A/N: Thanks for reading!

When he gets to LA, he realizes why Lynetta likes it so much: it is nothing like home. LA was big, and crowded, noisy, and busy. It was easy to get yourself lost in it. Bryce was never one for trends, so he doesn't share Lynetta's enthusiasm for her new metropolitan, urban home. Even he can see that amongst all of the tan, thin blondes, there isn't much substance here.

"Hey, little bro," Lynetta greets him. She's wearing cut-off shorts and a t-shirt. While it was still beginning to warm up back home, LA was already in the middle of their constant summer. "You must be starved. Let's get something to eat."

Lynetta takes him to an old diner that's open 24/7. It's a place he doesn't expect LA to have, and a place he doesn't expect Lynetta to like at all – just because it looks so much like the diner they have back in their hometown. Quaint and homey.

"How's Mom?"

Lynetta never asks about their dad. She estranged herself from him the moment she went off to college but still kept a tight bond with their mom. Bryce couldn't say he blamed her. Lynetta had always had a tense relationship with their father, one that had exploded the night they'd had dinner with the Bakers and he had accused Mike and Matt Baker of being drug dealers.

When he thinks about that night, he feels shame, and anger. He had been so young but that night he'd gotten a look at what was inside his father: something ugly, and rotten.

"She's okay. Better on some days, worse on others."

Lynetta nods. He doesn't know how much she knows about what's going on at home but with Lynetta, it seems like she just knows everything. It was this mystical, incredibly annoying thing about her.

"I call her sometimes but we know Mom likes to sugarcoat things. She thinks we're still eight, that we still think the world is wonderful and perfect." Lynetta says this dryly but Bryce can see that it hurts her that Mom can never get past trying to protect their father from looking like the bad guy – even though he is, and has been, for a very long time.

"How's Juli?" Lynetta takes a sip out of her milkshake before she puts on a little smile. Towards the front of the diner, a group of college students come in, wearing flip flops and UCLA shirts. "Have you told her you love her yet?"

He answers her before he thinks about it. "I don't love her."

Despite himself, this comes out in a quick, terse tone. It wasn't something he ever practiced saying out loud. It wasn't something he thought he ever needed to.

"Right." She gives him a dry look. "Denial doesn't suit you anymore now that you're almost graduating high school, by the way, baby bro."

He shakes his head.

"Lynetta, I didn't come here to talk about Juli," he says. It's true. He keeps telling himself that for once, his mind is far away from Juli Baker. For once.

"Okay," she says, putting aside her milkshake. Her face looks serious. "So, talk."

ooo

Bryce stays with Lynetta for a couple of days. She lets him sleep at her dorm, since her roommate was studying abroad somewhere in Switzerland. That night he filled Lynetta in on what was happening at home with their parents while she listened intently, and for once, she said nothing. She just sat and listened.

He doesn't do much in LA. Lynetta has class and he makes an effort to see the campus and walk around, but he doesn't have the taste for LA. All it does is make him think of back home. Yet, he walks into the campus store and buys his mom a university sweatshirt and a magnet. He knows how much she loves souvenirs.

Lynetta gives him a ride to the airport the night he has to leave. The ride is eerily silent – they had never exactly had that kind of a talking relationship. After a few minutes she settles on putting on a CD of a new band she had seen last week. But as he's unloading his duffel bag from the trunk, she speaks up.

"You should tell her, you know."

He looks up at her, confused. Around her, the sparkling lights of LA are still in the background. He thinks of how she so obviously belongs, but also knows better. In her dorm he had seen the pictures of their hometown, taped up on her mirror, including one of their mom and the two of them, with Lynetta holding her hand and him in her arm, standing next to her prize-winning roses.

"Girls like Juli don't come around often," she says to him. "Before you know it, it'll be too late, and then you're not going to have a choice but to live with that."

He shifts his luggage in his hands, and for a long time, stays silent. Lynetta opens the car door and is about to get inside when he finally speaks up. He talks over the faint purr of the engine.

"Lyn," he calls out. He hesitates. "What if it's already too late?"

Lynetta pauses for a second, just looking at him. "Well, she's still around, isn't she?"

ooo

When he gets back home, he finds himself constantly looking back at the Baker's house – at Juli's window, wondering if she's there. His mother had mentioned to him that she'd stopped by looking for him and he has this undeniable urge to go up to the Bakers' doorstep to Juli and ask her why. It's been years since Juli Baker has gone up to his doorstep to look for him. Years.

The next day at school, he gets his wish.

Juli approaches him when he's at his locker. Despite being home, he'd had a rough night. He hasn't been sleeping well lately. Sometimes at night he hears his mom crying and it bothers him knowing that there isn't anything he can do.

She's wearing that blue shirt that he likes, the one that brings out her eyes. Juli has these great, warm brown eyes that almost look like sun-soaked honey when it's caught in the sunlight. It's one of those little details that he's managed to hold onto, despite the fact that they had spent the past few years avoiding each other.

