welcome mats. Ava’s door is bare aside from the numbers to her unit and a Ring doorbell camera that looks so shiny and new that it might as well have just come out of the box. When Ava notices Julie eyeing it, she grimaces apologetically, twisting the key into the lock. “I…yeah.” She shrugs.
“Trust me, I get it,” Julie says, following her inside. “Nothing wrong with a little security.”
As though the punctuate her agreement, Ava snaps the lock on the front door and follows it with the sliding of a chain. “I used to love to leave my windows open. I was like, hell yes, fifth floor, perfect. Now I just think about how fucking crazy Stevie is and how she’d probably scale the side of the building or something to get in here.” Ava rolls her eyes, dropping her bag onto the small table by the entry way, slipping out of her blazer and adding it to the pile.
Julie averts her eyes, taking in the apartment rather than watching the flex of Ava’s shoulders, the bare arms. “She’d probably just use the fire escape.”
Ava laughs, brittle and sharp. “Don’t put it past her.”
As Ava goes into the kitchen, Julie allows herself to study the apartment, to pry loose any other tidbits of Ava Brucks kept between these walls. The living space is open, the living room and entryway and kitchen all one big common space, with a hallway branching off to the right of the front door. Julie toes off her shoes, her toes sinking into the ridiculous softness of the living room rug, as she walks toward the built-in bookshelves, shameless in her curiosity. There’s plenty of pictures of Ava and Danica, Ava and a few others that Julie imagines are either friends from college or the ones not lucky enough to escape from Stevie and Ray’s idea of justice. There are a few pictures of Ava, young, no older than five or six, with a woman that Julie figures must be her mother; the lack of pictures of them together throughout any important milestones in Ava’s life paints a clear enough picture. The books are a mixture of law texts and novels both, all comfortably sharing space among the photos and other knickknacks, and a record player sits quiet with a Sufjan Stevens record still waiting on the turntable.
“Now you’re the one going through my shit,” Ava remarks from behind her and Julie turns away from studying the spines of the books to face her.
“Turnabout is fair play, right?” Julie lifts an eyebrow, accepting the glass from Ava.
“Sure, sure.” But Ava doesn’t seem bothered. If anything, it seems to please her, Julie being in her space like this. She sits on the couch, putting her wine down on the coffee table, and then unbuttons her collared shirt, slipping it from her shoulders and tossing it over to the chair sitting kitty-corner to the couch. She pulls her hair down, letting it spill across her shoulders. “That feels so much better,” she sighs, leaning back against the couch, tipping her head black and closing her eyes. “Jesus. What a day.”
Julie gingerly sits down on the corner of the couch, not quite touching Ava, but not exactly insisting on space between them. She leans against the arm rest, trying not to stare at brown shoulder and freckles. “We could’ve taken a rain check.” She holds her wine, not sure she trusts herself to try and take a sip, a sudden tightness in her throat.
Ava opens her eyes, looking at Julie like she’s lost her mind, just a little bit. “Yeah right. You’re only here, what, two days?” She shakes her head. “It was just some assholes I work with, anyway. Totally not worth canceling plans over.” Ava leans forward, retrieving her glass, clinking it against Julie’s. “Plus, knowing we were going to hang out was the only thing that kept me from actually strangling anyone today. We couldn’t do this if I was in jail.”
“I could’ve posted your bail.”
“So kind of you.” Ava smirks around the edge of her wine glass. She shifts, her body turning to fully face Julie’s, tucking her feet beneath her. “I feel bad, though. You didn’t need to get a hotel. You totally could’ve crashed here.”
The idea of it immediately fills Julie with warmth, her heart lurching traitorously in her chest. It’s ridiculous, imagining herself staying her with Ava, but somehow Julie thinks that’s not why her stomach is suddenly swooping dangerously. “I’m not going to impose on you like that,” Julie scoffs and as Ava starts to protest, she adds, “Plus, Hoffman is covering it.”
