2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
T he next morning, Jules drove to Riverbend High School in her grandparents’ old Subaru Outback. She still knew the school like the back of her hand. It hadn’t changed much in the time she’d been gone.
Parking next to Winnie’s beetle, she headed through the performing arts center entrance to the theater like she’d done thousands of times in another life. Inside the dimly lit space, she paused at the back, eyes adjusting to the shadows. Onstage, a few scrawny kids, smaller than they should’ve been for their age, were struggling to shove a street-shop set piece into position. This was going to be a long morning.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Winnie bounce through a side door, two big boxes balanced in her arms, and Jules rushed to help.
“Thank God you’re here,” Winnie said. “Can you go to the band room and help bring the boxes in there to backstage? We have a lot to assemble.”
Jules saluted, heading towards the band room where she’d spent many hours practicing her flute in high school. Walking down the hall from the theater towards the classroom, a wave of nostalgia hit her. She didn’t know how Winnie could stand to be in this school every day, with all its memories floating around, ready to strike.
Staring down the empty hall, she could almost hear the echoes of her former high school bandmates shouting, “GOOO Bears!” as they lined up in the hallway in their green and blue marching uniforms, ready to rush the football field to play the school’s fight song before the Friday night game.
Jules smiled at the memory. Band had been her happy place in high school. Her cheerleading days didn’t last past middle school, but she didn’t mind. She found her tribe in eighth grade with the band kids and even more so after Miles walked into her life on the first day of freshman year.
Too bad she couldn’t think about high school, even now, without that familiar pang of hurt.
Miles had changed everything for her. The moment he strode into band class, his long brown curly hair flopping over his forehead and saxophone case thrown over his shoulder, she knew she was in trouble. He looked like he’d just walked off the cover of Rolling Stone .
Their band teacher, Mr. Fedema, had introduced him, informing the class he had moved to Riverbend from Chicago that summer. Jules stared at Miles as he took his seat one row over. She’d never seen someone look so effortlessly cool.
He must have felt eyes on him, because he jerked his head over to where she sat, returning her stare. Startled, Jules had looked away, embarrassed at being caught. She wanted to melt into the floor right then and there.
After class, Miles approached her as she packed up her flute.
“What’s your name?”
Jules momentarily lost her ability to speak and croaked out, “Jules,” before bolting to the door, heart racing. The scene played over in her head hundreds of times during the rest of that day, fresh embarrassment blooming each time. She felt like a bumbling idiot and not the confident, worldly high schooler she’d imagined all summer.
But Miles wouldn’t give up. Every day after band, he walked her to her next class in silence. Soon, rumors started they were hooking up, even though that was far from the truth. They hadn’t said more than five words to each other.
It got so bad that one day Winnie walked up to Miles and demanded that he either ask Jules out or stop messing around. She told him she wouldn’t “let her best friend get stalked by a psycho killer.” Miles asked her to the movies that afternoon.
After that, they fell into an easy but sometimes all-consuming relationship. He was her rock and she his. Neither of them had great home lives, which bonded them, in a way. They were even crowned homecoming king and queen one year, not that either of them cared about things like that, although they agreed it might make a funny story one day.
Everything felt like it fit, right until the night of their senior prom, where it had gone painfully wrong. Four years of memories and first love forever tarnished in Jules’ mind. Not that she ever talked about it with anyone. No one knew exactly what happened that night; just that they broke up and Jules moved away early for college and Miles spent a few days behind bars in county lockup. Jules never even learned the full story, because she didn’t care to know the details. She knew enough—he’d ghosted her on prom night and ended up ruining his future.
Opening the door to the band room, she chastised herself for thinking about Miles. She was thirty now and what happened between them was more than a decade ago. She’d almost gotten married since then. She shouldn’t be hung up on this. The next few hours flew by as she helped Winnie and their rag-tag team of teen thespians unpack boxes and get the stage ready for rehearsals.
When they finished, Jules worked on breaking down the cardboard boxes for recycling. Exhaustion and hunger gnawed at her, so she heaved the pile of boxes into her arms, hoping to only make one trip to the dumpster outside. It was a risky bet, but the thought of the leftover goulash she cooked for dinner last night made it worth the gamble. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could go home and dig in.
Balancing the flattened boxes in her arms, Jules turned down the short set of steps leading outside, careful to keep her footing as she descended to the garbage area. Unfortunately, she miscounted how many steps were left and missed the last one, dropping the boxes as she stumbled, twisting her ankle on the concrete.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she cursed, looking down at the boxes. Jules tried to put weight on her throbbing ankle, wincing as she stood. What a mess , she thought.
Just then, she heard the door open behind her.
“Jules?” came a deep voice from the top of the short staircase.
She spun around as quickly as she could on her hurt ankle. A tall man holding a garbage bag stared down at her. For a moment, her brain short-circuited until she realized who it was.
Miles.
Well, an older, and frustratingly more handsome, version of Miles than she remembered.
“Miles,” she said, breathier than intended. They stared for a moment, each examining each other. It had been over twelve years since they were face-to-face.
His dark brown curly hair was now shorter on the sides and long on the top, with wisps of grey peeking through. A slight five o’clock shadow highlighted his strong jaw line and his piercing green eyes still complimented his olive-colored skin. He was no longer the long lanky teen she remembered; his frame had filled out and she could see his wide shoulder and chest muscles through his black t-shirt. He definitely spent time in the gym , she thought.
