Disclaimer: I don't own anything hereand am just doing this for fun and to pass the long months until Season 4.
Author's Note: I had a few moments when I thought the universe might be against me writing this one. First, there was a struggle over some details. Then, much more annoyingly, my computer crashed and ate a good bit of my draft.
But, the story must go on, so here it is. Thanks for the reviews on the last one and I look forward to hearing what you think about this one.
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Julie was curled up in her customary spot at the end of Tim Riggins' couch. Her sandals were on the floor, her legs were tucked up underneath her and her head was bent over her work. She smiled as she put the finishing touches on the note cards for the speech she was writing to present her final project for her Advanced Placement English class.
She was proud of her paper, entitled "Les poètes maudits: The Chicken and Egg Conundrum of Poets Behaving Badly". She'd worked hard on it, devoting weeks just to the research and organization. She liked to think of it as a scholarly yet witty report.
The paper was over 30 pages long and was divided into three sections. The first part defined the concept and gave a brief history of the poète maudit, or cursed poet. The second introduced Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud as archetypal poète maudits while the last section presented examples of how their lives had effected their poetry and attempted to answer the question posed by the paper's title. Did they act out against society because of their literary talents? Or was their genius in poetry a direct result of their acting out against societal norms?
It was, of course, an unanswerable question, but Julie felt she'd done a great job presenting examples of both possibilities. She'd even managed to weave in Rimbaud's theory of the poet as a seer, a visionary, who must systematically disillusion and derange his senses in order to reach a higher level of consciousness.
"What're you laughing and smiling at over there, Taylor? Homework just isn't that much fun," said Tim. He was sitting at the other end of the couch reviewing notes for his Earth Science final. Even though the football season and paid tutoring gig had long since ended, Tim and Julie still studied together once or twice a week, for reasons neither of them could really articulate.
"Just my final English project," replied Julie, glancing up at Tim.
He dropped his notes in his lap and stretched. "So what's this project about then?"
"Poets behaving badly," she said with a smile.
"How badly?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Very," she said.
"C'mon, Taylor, don't be a tease."
Julie shook her head. "You don't really want to hear my speech or read my paper. It would probably bore you to tears."
"But I thought you said there was bad behavoir in there. What are they doing? Not paying their taxes?"
"Not hardly. More like drinking absinthe, taking drugs, having torrid affairs and really spectacular break-ups."
"Now you've got my attention. Let's hear it."
She nodded and glanced at her note cards, trying to collect her thoughts. "OK, but remember, I haven't practiced the speech part yet so I don't exactly have it memorized. It'll be better on the actual day."
"Quit stalling, Taylor."
Julie launched into her speech, reminding herself to speak slowly and calmly and also to look up from her note cards frequently. After she finished the first part, Julie paused to look at Tim, his face blank and eyes unreadable. She wondered if he'd understood a single word, if he was listening at all.
She figured the second part would be more interesting, so she gathered up her courage and plowed on through the ill-fated love affair of the teenaged Arthur Rimbaud and much older (and very married) Paul Verlaine. When Tim didn't laugh at the story of Verlaine slapping Rimbaud in the face with a fish, Julie's spirits sank. Either Tim was bored or he hated her speech.
She couldn't help but speed up through the last part, to put them both out of their misery. She did, however, slow down slightly to savor her concluding paragraph and poem.
"While the thesis question is perhaps impossible to answer, it is clear that without their life experiences, neither Rimbaud or Verlaine would have been able to write so eloquently and clearly about trauma and heart-break. Verlaine's life experiences gave us Romances Sans Parole and Birds in the Night. And when you reflect on the third part of Birds in the Night, you can't help but recognize both the genius and the curse.
And wherefore should I lay my heart-wounds bare?
You love me not,--an end there, lady mine;
And as I do not choose that one shall dare
To pity,--I must suffer without sign.
Yes, suffer! For I loved you well, did I,
--But like a loyal soldier will I stand
Till, hurt to death, he staggers off to die,
Still filled with love for an ungrateful land.
O you that were my Beauty and my Own,
Although from you derive all my mischance,
Are not you still my Home, then, you alone,
As young and mad and beautiful as France?"
At the end of the speech, Tim was looking down at his hands. Julie waited for a few seconds, but when he'd neither said anything nor made eye contact, she could wait no longer.
