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1 9 | Until There Was You

Jude didn't count the amount of times he wished he could stay like that; warped in a silent elude of freedom. Where the stars sunk near the windshield, the ground vibrated under the soles of his shoes, and the soberness slithered from the perishing disaster he hid from. Waverly smiled, the kind that made Jude smile too.

Lincoln held three bottles of beer, listening to them clink against the softness of the grass. They were currently in the backyard of an abandoned house, one of Waverly's infamous hideouts, admiring the silence that blanketed them.

Jude was sitting next to Waverly. Their arms brushed briefly. Lincoln was on the other side of Waverly, passing the beers down. When the beer made its way in Jude's direction he told himself that a little sip wouldn't hurt anyone. He had to be semi-safe if he was the designated driver.

"So, what made you call us up?" Lincoln questioned, then his mouth covered the top of his beer, downing a sip. He peered a glance in Jude's direction, but Jude kept his gaze ahead.

"I was bored," he replied.

"Sure you were," Lincoln said. "Or this was your excuse to hang out with Waverly."

Jude was on the urge of reaching over Waverly and smacking Lincoln with his glass bottle, but instead Waverly handled it herself.

"You're still angry because I beat you in the pool," she pointed out. Lincoln cleared his throat and attempted to adjust the crinkles in his shirt.

"You wish," Lincoln uttered. "You're always at my throat, Waverly, damn. Let me breathe."

"I will when you admit you cheated in that other game."

"What? You're still pissed about that? Jude, tell her I didn't cheat. I swear to God. Come on, Jude."

"I'm not in this debate," Jude tossed out.

"Some friend you are. What happened to bros before—"

Waverly glared at him.

"Finish that sentence. I dare you," she demanded. Lincoln didn't finish it and pulled at a piece of his hair, stretching it and letting it reform back to its state. After a moment, Lincoln stood up and made his way to Jude's car. "I'll be in the car. Pass me your keys."

Jude tossed them in Lincoln's direction. He watched as he unlocked the door and turned on the radio. The music was drowned out from Jude's perspective, but still audible. A perfect solution for their eerie night, dazzling in the background and basking over the spirit of nostalgia. Lincoln stayed in the front seat for the rest of the time. And for some awkward reason, it was harder to be around Waverly. He took a swallow of his beer, thinking of a way to start a conversation.

"When I was seven years old," he started, catching Waverly's attention. He knew she was looking at him, letting his words sink in like a poem. He continued. "I saw you fall from the monkey bars at that playground in elementary school."

He didn't have to look to know Waverly's face held confusion. "What are you getting at, Lockhart?"

"Shh. Let me finish," he dismissed. "You didn't cry. You didn't tell anyone. You kept it to yourself. Most seven year olds would have ran to a teacher crying, but you didn't. You looked up and said that everything would be okay and brushed it off. Now, I get it," he added and turned toward her.

He understood why he had always thought she was weird, but knew he would never know who she wanted to be or how long she'd be around. He understood what her words meant—the profound ones that woke Jude from an eternal slumber. Waverly Clarke never needed anyone. Their eyes met and galaxies collided. Waverly had finally lured him into her own universe and they shared it. He was sharing the universe with her. The one she showed him over and over again in parts each time.

A certain gentleness flowed over Waverly's cheeks and there were no longer shadows. Hues were splattered across her face, bittersweet light like fireflies or starlight against mere darkness. Waverly and Jude were in an intimate proximity. So close, yet so far apart. Jude's heart was yelping for him to lean in and kiss her, to fucking do something. Don't think just do, it said. Screw the moon and its secrets, mocking Jude and his languid motives. Then the moment dissolved. Waverly laughed at him as if he had misunderstood the entire thing.

"I think the beer's getting to you, Lockhart," she teased. Jude didn't break eye contact when Waverly turned her head in the other direction, and finally he understood and lowered his own eyes at the bottle in his hands.

"Can I tell you something?" Jude asked.

"Yeah, but first me. Why'd you really bring us out here, Jude?"

The memories burned when she asked and he flinched at the reasoning—his own reasoning too. She called him Jude and not Lockhart, which only meant she wanted to be serious. His gaze danced over to his car where Lincoln was asleep, head against the window with his mouth slightly agape.

"I needed a breather," he finally said.

"I had to get away," he added in a tolerable manner that resembled his day without saying it. He still hadn't told anyone, not even Waverly, about his mother's affair. And maybe he never would because silence was the best medicine. So Jude told himself to suck it up and get over it because that was what guys were meant to do—conceal their emotions.

