Julie closed her locker and walking down the hallway, looking over her shoulder when she thought she heard someone laughing. She'd been in the library working on a report, but left when two boys wouldn't stop throwing paper and spitballs at her, and the librarian had mysteriously disappeared. She walked out into the student parking lot and stopped. Both drivers side tires were slashed and her left headlight had been smashed. As she walked around the car she pulled out her cell phone and called Riggins Rigs, hoping that Tim would be there.

"Riggins Rigs, this is Tim."

"Hey Tim, it's Julie Taylor."

Julie heard Tim sigh and pictured him shaking his head and trying to push his hair out of the way. "How many Jules?"

"Aren't you going to sa-"

"How many tires should I bring Julie?"

"Three. And I need new headlights."

"Anything else? What about the taillights?"

"No, they look okay."

"All right. I'm gonna bring the truck over and take your car to the garage, should be about 20 minutes. You okay with that?"

"Yeah, I guess. Thanks Tim."

"Yeah. See you in a bit."

Julie put the phone in her backpack and sat on the hood of the car, looking at the school and the parking lot, which was empty except for her car. Over the years she'd gotten used to people toilet papering her parents' house or putting a bunch of FOR SALE signs in the yard. Except that wasn't true, she'd never gotten used to it, though that sort of thing had happened a lot less once they had gotten a dog, and had stopped completely now that they had two. Not that Payton and Jordan weren't sweet and loving and always happy to see just about anybody, but they seemed to have a knack for knowing when people were sneaking around the Taylors house in the early hours of the morning, and showed no hesitation in letting everyone else in the house know. It did lead to Julie banishing the dogs from her room for two months after they started barking and woke her so suddenly she shrieked fell out of bed and dislocated her shoulder, which led to more shrieking.

The ongoing situation with her tires being shredded and the shoving and tripping at school got her thinking of some way to bring at least one of the dogs to school with her. But she figured that if people were slashing her tires they wouldn't think much of stabbing a dog. She thought her car alarm must have gone off when her headlights were smashed, but she'd been inside and no one ever paid attention to them anyway; they were just like background noise.

"Julie, hey Julie."

She looked up and saw JD McCoy jogging across the parking lot. He slowed to a walk, then circled her car.

"Wow. What, what the hell happened?"

"Like you don't know."

"What are you talking about, you think I did this?"

"Either you or more likely you got someone else to do it, one of the cronies always flitting around your table in the lunch room."

"Why would I do that? And how could I get away with it?"

"Oh please. You're QB 1 of the Dillon Panthers thanks to your dad and all the money he threw around and that means you get away with everything. You could probably shoot someone and they'd delay the trial or whatever until after State or your dad would bribe the judge or, or whatever."

JD sighed and crossed his arms. "Look, Julie, I'm not Tim Riggins. I don't show up to practice or to games drunk or skip school for a week. I've never had any beer," he smiled, "okay, yeah that's not true. I've had booze twice and been drunk twice, once because of Tim Riggins and once because….well, I don't know why I got drunk earlier this year. I guess it was maybe because it was the beginning of the season and we have a really good team, I don't know. And I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"For, y'know, for getting in your face at the party and grabbing you like I did. I wasn't raised like that, but it was supposed to be a Dillon Panther only party and then you just like, appeared and it felt like you were in my face and I don't know, I guess maybe I thought you were your dad."

"You thought I was my dad?!"

"I don't know, I mean that was like a week after my mom left and I was upset about that and the stuff with my parents had been building since the playoffs last year and I don't know, I guess it just burst at that party."

"Your mom left? Are, are your parents getting a divorce? What happened?"

'I don't know about a divorce, but they're separated. She's in Dallas, at least she was last time I talked to her. She's been trying to find a place to live. It had been building up for a while since the playoffs last year….actually probably before that, maybe for years. I mean, all I've been doing is drills and quarterback camps and football camps….I'd never had an actual hamburger or steak until like a month ago."

"You were a vegetarian?"

"Nah, it was this special diet, no red meat like I said, chicken, fish, vegetables, potatoes, turkey burgers, I still haven't had any sweetened cereal. And then there was the thing with Madison." JD looked away.