"Well?" she asked, biting her lip.
"Are you seriously going to stand up in front of your English class and give that speech?" asked Tim, looking up at her.
"Yes, that's the general idea."
"You're going to give a speech about a guy who abandons his wife and child to run off with another guy, a teenaged kid, really?"
"Well, no, that's not what the speech is about. It's an examination of the nature of the poetic temperament and how it influence's ones behavior and poetry," said Julie, impatiently.
"You realize all anyone's going to hear is the part about the two guys together. Do you get that, at all?" Tim had turned toward her and was watching her intently.
Julie rolled her eyes. "It' not my problem if the class is full of small-minded homophobic jerks. Really, Tim? I didn't expect you to be so judgemental."
"Taylor, I'm not being judgemental. I'm trying to get you to understand what you're doing here." He paused and rubbed his hands over his face while letting out a deep sigh. "So, when is this speech due?"
"In three days."
"Perfect, so you have time to write a new one," said Tim, relief evident in his face.
"No. No way," replied Julie, shaking her head for emphasis. "For one thing, this is based on my final project. And for another, I've worked really hard on this and there's nothing wrong with it."
"Well, can't you just tone it down a little? Leave out the whole part about the two guys?"
Julie looked at Tim like he'd just suggested she fly to the moon to pick up some sandwiches. When she spoke, her words were slow and deliberate, as though she was explaining something for the thirty-seventh time to a particularly slow child.
"No, Tim, I cannot tone it down. The whole point of the paper is how their lives influenced their poetry and vice versa. I cannot eliminate a key part of their lives just because you think it might make some small-minded Texas hicks uncomfortable."
Tim put his hands up in surrender. "Okay, Taylor. If you think you know what you're doing. Just don't be surprised if it ends badly."
Julie stood up and was still for a moment. Then she paced angrily as she gathered up her belongings. "You think I'm crazy to give this speech? Stupid? Delusional? What?"
"No. I just don't understand why you'd go looking for trouble."
"Like you've never gone looking for trouble?" she asked, wheeling around to pierce him with an accusatory stare.
"I have. That's why I can tell you that it's a really bad idea," he said.
"Don't you ever feel like there's only a finite amount of air in this town and you've nearly used it all up? That you're strangling and choking here?"
Tim shook his head. "Is that really how you feel, living here?"
"Yeah, sometimes."
"Look, Taylor, two weeks and school's over, then you've only got one more year. Just think carefully about what you're doing."
"Thank for the advice, Tim," she said, a little more harshly than she meant. She jammed her feet into her sandals and left, just managing to resist the urge to slam the door behind her.
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Three days later, Julie walked through the hallway toward the main school office in a daze. She couldn't believe that not only had Tim's warning proved prophetic, it had been an even bigger disaster than he'd warned.
The catcalls and dirty remarks from a few of the guys in the class had caused her to blush and stutter. When she got to the part about absinthe and opium, Mr. McGovern had called time on her presentation and told her to sit down. He held her after class to discuss the inappropriate nature of her speech, which had caused her to defend it vigorously.
Apparently she'd defended it vigorously enough to get summoned to the vice principal's office. She held the crumpled note in her hand and noticed that her steps got slower the closer she got to the office.
Julie turned the corner toward the school office and recognized a familiar, broad-shouldered figure, leaning casually against the counter. Even if she hadn't been able to recognize Tim from that distance, she could have guessed it was him just by looking at the flirty expression on Celeste, the student worker behind the counter.
The girl was standing in a way that gave the world a few right down her shirt. Julie was already angry, but for some reason,having to know that Celeste was wearing a pink lace bra made her want to punch someone.
Julie picked up her pace as she stalked into the office and tossed the note on the counter without explanation.
"Taylor," Tim greeted her. She did not return the greeting or even look at him.
"Oh, yeah, you can go in. They're waiting for you," said Celeste.
As Julie marched around behind the counter and headed for the vice principal's office, she could hear Celeste whispering to Tim "Have you heard? She gave a speech about two gay guys and now she's in trou-ble."
Julie tried to ignore her and prepare for her confrontation with Vice Principal Trucks. She walked into his office, surprised to see her mother sitting in one of the chairs and her father leaning against the wall. Coach looked especially displeased, with a vein pulsing in his forehead and a muscle twitching in his jaw. Julie had only seen him look like that a few times in her life and it never ended well.
