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Nov. 22nd, 2018 03:16 amIt feels a little like someone's died. No, more specifically, she feels like someone's died, a thought that Julia can't quite manage to shake, no matter how awful she feels for it. After she lost Michael, her whole world changed, her center of gravity shifted. She only just managed to find her footing again before she found herself here. Now, once again, the world has changed, and once again, she's the one lagging behind, unable to bounce back to the way things used to be. Regardless of how resilient she may be — which she thinks must be both out of necessity and just her mother's influence — it's not the sort of thing that can just be shrugged off or put aside. She doesn't know that she would want that, anyway. As much as she once might have longed to go back to the person she was, she's not sure anymore that that's the right idea. That person never would have had the life she got for a few too-brief weeks before she showed up here. Owning it made all the difference.
It's just that, here, she's all the more untethered, lacking in all the trappings of her old life and any sort of familiarity. If a part of her, too, is grieving a different sort of loss, she tells herself it doesn't matter. She misses all the guys, and the chance that that contest represented, and that all makes sense. There isn't any sense in mourning what amounted only to potential. Sometimes, though, she thoughtlessly finds herself wishing that Donny were here with her, and that isn't something with which she has the first idea what to do.
At least there's enough in this strange place to keep her busy and her mind occupied. She's a shopgirl again, simply because it makes sense and it's easy. Although she keeps remembering what Michael told her when they were kids who'd just met about singing because she needs to, fairly certain now that that's the case, it's strange and complicated just to start over. Stranger still is the sort of music that's so popular here, nothing she thinks she could sing even if she wanted to. The city itself is busy enough to keep a girl focused on other things, anyway. Maybe it's no New York, which she's still sorry she never quite got to see, but it's fast-paced and crowded, the sidewalks packed with people as she walks back to her apartment building after work, falling into step with those around her and feeling a million miles away from them at the same time.
She's jolted somewhat into the present by a loud sound like a firework or a gunshot, her head snapping up instinctively, a few others' as well. Across the street, a car parked against the curb has smoke emanating up from its hood, which Julia supposes is the culprit. Most everyone carries on, then. She nearly does, too, until she sees a woman nearby who looks nothing short of panicked. She knows that expression. Donny and the other guys used to wear ones just like it sometimes.
Carefully weaving her way around the other passersby, she stops at the woman's side, reaching out but not quite touching her shoulder, not wanting to startle her any more than she must have been already. "Hey," she says, gentle but not so soft that she'll get drowned out by chatter and traffic. "Hey, it's alright."
It's just that, here, she's all the more untethered, lacking in all the trappings of her old life and any sort of familiarity. If a part of her, too, is grieving a different sort of loss, she tells herself it doesn't matter. She misses all the guys, and the chance that that contest represented, and that all makes sense. There isn't any sense in mourning what amounted only to potential. Sometimes, though, she thoughtlessly finds herself wishing that Donny were here with her, and that isn't something with which she has the first idea what to do.
At least there's enough in this strange place to keep her busy and her mind occupied. She's a shopgirl again, simply because it makes sense and it's easy. Although she keeps remembering what Michael told her when they were kids who'd just met about singing because she needs to, fairly certain now that that's the case, it's strange and complicated just to start over. Stranger still is the sort of music that's so popular here, nothing she thinks she could sing even if she wanted to. The city itself is busy enough to keep a girl focused on other things, anyway. Maybe it's no New York, which she's still sorry she never quite got to see, but it's fast-paced and crowded, the sidewalks packed with people as she walks back to her apartment building after work, falling into step with those around her and feeling a million miles away from them at the same time.
She's jolted somewhat into the present by a loud sound like a firework or a gunshot, her head snapping up instinctively, a few others' as well. Across the street, a car parked against the curb has smoke emanating up from its hood, which Julia supposes is the culprit. Most everyone carries on, then. She nearly does, too, until she sees a woman nearby who looks nothing short of panicked. She knows that expression. Donny and the other guys used to wear ones just like it sometimes.
Carefully weaving her way around the other passersby, she stops at the woman's side, reaching out but not quite touching her shoulder, not wanting to startle her any more than she must have been already. "Hey," she says, gentle but not so soft that she'll get drowned out by chatter and traffic. "Hey, it's alright."
