Chapter Text
I saw her on a bike ride (before I knew she was a she) after my summer at rehab.
I was clean, allegedly, and was on a path to greener pastures. It was 1989, we were the ‘MTV Generation, either that or the ‘Latchkey Generation’. The second one talking about our new found freedom and our ability to have keys (which apparently no other generation had).
I was a junior and it was my second to last year of the shit show that was high school; although Lexi’s sister, Cassie, Nate, and Maddy were soon graduating. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life when it’s all over, maybe just work in a gas station or something.
But back to who I would come to know as Jules. He was the new ‘guy’ in town and everyone was talking about him. Kat met him in summer school. He was shy and nervous and didn’t talk much, but Kat has a way with people.
“He’s kinda cute,” Kat told me “I don’t know what his deal is. He kinda dresses like David Bowie or like Prince or someone.”
Jules dressed nothing like David Bowie. What Kat meant was he didn’t look like a he, and as I would come to find out there was a reason why.
I didn’t meet Jules until McKay’s party. I saw the usual guys there, but I didn’t really talk much to them. Jules got there a bit later. And I witnessed him getting screamed at by Nate. He kinda just stood there.
“What the fuck are you looking at? Who are you?” Nate shouted.
Jules stared at the floor.
“I’m just minding my own business. I’m not trying to start anything.” Was all Jules could muster out in between Nate’s misdirected anger from Maddy’s little pool show. Eventually he just left.
“Yo. Shit… you okay?” I tried to be as gentle as I could, but I found it difficult. I hadn’t ever had to comfort a boy I didn’t see as pathetic before. The other times involved me lying and saying ‘Yeah you totally got me off’.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just left before things got violent, and I didn’t want a broken cheekbone or anything.”
I kinda just nodded along, there was something about his face and those eyes and that mouth.
“Where you headed to?” I asked
“Oh, home probably.”
“Can,” I kinda stumbled a bit “can I come with?”
Jules raised an eyebrow.
Soon I was holding his waist as he was biking through the maze of suburbia.
“So you moved here from the city?”
Jules nodded.
“Yeah my parents got divorced and I moved here with my dad.”
I knew that. How the fuck did I know that?
But, dad’s almost never get full custody. I knew shit had to have gone down.
“I kinda miss the city,” Jules said while staring at the passing street lamps “I miss feeling so free.”
I was kinda just staring at Jules’ face by this point. Was he handsome? Was he beautiful?
I’d been with guys before, not properly, but I’d touched them and I begrudged them touching me. But Jules? I don’t know something about him. Even the name - Jules, I guess his parents must have been creative.
I raised my hands slightly on Jules’ front.
Jules reacted quite physically, not like stopping or falling off the bike, but definitely a little flinch.
And I knew why. That wasn’t the chest of a guy.