Note: Hey so I may very well be the ONLY Zach and Julie fan left in the world but I don't care. I know this story probably won't get much attention but I really like it and I hope something like this ends up happening (even though it probably wont lol). So please read and review and I hope you like it! :)
It started with a simple trip to the grocery store. Just a trip to get some ingredients for a Thanksgiving dinner the next night to be prepared by Julie for her new big family. She would have normally gone herself but Mike wanted a special type of turkey this year that only he knew the specific name of so he had to go with her to get it. And that's where it started.
As they walked down the isle they saw a tremendous number of families shopping together. And at every father and son they passed Mike would get a strange look on his face.
"Mike?" Julie asked finally as it happened a sixth time.
"Hmm?" he replied, snapping back to attention.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
"I guess...it's just...tomorrow's Thanksgiving. You're supposed to spend it with family." he said.
"We are going to spend it with family." she replied, confused.
"Not everyone is..." he mumbled, speeding up his pace as if he knew she was going to ask questions about this statement.
"Anyone you're thinking of in particular?" she asked.
"Yeah uh, Zach." Mike said. Julie frowned in confusion.
"Zach who?"
Mike sighed and gave her a look as if it was obvious.
"Zach Young." he added when she didn't respond to it.
"Oh...you know I haven't seen him since he publicly proposed to Mrs. Solis like six or seven years ago. How is he?" she asked. Mike grimaced.
"You picked a bad time to ask." he responded simply.
"I mean I've thought about it...a lot actually. But it never seemed important. I mean can you believe I went out with him eleven years ago?" she asked. Mike shook his head, feeling old at her statement.
"So how is he?" Julie asked again.
Mike sighed as an older looking father walked by with his adult son.
"Why don't you see for yourself?" he asked, leaving their cart and starting towards the exit. Julie sighed but jogged after him out to his truck before they pulled out and sped off too an unknown location.
After a while they pulled up at their destination and Julie frowned in confusion.
"This is a rehab center..." she said. Mike just looked at her and nodded.
"Yup, this is the place. Come on." he said, getting out of the car and starting towards the entrance.
Julie barely heard a word Mike was saying to the receptionist when they entered the building. Her head was still reeling from the fact that Zach was in rehab. He may have gone slightly insane but he'd never seemed like someone to get into drugs!
She remembered thinking he'd been the perfect first kiss and how sweet he was to get her a corsage for the casual dance they'd gone to together when she was a freshman in high school. And then long after that when she and her mom and Mike had taken Zach bowling and she ran into him a few nights after...all the feelings had come back. But then he'd disappeared without a trace and try as she might she couldn't reach him by phone or email or anything. So she gave up. And that's how she ended up getting into disasters like the neighborhood whore's nephew and a married professor.
She was snapped out of her thoughts when Mike called for her to follow him down the hall. They walked until they got to a room with a plaque on the front reading "Z. Young".
Mike glanced over his shoulder at Julie who realized she was nervously biting her lip and then motioned for him to open it. When he did they found Zach lying on his bed reading some plain black book. He looked up and surprisingly didn't move a muscle.
"Hi Zach." Mike said. Zach nodded slightly and put his book on his bedside table.
"Mike." Julie stepped forward into the room and Zach's expression finally changed. He looked bewildered.
"Hi Zach." Julie said, suddenly shy for whatever reason. She had no idea.
"Julie?" he asked, standing up. She nodded.
"What are you guys doing here?" he asked, not taking his eyes off of Julie.
"Tomorrow's Thanksgiving. You're supposed to spend it with family." Mike said lamely.
"Ok?" Zach asked, ushering him to get to the point.
"Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow?" Mike blurted out. Julie and Zach both looked at him in shock.
"Uh sure...I've been allowed 'field trips' for months now...just have nowhere to go." Zach mumbled.
"Good...I'm going to go call Susan and let her know. And then maybe I'll go pick up some dinner...we can catch up?" Mike asked. Zach nodded although he had a slight frown on his face and Mike quietly exited the room, closing the door behind him.
Julie stood there, hands clasped behind her back and smiled awkwardly. Zach managed a weak smile back. She tilted her head- he'd certainly grown into himself. He was...cute. No, no she couldn't be thinking like that...could she?
"So...how have you been?" she asked, without thinking. He let out a sarcastic, pained laugh.
"Fantastic." he replied sarcastically. She was about to apologize but he kept going.
"Let's see...inherited all my grandfather's money, blew it on prostitutes, drugs, and alcohol, humiliated myself in front of our entire neighborhood, then ended up in a shithole apartment nearly dead from usage. How have you been?"
She just gaped at him before recomposing herself.
"Let's see... got taken hostage in a shooting, fell for Edie Britt's nephew who used me for sex and then cheated on me with my best friend, had an affair with a married guy...who was old...and my professor, and been in and out of the hospital several times for several occasions." she said.
He chuckled without humor.
"We've done so well for ourselves huh?" he asked. She rolled her eyes and nodded.
