Julian Is Here

"Congratulations, Celestina! Didn’t think I’d see you here.” Emily sneered as she smacked her beer bottle against the bottom of mine.

“Drink up, graduate.” Emily laughed. Her eyes widened as the beer fizzed and spurted out of my bottle.

“Don’t let it spill! What are you doing?” She laughed.

I began to chug the rest of the beer in a futile attempt to hide my embarrassment at the mess and regain any sense of teenage honor.

This was my first and last high school party. At this moment, I realized I should have attended other large parties to mentally prepare for one this size. While this wasn’t my first beer of the night or drinking even, I never went to parties this massive. Our graduating class should have been nearly nine hundred students, but only five hundred ended up crossing the stage this morning. And out of that five hundred, one to two hundred of them were at Emily’s party. And probably fifty of them were staring at me and Emily right now in this living room.

Emily took the sticky and empty beer bottle from my hand and replaced it with a fresh one.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” Her nasally voice was really getting to me now. Emily had never liked me for what seemed like no particular reason except that I existed.

“She’s right here!” Mika, my best friend since freshman year, appeared. It always felt like she was rescuing me from social situations, but this time, she owed it to me. She begged me to come to this party, and my consent was dubious at best.

Emily and Mika were two sides of the same coin: popular, got along with most, tall, and easy to look at. However, Mika didn’t need to be popular like Emily did. The disdain Emily had for me was very different from the resentment she held towards Mika. I think it was jealousy.

Emily’s family’s property, her shiny blonde hair, and her skinny waist were the top reasons people liked her. People liked Mika because she was effortlessly cool. The least interesting thing about Mika was her hair or body.

“Let’s go.” Mika put her arm around my shoulders and ushered me away from Emily. She had a beer in each hand.

“Did you hear what the word in the street is?” Mika slurred at me and felt overwhelmingly heavy.

“That it’s time to go?” I smiled sweetly, partly joking but mostly serious.

“Oh, you’re cute alright, but no.” She took a large swig from her beer, and I followed suit.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” I thought to myself and smiled. I liked beer.

“There are some older gentlemen here, and they didn’t bring beer.” Mika grinned. She put one of her beers down on a nearby side table, pinched her thumb and index finger together, and pretended to smoke.

“Older gentlemen? Like how old?” I scrunched my nose in disgust.

“Not that much older! They went to the other high school around here, too. Neighborhood boys.” Mika began to look around the living room we ended up in.

It was loud, hot, and smelled like weed and body odor. You couldn’t fully extend your arm without touching someone. I finished my beer, grabbed one of Mika’s, and continued to drink. She didn’t even notice.

“Mika! Come say hi to us!” A male voice called out from the crowd. I couldn’t make sense of who it was coming from.

“Hey!” Mika began to push through the crowd, leaving me behind as she navigated out of the living room and outside to the backyard. I didn’t take it personally. We were both too drunk at this point. And Mika had more friends than just me.

I let myself exist in the crowded living room and sipped my beer. I was starting to feel less anxious, which is why I liked beer. Strangely, I felt more like myself when I was drunk.

“Did you hear Julian is here?” A tiny voice whispered behind me.

“Julian Amparo? No way! I thought he was in jail.” Another girl replied.

I suddenly felt every beat of my heart as my mind began racing

“Julian. Julian.” I thought to myself and continued to drink. The neurons in my brain were firing off, trying to activate memories of Julian Amparo.

The gossip about Julian continued:

“I think he is selling weed.”

“He’s probably selling more than that.”

“Dude, he was definitely in prison. I don’t think he even graduated high school.”

I glanced around and spotted a cooler filled with melting ice and floating beer bottles. I walked over to it with memories of Julian flooding my brain.

I met Julian in sixth grade, and we became best friends quickly, even though he was one year older.

I jumped rope while he practiced dribbling a basketball at recess.

I helped him write essays, and he helped me with math homework.

I argued that Sailor Moon would beat Goku, and he would grumble that I was probably right.

Our relationship began to change once I was in seventh grade and he was in eighth grade. One day, he asked me to follow him behind the portables at lunch. This was out of character for him since this area was off-limits to students. I wondered if he would finally tell me he liked me, like how Sailor Moon likes Tuxedo Mask.

Behind the portables, he lifted his shirt, and he showed me his back. It was covered in bruises of various sizes and shades of purple. I asked him who did this. He said his mom knows it was his dad. I didn’t know what to do. I asked him if I could hug him, and he said yes, and we cried in each other's arms. I didn’t know what else to do. He begged me not to say anything to anyone.

That summer, we began drinking and hanging out with some older kids from a high school across town. The bruises were still there, but he never brought them up again. And bruises of my own began to form, but I refused to acknowledge them. He kissed me on the lips once, and I felt like the happiest girl in the world. But it didn’t happen again.

Sometimes he would mention how much he hated being home, and I would, too. We drank through the summer, and there were a few times I wanted to kiss him, but my shyness always got the best of me.

Then I returned to middle school for eighth grade, and he went to the high school across town.

The last time I saw him was that summer. We never spoke about that kiss, the bruises, or ever again.

“What?” I gasped as a bump from a partygoer snapped me out of it.

“Sorry, Celestina. You were in the way. You alright?” a classmate asked as they grabbed a beer from the cooler I was blocking.

“Yeah. Do you know if Julian Amparo is here?” I asked.

“He’s down the hallway behind you. Didn’t you use to be good friends with him?” They asked.

“I know him.” I nodded and turned to face the hallway.

The living room felt like it had shrunk. I could barely move and had to feel every sweaty arm and shoulder as I tried to sneak through. The hallway seemed miles away, but I had to see for myself if Julian was really there.

My heartbeat was irregular. I couldn't tell if the bottle of beer was sweating or if it was my hand.

What would I say to him after all this time?

The lights changed to a lilac hue, and people began to scream in excitement. The music blared, and the bass beat overpowered the thudding of my heart. It felt like my whole body was beating.

I walked down the hallway that was nearly pitch black now. The purple light from the living room was fading behind me.

Smoke gets in my eyes. The music suddenly seems to fall flat, and all I can hear and feel again is my heartbeat.

The room at the end of the hallway has a door open.

A man sits on the edge of a bed with some girls sitting around him, some next to him, some on the floor. They seem younger than me and probably shouldn't be at this party.

He seems older than them and me, and definitely shouldn’t be at this party.

The flame from his lighter is passed around to the girls. They giggle. Some cough.

He begins to light his own joint. As he inhales, he looks up and locks eyes with me.

“Don’t mind me.” I barely manage to say. I realize now I am in the doorway. It felt like I floated here.

His dry and poofy hair is probably damaged from the bleach. His skin is tan. His arms are toned, but I can see shiny scars across his forearms. He stands up and looms over me. This is Julian, but not in the way I remember him from that summer.

He tosses the joint, and one of the girls squeals and reaches for it.

His shoulders relax, but he struggles to maintain eye contact with me. He seems ashamed. Maybe this is still the boy who lifted his shirt behind the portables to show me his bruises.

The silence and the space between us feel impossible.

“Celestina! They are going to do karaoke!” Mika grabs my arm and begins to pull.

Julian and I lock eyes one more time, and I wish I could kiss him.

Instead, I spin around and follow Mika back down the hallway.

“Julian is here,” I tell Mika.

“Who?” she asks.

“Just a boy I used to know,” I reply as I try to hold back the scream trapped inside my chest.