Full chapter title is 'I Hate You, But I Was Just Kidding Myself'.

Everything was a bit of a blur once Julie realized the severity of the situation. She vaguely remembered her dad showing up at school, driving her to the police station and taking a seat in the waiting room for questioning. She didn't remember anything he might have said to her, and she certainly didn't remember the rest of her friends joining her in the waiting room until suddenly Reggie was grabbing her hand in an attempt to reassure her, although the look on his face did everything but.

It did pull her out of her own head though, as she realized she had been at the police station for an hour already. Bobby, Carrie, and Reggie were in the waiting room with her along with their respective family members, but Flynn and Alex were nowhere to be seen. Bobby must have seen the confusion on her face, because he then proceeded to explain that Flynn had already been questioned and Alex was currently in there.

About ten minutes later, Alex came trudging down the hall, shoulders slumped in defeat and eyes red-rimmed and tired. Julie was just glad he was eighteen. The last thing he needed was his unsupportive parents hovering around him in his state. The drummer's anxiety was bad enough on a normal day, but after being questioned by the police about his best friend going missing?

"Alex," she rasped, throat dry from the hours she'd gone without speaking. "You shouldn't drive home like this, not in your state."

"Willie's driving me. He's already outside," he responded almost robotically, not fully looking her in the eye.

She just nodded and watched his retreating figure walk out the front entrance to the station, wishing she could just ignore all of this and follow after him. She forced herself to turn back to the others in the room so she wouldn't be tempted, eyes locking in on Carrie and Bobby's clasped hands squeezing the others so tight she could see their knuckles turning white. Her eyes drifted up to Carrie's face, her signature scowl that was usually etched into her features completely gone and replaced with lines of worry.

This was bad. This was serious. If she and Carrie could occupy the same space and not exchange scowls or words, that was not a good sign.

"Julie Molina."

Julie whipped her head toward the voice of one of the detectives she'd met earlier, standing there with a clipboard in hand like she was just another name on a checklist for their case. Not a person, not someone who had just discovered their friend to be missing.

That gave Julie pause.

Were they friends? She certainly hadn't acted like it as of late. They hadn't truly talked in months, not counting group settings where they were forced to interact. It was middle school all over again, the two of them orbiting but never actually landing on each other.

She swallowed back the guilt threatening to crawl up as she pushed herself out of her chair to follow the detective. Would she ever get the chance to talk to him again? Or was that fateful night at Senior Takeover it for them? She felt her father's hand wrap around her shoulder, familiar and protective and steady yet for once doing little to calm her emotions.

Once they were seated at the little table across from the detectives, they immediately jumped straight into the questions.

"What is your relationship with Luke Patterson?"

Julie blinked. "Um, friends, I guess. Kind of. We, uh, aren't super close."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"At school, during our music class the day before he left."

The lead detective quirked an eyebrow. "You say left. Do you know this for sure? Did he tell you he was planning to run away?"

"No, I-I," she stammered, looking to her dad for support. "I just assumed. Is it possible something-"

"Has he tried to contact you via phone, email, or social media since he went missing?"

"No, nothing like that!" Julie replied. Did they think she was lying to them? That she was aiding him in some way? The thought was almost laughable. She would be the last person he'd go to for help.

Julie knew they were just doing their job, but she couldn't help but feel annoyed at their implications. "Look, our…relationship is complicated. We haven't spoken much over the last few months. Honestly, your best bet at finding answers would be with Reggie, or Alex, or even Bobby."

"We're just going through the list of names his parents gave who possibly be of help. And quite frankly, Miss Molina, your name was near the top."

The next thirty minutes were the longest of Julie's life. With their confession about her being someone the Patterson's considered important, she felt an added pressure to be as helpful as possible, and she grew more and more frustrated with herself as she realized she knew almost none of the answers they were looking for.

She knew it was her fault, for being so far removed from his life the last few months. If she would have known…

No.

She wouldn't do that to herself. There was no way she could have predicted what would happen.

Finally, they told her she was free to go, one of the detectives already getting up to inform whoever was next that they were ready for them. But Julie hesitated, eyes focused on a small scratch on the table in front of her.

