Julian

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Alice was hovering over me as I sat slumped over in the hallway outside the nurse’s office and Brian, in turn, hovered over her.

“I’m fine,” I muttered around the bag of ice pressed to the side of my mouth.

Truth was, I was better than fine. I was on some weird high at the moment. Logic told me it was a heady brew of adrenaline and testosterone, but there was something else there too.

Honesty. Acceptance. The overwhelming need to see Tina and tell her exactly how I felt.

Fighting Alex was so out of character for me, but it had felt so freakin’ good. I know, I know. Violence doesn’t solve anything. But for me, it was so much more than that.

“You have a weird look in your eyes,” Alice said, her voice filled with suspicion.

“Are you on something, man?” Brian asked. He sounded wary, and with good reason.

I probably looked insane.

I felt insane.

For the first time in my life I’d been in it. I hadn’t been standing on the sidelines, I hadn’t been analyzing my feelings and writing a song about them. I’d been alive. I’d been in the moment.

And in that moment I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.

I loved Tina Withers. I loved her, and I wanted to be with her. Screw waiting for the right moment. To hell with giving us both time and space to sort out our breakup issues. Life was short and I’d just punched a guy.

“I think he’s in shock,” Alice whispered loudly to Brian.

“He’ll be okay,” Brian said reassuringly. “He’s just coming down from the adrenaline rush.”

He was likely right. For the first time I understood why the burly jocks in our school acted the way they did, always picking fights and being pushy dicks. They were high on testosterone and adrenaline. It all made sense now.

Alice squatted slightly so her face was in line with mine. “Let me take you home.”

I shook my head. “Not until I see Tina.”

Alice didn’t say anything but I saw the way her lips twisted in disapproval.

“This wasn’t her fault,” I said.

She lowered her brows in disbelief. “You got in a fight, Julian. With Alex. This has Tina drama written all over it.”

I shrugged. I couldn’t argue that—I mean, I knew how it looked from where she was standing.

It looked like I had a burgeoning shiner and a bloody lip. But I was pleased to report that Alex looked just as bad.

“She didn’t start this,” I said. “That was all Alex.”

Anger threatened to flare up all over again as I remembered Alex’s snide whispers. She’s just using you, man. She’d never go for a guy like you. Tina’s cold, bro. You’re just her pawn.

Nonstop taunting. All about Tina. All about me. All about how she could never truly care about me. But the insult that had put me over the edge was this.

She doesn’t have a heart, dude.

That’s when I saw red. Literally. I hadn’t known that phrase could be so literal. But it hit me hard and the anger had come with it—he didn’t know her at all. Alex had been lucky enough to date Tina for years. Years! And he still didn’t know her.

Worse than that, I suspected he was a big reason she thought so badly of herself.

And no, she’d never fooled me with her cocky attitude. I knew her well enough to know that was all show. Beneath her trademark sassy snark and conceited demeanor was a bone-deep insecurity that made me furious on her behalf.

Tina had no idea how amazing she was, and her amazingness had nothing to do with her looks. She was tough. She was fierce. She was courageous.

She was a freakin’ force of nature.

But she didn’t know any of that, not really. And hearing Alex talk about her like that, verbalizing every bad image she had of herself—I knew without a doubt that he’d helped foster her insecurities. With his cheating, obviously, and with his emotional manipulation, but in that moment I realized it went deeper than that.

He believed what he was saying. He thought the worst of her and he was the one who was supposed to love her most. How much of that had she picked up on? How much had he told her outright?

Between the way he treated her and the way he saw her, Tina’s already fragile ego never stood a chance.

I heard Alice and Brian whispering about me, but I didn’t care. I was just waiting for the bell to ring for the end of class. I needed to see her. I had to make sure she was okay.

She’d run away before I could find her, her friends smirking at me in a way that left me cold.

She’d gone back to class, one of them told me. I bounced my knee and took deep breaths. Why was I so nervous? She was fine. I was fine. We would be fine.

But I’d feel better when I saw her and made sure she was okay with my own eyes.

After a while, I finally convinced Alice and Brian that it was safe to leave me alone. I had a view of Tina’s locker from where I sat in the hallway so I stayed where I was, watching our fellow classmates file out of their classrooms and ignoring their stares.

I couldn’t completely tune out their whispers though, especially since so many seemed to be shouted so that I could hear.

The general consensus seemed to be that I was a fool.

Cool.

Apparently Alice and Brian weren’t the only ones to assume that my fight with Alex was some sort of devious plot conceived by Tina the she-witch. I caught hints of pity, along with sympathy, but mostly it was derision.

