Juliette

All right, so this is me. Ask anyone who knew me a few years ago, or well, pretty much anyone who knows me in general, and he or she would all tell you the same thing. Everyone says (or secretly thinks) that I'm a complete airhead. My head is in the clouds, half my time is spent whining, and I grew up getting a lot of the things I wanted. I'm a spoiled brat, a fairy tale princess who freaks out if something gets on my designer clothes. Before Horizon, I had never done a hard days manual work in my life, and I am the type of girl who complains when a nail is broken.

This is what got me made fun of in Horizon. Compared to the rest of the students there, it seemed like I had no right attending the school. I wasn't molested, didn't do drugs, aren't dyslexic, and I haven't shown violent tendencies. My grades were decent, my social status always closer to Prom Queen than anything else, and I had a cheerful disposition. In short, my life seemed perfect to those on the outside, especially those in Horizon who had seen and experienced the worst of the worst.

I am naïve, guy crazy, and on the surface, a preppy cheerleader type. People hardly take me seriously, and people often resent me for my whining or become protective towards me as if I'm made of glass.

To an extent, the people who judge me and brush me off so carelessly are right. I hate getting dirty; I believe chopping firewood and all those hard tasks are men's jobs. I haven't lived out on the streets, don't have a dark edge, didn't struggle in school, and wasn't busted for hanging out with the wrong people.

I couldn't hang out with the wrong people. My mother largely chose my friends for me. She would constantly hold dinner parties and invite every higher status person she knew. My evening would be spent looking pretty, being polite, and giggling with the girls my age, flirting with the guys my age, and allowing the guys who were most definitely not my age leer at me.

When I wasn't at school or being paraded around by my mother, I was exercising. Our house had a sizable exercise room and for an hour before school every weekday, I'd be on the treadmill. After school, I would do my homework, then I'd be being sit-ups, Pilates, and on the exercise bike for two hours. On Mondays and Thursdays I attended dance lessons after this. On Tuesdays and Fridays I would be prepped on my etiquette, a finishing school of sorts, and I would get my hair and nails done or I'd go shopping for my wardrobe. Wednesdays I had singing lessons. Sundays my mother would sit me down and we would go over the plan for the next week, if there would be any adjustments to my diet or exercise plan, if there were any upcoming beauty pageants I was to take part in. Because all of this was for the beauty pageants, of course. My mother always prided herself on her daughter's good looks and she flouted me every way she could. She had won a few medals in her day but her father had made her quit, saying it was demeaning for women. She had always been angry with her father for not letting her continue, and so she lived through me. I was in every competition I was eligible for. I can remember learning how to stand properly, walk properly, and smile properly, since I was four. My first third place ribbon came when I was seven, and it was just a regional win. But in the years to come, I'd garner much more recognition.

I was the perfect beauty queen. I did as I was told. I had pretty features, a melodic voice, and a fragility that judges seemed to adore. I was polite, meek, and always with a smile on my face. I wasn't a total idiot, I had enough intellect to have some respect from onlookers, yet I wasn't outspoken and wasn't smart enough to be intimidating.

Being in the spotlight for my whole life, being in a position where my appearance mattered above much else, I was under a lot of pressure. My mother nagged me about my weight in my teen years and she criticized everything about me. Every time I would take a drink of soda, or take a bite of buttered toast, she would raise her eyebrows. And if I tried to have a burger, she'd out right say that I couldn't afford to gain an extra pound. Thus began my fear of not being good enough for her, or for anyone. I couldn't take the pressure to look good, I found myself having panic attacks at the prospect of gaining any weight. Looking back, it was quite a logical thing for me to develop an eating disorder.

I've been known to be anorexic and bulimic. To this day, my eating habits are still watched. I had to have a food journal, my calories had to be kept track of, people always would sharply ask if I had been eating. But this is all after I was discovered and helped. It took my mother too long to care. I'm sure she noticed. I'm equally sure that my figure staying pristine pleased her. When it spiralled worse and worse and I began losing more weight, when my bones were becoming more pronounced, and when I finally began to pass out from lack of nutrients, this was when my mother checked me into a clinic. I still wonder if she intervened because she was worried about my health of if she was upset that my hard won beauty queen looks were being jeopardized.

It was hard to kick the habit, even after the clinic. They forced me to eat, but no one had yet addressed my low self-esteem issues. My mother didn't help. On the contrary, she often yelled at me for being so stupid. I still felt worthless, and she made my problem into her problem. I felt like I was nothing but a nuisance to her, nothing but a disappointment. She said I made her look bad, that this was reflecting horribly on her. Not me, her.