"What do you think happened to him?" Her voice came out smaller, more vulnerable, than she wanted it to.

The room was silent for a moment, so Julie took the opportunity to look the remaining detective in the eye. He had initially looked ready to brush off her question but seemed to soften as he took in her face. She wasn't sure what he saw, but something must have changed his mind.

"It happened in the middle of the night, which is why we can't say for certain, but we do know that he had a fight with his parents hours before," he said. "We're pretty sure he's a runaway. But we just have to cover all the bases."

All the bases. All the bases as in kidnapped, or hurt, or…no. Nope. She wasn't going to let herself go there. He said they're pretty sure he just ran away. That had to be what it was. Anything else just didn't seem – couldn't be – possible.

Then again, neither did him running away. She knew his home life hadn't been perfect, she wasn't an idiot and could see how he would dodge conversations about his parents, but the few times Julie had met Emily and Mitch Patterson they seemed to really love him. He had two breathing, living parents who loved him. Why would he run away from that?

Julie nodded, thanking the detective before she turned and left. As she and her dad drove home, they were silent. Her dad knew her better than anyone, except maybe Flynn, and she was fairly sure he'd known that her feelings for Luke ran deeper than just platonic, but she was positive that her questioning just confirmed that. So he didn't say anything. And she was grateful for it.

When Julie was thirteen, her family had gone to a Lakers game. Basketball was her father's favorite sport, and he and Carlos spent many nights on the couch watching the Lakers while Julie and her mom were in the studio. Sports weren't necessarily her thing, but when her dad bought tickets for all four of them, she knew it was an experience he wanted to share with his whole family, so they all went.

For the most part, she didn't mind it too much. It was fun, even. The arena food at the Staples Center was good in that cheap, nostalgic sort of way, watching the fans cheer for their team and heckle the opposing one was entertaining (Carlos learned some choice words that day that her mother was not a fan of), and they had a good view of the court.

The game came down to the final seconds. The Lakers were down by one, and all they needed was a basket to win the game. She remembered the player taking the shot and, for a moment, she could almost hear the entire arena stall as they held their breath in anticipation. To see if their team would win or lose. No one was happy, no one was sad, everyone was just awaiting the result. For most people, that was the appeal. The thrill that they didn't know what was going to happen and the high or low that came with the outcome.

But Julie hated it.

She hated how she didn't know, that she couldn't control the result. That it was all left to fate. Not in her hands. She much rather would have watched a replay of a game, where she could know in advance and never have to worry.

She thought about that night a lot in the days and weeks after the police questionings. Because she felt like she was back in the Staples Center, holding her breath, waiting for something, anything, to happen. And there was nothing she could do to influence the outcome.

(The Lakers lost the game that night. She tried not to think about that part of it.)

For the most part, life went on as normal in the weeks that followed. Julie still went to school every day, did her homework, and played music. Most people at her school didn't really know Luke personally anyway, so overall the student body was fairly unbothered after the initial wave of gossip and rumors made their rounds.

It was the little things that were different. Like when she'd be sitting in music class and expect to see the unbreakable trio that was Luke, Alex and Reggie barge through the classroom doors, joking around as they roughhoused their way towards their seats. Now it was just Alex and Reggie who trudged through somberly. Or how one day Carlos was being annoying, so she decided to do her homework in the studio while Alex and Reggie fiddled with their instruments and there was a noticeable lack of guitar that filled the air with its silence. Or how it went unspoken that Julie was joining the band so that they weren't just an awkward duo of drums and bass, but the three of them refused to say the name Sunset Curve aloud.

And throughout all that, Julie was still just standing there, holding her breath, waiting to see if the basketball would fall through the hoop.

When Carrie stopped her in the halls on their way to lunch two weeks after the disappearance, it was not a good day for Julie. To be fair, she hadn't had many of those since everything had imploded, but on that particular day, she had gotten into a fight with Carlos that morning, forgotten her English homework at home, and received a D on her math test. So, when Carrie asked her if she had heard anything new about Luke, Julie snapped.

"What do you think?"