She flipped her hair back and put her chin up. Her paper was meticulously researched, her speech was based on historical facts and she had a right to free speech in a public school classroom. She was ready for whatever fight they wanted to bring to her because really, she was so sick of this small town with its small minds.
Julie tried to lean against the wall across from her father, but Mr. Trucks directed her to sit down and didn't look like he was going to start this kangaroo court until she did. She sighed and rolled her eyes to express her displeasure and sat down with as much dignity as she could muster.
"Miss Taylor, we wanted to discuss the disruption your....presentation caused in your English class today," began Mr. Trucks.
"Then why aren't you discussing it with the couple of guys who actually caused the disruption? All I was doing was presenting my final project," said Julie defensively.
"Hey now, is this really the foot you want to start out on?" asked her father. His eyes were burning and she could see he was just spoiling for a fight. Fine, she was more than capable of giving him one.
"I didn't do anything wrong," insisted Julie.
"Now, hon, that wasn't exactly what I heard. It seems your little talk maybe offended some of the students and it definitely made Mr. McGovern extremely uncomfortable," said Tami, jumping right into her customary role as peacemaker and common ground finder. But Julie didn't want peace. Not when she was right.
"If Mr. McGovern had let me finish my presentation, had let me go through some of the poetry and present the evidence in support of my thesis, then maybe he would have had a different opinion."
"Now, Miss Taylor, I don't think we're going to get anywhere like this. The fact remains, a major disruption was caused as a direct result of your speech," said the vice principal.
Julie shrugged. "It's not my fault if some people are prejudiced or easily shocked."
"Vice Principle Trucks, do you think you could give us a minute here? I think we need to have a little family meeting about all this, see if we can't get it cleared up," said Tami with her best charming smile
A look of incredulity flickered over the man's face, but then he sighed and relented. He pushed himself back from the desk and stood up. "Sure, just let me know when y'all are ready."
Coach looked like he was following Mr. Trucks out of the room, but Julie wasn't going to be that lucky. Her father just wanted to close the door. As soon as it had clicked shut behind him, he wheeled around and let her have the full brunt of his displeasure.
"What in the world were you thinking, Julie, giving a speech like that?"
"Dad, there was nothing wrong with it. I worked on the paper for weeks. I did meticulous research. That paper was 30 pages long – it could probably get an A in any college English class in the country." Julie insisted stubbornly.
"Well, first of all, you're not in a college English class. You're a junior in high school and you should know better than to deliberately use inflammatory language and facts in a speech," said Coach.
"Deliberately inflammatory? If I wanted to be deliberately inflammatory, there was way worse stuff I could have used. Like the physician's report from the court case. Or Verlaine's 'Ouverture' which is all about having sex with a prostitute."
"Nice, that's real nice, Julie," muttered Coach. "Any time you want to jump in and help me out, Tami, would be fine?"
"Well, hon, I was just waiting until you'd both emptied your six-shooters so we could have a civil conversation about this," said Tami.
"I am being civil. And reasonable. I didn't do anything wrong," said Julie for what seemed like the three hundredth time.
"Now, Jules, I know maybe you didn't necessarily intend to offend anyone, but the fact is, you did, and I do kind of think you exercised poor judgement in the matter and you need to deal with the consequences," said Tami.
"What do you mean?" asked Julie, looking up at her mother.
"I mean that you're going to start by apologizing to Mr. McGovern-"
"Oh no," interrupted Julie. "I'm not going to apologize because I haven't done anything wrong."
Coach Taylor had one hand on his hip and the other was pointing at Julie. "You are going to apologize," he said quietly.
"I am not. I don't think you're listening or trying to understand my side of the story. But let me repeat it for you. I. Didn't. Do. Anything. Wrong," said Julie, matching her father's ferocious gaze.
Coach rubbed his jaw and smiled the sort of you-don't-know-what-kind-of-fire-you're-playing-with smile that Julie had watched him give unruly football players.
When he spoke, his voice was quiet and controlled. "You want to think real hard about this, Julie. This really a fight you want to have? You want to make a big deal out of this? Have it go on your permanent record? Have to explain it to college admissions people?"
Julie tried not to look startled. She hadn't thought of that.