Blinking her eyes to focus and covering her forehead with her hand to block the mid-day sun, she thought her mind was playing tricks on her. Had her memories conjured him up? He couldn’t really be here. Last she’d heard, he was living in Detroit or Minnesota or somewhere like that.
“Looks like you could use some help,” he said, breaking the trance.
“With what?” Jules asked after a beat. It came out a bit rude, but she was too shocked to function properly.
He swept a hand, gesturing towards the mess of cardboard behind her. “Oh, that. I can handle it. Just lost my balance.”
“I guess some things never change.”
Yeah, it was Miles.
“What does that mean?” Jules shot back, suddenly self-conscious and a little embarrassed to be found in this situation.
“You were always a little clumsy, that’s all,” he said, jogging down the stairs to help her pick up the boxes.
“You don’t have to do that. It’s the last of them, anyways. I was just helping Winnie out in the theater,” Jules tried to explain.
“Let me help. Looks like you hurt your ankle.”
That was one thing Jules remembered about Miles; he was always ready to help anyone in need, even if it meant that he’d be late to class, miss band practice, or not show up on time to pick her up. Once, he was late picking her up for a football game because he’d been helping his elderly neighbor search for her missing cat, only to find out from the woman’s daughter that the cat had died a month earlier. Miles still promised his neighbor that they’d look more the next day. Which they did, for three hours.
Jules used to love that about him, but now she knew better. After everything that happened between them all those years ago, she didn’t know who he was anymore.
Before she could respond, he began picking up the boxes and throwing them in the bin.
“Thanks,” she said, watching him.
“No problem. Need some help getting back inside?”
“Sure.”
He wrapped his arm around her back to steady her.
She didn’t want to be close to him, but she didn’t have a choice. Her ankle still throbbed. As they hobbled up the steps, Jules took in his scent, a mix of sweet sandalwood and a musky spice she could never quite place. He smelled like he always had, and it was intoxicating. She caught herself taking another deep inhale and abruptly stopped walking, snapping back to reality.
“I got it from here. Thanks,” she said, hurrying away from him and hobbling down the rest of the hallway, using the wall for support. Admittedly, it wasn’t the sexiest she’d ever looked, waddling away from him like a gimp. But she had to put distance between them, the mix of emotions swirling in her chest made her vision blurry. Why was he here?
“Great seeing you, too, Jules,” he called behind her.
After they cleaned up backstage, Winnie followed Jules back to her grandma’s house for lunch. It had been two years since she'd seen her best friend in person, although they FaceTimed every Sunday night. It was the most consistent date night Jules had since her breakup with Luke. And now, Jules had some questions for Winnie; Miles-related.
Once home, Jules warmed up the goulash and helped her grandma downstairs to the kitchen to eat with them before putting an ice pack on her ankle, which already felt better. She was going to have to tell them both about running into Miles, although part of her still thought she might have imagined it all.
Jules knew it would make her grandma’s day. Rosa always loved Miles. She still tried to bring him up occasionally, even though Jules always shut the conversation down as quickly as it started. Winnie, however, never mentioned him by name anymore. She knew better.
After what happened their senior year, Winnie would go on and on about what an asshole he was for standing her up on prom night, even though that’s not exactly what happened. Jules would never admit it but she appreciated that Winnie had her back. At least someone understood.
Once they were at the table eating, Jules wanted answers.
“So, I didn’t realize Miles was still in town.”
Winnie stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth, thinking for a moment before answering, “Yeah, he’s been back for a little while. I don’t see him much." She shrugged her shoulders.
“Interesting. I saw he was wearing a school staff badge." Jules tried not to sound accusatory.
“You saw Miles ?” her grandma interrupted with too much enthusiasm.
Jules told them a quick version of what happened while they ate. As she spoke, she could sense Winnie was holding back. Winnie wore her emotions on her sleeve, so it was easy to know what she was feeling. Normally, Jules loved that about her, but right now it felt like she was on the outside, missing a piece of important information.
“He’s the new band instructor for the high school. He’s been back for about a year now,” Winnie cooly explained, trying not to make a big deal of it.
“Did you know he was back?” Jules asked her grandma.
“ Maybe …” she said with a wink. “I might have heard something about it. I tried to tell you a few months ago, but you cut me off before I could finish.”
“And you didn’t think to warn me before I went to the school today?” she asked them both.
“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d even care,” Winnie said. “You haven’t brought him up in years.”
Rosa only shrugged.
“Well, I’m happy for him,” Jules said in a contrite tone as she gathered the bowls and brought them to the sink to rinse. “I’m glad he didn’t waste his life, after all.”
She was confused, and maybe jealous? Whatever she was feeling, she wanted it to stop. It was hard to pretend that seeing him didn’t rattle her today. For over a decade, she’d worked hard to push that time in her life as far away as possible. She even moved across the country to prove that she could make it on her own, broken heart and all. And now he was back apparently, and all seemed to be forgiven.
Sitting in that cozy kitchen, Jules felt the dormant anger and hurt stir inside. Sure, the rational part of her knew Miles deserved a good life. They were so young when everything happened. But it didn’t change the fact that what he did that night not only ruined his own plans, he’d also destroyed the little trust she had in other people.
“Well, let’s change the subject,” she said. “What’s on the agenda for this week?”