All That Remains (3 page)

* * *

The following morning, as he drives away with his dad for the first time in seven months, he catches sight of Dani’s baggy clothes and black hair standing by a tree at the gate in the courtyard. He turns, keeping his eyes on her for as long as he can until she disappears as their car takes a corner. He left her a letter, too. It's at the front desk scheduled to be delivered to her later this afternoon. He hopes she'll read it and accept his words the way he accepted hers four weeks ago. He hopes that someday he will be able to introduce Jules to Dani. Introduce the two girls who’ve changed his life in such important ways. He vows he will see Dani again, outside of Crestdale, living the life she deserves to live, too.

“You’re smiling,” his dad remarks, his eyes flicking briefly from the road to West’s face. “Glad to be out of there, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad to have you back, too. So are your brothers, and Mindy. West…”

His father’s voice is full of trepidation. They’ve had minimal meetings over the last few months. They’ve had family counseling sessions, but they’d all been when West was still in denial about his feelings. Once he decided he truly did need help, he’d asked that his father not be involved. It wasn’t personal; it was something he wanted to handle on his own as an adult. Grieving his mother, leaving Jules… those were things he needed to cope with on his own.

“Dad, don’t,” he interrupts before his father can apologize for things he doesn't need to apologize for. “You working out the deal to get me to Crestdale saved me. I needed to stop pushing everything and everyone away. I needed to deal with Mom and what happened to Jules. I needed to know it wasn’t my fault.”

“Son, I never once thought it was your fault. None of it.”

“I know that, but I thought it was. I blamed myself, and part of me will probably always come back to those moments and feed the little doubts in my head. If I hadn’t stayed at CVC, I don’t know when I would have dealt with it. I wasn’t trying to lock you out of my life when I asked to stay for this last month. I was trying to be the man you’ve always taught me to be.”

His father nods, quietly accepting West’s explanation. His face is drawn tight and his fingers grip the steering wheel as they drive towards Tyler and the life he’d left behind.

Four

Jules

Alone in her dorm room, Jules throws on the shortest and tightest spandex mini she can find, along with a slashed up neon tee, and teases her ponytail as high and messy as she can. In the background, eighties music blares from her computer as she touches up the heavy eye make-up that completes her look. She grabs an armload of bangle bracelets and heads out, making her way to the first floor where her new friends are waiting.

While most of her friends from high school are taking trips and enjoying their last summer of freedom, she’s been in school taking two of her core biology classes and wallowing in self-pity all summer. Leaving Tyler had seemed like such a great idea back in April when Dr. Morgan had suggested it. She’d thought maybe if Jules was to get away from all of the memories it would help her feel more confident in facing her future. So, she decided to enroll in the summer semester at A&M, and it’s been working… to a degree.

She’s spent most of the past eight weeks in seclusion in her empty dorm room or studying in the library. Her goal had been to be left alone. Goal accomplished, until tonight.

Two of the girls in her Biology II class had been begging her to hang out ever since they started their first track of bio in June. Now, after several weeks of backing out and making up excuses, she’s finally relented and agreed to go to a party in exchange for an all-night cram session before final exam. It seemed a good deal at the time, but as she rides the elevator down to the first floor of her building, she’s starting to question her decision.

“Jules!” Debbie, a short athletic girl with large brown eyes and a short pixie haircut, shouts as Jules steps off the elevator and into the common area. “We were wondering if we were going to have to come after you.”

Jules glances at her phone. Eight-thirty. Right on time. She rolls her eyes and waves, making her way to the small group of costumed co-eds standing around outside of her classmates’ dorm. A few of the girls are already sipping from cups and Jules can’t help but glance around to be sure the R.A. isn’t lurking around to catch their underage drinking.

Always the good girl, Jules,
she sighs, as her brain mocks her.

When she’d agreed to go to ‘a party’ with Debbie and Lisa, she had no idea exactly who was throwing the party. As they drive off campus and into a nearby neighborhood filled with nearly identical houses all decorated with school colors and Greek letters, she starts to get the hint. They’re still three weeks from the official move-in day for fall semester, so she’s surprised there’s much going on on campus right now. But A&M isn’t Tyler, Texas. This isn’t backwoods bonfires and high school. Jules is about to get her first real taste of college life.