"Bryce. Hey," she says. He notices that her cheeks are a little flushed and she looks slightly uneasy. He finds himself wondering why before he remembers the last time they'd talked – and how well that had gone. Suddenly he feels like an ass.

"Hey Juli," he says. He thinks about apologizing for that night. She had taken it the wrong way and he wanted to apologize.

"I was wondering if we could talk," she's saying, trying to smile a little, and he feels his spirits begin to lift – when Nick Sansford suddenly appears and interrupts her.

"Hey Juli, I was wondering what your answer was," he says. "For the prom."

Bryce looks between them, between Juli and Nick, and decides that this isn't the time. When had Nick Sansford asked Juli to prom, anyway? Did Juli even like him?

His jaw tenses as he closes his locker and brushes past Nick and Juli. He can't help but meet Juli's eye as he does, though, and he feels that tight feeling in his chest as he walks away. Every silent, agonizing bit of him wishes he were in Nick Sansford's shoes, asking Juli Baker to the prom. Even if it were for the second time. Even if she were going to say no.

He hates himself for that.

ooo

The moment he'd heard about Juli Baker getting into Stanford, he wasn't surprised. He shouldn't have been, after all. Nobody should have. Juli was the smartest girl in the school and she deserved Stanford.

Chet had told him when he'd driven him to their local hardware store to get more nails and supplies to fix the broken cabinet in the kitchen. When he did, so many thoughts had popped up in his head – that he should congratulate her, that Juli Baker deserved amazing things and they were finally coming to her, but also that Juli might be leaving. He tried to tell himself that this was no big deal. Almost everyone he knew was leaving their hometown in pursuit of higher education, including him. That was just the way things were.

But it was Juli. The girl he'd lived across from for as long as he could remember. The first girl he'd ever kissed. The girl he planted the sycamore tree for.

The reality dawned on him that he just wasn't sure he was ready for that yet.

"Time flies when you sit idle, doesn't it?" Chet had sighed to himself, looking out of the window. He had said it to himself but Bryce had known exactly what he'd meant.

ooo

A few nights later he found himself at the used bookstore he knew Juli worked at.

He had been running errands for his mom when he'd seen her truck in the parking lot. What happened after that was a hazy, discombobulated blur. All he really knew was that he had done it on pure impulse, that his mind had been two steps behind his feet.

He found her in the classics section. He hadn't even made the conscious decision to find her, yet he found her anyway. The shelves and shelves of books seemed blurry and muddled to him, endless and confusing, and when he found her it was like coming up for air.

As he neared her he felt his heart beat louder and faster. He noticed that her hair had gotten longer. He wondered if it still felt as soft it did when he'd first touched it, out on the playground all of those years ago.

He hadn't noticed how dry his mouth had gotten until he'd opened it to speak.

"Hey," he said.

As she turned around he registered the surprise on her face, and then the faint color that crept across her cheeks. In a way, he loved the effect his presence had on her. But it tortured him, too.

"Hey," she said, a little taken aback.

"Chet told me about you, and Stanford," he found himself saying.

Her look of surprise turned into one of embarrassment. She glanced away. "Yeah, I guess my parents told him."

Inside his mind, things started to click. Of course Juli hadn't been the one to tell people she had been accepted to Stanford. That was exactly like her. So humble, and modest, and good. So undeservedly under the radar.

Knowing all of that made him ache.

"Have you decided whether you're going?"

She hesitated when she answered, biting her lip. "Not yet. I mean. . . I'm still kind of wrapping my mind around it, too."

He knew that her family wasn't well-off or anything, but he also knew that Juli would win any scholarship thrown her way. He didn't know why he did this, especially with the wrenching feeling in his gut every time he thought of her leaving, but without thinking, he told her that he thought that she should go. To Stanford.

He didn't think to expect what would happen after that.

She stared at him with a blank look on her face, before he watched her brown eyes flash with anger and hurt. She took the book she was holding and angrily shoved it into the shelf in front of her, before whipping her head around back to him again.

"Look, if you don't want to see me around that badly," Juli spat at him, "then why wait for me to make a decision? Why don't you leave?"

He stood there for a moment, stunned, before fully taking in her words. He felt himself immediately tense with anger. He wanted to explain, that it was all just a misunderstanding, but the way she looked at him. . . he was familiar with that look. Like Juli Baker wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, for the third time in his life.

So he did the only thing he could do. He tore himself away from those livid brown eyes and he just walked away.

ooo

He's long known that he doesn't deserve Juli Baker. So, he stopped trying to deserve her and tried to get over her instead.

He did this with Cindy Frisch. Cindy Frisch was the equivalent of what Shelly Stalls would have been in high school: popular, beautiful, and not exactly on the Honor Roll.