Through the various husbands she made, my body image continued it's descent. I was drilled to be happy always. I had to smile, had to be a good girl, even when it was hurting to let things stay the way they were. I felt so much pressure to be perfect.

No one can be perfect. To let out my pain and frustration, I started cutting myself. It felt good to feel something. The physical pain numbed my emotional unhappiness, and things were made more bearable when I knew that I could go home and cut out the sadness.

When this new little trait was discovered and my eating disorder was becoming more visible, it was time for another change. My problems were making the current husband nervous. Mother couldn't have that, now could she? The clinics weren't working as well as she wanted, and in exasperation and in a desire to get me out of her hair and to salvage her marriage, I was thrust into Horizon.

I really was unhappy with myself. I could never be thin enough, I wasn't pretty enough, and nothing I could do could make my mother love me. I was always messing up, always scolded, never praised.

At Horizon, I met Shelby, who for the first time in my life, was real to me. She pointed out my flaws, but she never made out something was there if it wasn't. She used honesty in the most brutal of forms. She took me from my fairy tale bubble and exposed me to reality. Horizon showed me that life wasn't about Beauty pageants; it showed me that it was all right to mess up. Everyone there had made mistakes, everyone there were flawed. They accepted you no matter what. I think it was this more than anything that helped me to see that I was okay. There wasn't anything seriously wrong about me, and I found a place where I was loved and cared for. I was healed.

Meeting Scott was wonderful. In the beginning, when I first saw the delicious and slightly broody Golden Boy, I knew I wanted him. He had been a star football player in his high school, and from what I could see; he was the Prince Charming to my Prom Queen. Next to Ezra, the dorky druggie, and Auggie, the gangster homeboy, Scott was ideal. For a while, he liked me back. Shelby, of course, wasn't blind and she liked what she saw as much as I did. She flirted with him, and we both vied for him. He instantly chose me, no contest. Despite her best efforts, smuttiest positions, leeriest words, most seductive moments, he chose me. He ignored her. The feeling I had when he didn't even need to think about which of us to choose really boosted me. I wasn't second best. Scott wanted me. He helped me to like myself, he protected me like no one else could, and he made me happy.

Of course, through the Shelby-Scott-Me triangle, cropped up the Auggie-Scott-Me triangle as well. My initial brush off of Auggie as someone I would never go out with in any lifetime was altered as he showed a side of himself to me that he had kept hidden. It was I who had started him on his own path to acceptance, it was I who helped him see that he had a diagnosed, common problem that was not his fault- and it wasn't stupidity, it was dyslexia. Auggie was drastically different than Scott in several ways, but so similar in others. He had such an edge to him, such a tough attitude that wouldn't let anyone in. But once he did let you in, it was realized that he was incredibly sensitive. Scott also had barriers that kept out people, except with him I never could get through them. Auggie let me in, but I still don't quite know what the real Scott Barringer is like.

When Auggie exposed himself, I gave in a little. He was so sweet. At this point, I could feel Scott easing up on Shelby as he too saw a bit more to her true side. I was worried that he was drifting from me, that I might lose him. Auggie was being more attentive to me, more protective… I let myself be swayed and I lost myself to him, just as Scott did with Shelby.

Scott chose Shelby. They had much more in common and once that was found out, once Shelby finally showed people that she wasn't just a bitch, he was taken. And it still hurts that after he knew us both better, he changed his mind and opted for her instead of me. He only chose me based on initial appearances, he chose her when substance was seen. He chose her when it mattered.

Auggie never did that. There was never really any one else but me for him. He had always been a little hurt when I would glance at Scott, he'd always be concerned that I loved Scott more than him. Auggie never broke my heart. He would do anything for me. That includes running away with me even though he had no real reason to run, except to keep me safe. He shoplifted for me, was arrested for me, and nearly got charged and landed in jail for me.

He took me to the Morp, made me feel like a princess, and cared for me with every thing he had. So sensitive, he'd always be hurt if I pushed him away.

Auggie, the sweet, sensitive, artist, who I knew would protect me from anything. The Spanish gangster from the wrong side of the tracks and the popular beauty queen he'd been fixated with since day one.

Scott, the gorgeous jock with a dark past, hidden secrets, and a soft interior that he had never allowed me into. My Prince.

"Why am I always second best?" I murmured.

"What was that?" Scott asked sleepily. I flinched. I hadn't meant to speak out loud. We were both curled on the couch, a blanket wrapped around us, and some sort of TV show playing in front of us. His head was resting on my lap, and it felt so nice. But he was only here because Shelby had kicked him out of her room so she could concentrate on schoolwork.