* * *

It was an interesting sight, all of the tacky eighties gear and crazy drunk co-eds wandering around the small box house with the neatly trimmed yard. Entering the house, she reminds herself of the plan:

Follow all the rules about college parties you’ve learned from countless on-line articles, your friends back home, and even Mom and Dad.

Number One: Don’t drink anything you didn’t pour or watch being poured.

Number Two: Don’t put your cup down.

Number Three: Don’t leave said party with a boy drunk.

Number Four: Don’t leave said party with any boy.
(That one was her parents’.)

Debbie, Lisa, and the other girls don’t seem to subscribe to her strict list and she soon finds herself deserted, nursing a warm beer from the keg, and standing amongst a group of be-wigged, glam-rock wannabes when someone calls her name over the din.

“Jules?”

She lifts her head as she searches for the owner of the vaguely familiar voice. Turning to her left, she spots someone heading her way. He is shirtless, wearing dog tags and faded jeans, and he is carrying a volleyball. Her jaw drops as she takes in Austin Rutledge.

“Jules! There you are!” he bellows, practically diving to her side. His arm knocks her beer cup, causing it to spill, as he pulls her into his bare chest. His mouth presses snuggly against her ear and his breath is ridiculously hot as he speaks.

“Save me, please,” he implores as he takes her cup from her while his arm wraps around her lower back. She pulls back instinctively and his hand tugs her closer. “Jules, please work with me here.”

She’s startled by his request. The last time she’d spoken to Austin he’d just delivered her heart a death blow by way of the ‘Dear John’ letter West left her. She’s tempted to pull back and slap him, but when a thick southern accent whines ‘Austin,' in three long distinct syllables, she has to cover a laugh at his predicament.

Austin loosens his grip on her back and Jules laughs as she takes in the Madonna look-alike standing before her. The bleached blonde appears to be reenacting the ‘Like A Virgin’ video with her white lace bustier and mini. Her eyebrows are painted on thick and dark, and her eyelids are hidden by blue shimmering shadow. Jules imagines there must be a pretty girl underneath the layers of make-up, though it’s hard to tell.

Austin nods at Madonna, tossing his volleyball prop into the air and catching it. “Sorry, hun. I’m taken tonight.” Jules tries to keep a blank face as Madonna pouts and sends her a look before she turns and starts flirting with Bruce Springsteen.

Once Madonna is occupied elsewhere, Austin looks down at Jules for a few moments as she stands rooted to the floor with her teeth eating her bottom lip in agitation. Finally, he smiles, tugging her into his side and leading her away from the hair band groupies she’d been talking to. Without thinking, Jules follows him, shouldering out from under his arm the moment they reach the relative peace and quiet of the outside.

“What the -” she starts, taking several steps into the backyard before rounding on him. He keeps pace, and she practically runs into his chest when she turns. “- hell?” she finishes.

“Sorry.” His hand runs through his hair as he tucks the ball under his arm. “I saw you and I acted. I didn’t think… I needed to get away from that girl.”

“Seriously? No ‘Hi, Jules?’ No ‘How you been? What’s up?’ How about ‘Sorry I tore the rug out from underneath you and didn’t return your calls after the last time I saw you?’” she fumes, holding her hand up to his chest to stop him from coming closer as she steps back. “Instead, you see me at a party and automatically assume I’ll help keep you safe from your harem of hoes?”

It’s Austin’s turn to look stunned as Jules shakes her head, drops her cup to the ground, and bumps into his shoulder as she walks past him back into the house without another word.

* * *

“I don’t have a harem of hoes.” Austin’s low whisper carries a note of humor to it as he sneaks up on her.

She’d stayed clear of him for thirty minutes by talking to the hair band boys and dancing with her classmates. When she snuck into the dark corner to people watch and take a breath, she realizes she should have looked for him first. She didn’t, and now here he is beside her, his demeanor so similar to West’s that she has to close her eyes and swallow hard before she can look at him again.