Carrie blinked, taken aback at her tone for a moment, before narrowing her eyes into that cold, icy glare she'd perfected just for Julie over the years.

"I know you miss him, but you're not the only one who does. Other people are allowed to care and worry about him too, you know."

And suddenly, the years of hurt and sadness and betrayal she'd tried to push down since freshman year reared their ugly heads. "Oh trust me. I know just how much you care about him. Hard to miss when you have your tongue shoved down his throat."

Carrie pursed her lips as she looked around the hallway. Not many people were around, but the few that were had glanced at the two of them after she'd raised her voice, interest piqued. Julie did little to protest as Carrie grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty classroom away from prying eyes. She was mad and worried and sad and jealous and looking for a fight.

"Look Julie," she said. "I'm trying here, okay? I'm trying to be civil about this. Just because we don't get along-"

"Who's fault is that?" Julie snapped.

Carries eyes hardened. "You don't get to put all the blame on me. A friendship is a two-way street. You could have reached out to me too."

"My mom had just passed away!"

"Yeah, and mine did in sixth grade! Just because everyone else gave you a free pass did not mean I was going to! Just like I didn't get one with my mom."

Her old friend looked shocked at her own outburst. As if she'd just confessed to something she'd been ready to take with her to the grave.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Carrie took a deep breath before exhaling slowly, an exercise she'd always done to stop herself from crying, but Julie could already see the defeated look and tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

"It means, I was ten years old when my mom died," Carrie started. "It was on a Friday, if you care enough to remember. I had the weekend to mourn and by that Monday I was back at school doing the same thing I did the Thursday before my life blew up in my face."

She quickly wiped away a tear before she continued.

"You sat around and didn't play a note for a year. You were the one being coddled by Mrs. Harrison and Principal Lessa and everyone else in this entire damn school, and when you finally sang again, people just started worshiping the ground you walked on, saying you were so strong and so brave to be out there again." She scoffed. "Please. If you weren't Julie Molina, musical prodigy, you would have been kicked out of the program months before without a second thought."

Julie was shocked. She had figured Carrie held some type of resentment toward her all these years. Their friendship ending the way it did didn't make sense otherwise. But that still didn't change the fact that…

"I can't dictate how other people react to situations!" Julie bit back. "But Carrie, I do remember your mom, and how dare you imply that I wouldn't."

Carrie's eyes flitted to the ground for a moment. Good. She should feel guilty.

"You think I don't remember you calling Flynn and me that Friday, telling us what happened? How my mom and I drove to the police station to pick you up so you could spend the night with us while your dad dealt with the paperwork? Or how about how Flynn and I held you as you cried yourself to sleep that Friday, and then Saturday, and Sunday and Monday and every day and every time you needed it?"

The tears flowed freely from Carrie now, and with one swipe at her own cheeks Julie knew she was right there with her. Even back when they were friends, Carrie rarely talked about her mother. It was something she'd preferred to keep locked up with no key so no one could reopen her wounds.

Julie's tone was softer now. "Maybe the world didn't allow you to mourn. But I did. Flynn did. We were there for you."

And then with a deep breath, she asked the question that had been weighing on her mind for almost four years. "Why were you not there for me?"

Carrie said nothing, just stared at a point over Julie's shoulder as she tried to compose herself. After a while, Julie was about to give up and accept that she'd never get her answer.

But then, "Because I couldn't do it again."

Of all the explanations Julie had conjured up in her mind over the years, that was not one of them. "Do what?"

Carrie wasn't crying anymore. She just looked defeated. Broken.

"Lose my mom."

And suddenly, Julie understood. "Carrie-"

But the girl held up her hands in protest. "No, I-you deserve to hear this. I need to get this out."

Julie nodded and let her continue.

"After my mom died, my dad fell into a spiral. You know that. He stopped being a parent. He stopped caring. It was your parents I went to for everything. Your parents became my parents. When Rose got sick, I…I couldn't handle it. That's why I went to music camp all summer. I couldn't go through the process of losing a mom again."

Carrie paused for a moment before continuing.