I supposed I could see it from their point of view. I probably would have felt the same way if I’d been in their shoes. Some poor schmuck gets in a fight with Alex over Tina?

Yeah, I’d be pitying the fool as well. But they had no idea what was going on.

Finally, after most of the school had already filed past, I caught sight of Tina walking with a horde of minions. She looked like the alpha female even from a distance as the others fell in step just a little behind Tina, all eyes on her as she walked in that way of hers—with her chin tilted up and her nose in the air as if she couldn’t even see the lowly people in her path, let alone the bruised guy slouched against the wall on the floor.

“Tina!”

She stopped short, her gaze seeking me out. When our eyes met, I froze. That niggling fear I’d been telling myself was unwarranted came back with a vengeance. It morphed from fear to dread.

Who was this girl? The cold stare, the haughty expression—it was like seeing the ghost of Tina past. Or a stranger who looked like the Tina I knew.

But this wasn’t the girl I knew.

With a simple nod of her head, Tina dismissed her horde. When they’d scampered off in a fit of whispers and giggles, she crossed over to me and I scrambled to stand.

Her eyes scanned me from head to toe, clinically and without emotion. I got a great insight into what Tina would be like as a nurse. Zero bedside manner but efficiently thorough.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“Nothing that won’t heal.” I tried for a smile but it made me wince as it pulled at the cut on my lip.

She nodded. “You shouldn’t have done it.” Her voice was cold, callous, her gaze filled with nothing but disdain.

I blinked at her, trying not to let panic set in as I watched the girl I cared about disappear before my eyes. I wanted to wave a hand in front of her face. Hello? Are you in there?

Instead I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Yeah, it was stupid,” I admitted. “I know you don’t need me fighting on your behalf.” I forced a smile hoping to thaw some of this freeze. “No one has ever accused you of being a damsel in distress.”

She didn’t smile. She didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken. “It was idiotic,” she said, but not with that amused twinkle that usually softened her insults and made them somehow endearing.

I cleared my throat and gestured uselessly. “Yeah, well, like I said—”

“And pointless,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know what you thought you were doing back there, but all it did was show me what a mistake I’d made.”

I blinked at the robotic voice she was using. With those cold eyes and that monotone voice, I was talking to a freakin’ automaton. One who was programmed to look like Tina and who’d mastered her expression of haughty disdain. But then the words registered and my gut felt hollow. “What do you mean? What mistake?”

She tossed her hair back, but this time her prissy attitude didn’t have that teasing quality. She wasn’t making fun of herself and her reputation, she was embracing it.

She let out a sigh like she was talking to a moron. “I mean, I’ve talked to Alex. We’re going to the prom together.”

She started to walk away, following after her friends like she hadn’t just crushed me.

After a shocked moment I hurried after her, hating how pathetic I felt chasing after her like a puppy but physically unable to watch her walk away. “What do you mean? Tina, you can’t—”

She stopped and turned so quickly I nearly ran into her. Planting her hands on her hips, she let out an exaggerated sigh of impatience. “I can’t, what? Go back to my boyfriend of three years? Why not, exactly?”

“Because he—”

“Cares enough about me to fight for me?” she asked, arching one frustratingly imperious brow. “I thought that was quite sweet, really.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes as she scanned me clinically from head to toe. “I can’t imagine why he was so jealous, but you served your purpose beautifully, so…thanks for that.”

“Served my purpose?” I echoed.

She shifted her bag on her shoulder. “I’d almost forgotten how sweet and noble my Alex can be.”

“Noble? What are you talking about, he was talking about you and—”

She held up a hand. “It’s all in the past, Julian.” She eyed me again, her mouth pursed. “Just like us.”

I watched her walk away and then I continued to stand there, staring after her and feeling like I’d just been a part of some sort of performance art. I’d just been thrust into a play but no one had given me a script.

Surely that was the case, because that girl who just walked away?

That wasn’t Tina.

Some of my initial shock and disappointment faded as that thought took hold. That wasn’t Tina. She was putting on an act, but I knew better. She might be able to fool her friends, and Alex, and every other person in this school, but she couldn’t fool me.

* * *

“I don’t know if this is a good plan,” Alice said. At least I thought it was Alice. She looked so different all glammed up in her black formal gown and her curled hair, it was hard to peg her as my buddy Al.

With his hair slicked back and his sleek black tux Brian looked like an old-fashioned movie star beside her in the front entryway of my house. His normal laid-back smile had been replaced with a concerned frown that matched Alice’s to a tee. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, bro?”