"From what?"

"Everything," he muttered. "But not you, Waverly."

He sounded like such a sap, but no one was around to judge his words so he didn't care. Maybe, that was the beer talking, or the sadness, regardless of which, it was the truth. And he didn't care if saying it made him weak or sappy.

Those words sealed the night for them, and before Jude knew it he was not thinking and doing like he proclaimed moments before. One of his palms had been pressed in the grass and he found himself leaning over and pressing his lips to Waverly's, slowly and fearfully. His eyes were closed. In his head he could hear her retorting and Lincoln teasing him for it, but it wasn't like that.

He wasn't sure how she would react: push him away, curse him out, leave his life altogether. But maybe Jude wasn't thinking rationally then, maybe he had let his emotions get the best of him. And this was the one thing he could control, and that was how he felt about her.

Waverly didn't stop, her eyes weren't closed though. At first they widened as wide as saucers, but then she gave in. She kissed him back and Jude felt his heart beating hard between them like a soulful linger. Her hands were tugging at his hair, and they were tumbling in the grass, all itchy and wild. She tasted like lip balm and coconut oil, a whim of shambling voids. She was the empty space that bled rivers of perplexity. Jude wanted to drown in it.

Constellations against her plushness. Whispers against her city eyes. He felt her palms on his hard chest, fingers blazing with heat. He could hardly breathe, but he cherished every minute of it because it wasn't everyday Waverly Clarke kissed you without giving you a black eye or a shady comment. From the way her lips interlocked with his he knew that this hadn't been her first kiss.

Jude was sure she kissed boys before, but that wasn't his story to tell, just as he had kissed Beverly before. But the way Waverly had kissed him was beyond all comparisons. He knew those past lovers envied him. Hell, he had envied himself for this momentary high. Jude tugged at her lip softly, letting out a groan when her lips left his and lowered to his jaw. Distraction meddled away at his mind and suddenly Jude was acknowledging the scratchy pricks of reality in the ground, poking at his skin. He pulled away, breathless and swaying.

"Fuck," he said through a breathy laugh because of the intensity of the kiss and the itchiness that became overwhelming. He realized that his back had been warped in the grass blades with Waverly on top of him. She laughed too because she had realized their predicament—making out in the grass with Lincoln snoring less than meters away from them. This was a world where Jude didn't have to worry about decisions; he could be himself with her.

And in all honesty, Jude didn't want to stop kissing her. She made him feel something. Even when he wanted to store his emotions away, he couldn't with her.

"Can we stay like this?" He muttered, referring to Waverly still laying atop him.

"And itchy?" she questioned. "Don't think so."

Then she peeled herself from Jude and he got up too. Now, they had been back where they initially started when they drove in that empty backyard, awkward and unattainable. Jude cleared his throat because he didn't want things to change. He liked what they were now—whatever the hell that was.

"You're an idiot. You know that?"

"Yeah, I do," he replied. Then, "Life sucks right now. I don't want to go back."

"Who's making you?" she shrugged off. Even though she had said that he knew he still had his high school responsibilities to attend: his grades, football, his parents. He couldn't just leave it all behind. It was still a part of him.

"Find you a hideaway," she added as if reading his racing mind.

"I already have, but I don't know how long it'll last."

"To graduation maybe," she replied, undertones of something more in her truthful words.

"Maybe," he whispered and again reality was sloshing him in the face. Deadly and lethal. He kept that to himself and put his beer aside; even if he didn't do much he had enough drinking for a night. His head was already banging out of annoyance. The song that played on the radio was 10,000 Emerald pools by Børns. It played while they were kissing until then.

All I need is you, you're all I need to breathe.

The final words said in a slow culling retort. Jude almost laughed while they sat under the stars. All Jude could think of was how lame and cheesy the song was. For sure, if Lincoln were still awake he would have changed the song with no hesitation. But he wasn't, so Jude listened to the lyrics soundly with his mind a marble slate.

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He had a feeling there would be something different between them; he didn't want things to be awkward the following day when he picked her up from his house. He greeted Ms. Sials on the way out, but he had a feeling it was going to be awkward. He wanted things to remain neutral and casual as if nothing had happened at all. In a way, it was his own selfish way of chipping the cruelty that scrambled around him. Of course, as expected and hopeful as it was, nothing changed between them. Thus far and forevermore.

When they were finally in the parking lot of the school, Jude caught sight of Beverly exiting Seth's truck. Her arms were wrapped around herself and her eyes were lowered on the ground. Something in his chest bubbled and clenched at the lethal sight. He felt his fingers clutching the keys in his hand harder, but finally averted his eyesight.