"That's right, you don't want this to mess everything up for you. Now, your mother worked hard, talking to Mr. McGovern to try to reach an agreement that would benefit everyone. All you have to do is apologize," said Coach, suddenly the picture of reason and rationality.
"No. I don't want special treatment. This is ridiculous anyway. Completely fascist, in fact." Julie's anger had sparked again and drove away any doubts or apprehensions she had.
"You'd rather have a Saturday suspension, spend all day in here on a Saturday?" asked Coach.
"If that's what the punishment is, which is completely unfair because I didn't do anything wrong. But yes, I would. It's like.....going to jail for an act of civil disobedience," said Julie.
"You'll be grounded too. For weeks," threatened Coach.
"All that proves is that you're fascist too."
Julie nearly wished she had been able to take a picture of her father at that moment. He looked like he might truly snap. Then her mother stepped in.
"Sound like you've made your decision, Julie. Eric, why don't you go get Vice Principal Trucks," said Tami.
Eric shook his head and left the room. When the Vice Principal returned, he was alone.
"So, have y'all straightened things out," he asked as he sat down behind his desk.
Tami gave him a tight smile. "Well, yes, although not exactly in the way I'd hoped."
"I'm not going to apologize," said Julie, daring the Vice Principal to challenge her.
He just sighed and made a note on his desk calendar. "Fine. I will see you in the cafeteria this Saturday for detention. Be there before 8 am."
Julie stormed out of the room, ignoring Celeste and her half-open shirt. In fact, she kept her head down because if Tim was still leaning on the counter, she didn't want to see him or talk to him.
It was definitely not her lucky day. As Julie took a left out of the school office, she walked right into the very person she was trying to avoid.
"Easy there, Taylor," he said in an amused voice.
"What are you doing here? Waiting for me so you can rub it in?"
"Rub what in?" Tim asked, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
"I got in trouble for my speech."
"Oh, right," said Tim softly and looked down.
"Well, aren't you happy?"
"Why would I be happy that you got in trouble?"
Julie sighed and rolled her eyes. "Not that I got in trouble, that you were right about it being a bad idea."
Tim shook his head. "No..... I was just waiting for you so I could give you back that book you left over at my place a couple of weeks ago. C'mon, I have it in my locker."
"Oh, right," mumbled Julie, trailing behind him. She sometimes left a book at his house, sort of accidentally on purpose, thinking that Tim would enjoy it. Even though she knew the probability of the book being used as a beer coaster was higher than the probability of it actually being read.
She usually left books of poetry or short stories, since she figured his attention span was probably pretty short. Every once in a while, though, she'd make an exception.
Tim stopped at his locker, pulled out Henry and June and handed it over.
"Um, what did you think of it?" asked Julie.
"Honestly, I didn't know you were allowed to write stuff like that in books," said Tim with a grin.
"You'd be surprised, Riggins, what sort of stuff has gotten into books," she said, returning his grin while hoping she could stop her cheeks from turning red. It was annoying when that happened, doubly annoying that it mostly tended to happen around him and triply annoying after the day she'd had.
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Julie timed her entry into the cafeteria on Saturday so that she arrived a minute before 8am. Vice Principal Trucks was sitting at a table in the front, dressed in a short sleeved shirt with horrible sans-a-belt pants. Julie wondered if that's what his whole wardrobe was like.
She pictured him wearing that outfit to go on vacation to the beach or to go hunting. The images caused her to giggle, which made him shoot her a dirty look. Julie stopped laughing and sat down, momentarily unnerved. It was almost like he'd read her mind. Creepy.
Julie looked around the cafeteria at the other students who'd committed transgressions requiring Saturday suspension. She was the only girl in a room of about ten boys and she'd be surprised if she could name three of them. These weren't exactly the sort of social circles she traveled in.
She had no idea what happened in a Saturday suspension. A few of the other inmates were napping. A couple were staring off into space. One seemed to be carving something into the table. Julie took a book out of her purse and started reading. She figured it might not be so bad, if all she had to do was sit there and read. Sure, the chair would get uncomfortable, but reading was enjoyable at least.
Julie was lost on the road with Jack Kerouac when she heard the seat next to her scrape across the floor. Startled, she looked up, afraid of which juvenile delinquent might have decided to become her new best friend. She nearly breathed an audible sign of relief when she realized it was just Tim.
