Bite Your Tongue

Sabotage? Likely Story pt. 2 [ Juliana x Ray ]

summary: After Juliana's latest failed date winds up publicized by famous YouTuber, Jamie-Lee Berry, everyone and their mother wants to meet the culprit behind the date's failure. Specifically, they want to meet Juliana's roommate, who seems to have a knack for sabotaging Juliana's nonexistent love life. (THIS ISN'T CANON, this is just a spinoff )

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"Hey, I have another theory: Do you think she's being intentional?"

It took a while for Juliana to wrap her head around this idea Jamie-Lee presented. He followed it up with a quick, "Just a thought. I know you said she was in a relationship, but tbh it kinda seemed that way to me..." and it just pressed on Juliana's brain more.

Its weight increased with each passing mile on the treadmill until she started to nitpick her times with Ray the way she and Ray used to with Juliana's exes. After living together for nearly three years, Juliana was used to their own quirks with each other. She never thought to read into it, especially with Ray being in a relationship with Lennie.

Ray and Lennie were high school sweethearts. Ray was automatically off-limits. Juliana respected those boundaries (even if her own exes didn't) and never really... thought seriously about dating girls. She never thought of them as wholly off-limits, and she had to admit to the jury that she had dreamt of kissing girls in her dreams before.

The way Ray acted around Lennie was... a different extreme to the way she acted around Juliana. Before Ray, certain things just felt off-limits to just about everyone. Before Ray, Juliana would have jumped at the very thought of someone alerting their presence by pressing their hand to her lower back. Before Ray, Juliana never would have felt comfortable falling asleep against someone's shoulder.

Little things like that.

Lennie was never bothered by it.

But maybe something changed.

No, she reminded herself, shaking her head. Ray's heartbroken over Lennie. Ray loved Lennie.

And Ray did love Lennie, at one point. Juliana wouldn't know if Ray still did if she never asked. Ray's dismissal and lack of acknowledgement towards Lennie's name now was easily marked off as "ignoring as the best strategy to overcome emotional hurt". Juliana was certainly an advocate of that, no matter how unhealthy it was, but it didn't stop her from wanting to pry. But prying could churn up those terrible feelings Ray might be holding down.

Only one way to find out, she thought to herself that day at the gym. Her resolve was settled.

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From that point on, Juliana was on the lookout.

She studied details she wouldn't normally study—Ray's greetings, her dirty jokes, her compliments. It wasn't off brand of Ray to compliment Juliana now and again, always on her hair and clothes, her makeup, even. But after Juliana's discussion with Jamie-Lee, there were two specific mentions that had Juliana tripping over herself from the weight of their implications.

She and Ray worked out together on the weekends—their work and class schedules were too hectic during the week to bother, but come Saturday, they made it a habit to visit the gym in the morning. It was leg day, and Juliana dreaded it because she and Jamie-Lee were on talking terms again and had asked if Juliana wanted to help him with a video project. It meant she'd have to walk around for several hours after working out, and she'd be in agony the next day.