"Are we really gonna sit here? I mean I'm all for skipping—" Waverly started with her hand on the door handle. He almost forgot she was there and felt bad for forgetting at all. "Hey."

Finally, Jude blinked and swallowed.

"We're not skipping," he confirmed. And it was all he said for a moment, but Waverly was still mildly confused. "We're waiting until they leave."

"Why? Who gives a shit about them?" she questioned.

"I'm looking out for myself. If we leave this car and I get near Seth I might punch him and I don't think I'll be able to stop."

Jude wasn't one when it came to holding grudges, but after his discovery he felt like he was going to hate the two of them forever and beyond that. He stared down at his slow-turning pale hands, then looked back up to make sure they were out of sight.

"I'm not the father," Jude told Waverly. "Seth is."

He hadn't expected Waverly to answer and if she did he couldn't hear her because he had gotten out of the car, walking hastily toward the school building. Waverly was trailing behind him slowly.

"Would you slow the fuck down, Lockhart?" she asked behind him. He slowed down.

"Sorry. It's...Last night I thought if I distracted myself it wouldn't hurt as much. I thought that maybe I could make my problems disappear, but they're here and I can't make them go away. They're staring me back in the face. Taunting me."

"I thought you not being the father would be a good thing?" She wondered with her arms crossed against her chest. Jude opened and closed his mouth.

"I did at first, but I was just learning to accept it—I believed I was going to be a father. I thought it would fix things if I was. I don't know," he admitted, tugging at his disheveled hair, which resulted from yet another sleepless night spent listening to his parent's conversations and his horrid thoughts keeping him awake.

"If only it were that simple, yeah?"

The bell rang in the distance and Jude knew he was late. He didn't care either. Maybe, his parents would scold him for it after receiving a call that he wasn't in class. Who gave a fuck? Certainly not Jude.

"You still love her," Waverly said. "That's why you're still so caught up in it. You're upset that Seth is the father and you think you lost everything."

"Where are you getting this from? Fuck no. I just...I thought I was someone I'm not." People were still getting past them to get to class accordingly.

"I have to get to class," she said and brushed past Jude into the building, disappearing completely. Jude sighed and ran a hand over his face, then he entered too and made his way to class when there wasn't a single person left in the hall.

The rest of the day, he tried so hard to avoid the two of them because he knew what would happen if he saw them again. Yet another meaningless punishment where Seth and Beverly played the victim, and Jude was trapped in his devious web of lies. At lunch Lincoln sat with Waverly and Jude, settling his tray across from the two.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, he brought up the fact that he had just failed a calculus test. It lightened the mood a little, and forced Jude to keep his concentration on their conversation, rather than the table that held everyone that was once close to him. And the day went on with Lincoln lightening the mood, Waverly being Waverly, and Jude finding difficulty in existing.

During football practice, the last one before the big playoff game, Jude tried his best not to let his gaze wander to Bridget and Beverly in the stands. He tried to keep his composure as best as he could, while Bergamot tossed in a new play for them to learn. Jude wasn't quite sure how he felt about learning a new play this late in the season. It made him fear the competition, and it gave them less chances to mess up.

Somewhere nearby Jude knew Waverly was waiting and watching; he was her ride home after all. While Bergamot demonstrated the play, the sun blazing on Jude's equipment, he caught Seth glancing at him. Jude didn't look at him directly. If he had done that there would be an outbreak on the field. Jude hardly had time for lectures about being a team sport, a great role model to the freshmen, and the appreciation of good leadership skills.

Fortunately, they didn't have practice for long because Bergamot brought in one of his old college friends to speak to the players about how winning isn't everything and all that. Jude was close to dozing off a few times, if it weren't for Lincoln constantly nudging him awake. When practice finally ended, Jude tried not to think about the baby or what Beverly had planned on doing with it, or what she and Seth had been discussing that morning when he saw them in the parking lot. Instead, he thought about the playoff game and how much it could change things.

He met up with Waverly after he finished his shower. He held his equipment at his hip. His hair was still somewhat wet from the water, dripping on the ground, despite his attempt at drying it. He spotted Waverly against his car with her head stuck in her phone. She looked up when Jude's footsteps increased and he tossed his belongings into the backseat. In the distance, Seth was there with several people surrounding his truck. He stood a little too close to Beverly with a bright smile on his face. Jude forced his eyes to avoid them and slipped into his car.

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TO BE CONTINUED

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