"Nothing." I quietly answer.

"You're getting that wounded tone in your voice. What's up?" he shifted his head so that his eyes can meet mine.

I wanted to ask him what happened to us. There are times where I desperately want to be with him again, to be his girl again. I miss the times where he used to call me that. Instead, I blurted out something random, "Are you tired?"

"It is nearing midnight, Jules." He chuckled.

"Then go to bed."

"Seriously, what's up?"

"Why did you choose to go to this university?" I asked.

"Because I got a full sports scholarship." Scott answers easily.

"And why did I?"

"Because I was going here, of course." He joked. "You said it was prestigious, affordable, had a variety of courses you were interested in, and was far enough from your mother's house that she wouldn't be able to visit regularly, remember?" I nodded.

He doesn't know that the first reason he had stated jokingly had been more of a deciding factor than everything else he had mentioned. I wouldn't have followed him to any grungy crap school, but he had chosen a good school. And I was scared about the prospect of knowing no one. The idea of going to a school with at least one friendly face alongside me, and not just any friendly face, but of Scott's protective and sweet friendly face who knew of and could identify with my problems, was too persuasive to pass up. It wasn't as if I really knew what I wanted to be career-wise, so I opted in following him.

Scott had been really crushed when Shelby had announced that she wasn't going to college yet. He had wanted her to go with him. This was before she decided on leaving the continent for her year off. His mood when he found that out was actually a little frightening.

After high school grad, I couldn't stand hanging out with Scott and Shelby. They were so happy together, so love sick. I went away to visit some old friends and relatives, and came back two days before Shelby was to leave. I had already decided and accepted to go to Scott's university but had held off in telling him after grad. He was so involved with Shelby that it didn't feel right. I finally told him where I was heading after he met me at the airport and dejectedly told me that he didn't know anyone from Horizon going to his university. His pleasure upon hearing my decision had made me blush. His face had spilt into a wide grin and he had stridden over and given me a warm hug, exclaiming that it was going to be an amazing few years.

It was he that suggested the rational idea of living together, especially when a nice, affordable, and nearby apartment had popped up in the classifieds. We were both well off, and pooling over money together for rent meant that the apartment wouldn't be a strain of either of us.

Of course, he casually mentioned this to Shelby the night before her flight and she totally freaked out. They spent a few hours arguing, with Shelby obviously not trusting the two of us living together. She was uneasy with the idea of us even going to the same school, and I had gotten threatened with a very 'he's mine so keep your hands off my man' kind of speech.

The fact that she was going to Australia for a year lightened me. I'd have all year of him to myself, even if that were friendship.

When Shelby decided she was going to our university, I wouldn't be surprised if she based her entire decision on the desire to not let us spend any more time alone together. She had declared that she was going to move in with us, which would work out all right, though our formerly comfortably spacious apartment would be more than a little cramped, and cutting the rent three ways wasn't really necessary for either Scott or me.

Since she saw that Scott and I weren't sleeping together, her trust in me grew and we've since developed a mutual civility, even friendship. But despite all this, I still have an underlying resentment that she stole him from me.

"Last year was a lot of fun." I state dreamily. And it was. We had gotten so much closer, and I had found out much more to him. His guard had lowered a bit, but I still felt like he wasn't letting me in.

"It was. Between your daily freak-out about school, whether it was about a test, assignment, or your horrible professor, it was like watching a soap." He said, amused. "Then there were the fashion meltdowns where you stressed because you couldn't find your favourite top, or you got a stain in your jeans, or one of your endless pairs of shoes were missing. Oooh, and the sale days. Dear God, you were scary on sale days."

"Shut up, Scott! Like you were any better. 'Jules, I can't find my textbook for pysch.!' 'Does this shirt smell unwearable?' 'Oh my GOD I'm out of cologne!'" I tease back. "The best I can say about you is that you didn't bring home any girls. That would have permanently scarred me."

"Speaking of that, you haven't brought any guys home either. I know I said in the beginning that I would be physically sick if you did, but I was kidding. I could crash some place else for the night, if you wanted me to. Okay, this conversation is heading to a weird direction." Scott remarked.

"Yeah. Do you think about me bringing home guys often?" I arched an eyebrow.

"I'm just saying, a girl has needs just like a guy-"

"I'd rather not hear about your needs, thanks." I cut him off and shut my eyes in mock disgust. The truth is, I'm still a virgin. I'd have thought that Scott would know that, but no matter. "And this isn't an issue you have to be worrying about. I'm not going to be bringing home any guys. I don't want to."