It was easy being with her. It didn't take much. He didn't have to impress her, or challenge himself to surprise her, to keep her entertained. They didn't stay up late at night talking on the phone about philosophy and life. She didn't have much of an opinion to contribute, nor was she an enigma. He tried to convince himself that this was what he wanted – what he should want, what he would be insane not to want. But every time he was with Cindy – beautiful, vacant Cindy – there was always that single lingering thought about Juli in the back of his mind.

Juli was like a cobweb. The more he tried to get rid of her, the more he felt her all around him. It was completely maddening.

One night he was making out with Cindy Frisch in her driveway when he opened his eyes to see Juli Baker some distance away, watching them. She looked surprised, and stunned. And then: betrayed. She stood there for a few seconds before turning and running away. He waited to feel some kind of pride in himself, the high of some kind of accomplishment. He had finally shown Juli Baker that he was over her. He should be celebrating. He should be happy. He should be ready to move on – really move on.

Instead all he felt was emptiness, and the disgust of what he had stooped to.

That night he visited the old playground where he had kissed her years ago. He wanted to rid himself of her, but it seemed like the harder he tried, the more she planted roots inside his mind. There she was, Juli Baker, torturing him, and she would probably never even have a clue.

ooo

Before his buddy Tom Grady's beach party, he comes home to find his dad's car sloppily parked in the driveway. His grandfather is away visiting Marcie, Bryce's aunt, who lives on the other side of town, and Bryce had been busy putting away stock at work, leaving his mother all alone.

"Shit," he mutters to himself. He rushes inside the house.

He gets to the kitchen as fast as he can. He doesn't even know if he's closed the front door behind him. He can already hear him – he's drunk, and yelling so loud that Bryce is sure everyone from the neighborhood can hear.

When he gets to the kitchen, he sees his mother on the other side, crying. He goes to her, getting in between her and his father.

"Get out, Bryce. This is between me and your mother," Rick spits at him.

He's seen his father drunk before but ever since the divorce started, he's been getting worse. Constantly showing up drunk, threatening his mother enough that Bryce had consulted her lawyer about filing a restraining order for her. He should have expected this – and for that, Bryce feels angry at himself. He shouldn't have left his mom alone. He should have known his father would come over and fuck it all up.

"Dad," he says, in a low voice. "Get out."

He has a flashback of when he'd first stood up for his mom. He was fifteen. His father had hit him so hard he couldn't go back to school until the swelling on his face had gone down. The next day his dad came home and told him he had bought him a cell phone – not just any cell phone, but the newest and coolest – to show how sorry he was.

"Don't you dare tell me to get the fuck out," he yells. "This is my house, goddammit!"

"Not anymore it isn't," Bryce seethes. "You gave up that right a long time ago."

"You better watch your mouth, son," he says, getting so close to him that he could almost taste the alcohol on his breath. "I am your father. I deserve some respect."

"Oh yeah? The same respect you treat Mom with?" he yells. "Or Grandpa? Or Lynnetta? Give me a break, Dad. Just save yourself the embarrassment and get out now."

Bryce's father curses at him, before he turns to his mom. "You see what you've done, Patsy? You've ruined our family. Absolutely fucking ruined it, and it's all your fault!"

"Get out, Rick," his mother says, in a calm and low voice. "Get. Out. Or I will call the police, I swear to God, and you will spend the night in a cell."

Muttering more curse words under his breath, he finally stumbles through the kitchen. Bryce makes sure he makes it out of the door. He doesn't care if he makes it off the lawn, but he sure as hell makes sure he's out of the house.

When he walks back to the kitchen, everything is silent. It's the kind of silence that he's had to bear for the last couple of months. The deafening kind of silence, the kind that rings in your ears and never lets you forget exactly how much everything has changed.

His mother washes her face in the kitchen sink. He finally gets to look around the kitchen and he sees a few broken glasses. He hopes she was the one to break them this time around, but he knows better.

"I'm sorry, Bryce," she says to him. She's dabbing her face with a towel, and she has never seemed so frail yet so strong at the same time. If he were a stranger that just walked into this house, he would have never thought the woman standing in front of him was the same woman in all the framed pictures – the beautiful blond woman, with perfect hair and a perfect smile, with a seemingly perfect family.

It occurred to him that they had spent so much time trying to build up the image of a perfect family that they hadn't seen the rotting underbelly, the imminent and ugly reality they would all have to face eventually. In those pictures they all seemed so perfectly coordinated, with not a single strand of hair out of place, that anybody who knew anything had to know better. Anything that perfect had to be covering up some kind of ugliness. Anything that perfect had to be an illusion.

"Don't be, Mom," he says. He grips the end of the counter and tries to calm himself down. "Dad's an ass."

For the first time, she doesn't speak up in his defense. She stays quiet in agreement, before picking up the glass of wine on the counter. She holds it close to her but doesn't drink.

"Things are going to get better, Bryce."

Her voice is soft but reassuring. He can see her reflection in the kitchen window, her lips turned up in a halfhearted, broken smile. "Please trust me."

"I do, Mom," he sighs. "I trust you."