But I had to convince him of that. I gave the article one last look before putting it to the side. He deserved nothing less than the same kind of honesty. I wasn’t good at talking about my emotions—maybe one day I would be but I had a lot of learning to do—and I couldn’t write like Matt.
But I knew how to tell a story.
A rush of nerves had me drawing in a deep fortifying breath as I shoved my phone to the side and opened my notebook. I wasn’t an artist, by any means, but I’d dabbled enough to get my ideas across. I could clean it up later, but for the first time since we returned…I felt like myself.
Chapter Fifteen
Matt
Lunch was the hardest part of my day. It was the one time of day when I couldn’t escape being in the same room as Julia but I couldn’t go talk to her either.
Today’s lunch was even worse than usual because today was the day that the newspaper was going to post my article online. Would she read it? Or was she so angry with me for my idiotic behavior that she’d avoid any reminder of me and our weekend together?
I tried to sneak another look in her direction but I got caught.
“Dude, she left ten minutes ago.” Luke was giving me a knowing smirk that made me want to smack him. According to Suzie, she battled the urge to smack him about ten times a day. I just hoped that when she finally gave in to the urge, I’d be there to see it.
“Who?” I said.
He arched his brows. “Really? You’re going to pretend like you haven’t been eyeing Julia all week like some sort of lovestruck Romeo?”
Suzie elbowed him.
“Sorry,” he said, throwing his hands up in defense. “I just call it as I see it.”
“And what do you see, exactly?” I tried to sound dismissive but there was a little part of me that was honestly asking the question. Luke and Jason had been friends with Julia far longer than I had and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking for a little reassurance that maybe this wasn’t such a lost cause, after all.
“You’ve clearly got a thing for her,” Luke said. The words were blunt but he softened it with a lazy grin that said ‘no judgments here.’
I didn’t try to deny it but I shot a look at Suzie. Did you tell him? She shook her head. Of course not!
Friend ESP at its finest.
I believed her. I knew Margo wouldn’t have told Jason either. They were both strict adherents to the friend code, whether I deserved their loyalty or not. And let’s face it, after what I’d done earlier this year, I probably didn’t.
“Well, judging by the way she’s been looking over at you every five seconds, I’d say she feels the same way,” Jason said.
“What? What do you mean?”
Luke nodded. “All week, bro. She’s been eyeing you like candy. What happened between you guys last weekend?”
I opened my mouth and shut it. I’d come to like Jason, and I got along all right with Luke, when he wasn’t being smug. But I wasn’t exactly excited about the idea of spilling my feelings in front of them.
Of course, I’d basically spilled my feelings to the entire world at large…
But still. That was different. Posting my heart in what was basically a public love letter seemed easier than saying it aloud in front of two guys who’d known Julia for a lifetime.
Margo nudged my elbow. Come on, just admit it.
Again with the friend ESP.
I shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Fine. I like Julia.”
“Was that so hard?” Suzie teased.
I widened my eyes. “Yes, actually.”
But when a full second passed in which neither Jason nor Luke either smirked or laughed, I let out a long exhale of relief.
“Does she know?” Jason asked.
“Um…” I scratched the back of my head as I tried to figure out the answer to that.
“If she didn’t before, she’ll know today,” Margo said on my behalf.
After a few more questions, Suzie called up my article and passed it around.
“Dude,” Luke said, his tone filled with awe and…respect. “That’s a bold move.”
Jason reached across the table to clap a hand on my shoulder. “Good work, man.”
I sat there in stunned silence for a second as Suzie and Margo beamed at me. It was a relief to see that at least my friends thought I’d done right by publicly exposing myself—emotionally speaking. But I still had no idea how Julia would react.
Or if she would react at all.
“Seriously,” Jason said, leaning back in his seat. “Julia deserves someone who’ll go all in for her. She’s put up with too little for too long.”
Too little? He was talking about some of the reigning kings of our high school. Julia’s exes roster read like a lineup of Grover High’s most eligible bachelors. I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat, completely unable to accept a compliment, apparently.
“Yeah, well…” I shrugged. “I have no idea if she’ll like it.”
Suzie snorted. “She’s nuts if she doesn’t.”
“Seriously,” Margo said with a vigorous nod. “So romantic, Matt.” She punched my arm. “Who knew you had it in you?”
I glanced over at Julia’s table again out of habit and saw that Luke was right. She’d left when I wasn’t looking. I’d kept my distance all week because I took what Thea had said to heart. Julia needed time and space. But how much time? How much space?
I was officially done waiting. There was no way I could stay away from her, especially now when I’d laid my heart bare. “Anyone know what class Julia has next?”
“Trig with Helms,” Jason said.
The bell rang and we all stood up. I waited until the period ended before I tried to seek her out in her trig class. I spotted her in the classroom but she was hunched over her desk as everyone else filed out. She looked hard at work, like she was concentrating on something.