"But to everyone else, she was my best friend's mom. They didn't know how I felt about it, how attached I was. Everyone would say, 'I'm sorry, I can't imagine what your friend is going through'. When she died, I wasn't allowed to be as sad as you. So I avoided it so no one would realize that I was."

It was like every missing puzzle piece from the last few years were suddenly found and put in place. She knew Carrie was close with her parents when they were friends. But she never realized just how much she had come to depend on them.

"I'm sorry you felt like that," Julie said. "You shouldn't have. It actually would have felt so much better knowing you were in just as much pain as me rather than thinking you just didn't care." There was no malice or ill-intent behind her words. It was just the truth.

Carrie pursed her lips as she finally looked Julie in the eye. "I'm so sorry I didn't go to her funeral. It will always be one of the biggest regrets of my life."

All Julie could do was nod. What was she supposed to do now? Hug her? Forgive her?

No.

She'd finally gotten an explanation after years of wondering. And she appreciated that and understood where Carrie was coming from. But it didn't change the fact that this girl, who was supposed to be her best friend, had abandoned her in her greatest time of need. The damage had already been done.

There was a long lull in conversation after that. Not awkward, but not necessarily comfortable either. Julie had thought that would be the end of it. That they could just move on now. But Carrie wasn't finished yet.

"You should know, at Senior Takeover-"

Julie sighed. "Honestly, that's really not something I want to get into right now."

But the girl insisted, so Julie nodded in resignation for her to continue.

"That night, I know you were pretty drunk. But if you would have looked around the room when you walked in, you would have seen the entire group of people we were with."

Julie blinked. What?

"We were playing a stupid drinking game, and Luke had to kiss me for it. He didn't even want to, but everyone was pressuring him, so he eventually did and you just happened to walk in right when it all happened. When I saw you, I don't know, I guess I was drunk and wanted to piss you off, so I took it further than the peck it was meant to be. If you would have stayed even a second longer, you would have seen that he immediately pushed me away."

Oh.

Well, that put a lot of things in perspective.

And made her regret almost every interaction she'd had with Luke since, even more so than she did already.

She tried to calm her hammering heart, but like everything else that came with Luke, she had no control over it. So instead, she just hoped she sounded indifferent as she said, "Okay. I don't know why you're telling me this."

Carrie rolled her eyes, shooting her an unimpressed look and for once, Julie welcomed the sight. It indicated that their usual dynamic was coming out once again. "Seriously? You're still trying to play that card after all these years?"

"What card?"

Carrie looked at her like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The one where you say you don't care. But you do. You've practically been in love with Luke since the second you laid eyes on him in that middle school cafeteria."

Julie scoffed. She could admit, now, that maybe, maybe there had always been a hint of attraction toward him, but love? And since seventh grade?

"That's ridiculous. I hated him back then. And we only recently started becoming friends."

"There's a thin line between love and hate," Carrie smirked.

"I'm not a fucking cliché, Carrie."

The girl rolled her eyes once again, and Julie knew that she was finished with their conversation. But, in true Carrie fashion, she couldn't leave without getting the last word in.

"Whatever. You're forgetting, Julie. We were best friends. In seventh grade, we knew each other better than we knew ourselves. I'm sure back then, being so young, it was probably easier to dismiss your feeling as hate instead of love, and knowing you, you probably just got so comfortable with how things were, you refused to acknowledge when it started to change."

Julie blinked. Excuse her?!

"But we're about to graduate high school this year," Carrie continued. "Everything's going to change, some good, some bad. Maybe this could be one of the 'goods' for you."

And then she left, like she hadn't just completely shattered Julie's entire outlook, and Julie was left there gaping.

After her conversation with Carrie, Julie found herself analyzing every early interaction with Luke she could remember, trying to figure out if Carrie was right or not. Their first time meeting and the way she'd been so triggered by his features and how he'd barely talked to her which, okay, looking back now, she did kind of set the tone for that whole scene (Carrie – 1, Julie – 0). The first debate they'd ever had about Romeo and Juliet and how she'd lied just to disagree with him…because deep down she'd wanted to have some sort of interaction with him (Carrie – 2, Julie – 0).