"What were you in the hospital for?" he asked worriedly. Julie felt her heart skip a beat at the first display of emotion he'd shown since she had gotten there.
"Just stuff...I'm fine though."
"Good...that's good." he said, sitting down on his bed.
She pulled up a chair and sat in front of him.
"Are you getting better?" she asked.
He looked at her and for a second she saw the same innocent looking pair of eyes that had admitted deep secrets to her so long ago.
"I am. I just don't know what I'm gonna do when I get outta hear. I don't want to see...Paul. I have no family. No friends. No one." he said quietly, head down.
She reached over and rested one of her hands on top of his.
He looked up at her before interlacing their fingers but doing nothing else.
"Why didn't you call me...when you changed numbers?" she asked quietly.
"What?" he asked.
"You got a new number...right after you inherited all that stuff from your grandpa...but you didn't call me. I thought- I mean at that point I thought we were friends." she said, hurt she didn't even realize she still had finally coming out.
"Honestly Julie? At that point I didn't want to be your friend. I still lov- really liked you- and I also had other stuff on my mind." he said, sounding exasperated.
"That's a dumb reason." Julie mumbled.
"Really? Would it have made any difference?" he snapped back. She looked up at him and realized he'd changed. Not in a bad way. He was just more sure of himself.
"Maybe. Maybe we both would have turned out better if we'd had each other." she said quietly.
"How so?" he asked.
"Well...this may be my imagination but at least when we were you know, together...you were more grounded." she said slowly. He shrugged.
"And I probably would have ended up better off too." she added. He sighed and nodded, running a hand through his hair.
"You're probably right. But we can't really do anything about that now." he replied.
"You know...whenever I think about you I feel stupid. It was so long ago, it barely counts as a relationship...but you were my first kiss and my first boyfriend but it wasn't even a real relationship and-" he cut her off.
"Yeah...yeah it was. Julie I was pathetically in love with you!" he exclaimed, letting go of her hand and throwing his hands up in the air.
"I kind of figured..." she admitted.
"And you didn't love me back. How could you? I was the psychotic loser running around holding hostages and having problems with his fake father." Zach hissed, in a harsh tone.
"I don't really know what to say..." Julie replied quietly.
He sighed and gave her an apologetic look. "There's nothing to say. The world is fuc-"
She didn't know what made her decide to do it. Maybe it was all these feelings she never knew existed surfacing at once. Maybe it was the fact he'd made her feel horrible about their entire relationship. Or maybe it was the fact that he looked so cute, all grown up and without his glasses that she didn't know what to do with herself. But something inside Julie snapped and she cut him off, leaning over and pulling him close to her, then kissing him fully in one swift motion.
At first he responded, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer to him but then as suddenly as she had kissed him, he stopped it, leaning away slightly.
"What was that?" he asked, confused. A slight frown coming across his face as she'd seen before.
"I don't know." she replied breathlessly. She was still practically on his lap and he was still holding her but neither of them moved an inch.
"Ok." he replied before leaning in and kissing her, this time slowly and more meaningful than her random one.
Both of them let themselves get lost in that kiss, not knowing why they were doing it or what would happen after, just getting lost.
Finally when they had to pull apart for air she looked at him with an expression that suddenly brought a rush of feelings back to him. He remembered why he'd been so taken with her all those years ago.
"Julie we haven't spoken in years." he said quietly.
"I know."
"I'm in rehab."
"I know."
"Your mom hates me."
"I know."
"What the hell are we doing?"
"No idea." she said smiling ever so slightly before resting her forehead against his.
"What I do know is that I've missed you. And I didn't realize it till I saw you. But I have." she added quickly.
He chuckled darkly. "You miss me? You know me as the insane kid who stalked you and the crazy drugged up guy that stalked your mom's friend. And you miss me?" he asked in disbelief.
"I always thought you were great. I saw what no one else at the time did. Sort of what I'm seeing now. You just got a little lost on the way. So did I." she replied.
He pulled away taking both of her hands in his.
"You don't know what that means to me." he said simply. She smiled.
"One of the last times I saw dad- I mean Paul- I told him no one could ever love him. But when I said it...I was talking to myself too. To the both of us. I believe it." he said.
"Don't even go there, Zach. Not for one second." she said sternly.
"What you don't think it's true?" he asked, snorting.
"If you let someone in...you could get so much love." she said, squeezing his hands.
"And what...is that someone you?" he asked, half sarcastically even though on the inside he was dying to hear 'yes'.
"I don't know." she admitted. He sighed.
"But what I do know is now that I found you again...we're not going to just loose touch. I am going to come visit you here whether you like it or not. And when you get out...well we'll just have to see where it goes." she said confidently.
"That's crazy." he replied, but he was smiling.
She smiled back and leaned in closer to him again.
"Crazy?" she asked pointedly looking at him. He nodded and she leaned in even further until their faces were only centimeters away from each other.
"I love crazy." and she kissed him yet again.