Later, I promised myself. I’d find her later.
Turned out, I didn’t have to. She found me.
I was in the newspaper office during the last period of the day and looked up to find her standing in the doorway. Again.
A mere week had passed since the last time she’d stood there staring at me like that with that adorable little frown of concentration, but it felt like a lifetime. Meeting her gaze now, it felt like we had a history that spanned the ages and not just a weekend fling, if that’s what it was.
My surprise was followed by nerves. Okay fine, dread. She’d seen the article, and…she didn’t look happy.
I tapped my pen against the edge of the desk as the silent standoff stretched on for way too long. “Grover High’s head cheerleader in our lowly newspaper office twice in one month,” I tried to joke. “What are the odds?”
My speaking seemed to snap her out of her silence and whatever she’d been deliberating this time, the decision was apparently made. She crossed the room in my direction with determined steps and when she reached my side she thrust a piece of paper at me.
I frowned down at the folded piece of lined notebook paper as I came to my feet. “What, are we exchanging notes now?”
Once again I’d gone for joking and it fell flat. She didn’t so much as twitch her lips in a polite smile. She just held the paper out to me.
I took it but not without a huge sense of dread. This was it. She wasn’t even speaking to me anymore. She’d read the article and was horrified. Maybe even humiliated. Maybe this was her official threat to sue me for defamation or something.
The voice of panic wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t even entirely sensical. The panic was out of control as my blood pounded and I tried not to notice how beautiful she looked and how amazing she smelled.
A little part of me was acutely aware that this could very well be the last chance I had to be this close to her. I glanced at her face as I debated dropping down onto my knees and begging for forgiveness. But since she was still staring at the note in my hand I decided to read whatever it was she had to say first.
“I thought, um…I thought maybe the newspaper might have room for a comic strip.”
I stared at the paper so hard my eyes hurt but I was aware of her hesitant tone. The comic started with a garish cartoon caricature of a busty blonde bimbo. She had a creepy grin à la The Joker and roamed the hallways with a group of zombies. One of the more evil-looking creatures shared a striking similarity to Cara.
I let out a little huff of disbelief at what I was seeing.
“I thought if you could talk to me without actually talking to me…” I heard her shifting beside me as she trailed off.
She was nervous. I wanted to reassure her but I was too stunned to look up. The comic now featured me—or a caricature with glasses who looked like me. The character literally sweeps her off her feet and into his arms and carries her away from the zombies. Then he helps her take off the mask. Then they kiss. Then…then she gives him a swooning look and her heart is thumping in his direction.
“I know it’s cheesy,” she started.
I didn’t give her a chance to finish. I reached for her, pulled her close, and kissed her. My hands tangled in her hair as she melted against me, her lips melding to mine like we were meant to fit together.
The kiss lasted so long that we were both out of breath when she pulled back to smile at me. “So,” she said, a teasing note in her voice. “Should I take that to mean you liked my drawing?”
“I loved it,” I said, dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose.
“I loved your article,” she said.
I’m not going to lie—I felt a rush of intense relief. Being so open like that, and in such a public way—it had been a gamble.
“I meant what I said about posting that in the school paper,” she said. “I’m not going to hide anything anymore. Not my love of comics, not the way I feel about Cara and her friends, and…” She stopped and I watched her swallow, her eyes widening in earnest sincerity. “Not the way I feel about you.”
My heart clenched so painfully I couldn’t breathe. A little part of me wanted to blurt out the L-word. It was there on the tip of my tongue. But my gut told me that it was too soon. We needed time, to get to know each other and to figure out where this was heading. Still, that didn’t stop me from telling her how much I liked her.
She grinned. “Enough to date me?”
“Definitely,” I said. I looked down at the paper in my hands. “But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not publish this.”
She gave a funny little grimace. “I know I have a lot of work to do with my drawing skills.” Tilting her head to the side she gave me a cute smirk. “Especially if I want to pursue an art degree at Berkeley next year.”
I gave my head a little shake as I tried to take that all in. “Wait, you’re going to Berkeley? I’m going to Stanford.”
She beamed at me. “We’ll be West Coast neighbors…sort of.”
“Closer than we’d be if we were on separate coasts,” I agreed. Excitement made it hard to stand still and I pulled her tight against me. “And you’re going to study art?”
She nodded. “I think so. I haven’t made it official yet, but it seems like a good degree to pursue if I want to break into the world of comics.”
I was grinning like an idiot, but honestly everything was falling into place so perfectly. A less cynical guy might think it was almost…meant to be.
Julia tilted her head down toward the piece of paper that I was still clutching in my hand. “Clearly I have a lot of studying to do.”
“Yeah,” I stopped. “I mean, no. Your drawing is perfect. It’s amazing. It’s…” I sighed. “Have I mentioned I’m not so great at talking?”
She laughed as I’d hoped she would. “You’re pretty great at finding the right words when you’re writing though.”