She figured it out for certain one day during band practice. Her, Alex, and Reggie were trying to rework Edge of Great to prepare for the upcoming Fall Semester Performance. Well, mostly Reggie, who'd offered to trade in his bass for a guitar in Luke's absence. He was in the middle of the second verse when both his and Alex's phones chimed.

"What have we talked about?" Julie chastised. "No phones during rehearsal. Put them on silent."

But the two boys had already checked the notification and only then did Julie register the way their faces had gone pale with shock, looking like they'd just seen a ghost.

"Alex," Reggie said, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Alex nodded, not tearing his eyes from his phone. "Mmhmm. I see it."

Julie was worried now. It was a hard feat to render these two speechless, but whatever they saw on their phones had done just that. "What is it? What happened?"

The drummer said nothing, opting to just hand Julie his phone instead. Julie eyed him and swallowed hard before she finally looked down at the screen.

Don't be mad. I'm okay. Needed to get away for a bit.

She blinked, rereading the message over again before looking at the name of the sender.

Luke.

And suddenly, the buzzer went off, and she could breathe again. She couldn't tell yet if the basketball made it in the hoop or not, but in that moment she didn't care. Her heart was soaring and felt lighter than it had in ages and she could breathe again.

I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay. It was all she could focus on. Luke was okay. He was alive and breathing and somewhere. But what did 'okay' mean? Did it mean he was somewhere safe and was happy? Or did it just mean that he wasn't dead in a ditch? Had he texted her too? She was too nervous to check.

And then her brain caught up to her heart as the words surrounding those two sunk in. Don't be mad. Needed to get away for a bit.

Don't be mad.

Don't be mad?

"Don't be mad?!" she said through clenched teeth. "Is he fucking serious?"

Julie saw red. She wasn't mad. She was furious.

"He left in the middle of the night, abandoned us, abandoned his parents without a single word, leaving everyone to wonder if he was even still alive, and he has the audacity to say 'don't be mad'? That's complete and utter bullshit!"

She shoved the phone back in Alex's hand as she stood up to pace. She could hear Alex and Reggie as they tried to soothe her in the background, but she couldn't listen. She was spiraling and nothing could stop her.

Finally, she heard one of them, probably Alex, say something along the lines of how they should call it for the day and take some time for themselves, and Julie took the out and ran.

Literally.

She ran out of the studio, through her house and into her room where she slammed the door shut. She leaned her back against the door, shutting her eyes as she took deep breath after deep breath before she finally plucked up enough courage to do what she couldn't do in the studio and pulled out her phone.

No new texts.

She knew it was a long shot. They weren't on good terms when he'd left, so why would he want to text her? But that didn't change the fact that for half a second, she'd let herself hope. Hope that maybe he cared as much about her as he did the boys. Hope that he missed her like she missed him. But as she looked at her empty notification wall, she knew he didn't.

Only then did she break down.

She slid down her door until she was sitting on the ground, knees tucked into her chest as she sobbed into her own arms.

God, she hated him. She hated that he left. She hated that she cared that he left. That she let him sink his teeth into her, unknowingly forging a pathway straight into her heart. That he was supposed to be one of the three things in her life that was Constant, that was controlled, and now was the reason she was spiraling out of control.

She hated him. She hated him she hated him she hated him she…

She loved him.

Oh god, she loved him. (Carrie – 3000, Julie – 0)

Goddammit, Carrie was right.

Because when is a better time to admit that you love someone than when you've lost them forever? Great timing, Julie.

And it was then she realized that not only did the basketball not go through the net, but it was a fucking airball. No shot. Didn't even come close.

She felt the door open behind her and she leaned forward a bit, allowing enough room for whoever it was to squeeze through the door. She felt them sit next to her before they wrapped their arms around her, pulling her into their tight and safe embrace. They didn't say anything, but she knew it was her dad.

She just cried harder.

Julie allowed herself that one moment before she attempted to move on with her life. Emphasis on 'attempted'. Because on one hand, Julie was determined not to channel her inner depressed Bella Swan circa New Moon,because she was a strong and independent woman whose life didn't revolve around one boy. But on the other hand, it was extremely hard not to do that when it felt like there was a dagger piercing her heart every time one of her friends received a text update from Luke, yet she received nothing but radio silence.