"Madison?" Julie had heard a few stories about her. She wasn't quite a slut, but a couple of the football players had passed her around. Julie had even heard she'd been talking about making a move on Matt, but Tyra had put a stop to that idea.

"Yeah, I met her at a party last year, she thought it was weird because I was drinking milk instead of beer and we talked for a while. Then she showed up at my locker with brownies, which I couldn't eat because…"

"You'd never had them and they weren't part of your diet." Julie flashed a quick smile.

"Right. But it turned out she was in two of my classes, so she started sitting next to me, and then….well, she showed up at my house one day and just, like walked on in like she'd been there a million times. It really pissed my dad off, he said she was a distraction, and it got worse when I snuck out and went….well we went for a drive. That was the first time I ever heard my dad yell at my mom, I mean really yell. He was throwing stuff around and breaking stuff. I guess, I guess my mom wanted me to be a little more normal, she didn't have a problem with Madison. But then my dad called her parents and…"

"What?"

"He told them they had a slut for a daughter and that if she came near me he'd get a restraining order. And he made the school transfer her out of my classes. I guess she transferred to a different school, maybe east Dillon, no one's seen her here this year." He sighed. "Look, this is getting away from my apology. I'm really sorry for what happened and what I did at that party. I've been wanting to say this for a while, but you never even look my way in class, I've even tried to pass you a couple of notes. I really don't know anything about this," as he pointed to Julie's car. "I mean, I've heard some people saying stuff about your dad, my dad's said a LOT, but look, I just want to play football and go to school. Well, okay, maybe I'm not in love with school. And yeah, I've heard people saying things about you."

"What kind of things?"

JD flushed and shook his head. "Y'know, the kind of things people say about people they don't like."

"Oh come on. I'm not gonna slap you or anything. Compared to walking out here every other day and finding my tires slashed and being tripped and shoved in the hallways in there," Julie nodded her head towards the school, "having people call me names is pretty easy. Let me think, I bet slut gets thrown around a lot, right? Maybe….cooze? And I can think of a couple girls who probably call me a cunt, right?"

JD held his hands up. "Julie, why are you doing this? It's like I said, I didn't know anything about this happening to your car, or the people pushing you around and stuff. Yeah, I have heard people say those words you said, but I haven't been saying any of it. And despite being QB1 or whatever that doesn't mean I can just tell the people saying that stuff to knock it off or to shut up. During games I can't get the guys in our huddle to shut up, so forget getting a bunch of kids at school to stop. And even if they did stop when I was around, we both know they'd start up when I left. I'm sorry that it's happening but what can I do to stop it?" JJ looked around. "Um, are you gonna stay here all night? Shouldn't you call like, your mom or Matt?"

"I called Riggins Rigs, they said th—" Julie stopped as she saw the Riggins Rigs tow truck come into the parking lot and stop in front of her car. Tim got out of the cab and walked over. "Taylor. What are you doing here Twelve?"

"Practice is over, I walked out and saw her and her car and came over and we were talking."

Tim started to say something, looked at JD for a minute, then shook his head slightly. He walked around Julie's car, then hitched it to the bed and started the winch. After the car was on the bed, he secured it and then opened the passenger door of the cab and helped Julie into the seat. Tim walked around to the driver side door and beckoned JD over. "C'mere Twelve. Look at me. I don't really know what's going on with Jules and Seven right now, because honestly it's none of my business. Or yours. It's between the two of them. And even if they are broke up or whatever, her porch light might be on, but that doesn't mean you have an invitation to step onto her porch. We clear on that?" JD nodded. "Are you tryin' to be her friend?"

"I-I'm not sure. Maybe. Look I tried to apologize for what I did earlier. I'm not her enemy. I don't hate her or her mom or her dad. It's my dad that doesn't like them. Like I told Julie, I just want to play quarterback and get to State. And I don't have any idea who did that." JD pointed at Julie's car.

"….Okay Twelve. But if you hear anything let me know." Tim took a card out of his wallet and handed it to JD."

"Sure." JD watched Tim get in and the truck move out of the parking lot then tore the card up. "Fuck you Tim Riggins. You have no idea."