“Yes.” No. I ignored the voice of doubt that tried to tell me it was too late. She’d made her decision.

I wasn’t sure what was going on in that head of hers that had her acting like her old self again, but I could guess.

“Julian,” Alice started, her hands twisting in front of her until I worried for the fate of her wrist corsage. “Maybe you should give her some space or—”

“No,” I interrupted. “Sorry, Al. I know you’re trying to help, but trust me on this one.” I sounded far more confident than I felt.

Apparently I looked it too because she took one long hard look at me before giving a short nod. “Okay. I trust you.” The trust in her voice did wonders in shoring up my own faith in this plan.

Brian reached over to clap a big meaty hand on my shoulder in solidarity. “We’ve got your back, man.”

“Which means you’re coming with us,” Alice added as Brian nodded.

That was what had started this whole conversation in the first place. Once Alice got wind of my plan to confront Tina and bring her to her senses, she’d insisted that I go to the prom with them so I didn’t show up alone.

“Thanks, you guys, but I don’t want to be a third wheel,” I started.

Neither of them were listening as they herded me out the front door and toward the limo.

“Don’t be stupid,” Alice said.

“We’ve got plenty of room,” Brian added.

Before I knew it I was packed into the back with them and we were on our way.

“So what exactly is your plan?” Alice asked.

I opened my mouth and then shut it, choosing instead to take in the view of our town through the tinted glass of a limo. My plan was a little too idiotic to admit out loud. I mean, how did you say “my plan is to kiss her” without sounding like a moron.

But they were watching me and waiting for me to speak. “Look, I know what she said was harsh,” I started.

Brian arched his eyebrows meaningfully and Alice muttered, “Ya think?”

I ignored them both. “But that wasn’t her. I mean, that wasn’t the real Tina,” I amended at their looks of utter disbelief.

“Or,” Alice said slowly, gently, “Maybe that is her, Julian.” She and Brian exchanged a look and I knew without a doubt they’d been discussing this and were of one mind. “Maybe the Tina you think you know isn’t real. Maybe she’s been manipulating you all along.”

I blinked at her. I knew she had a point but I didn’t want to believe that. I couldn’t. “I can’t give up on her,” I said. “She’s trying to change.” Their expressions were dubious at best so I hurried on. “No, she has changed. But she doesn’t believe in herself, she thinks she’ll hurt me—”

“She did hurt you,” Alice pointed out. “And I don’t just mean that stupid fight with Alex.”

I knew what she meant. Tina’s rejection the other day had been a brutal blow, but I truly believed she thought she was helping me. Tina’s logic might be twisted, but I knew her. She wouldn’t intentionally hurt me. But she would do something idiotic to protect me.

Of course, as much as I knew that to be true, it didn’t stop the nerves that had my heart pounding like I’d just run a marathon. There was every chance my plan wouldn’t work.

Let’s face it—it wasn’t much of a plan. I wasn’t so much of a romantic that I believed one kiss could save the world. But it could open her eyes, right?

Oh hell, if I said any of that out loud there would be serious mocking going on. Sleeping Beauty Tina was not. And I sure as hell was nobody’s Prince Charming.

But those two times we’d kissed, her defenses had crumbled. Those times more than any others were when I saw straight into her heart. Maybe it was the shock of it, or maybe it was the fact that hormones distracted her long enough that she forgot to be insecure, she forgot she was fighting for world domination and just…was. She was there, in the moment…with me.

That’s what I wanted to happen again. I just needed to get past whatever fortress she was hiding behind because I knew why she was retreating. She was scared.

Playing the role of mean girl was familiar. It gave her a sense of power when she was feeling powerless. Being at Alex’s side gave her comfort, in a sick, unhealthy way. He reinforced all the crap. He kept that fortress intact and helped build it back up when it started to crumble.

All this was going on in my head as Alice and Brian held a lively debate on whether or not people could truly change. I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to join in, but if I had, I would have told them this: Tina didn’t need to change.

The person she was becoming had always been there, she just hadn’t had the courage to break the mold she’d cast for herself way back when. Maybe if she’d transferred to a new school like I had she would have transformed herself. It would have been easier to do if everyone didn’t look at her like they knew her.

But she’d been caught in the same rut, the same mold, the same relationship.

I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees as I tapped my fingers together in an impatient rhythm. I was ready to leap out of the limo as it pulled to a stop in front of the hotel where the dance was held.

Tina didn’t need to change, she just needed to embrace who she truly was.

And it was up to me to help her see that.

So yeah, call me Prince Charming because my big plan was to wake this princess with a kiss.