“Maybe I should stick to writing you notes for a while.”
She laughed. “Don’t you dare.” Then she kissed me and it was the sweetest kiss I’d ever tasted. It was filled with hope, and promise, and a complete and utter lack of secrets.
This time I was the one who pulled back because I didn’t want there to be misunderstandings between us. Not anymore. I held up the piece of paper. “I love this.”
She grinned. “So you’ve said.”
“And I love that you’d be willing to declare your feelings for me to the school at large.” I swallowed down a surge of overwhelming emotion. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”
She narrowed her eyes a bit. “But?”
“But…much as this is an amazing piece of artwork,” I said. “I want to keep this to myself, if you don’t mind. I’m all for embracing honesty and being genuine…”
She arched a brow, a silent ‘but?’
“But there are some things that are all the better because they’re just between you and me.”
Her eyes got all soft with emotion and I leaned down to kiss her. This kiss was tender, a silent conversation in which we said all the things we hadn’t yet actually said. Not aloud, anyway.
Yeah, I know…it’s possible that I was something of a romantic. Maybe even a mush. But for this girl?
I was more than happy to be a sap.
We stayed in that newsroom long after the last bell let out, alternating between kissing, talking, and laughing. At one point, Julia turned thoughtful as she sat on the edge of a desk and swung her legs.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I guess I’m just worried that despite my best intentions, I’m not going to be any good at this.”
“At what?”
She hitched her lips to the side in a self-deprecating little grin. “I don’t know. Being honest. Being myself. Not caring how people see me…”
I let out a little snort of amusement which had her shooting me a glare that lacked any heat. “Hey,” she protested. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not,” I said quickly. “I’m just thinking that if it wasn’t hard—if you managed to be totally and completely genuine and self-confident at every moment of every day…you’d be superhuman.”
She laughed. “Like, oh I don’t know, Supergirl?”
“Yeah, something like that.” I shook my head as I moved to wrap my arms around her. “I don’t need you to be Supergirl. No one expects you to be perfect.”
She tilted her head back to look up at me, her gaze beautiful and serious. “Yeah, I get that now.”
“Besides,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood. “Even Supergirl had her issues. She wasn’t perfect.”
“Mmm.” Julia seemed lost in deep thought as she agreed with me. But then her gaze shot over to meet mine and it was filled with the kind of impish mischief I adored about this girl. “But honestly…how cool would it be if I really was Supergirl in disguise? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want Supergirl as your girlfriend.”
This obviously launched us into a long, intense conversation about the merits—or lack thereof—of dating a superhero in disguise.
Was it nerdy? Heck yeah. But was it the best afternoon I’d ever spent?
No doubt.
I guess you could say the rest was history.
Epilogue
Three years later…
Julia
I lifted my head from the sheaf of papers that I’d been poring over with a red pen. “The rest was history?”
Matt gave me a sheepish grin as he stretched out beside me on my dorm room bed. “Too cliché?”
I tilted my head to the side as I considered it. “Well, it just sort of sounds like we’re dead or something.”
He nodded. “Good point. Any other criticisms?”
I shook my head, a smile spreading across my face. I’d been
reading Matt’s story of us—not just us-us, but the story of all of us—me, Matt, Suzie, Luke, Margo, and Jason—ever since he’d started working on it last year.
He’d discovered early on freshman year that while working on a newspaper had been a great use for his talents in high school, there was a whole world of non-fiction writing out there, including genres where he could express more creativity. Memoir-writing classes had led to his first attempt at documenting his high school experience, and that initial endeavor had turned into this epic tome. He’d interviewed all of our friends and me over our last few breaks, cleaning up our words and crafting them into a narrative to better tell our individual stories.
He’d saved our story for last, and reading it now made me more than a little nostalgic. “We were so young and naïve back then.”
“It was only three years ago,” he reminded me. “Now you’re the one making it sound like we’re on our deathbed.”
I laughed. “True. In terms of years, it hasn’t been that long. But it’s amazing how all of our world views have changed so much since leaving Grover High.”
He nodded. “I guess that’s the beauty of leaving the fishbowl behind.”
I clutched the handful of pages to my chest and sighed. “Do you think we’ll change just as much in the next three years once we graduate from college and start our careers?”
He shifted so he was lying on his side and he toyed with my hair in a gesture that was heartwarmingly familiar. “Most likely.”
I turned my head to face him. “Do you think we’ll keep growing together?” That had been one of the most amazing feats we’d pulled off. Despite all of our changing, we’d managed to mature together, forming a bond that was stronger with each passing day.
His smile was filled with warmth. “I hope so.”
I shifted so I was on my side too, and we were lying face to face. “Me too.”
We shared a quiet moment as we both got lost in thought. Matt broke it first with feigned indignation. “Hey, what do you mean when we start our careers? I’d say both of our careers are well underway.”
Once Upon a Comic-Con: Geeks Gone Wild #3 Page 14