Rotting away in bed with headphones on her ears and her face hidden behind a Richard Brautigan novel, Julie had no intention of moving a muscle. Reading and music, those were the two things that brought her most happiness and all she wanted to do was indulge.
Their team lost 1-2 which was a bruise on their collective optimism, but not much else. Most of them gathered at Tonya's to ironically celebrate their loss with Cyndi Lauper and alcohol, but Julie was exactly where she needed to be.
Tonya called once to make damn sure Julie was okay. But she said the same words she did the second she heard a sequence of knocks on her door some minutes afterwards.
"I'm fine!"
Knock, knock, knock.
She groaned, pressing pause on her walkman and her read alike to get up and answer the door.
"Seriously, Mom. You can just apologise to Scott for the whole Benny's thing, but if I was there I'd only bring a huge rain cloud with me and that doesn't seem like the best first impression a person can make-"
When she swung open the door, her words froze on her tongue.
It wasn't her mother. It wasn't Tonya. It was Steve Harrington with a bouquet of carnations, a hand wedged in the pocket of his navy blue jacket and a sad smile offered on his face.
"You can rain on me all you want," he says to the brunette stood in a The Cure tee and red plaid pants.
Julie laughed through her nose, still frowning.
"Can I come in?"
She pointed at the carnations. "Only if those are for me."
"They were actually for your mom, but she didn't like them all that much."
Julie snorted, rolled her eyes and headed back to the indentation on her bed sheets. But before she touched the mattress, she asked, "Can you shut the door?" over her shoulder.
"Yeah, sure."
Steve obliged and turned around to face the space he had only heard about and seen once in a glimpse from the other side of the threshold.
There were a lot of posters across the striped white and red walls: Stevie Nicks mid song; Grace Jones' iconic photoshoot; Styx; Suzi Quatro; Jimi Hendrix; labelled Fender guitars; and then the rest were social justice posters. There was one reading 'HANDS OFF MY UTERUS' in big bold lettering with vibrant colours, and another with a comic strip of a woman slapping a man with blood splatters across it. In red, bold, capitalised letters it read, 'FREE SAFE VASECTOMY ON DEMAND'.
Steve's eyes widened, hiding it with a large intake of air. "Nice room."
"Thank you." Julie bookmarked her novel and sat it on her bedside table.
Steve sat on the edge of her bed, right beside her. But he didn't say anything else, strictly waiting for her to be the one to open her mouth and speak to him.
She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Just say it."
"What?"
She cocked her head. "I know you, Steve. You wanna ask if I'm okay."
"You said you're fine, so you must be."
She trained her squinted eyes on him.
But he just smiled, breaking her into a smile of her own.
"But on the topic of knowing each other," he continues, "I think I've gotten to know you pretty well."
"Oh really?"
"Yes, really, if I do say so myself. Which is why I got these," he gestures the carnations in his hand. The petals of each flower in the bunch were two-toned. They started with a light pinkish-beige from the centre, and grew out with sharp, reddish-magenta edges.
"Usually they're just one colour, but you see," he used his pointer finger to follow his words on the flower, "on the ends of the petal it's dark and a little intense from certain angles, and as you follow it further in, it's lighter and more delicate."
He met her gaze.
"It's the best of both and that's what makes them stand out from the ordinary ones. They're just significantly that much more interesting and extraordinarily complicated."
Julie scoffed, her eyebrows curling with disbelief.
"All of that combined reminded me of you."
Her lips twitched with a smile, her eyes glistening the longer he held her stare.
"Now are you okay?"
She frowned, "The monologue may have helped."
"Thought it might," his slanted smile grew. He looked at her with so much compassion. "You did great today."
But he lost her eyes to her fidgeting fingers picking at chipped midnight sky coloured nail polish. "Obviously not great enough."
"No, I promise you it could have been worse." He dipped his head to find her eyes again. "Try being on a team with Billy. The guy trips me on purpose to make a fool out of me for no reason," she smiled, "screwing over the entire team."
"That is pretty bad."
"It's the worst. Your team tried, and I mean really tried. It was close call either way."
The tip of her round nose was turning pink from holding back her disappointment. "I know." Then he found her eyes again. "It just went to shit the second Beth split her leg open."
He grit his teeth. "Yeah, that was gnarly."
"I know it's totally stupid that I'm even thinking about it, but Mark was there with Bonnie McGregor."
He blinked twice at the reminder. "I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"That just couldn't have been easy to see."
