Before I Ever Met You: A Euphoria Book~(Nate and Jules)

11 ~ I Ate From The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

JULES

There is nothing quite like sitting in your room in front of a mirror and doing your makeup with no one else around and a good anime or a tutorial in the background. You can almost fade into the routine or the background noise itself and choose not to think about literally anything at all.

Currently? It was Hunter x Hunter on my computer and me alone in my room trying to make my eyes look as blue as blue can get while also applying rhinestones to my crease.

I couldn't help but notice Tyler had been quiet for a day and a half. I wasn't about to question or judge him for it, though. There's nothing I can't stand more than a guy who literally clings to you like a magnet and you can't get him to fuck off for a little bit. So instead I rather applauded the privacy he gave me.

I felt things I wasn't used to feeling...

One of these was a loss of my own security. I felt like I wasn't fully in control of this situation; that I had become exactly what I didn't want to become, and that was waiting at a guy's beck and call.

I was used to meeting people and moving on, never staying with the same one twice. I wasn't a whore, but I didn't feel like I wanted to be tied down to one person who was going to control my every move. Control what I thought. Control my identity.

Tyler, however, made me feel like I wanted to talk to him all the time. I didn't want to go a single day without hearing a few words from him...

It was like an addiction of the mind; an obsession I wasn't used to having with men in my life since my transition, and even beforehand.

And now it was silent. Truly it was an "all quiet on the western front" situation....

And I did not like it.

Rue hadn't texted either, which wasn't unexpected but it was very frustrating. This was a time and place that required a best friend to be in my life, and here she was, absent as fuck from the frontline. And God forbid I text Maddy right now; she was an unknown no-man's-land in the realms of friendship. I didn't know the other girls well enough, and I didn't wanna try to talk to Nate. That would just confirm the rumors that were already circulating about me...

So, finding myself in the middle of a labyrinth of my own making, I decided to go on Grindr. I mean fuck it, what else was there to do in this god-forsaken town?

I opened the app, and basically it was just a bunch of fat, ugly, oversexualized men. Some of the bio descriptions had the letter T in them: these were code for the sake and distribution of methamphetamine or harder drugs. The payment was their ass or their money upon meeting up...it was a sick and twisted system, and not my forte. Yet when it's practically the only place where trans people can go to find their peers, it's gotta be useful I guess.

A few cute ones popped up....and there were many blank profiles. Bot messages were filling up my DMs on there, and they were going off one after another before they finally stopped.

And then finally, one of the DMs stuck out to me in a way that appealed to me and to what I was looking for. He was an older man, a weakness of mine....

And he looked very similar to a certain someone I knew...

Hmmm, the intrigue...

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RUE

"So, what do you wanna do after here?" Jules asked me as we walked down the main aisle of the record store.

"I'm kinda hungry.  Wanna go find some tacos or something?" I asked, genuinely curious as to how I would spend my afternoon now with Jules outside of going to each other's house.

"Of course. When would I ever wanna turn down a taco?" She giggled and started to flirt around like a fairy.

I passed through various genres of the vinyls, ranging from indie to punk rock to pop rock to pop to metal to hip hop to....yeah, you get it.

"Hey, do you think she'd like this?" She asked, holding up the new Billie Eilish album.

"I would, she wouldn't. She's still in that age where the world is all rainbows and unicorns and Lisa Frank shit." I replied honestly.

"So, how about this?" Jules held up a vinyl of Teenage Dream by Katy Perry.

"She already has that. And that's more like you, isn't it?" I half-joked.

"Haha, very funny. I have it on both vinyl AND on CD, thank you very much." Jules rolled her eyes as we now both were digging through the vinyls.

"AHA, I got it. You said she loves Ariana Grande so..." Jules picked up a copy of Dangerous Woman.

"Her favorite era of Ariana, and she doesn't have it on either one. Let's go." I smiled as we made our way slowly through the aisle up to the counter.

Of course, no one was fucking present at the counter. Being a record store with shipments on the daily, it was no surprise that someone would not be at the front register, but a bitch was hungry and I had an NA meeting later that night.

"Hello??" Jules practically yelled into the back of the store, completely ignoring the fact that other people were browsing.

"Jules, keep your fucking voice down." I said hangrily.

"Shh." Jules gave me an icy stare and a shush that for a split second made my heart stop pumping blood. I could see almost a cruelty in her glare that soon vanished when I saw all the blood drain from her face when she saw who was the guy behind the counter...

Nate fucking Jacobs, fully bastardized and in living fucking technicolor

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I'm so glad you guys are loving the story so far! I went a little off the known Euphoria track but believe me, this is going to be amazing!!

I'm also doing something new today by dedicating this chapter to my favorite fan of this book @NikolaBarosova, who has religiously reminded me of how important this story to her and to all of you, and has given me the inspiration to keep going with this story. I hope you truly have a wonderful day when you read this!!! ♥️

All the love from me,

Dani 💖