"What, college guys aren't good enough for you?" he laughed.

"Go to sleep, Scott." I smiled, throwing a cushion at him.

"All right, I'll shut up." He relented and helps me up.

"Good night." I nodded at him, and he gave me a quick peck on the cheek as I moved around him into my room, which is right beside his. We had spent numerous nights where neither of us could sleep, both of us leaning against the wall we shared as we talked to each other about nothing and everything until both of us fell asleep or the sun rose, whichever came first.

An hour or two passed and I was still awake in my bed. I open my eyes and sigh. My bed is against the wall separating our two rooms so I stare at it, wondering if Scott is up. This is the closest I can feel to sleeping beside him, and it comforts me when I'm feeling alone.

"Scott?" I mutter very quietly.

"Hey Jules." His voice replies through the wall. "You're up, thank God. I didn't want to wake you but I'm going crazy staring at my ceiling."

I smiled. It's just like old times. "What's your favourite brand of chocolate?"

"Hershey Almond. What's your favourite flower?"

"White roses. What do you feel like doing right now?" The other end of the wall is silent. "Scott? Don't tell me you've fallen asleep already."

"Nah." He finally answers back. "I don't think I will tonight. I had another bad dream."

"Oh." I breathe. He's always been touché about this. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"It scares me, sometimes. I feel like she's going to come back, appear in the doorway again…" he admits.

"It's okay to be scared." I don't know what to say. I never do.

"Why is it we always talk through the wall like this?"

"So we can feel together without having to move. So we can be alone and not alone at the same time."

"So we can act like little kids?" he chuckles. "I think this is stupid. Besides, we might wake Shelby, and she's got a huge test tomorrow." I stare at the wall and glare at it. We never had to worry about waking up anyone before. And I don't appreciate him calling our insomniac tradition stupid.

"We're not loud enough to wake her up." I said. And its true, Shelby's room is across the apartment from ours. "And I happen to like this. It's helped me through a lot, these night time talks."

"They've helped me too." He softly answers. "Jules?"

"Yes?"

"I'm coming over."

"What?"

He doesn't reply and in a moment, his head peeks in through my door. I'm worried. He used to only come in to my room when the dreams really, really got to him.

"Are you okay?" I asked. He half shrugged. "Come in." He smiled and walked into my room and settled on my bed, cross-legged. I try not to admire his defined stomach that is uncovered and begging to be touched. I love that Scott sleeps in only boxers or pyjama bottoms. "So, what's your favourite pizza?"

"Pepperoni." He replies. This is our way of dealing. We talk about random, light, topics and in time, with little prodding, the person who needs the comforting will talk in their own time. I unconsciously take his arm and pull him closer to me so that I am lying on his chest.

He leans his cheek against the top of my head and sighs, "You make me feel safe."

"You've done that for me since you walked into Horizon. You should know that you're always safe with me, Scott." I answer.

"Thanks for this." He said. "Thanks for doing this every time I need you to, without fail."

"We help each other out, no thanking necessary. That's what friends do." I grinned and ruffled his already ruffled curls. He nodded and hugged me. I'm brought back to the nights where he held me in the washroom, I'd be sobbing and trying to throw up, something having happened that night which made me feel low, fat, ugly enough to try that. He'd be comforting, soothing, understanding. I'd talk about my insecurities, he'd tell me about his football glory days and how they went to hell right before Horizon, but how he managed to bring them back. He'd give me hope and support, and most needed of all, companionship.

"Jules, I love you." He whispers. I know that he's exhausted, and thankful, and means it only out of friendship, gratitude, and vulnerability after his dream. He's often said those words to me, and I know he always means it. I only wish that one day he might mean them the way I want him to mean them.

I smiled as I savoured the feeling of his bare chest against my cheek, and I replied, "Me and Shelby, right? The two best girls in your life."

He kissed my forehead and I could feel the rise and fall of his chest slowing. I've helped him calm down enough to sleep, and my own eyes close. Making Scott happy is the best feeling I know.


A/N: Thanks for reviewing. As for the person who asked if I've seen all the HG episodes, I'm working on it but I've only seen about half so far. I've seen the first epi, and the last few epis, and a few scattered throughout the middle. I haven't seen much J/S in the series but the little I have seen, I've liked a lot, as well as the S/S. If you're wondering what happened to Jule's and Auggie's relationship in this story, I haven't figured out yet what happened to him in this world, so if there are any ideas, they are welcome... And I'm still torn between which ship to pursue here, J/S or S/S. Feedback?