Ava nods her approval, though Julie isn’t sure if she’s inventing the disappointment she sees in Julie’s eyes. “Girlboss move.”
Julie drinks from her glass, just to give herself something to do. Her eyes travel past Ava, toward the windows now firmly shut, toward the kitchen, which is entirely spotless aside from the bottle of wine sitting on the counter. She doesn’t know Ava well enough to fully speculate but she has suspicions that the place has recently received a thorough cleaning -something done on her behalf? On the hope that they might end up back here? There’s no denying the effect that thought has on her, how it feels to imagine Ava carefully cleaning the space in the hope that Julie would be here to see it. She looks back at Ava to find that Ava is already studying her. “You do that a lot, you know,” Julie remarks, either emboldened or made significantly less intelligent by the glass of wine.
Ava smiles like she might already know the answer even as she says, “Do what?”
“You’re always staring at me.”
“So? Is that okay?” Ava asks, shifting just a little closer, shrinking the space on the couch between them. “I mean, look at you. Everyone should be staring at you.”
Julie scoffs, finishing her glass without even realizing that she’d already had the rest of it. “You’re sweet,” she says dryly.
But Ava’s expression seems suddenly more serious, eyes darker. “I’m just being honest.” She holds Julie’s gaze for a moment, long enough to build that heat beneath her collar once more, before she says, “More?” and tips her chin toward the empty glass.
Julie sighs, shaking her head. “No…I should…” She glances at her watch once more. It’s after midnight now but still she can’t find it in herself to run for the door. “I have to be up early.”
Ava sets her glass aside, letting one arm drape across the couch behind her. “You could stay.”
Julie can’t help the laugh that slips out of her, startled and surprised and bubbly with a thrilling lightness that she doesn’t think she’s felt in a long time. She shakes her head, unable to keep the grin from her face.
Ava quirks an eyebrow, tilting her head. “What?”
“I’m too old for you, you know.” The words leave Julie’s mouth before she can stop them, fully abandoning any sort of pretense that might have previously settled between them.
And maybe she’s just setting herself up for embarrassment, outing that that’s where her thoughts of have been, that all night and even before that if she’s being honest, she’s been trying to remind herself of this exact thing. That Ava is young, maybe embarrassingly mid-life-crisis-young, and that regardless of what Julie might be feeling to be around her, to be the subject of her attention, her stories, her stares, that there’s plenty of reasons why it would not be a good idea to forget that simple fact.
But Ava doesn’t seem surprised by Julie’s words. Doesn’t seem at all horrified to learn that that’s where Julie’s thoughts have been. She just keeps her eyebrows raised, an expectant look on her face. “Says who?”
And this makes Julie laugh again, that fizzing sensation still there in her chest, making her feel light and dizzy and strange, like she wants to just agree with Ava’s comment, to shrug it all aside and close that distance between them like she’s wanted to do all night. She feels just off-kilter enough to do it, though somehow she manages to resist.
“So I guess I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about it,” Ava remarks, the words sounding just a touch victorious.
Julie is certain the way she blushes doesn’t help her case. “I…” She swallows, studying Ava. There’s a touch of pink in her cheeks, along that curve of her throat. “It would be a bad idea.” And she almost sounds like she means it.
Ava moves closer and Julie’s heart kicks in her throat, her entire body seeming to come to life, to respond to Ava. To her closeness, to the smell of her perfume, to the way her hair slips past her clavicles, to the way her fingers don’t quite brush against Julie’s knee but she feels like she can feel her touch anyway, a persistent ghost heat between them. “Or it might not be.”
Ava doesn’t move closer, doesn’t close that distance between them. Julie can feel that thread pulled taunt between them, quivering and held breathless, the decision of what might happen next fully up to her. If she were to insist that she needed to leave, blame it on the conference or the wine or anything, she knows Ava would agree, that the moment between them would shift back toward what Julie knows it should be: two people with an unfortunate bit of history in common, someone there who will understand when others don’t. But if she doesn’t, if she just pushes aside all the thoughts of what she should do, well. It’s clear by the roundness of Ava’s pupils, the color dusting across her skin, that she would be there to meet Julie if she stepped off that ledge.