His clothes were wrinkled, he smelled like whiskey, and he looked like he hadn't slept in two days. He slumped into the seat and put his head down on the table.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered without looking at him.
"Got in trouble," he shrugged.
"You look terrible. Did you even go home last night."
"Nope," he lifted his head and gave her a wolfish grin. "Was too busy makin' memories."
"You know, can you explain this making memories thing to me? Seems to me like you drink enough to eliminate any memories you might have had in the first place."
Tim put his finger to his lips and shushed her. "Taylor, I am so totally hung over right now. I really can't answer brain teasers."
Julie opened her purse and rooted through it until she came up with a bottle of Advil. She slid it over to him.
"Thanks, Taylor," he whispered. Then he spoke up. "Excuse me, sir, can I go get a drink of water?"
"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Riggins. No, you may not." Vice Principal Trucks went back to making notes on the papers in front of him.
Tim sighed and tipped a few pills out of the bottle, steeling himself to dry-swallow them.
"Tim, wait," whispered Julie. She picked up her purse and walked up to the table, where she whispered something to Mr. Trucks. He flushed and gestured her out the door. On her way out, she gave Tim a triumphant smile.
She returned about five minutes later and set her purse on the table between Tim and her. The zipper was open to reveal a couple of bottles of water and some candy bars.
"Take whatever you need," she told Tim.
"Thanks, Taylor," he whispered. He kept his eyes on the vice principal and managed to down an entire bottle of water when the man wasn't looking. Tim put his head back on the table and closed his eyes.
At about 8.30, Vice Principal Trucks cleared his throat and began to give out the assignments for the day. A couple of kids were sent into classrooms to scrape chewing gum off desks. Another few were tasked with picking up litter from the school grounds. Tim and Julie get the last assignment – packing up the equipment in the school science labs.
On the way to the science lab, Tim ate two candy bars and seemed to be getting his strength back.
"Why are you here?" asked Julie.
"Got in trouble, I guess."
"I figured that much. What did you do?" said Julie, rolling her eyes.
Tim shrugged. "Does it matter? I don't even think I remember."
Julie wanted to press him. How could you not remember what landed you in Saturday suspension? But they were already at the first science lab, where Miss Gorman was waiting for them.
It was a biology lab and the teacher explained that they were to take inventory of all the dissecting kids, note anything that was missing, clean anything that was dirty, package everything up in boxes, label the boxes, and carry them to the storage room down the hall. In the chemistry labs, they would be wrapping the glass equipment in bubble wrap and packing it up in specially designed boxes.
Julie listened carefully and nodded in all the right places. Miss Gorman sat down at a desk in the front of the room and rested her hand on her chin. Julie couldn't decide if the teacher was bored silly, exhausted, or both.
Julie picked up her clipboard and started with the inventory, then moved onto the cleaning and packaging. She stole a few glances at Tim and he seemed to be moving through his work much more quickly that she was. This irritated her, so she tried to work faster.
They'd moved onto the second biology lab when Mr. Trucks came through to make sure they were carrying out their punishment without having any fun. There was no danger of that, Julie thought grimly. She was so sick of cleaning crusted up frog bits off of scalpels, she thought she might just vomit.
After Mr. Trucks left, Tim sauntered up to Miss Gorman and had a brief chat with her. Julie couldn't hear the words, but she could hear Tim's soft, reassuring tone. She watched different expressions move over the teacher's face until she finally settled on relief. Julie watched in surprise as Miss Gorman left the room.
"What did you do?" Julie hissed at Tim.
"What you mean what did I do? Mr. Trucks is lazy. He won't come back here until just before it's time for us to leave," said Tim with quiet certainty.
"How do you know?"
Tim laughed. "Ain't my first rodeo."
Julie sighed impatiently. "OK, fine, but how'd you get rid of Miss Gorman?"
Tim stretched and smiled. "Piece of cake. Poor lady was probably even more hung over than I was this morning."
Julie's eyes widened in surprise. "Seriously?"
"Yeah," said Tim. "You didn't notice that?"
Julie shook her head. "Is like figuring out other people's weaknesses your super power or something, Riggins?"
Tim tilted his head and smiled at her, a slow, wide grin that set a flock of butterflies loose in Julie's stomach. "Haven't figured yours out yet, Taylor. I'll have to keep trying."
