Rose's Journal

Chapter 29: The Avoidance

Julie stayed hugging Reggie for about 5 minutes until his sobs began to quiet, and he picked his head up.

"Sorry about that," he said, his voice still somewhat broken as he left the hug, "I'm all good."

"Reggie, you're not fine," Julie said, breaking the hug to look at his face. She went to sit in the chair next to him opposite to where her dad sat. "You don't have to pretend to be."

"Julie, seriously, I'm fine, I'm done, I'm okay. I broke down like a little bitch, now I'm good," Reggie said with a weak laugh. He had never cried like that in front of Julie before. He never cried like that in front of anyone before.

Julie shook her head. "Reggie," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder, "I'm here for you, if you need someone to talk to, and I'm pretty sure you do. Things just build up when you bury them, and I don't want you to crumble later because you kept it all to yourself."

This wasn't the first time he heard something like this, although it typically came from Alex or Luke. It was habitual for him to bury his emotions and make it look like he's fine. "I don't want to add to your problems with my crap. You have enough going on."

"Reggie, you don't always have to be the happy one that picks other people up. You can fall apart too."

"But then everyone looks at me like I'm hurt," Reggie said, starting to sound upset again, "like you're looking at me right now." Julie attempted to fix her facial expression. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to say it like that."

"No, it's fine," Julie replied, "I understand the feeling. I got 'the look' a lot when my mom died."

Reggie sighed. "That was me with my sister. I assume you heard most of what I was saying."

"Yeah, I did."

"I hated that people felt like I was broken or something, so I made sure I never cried in front of anyone about it. I made it my job to cheer everyone else up: my parents, her friends, even Luke and Alex. She was kinda like a big sister to them too. But then, when my parents started fighting about it, that's when I snapped."

"I was the opposite when my mom died. I broke down in front of everyone. Everyone looked at me like I was broken because it showed. Now, I'm just starting to get to the point where people don't think I'm going to break down at the mention of my mom." Julie opened the bag she had on her back and pulled out her mom's journal. "Now, I have this. I'm not sure if I'm ready. I'm sorry for not completely focusing on what you're saying. I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone when it comes to these feelings."

"No, don't apologize it does help to hear from you." Reggie weakly smiled. "So, you're scared to snap too?"

"Terrified."

"Are we okay?" Reggie joked.

"Not really," Julie smiled and let out a weak laugh.

They sat in silence for a while, both thinking about their next step from here. They both tried to figure out what emotions were okay to feel.

"So, what are you going to do about Luke?" Julie asked.

Reggie was panicked and caught off guard with this question. "Oh my god, the Luke thing! Julie I'm so sorry, I know you like him, and I should've been honest with you from the beginning. It's just that you two have so much chemistry, and I didn't want to interfere but-,"

Julie interrupted with a slight laugh. "Reggie. It's fine I promised. There's nothing going on between us."

"I see the way you two look at each other when you're performing. You really don't have to spare my feelings I already know."