“It was one girl, who seemed cool until she opened her mouth. I couldn’t get her to take no for an answer. So yes, I used you.” He leans against the wall, spinning the ball in his hand in front of his waist.

Taking a long sip of her new drink, she props her shoulder against the wall, too. She lets her eyes look at him then, honestly look at him, and she can see the remorse in his somber face.

His head dips down, his shoulders hunching forward, as he offers a simple and sincere, “I’m sorry.”

Her own head bobs of its own volition, in understanding, and her lips curl up in a small smile as she speaks.

“So you’re saying you’ve lost that loving feeling?”

She tries not to laugh at her own joke. She bites her tongue, purses her lips, and even rolls her head the other way, but the look on Austin’s face is priceless and when he starts to laugh, the sound makes her heart leap. It’s deep and strong, like West’s, but happier and a little bubblier somehow. She sags against the wall laughing, her hand pressing to her stomach when it starts to ache. It’s been a long, long time since she’s had something truly funny to laugh at.

“Jules?” His serious voice freezes a giggle right on her lips. She wipes a tear of hilarity from her eye.

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to give you that letter. He’s my brother, and I did it for him.”

She touches his forearm and he stops.

“Can we not talk about him?”

“But, I want -.”

She huffs, pushing off the wall. “No. Like you said, you did it for him. I’m sorry. My attitude was uncalled for. You don’t owe me an explanation Austin. Let’s just agree to not discuss him, okay?”

“Deal.”

Jules leans back against the wall next to Austin, her arm bumping into his as they watch the party around them in silence. She wants to ask about West. She wants to know how he is, where he’s been and if he’s even home yet. But she can’t. Asking would mean she is interested, and she’s spent the past seven months since he left trying to get over him.

“Can I ask you to dance?”

Jules allows herself to nod and puts her hand in his as they weave their way through the crowd and find a space large enough for their bodies to fit. They smile timidly at each other as they move to the synthesizer beat of an old Duran Duran song, and Jules is grateful for all of the eighties songs she’s listened to with her parents on road trips. She hums along to the catchy tune as they dance around in circles. No one in the room is dancing in a fashion that makes any sense. Instead, they are mimicking moves seen in old movies and television episodes. The dancing breaks the ice as Austin scrutinizes her face.

“What?” she finally asks when she catches him staring at her for the third time in one song.

“Nothing.”

She lifts her brow, and he shrugs. The tempo of their dancing begins to slow as the current song morphs into a slow rock beat and Jules finds herself standing there unsure of what to do next. Austin isn’t bothered one bit. Holding his volleyball between his hands, he lifts his arms and lassos her in the middle, pulling her closer to his chest.

She stiffens as his volleyball pushes at her back pressing her closer to him before she relents and carefully wraps her hands around his neck. His bare skin is hot, and she feels somewhat awkward touching him this way.

“I’ve never slow danced with a volleyball before.”

His lips twitch. “Yeah, I guess I don’t need it.” He looks around and nods at something, releasing one arm from around her and tosses the ball behind her back.

“You didn’t have to get rid of it.”

“Nah, I’d rather hold onto you than my ball.”

Austin’s eyes widen at his own comment, and the silent pause that follows is rife with tension. Jules’ chest rises as she takes a deep breath, biting her tongue at the dirty joke she wants to blurt out while processing the meaning of his words.

“Let’s not make a joke about balls, okay?” He sighs with a shake of his head, and the dam is broken.

Throwing her head back, Jules falls into another fit of laughter at Austin Rutledge’s expense. When he offers her a ride home several hours later, she agrees. Debbie had left early with a guy Jules didn’t know and Lisa is sitting in a corner chatting and doesn’t look ready to leave anytime soon.

When they walk out to his car, he pulls a tee shirt out and slips it on, much to Jules relief, and maybe a small amount of disappointment. Hot abs and strong muscles are nice to look at. Why does it matter if they belong to your ex’s brother?

“You know, Maverick, this scene really calls for a motorcycle.” Jules quips, thinking of his Top Gun inspired costume and the motorcycle Tom Cruise rides around on in the movie. “What happened to yours?” she asks, taking in his little blue sports car.