Julie ducked her head and opened a dissecting kit. She was disgusted to find another dirty scalpel. She was about to lift it out and clean it when Tim reached over and shut the kit.
"Don't bother. Just do the inventory and then let's get these things packed up. Sooner we're done, the sooner we can relax."
"But we're supposed to-"
"Taylor, we're putting 'em in sealed boxes. No one's going to know what's done right. It'll all just be done."
Within an hour they'd finished the second biology lab and the first chemistry lab. Halfway through the second chemistry lab, Tim declared that they were done.
"But, we still have to finish this lab," protested Julie.
"Yeah, but if we get everything done then it looks bad, like we cut corners. We leave something undone, then it looks like we've done just enough, just right," said Tim, walking into the office attached to the lab. Inside was a metal desk, an ancient metal office chair on a heavy base with wheels and a small couch.
Tim pulled down the shades and then lay down on the couch, his knees on one of the couch arms while his legs dangled down. He folded his arms behind his head and looked over at Julie.
She sat down in the desk chair, finding it surprisingly comfortable. She tipped back in the chair and then spun around, laughing.
"Now what?" she asked.
"Now, whatever," said Tim, closing his eyes.
Julie groaned. "Aw, you're not going to sleep, are you? That would be really boring for me."
"Nah, I'm not going to sleep. I'm just resting my eyes. I'm still talking to you."
"Okay, that's all right, I suppose," said Julie. She looked over at him and noticed that the top three buttons of his shirt were undone, providing a fantastic view of his tanned, muscled chest.
She let herself stare for a few seconds because really, it was like looking at Michelangelo's David or something. You had to appreciate art whenever and wherever you found it.
Afraid of getting caught gawking, Julie tore her eyes away and began to slide the chair back and forth across the room. A few minutes of silence stretched between them, since Julie wasn't really sure what she wanted to talk about.
"Taylor, this whole talking thing is going to go a lot better if you actually....you know...talk," said Tim.
Julie stopped sliding around in the chair, looked at him and said the first thing that popped into her head. "That thing about you and the Stratton sisters. Is that true?"
Tim turned his head, opened one eye and smirked at her. "Yes."
Julie's mouth fell open and she tried to but failed to recover gracefully. "That's kinda sick."
Tim shrugged one shoulder and smiled to himself. "It's all about the memories."
Emboldened, Julie flipped through the rumors she'd heard about Tim. "What about Mrs. Diaz, the Spanish teacher who quit in the middle of last year."
"Uh...."
"Oh my god! You didn't!" squealed Julie.
"No, it's not like what you heard. Something happened, but only after she'd already been gone for a few weeks and I ran into her at a gas station in Baron. And seriously, she was only 23."
"She was still married."
"Oh, yeah. I guess she was," said Tim, looking ever so slightly abashed.
Julie grinned and tried to think of a rumor that would provoke a reaction from him. Unable to think of one, she resorted to inventing one on the spot. "What about Tyra's mom?"
"What?" asked Tim, opening his eyes and sitting up.
"Tyra's mom," said Julie, trying to keep her voice and face serious.
"You really think I'd still have my balls if that one were true?"
Julie shook her head and tried to control the giggles that were building up inside her.
"Seriously. Where did you hear that?"
"I made it up. I'm sorry – I just wanted to get a reaction from you," said Julie before she collapsed in a heap of giggles.
Tim looked annoyed, then relieved. He kicked out a leg and made contact with the chair, sending Julie spinning across the room. He settled back into the couch, grumbling good-naturedly. "You know, Taylor, you going to ask me all these personal questions, I think it's only fair I should get to ask you some."
Julie got herself under control and sat up straight. "Okay, but my life is way more boring than yours."
Tim looked at her while he thought, but then after several seconds he closed his eyes. "What's the most memorable thing that's happened when you've been with Seven?"
Julie looked down, knowing her cheeks were going to be burning red before she could get a single word out. "Memorable," she repeated, trying to buy herself some time. "Memorable good or memorable bad."
"I don't know, Taylor. Memorable-memorable. When you're 87 and you look back to this year and all the time you've spent with Seven, what's the first memory that's going to pop into your head."
"Oh.....yeah. That would be the time my dad walked in on us at Matt's house."
Tim's eyes snapped open and he turned his head to look at her. "For real?"