Julie swallows, leaning into Ava, hesitating for just a breath before letting their lips meet. Ava responds immediately, returning the kiss, the feeling of lips and tongue immediately stealing Julie of the remaining breath that she has in her lungs, turning her skin to fire, her scalp and down to the bottoms of her feet crackling with sparks. She pulls Ava closer toward her, her palm resting against the side of her neck, feeling the rapid beating of Ava’s pulse against her skin. It suddenly seems ridiculous to leave any distance between them at all. Suddenly, every single part of her aches for Ava, wants to feel her there, filling her up.
Ava allows herself to be pulled even closer so that she’s half-straddling, half-laying across Julie on the small confines on the couch, Ava’s hair spilling down around them as they kiss with an increasing feeling of desperation that Julie might find embarrassing if she wasn’t preoccupied with a dozen other thoughts, all of them of Ava.
“It doesn’t feel like a bad idea,” Ava murmurs against her lips and Julie doesn’t answer, too busy pulling her in to kiss her once more.
Julie wakes to the sound of a door opening, creaking on its hinges as it swings closed once more, the back of her sleep heavy thoughts registering that this is not a thing that should be happening, doors opening and closing without her. But just as slowly as the thought comes, it slips away again, replaced by more solid observations as she, unfortunately, slips further out of sleep. The bed she’s in isn’t her own. Nor is it a hotel bed, where she had fully intended to be spending her night only several hours before. It’s far too comfortable for that, the sheets smelling homey and warm with sleep, smelling of Ava and now, Julie thinks a touch possessively, just for a moment, a little bit like her, too.
Julie sits up, pushing her hair from her face, glancing around the bedroom. The light coming in through the curtains is still muted enough to speak to early morning, the room dim and shadowy, but Julie can still see parts of it that she definitely hadn’t noticed the night before. The more quiet, private, touches of Ava here inside her room: clothes not having quite made it to the hamper; a book half-finished and facedown on a nightstand cluttered with rings and half empty water glasses; framed concert posters and an art print or two. The only thing Julie doesn’t see is Ava beside her, the bed disappointingly empty.
Though, as if summoned, Ava appears quickly enough, walking into the room dressed in her tanktop from the night before and a pair of sweats, somehow managing to make the messy, far-from-put-together look work for her. She’s got two steaming cups in her hands, one she offers to Julie as soon as she perches herself on the edge of the bed close to where Julie is sitting, still not entirely sure she’s awake. “Tea. Just like I promised.”
Julie accepts the cup on auto-pilot, the smells of Earl Grey and lavender tickling at her nose. “It’s almost unfair that you can just look like that first thing in the morning,” she grumbles.
Ava laughs, that throaty sound that Julie considers herself an expert in as of late. It floods her with heat, the memory of that laugh and how it would so easily tangle into a moan, Ava far from shy in making her feelings known. “I mean, I’m not sure you have anything to worry about,” Ava remarks, giving her an obvious once over. “You’re kinda ridiculously hot.”
Julie’s immediate protests are swallowed up when Ava leans forward to kiss her and whatever argument Julie was about to make it quickly forgotten. She manages to blindly reach out to set her cup onto the nightstand, freeing up her hands to reach for Ava, to pull her close once more. Ava sets her own cup down, settling herself nearly onto Julie’s thighs, the two of them face to face. Ava reaches out, combing her fingers through Julie’s tangled mess of hair, tipping Julie’s face upward. “What time is your conference?”
Julie settles her hand against the small of Ava’s back, heart fluttering even though there’s plenty of fabric and bedsheet between them. “Maybe I can skip today.”
Ava grins, her nails lightly scratching as Julie’s scalp. “Not very responsible of you, Professor James.”
“I’ll tell them I got food poisoning."
The tea has long since gone cold by the time Julie gets to it but she doesn’t mind.