It wasn't that Julie didn't think about texting him first. She almost did, on multiple occasions. Had even gotten so far as to typing out the texts before she chickened out and deleted them. There were so many things she could say, so many things she wanted to say, but every time her insecurities would get the better of her.

He didn't text her. She was the only one he didn't text. Even Flynn had gotten a small 'I'm alive' text and according to Bobby, so did Carrie. So why would it make a difference to him whether she reached out or not?

After Luke all but emerged from the dead (because honestly, that's what it felt like), the boys immediately went to the police, informing them that he, in fact, was alive, just a runaway like they'd always suspected. The search was called off almost immediately after informing his parents. Luke was eighteen, he wasn't a minor anymore. If he was alive somewhere and just didn't want to live at home anymore…well, there wasn't much the police could do about that.

The one (miniscule) silver lining in all this was, shockingly, her and Carrie. Don't get her wrong, they weren't friends again. But they weren't enemies anymore either. They were…indifferent. It was as if now that everything between them was out in the open, they had an understanding. There would always be a history there. Carrie would always be a huge part of her childhood, and vice versa, but that was it. Julie held no more resentment toward her old friend, and she didn't think Carrie held any toward her anymore. But at the end of the day, things had been said and things had been done, and there was too much baggage for them to be what they once were. It was sad, but Julie felt strangely at peace about it.

As much as Julie tried to pretend she was okay, she couldn't fool Flynn. Her best friend could see right through her, and Julie knew she was worried. She also knew that Flynn had no idea how to help her, and that frustrated the girl to no end.

"I know I've teased you about it in the past, but maybe you really should go for it with Nick," she supplied gently one day while they got frozen yogurt. "Luke is…it's been over a month, Jules. And I know you want to believe that you're okay but you're not and you need to try something to move on."

Julie grabbed Flynn's hands, squeezing them appreciatively. "I get where you're coming from, Flynn, but you have to understand. I just realized that the guy I've hated since seventh grade, I was actually in love with pretty much the whole time. With a revelation like that, I'm going to need more than a few weeks to sort through my problems and feelings."

Flynn sniffled, squeezing Julie's hands back. "I know. I just hate seeing you like this. I just want you to be happy again."

Julie threw her arms around her best friend, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and, god, how had she gotten so lucky with this girl? "I know. And I will be, I promise. Just not today."

Then Flynn's expression changed, a teasing smirk playing on her lips as she laughed lightly. "I still can't believe it took you five – almost six – years to figure it out. I mean, it was so obvious to literally everyone else."

Julie smacked her on the shoulder. "Shut up," she said, no real bite in her retort.

But Flynn's comment did what she'd intended, and the two friends spent the remainder of their time talking about much lighter topics, which Julie hadn't realized how much that was something she needed. Her life the past few months had been so drama-filled; she'd forgotten that she was just supposed to be this senior in high school trying to figure out what her next steps were after graduation. It all seemed so insignificant compared to everything else in her life, but there was nothing that she craved more.

Eventually, Julie realized she was late for band practice, so she said goodbye to Flynn before driving home.

She was prepared to walk into the studio and apologize right off the bat for being late. She was prepared to walk in and find Alex and Reggie lounging around, waiting for her to start rehearsal. And they were, exactly as she expected them to be. But they weren't alone.

Because sitting on the couch, in (what used to be) his usual spot, was Luke.

For a moment, it all looked so normal. The three of them sitting, talking, like he had never left. The way he ran his hand through his hair so casually, the way his leg bounced as he spoke.

But this wasn't normal. Not anymore. He had left. But now he was back. The three of them were obviously in deep conversation, but the second Luke's eyes found hers, he shot up out of his seat, nearly knocking the coffee table over in the process. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, but his irises were such a vibrant blue she could see them all the way from the doorway. He'd been crying.

"Julie."

Forget sorting through her problems. It seemed as if she was about to face them head on.

Songs/Other References:
-Before You Go, Lewis Capaldi (Chapter Title)
-Edge of Great
-New Moon, Stephenie Meyer