She hunched her shoulders, ducked her head and looked at him through her bangs. "For real. I mean, we're weren't exactly doing anything right at the moment, but we were, you know, in his bed and it was pretty obvious....."
Tim gave a low whistle of appreciation. "And Seven's still alive. Wow. I don't think I ever realized how brave that guy is."
Julie laughed. "Brave. He didn't want to touch me again and was afraid to come near the house for two days. I finally had to tell him to man up."
"But he did....didn't he?"
"Yeah, he did. Seemed like every time he came over for the next few weeks, my dad was cleaning the grill or sharpening the knives or chopping wood or doing something that involved sharp objects and physical force."
Tim laughed. "That's classic. I gotta remember that if I ever have a daughter."
They traded questions for the next two hours, some of them serious, some of them silly. Julie told Tim about the time she stole a pack of gum from a grocery store and Tami caught her and made her go back. Tim told her about the copper wire. Julie talked about The Swede and he talked about Lyla and Six.
After telling him about how hard it had been for her when Gracie was first born, Julie smiled. "You know what this feels like? It feels like confession."
"Confession?" asked Tim.
"Yeah, confession. Catholics do it – they go to the priest and tell all their sins and then ask for them to be forgiven. Absolution. That's what they call it. Can you absolve me of my sins?" she asked with a smile.
"I don't know, Taylor, can you absolve me of mine," he asked, catching her gaze and holding it.
"I don't know. Just from the little I've heard here, it sound like it would be quite a long list."
He gave her a rueful smile. "Yeah, you'd be here for a long time. A lot longer than just a Saturday suspension, that's for sure."
Tim sat up and stretched. Julie watched his shirt ride up and then felt mortified when he caught her looking. He just grinned and leaned back. He reached out a leg, hooked his foot around the base of her chair and pulled her over so they were face-to-face.
"Let me ask you one last question," said Tim. "Was it worth it?"
"Was what worth it?" asked Julie.
"Giving that speech? What did it get you? Was it worth it?"
Julie shrugged.
"You know what I think? I think you've just got a spot for rebels. For bad boys. Even if they're 19th century guys who'd be more interested in each other than you?"
"Is that what you think?" she asked.
He grinned. "That's gotta be it."
"I don't like being teased," she said, half in jest and whole in earnest.
"Yeah? What are you going to do about it?"
She reached out to tickle him, but his reflexes were quicker. He wrapped his hand around her wrist firmly and didn't let go. But then she wasn't exactly squirming to get away either.
They both looked down at his hand on her wrist. She looked up first. After a few seconds, he lifted his chin and looked at her. It was his mouth that she noticed first. How could she have missed that full bottom lip? She met his gaze, appreciating the intensity in his green eyes.
It was like she was seeing him, really seeing him, for the first time. And in finally really seeing him, she'd completed a circuit. The last switch had clicked into place and electricity was now coursing through her. She was surprised that she hadn't gasped until she realized that she wasn't sure she was breathing.
It felt like time had stopped and they were frozen, suspended at the edge of a cliff. It would only take a feather-soft breeze to send her over the edge, tumbling, letting go, falling onto those lips.
How had she never noticed before how beautiful he was? All those hours she had spent at his house, checking his homework, talking, laughing, studying. How had she not noticed? Had her nose been so far in her books? What had she been thinking?
But then it hit her. Matt. She'd been thinking about Matt. Julie sighed and twisted her wrist away from Tim. As soon as she started to move, he loosened his grip and she was able to easily pull away. She pushed back and the chair glided back across the room, putting several feet of safety between her and Tim.
She loved Matt. She knew she did. So why this curiosity? Why this sudden, unstoppable pull toward Tim? Was this just some phase, some temporary insanity that every girl at Dillon High School passed through at some point?
Tempting as it was to consider this just passing phase,she knew that if she was honest with herself, she would have admitted that it felt like a lot more that that.
She watched Tim through her bangs until he looked away. She thought she saw a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. But when he looked back at her, his eyes were different, closed off, any feelings hidden away. She felt it as a loss, even as she reminded herself that she still had Matt.
She felt like she was outside of her body, observing, watching herself struggle to find a path through this unexpected thicket. She heard her lips form lame words about getting back to work. She watched him nod and shrug apathetically. And she wondered what it would have been like if she'd let in that feather-soft breeze instead of closing the window against it.