"It wasn't," she admitted weakly. "It was totally shit actually. I'm pretty sure I went the rest of the game conscious of the fact he was watching. I keep thinking that if I hadn't noticed, the turn out would be different somehow."
"What do you mean?" his eyebrows pushed together. He shifted closer to her. "Jules, that one goal, who do we have to thank for it? Not Tonya, not Pam and definitely not Coach Martinez. That was all you."
"It was a lucky shot."
"That was one more lucky shot than everyone else on your team."
A tiny grin played on the corner of Julie's lips as she seemed to relax.
"Stop giving yourself a hard time."
She tried, but the more the situation unravelled itself in her mind, the hard time made itself. "Jesus," she winces. "You must think I'm a total idiot."
"I wouldn't put it like that," Steve's head tilts, "but you told me to learn to give myself more credit. Maybe it's about time you followed your own advice."
"I just don't know how I can when I care about someone that barely pays me the time of day."
"Because it's the way of the world," he resolves. "There's always one person in anybody's life that doesn't know you're absolutely crazy for them, and probably doesn't care to know for that matter."
"Even yours?" she asks sceptically.
His head hangs as he scoffs under his breath and sits the carnations down on the mattress. "You'd be surprised."
"What?" Julie cries. "Why? Who have you liked?"
"Nancy."
"You were in a relationship, that doesn't count."
Steve remained silent for a long moment, but her eyes were unmoving.
"Come on," she gently nudges his upper arm with the back of her hand. "Talk to me."
And after a moment more, he finally looked up. "D'you remember our third grade elementary teacher Ms Fulton?"
"I didn't have her but yeah," Julie frowns thoughtfully, "kind of."
"She used to give us gummy bears and Pixy Stixs during class and my mom was really strict about that kind of thing. It was an all greens household. But Ms Fulton knew the way to my heart," he held his hand on the left side of his chest.
She smiled amusedly, "So your childhood tragedy is that your lady didn't have a thing for boys who still pee the bed and cry for their mommy when they fall on their ass."
"Yeah, little Steve and me have a lot in common."
She laughed, shaking her head. He was really good at that-making her laugh. Especially when she needed to most. "Thank you," she told him softly.
"For?"
"Just being there I guess," she shrugs. "I don't really have a lot of people. Yeah, there's Tonya and the team or whatever, but it feels like there's things I can talk to you about that I can't with anyone else."
Steve searched her eyes.
"I've never had a person in my life like that before."
"Well, I hope you don't get sick of me any time soon because I'm not going anywhere."
"As luck would have it, as annoying as you are, Harrington, I don't think it'd be possible for me to ever get sick of you."
And even though she was smiling that moment, the small grin playing on his lips was no help. "Stop smiling like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I should regret complimenting you. And I won't be," she added in afterthought. "Ever again."
"Well, we'll just have to see about that, won't we?"
She grabbed a pillow from behind her and threw it in his face, but his reflexes caught it before it made total impact. She didn't stay back to witness his smug expression or bare the brunt of his retaliation, instead she stood up and headed for the door.
"I'm going to tell my mom to call Scott. Get her to order in or something."
His eyes follow her. "Why the sudden change of heart?"
Julie stopped steps away before reaching her doorway. "I just don't want him to think I'm not giving him a chance."
"But even if you didn't, he'd understand. Today was rough."
"Yeah, but I still want to get to know him." She raises her shoulders, "He makes my mom so happy and she deserves to be."
Steve smiled at her ability to put her mother's needs before her own even in spite of everything. "Are you happy?"
Her lips curled into a small yet warm smile. "Yeah, I am," she admitted softly.
"Good."
A pause lingered in the air.
Until Julie said, "Hand over the flowers," and held out her hand, walking over to him.
He picked up the bouquet and placed them in her outstretched palm.
"I'll put them in some water," she sniffled. It wasn't until she turned around that she let herself wipe under her eyes, slipping into the hallway.
All the while, Steve leaned himself onto his elbow, taking in her room.
The candles on her dresser and the photobooth strips with her friends stuck to her long standing mirror. The two windows on the side of her detached house curtained with white lace drapes. A standing stained glass lamp. A wooden desk piled with books as if the shelving unit above it crowded with book spines wasn't enough, and just in front of it was a crimson leather chair suffocated by a towering mound of laundry.
Then his eyes fell on the space of the bed behind him with headphones and a walkman on it.
He picked up them both up, slipping the headphones over his ears and pressed play, a soft song he didn't know, by a group he didn't know, resuming in his ears.
Always certain any moment...
Maybe you...
Maybe you...
Maybe even you...
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Song Used: Total Control - The Motels