Chicago (a Friday Night Lights fanfiction)

Alone

Chicago was everything Matt Saracen had ever hoped it would be. He liked the fast pace of the city, the way people walked like they had somewhere to get to, the dark colors and clean lines of the buildings, the sharp smells. He even liked the bite of the wind coming off the lake. It was the first time he had really been cold, and he felt like he was waking up, everything sharper and brighter because it wasn't melting in the heat.

But there was one thing he didn't like about Chicago: It was lonely.

He liked the people he worked with okay, but he didn't have anything in common with them, and all they wanted to talk about was art. He was just getting art straight in his own head. He didn't know enough about what it was, what his style was, to be willing to let someone else explore it with him—or for him, which seemed like it happened more often than not when the others got to talking about their work.

So he kept to himself. Which he was used to doing, but he was also used to being a quiet man in the middle of a crowd, letting other people—Smash, Landry, Julie—do his talking for him. Now he was a quiet man alone, and that was a different thing.

He talked to Shelby and his grandma regularly, and they assured him they were okay. He found it strange that after hating Shelby so much for so long, his grandma was happy being taken care of by her, but she was, and that was good, so he wasn't going to mess with it.

All through those long first weeks, he had picked up the phone a dozen times to call Julie, but ... he couldn't. He missed her more than he missed anything, or anyone, else from Texas, and he was afraid if he talked to her that he wouldn't be able to stay away. And she deserved a chance to figure out what to do with her life, without also having to figure out where he fit in it. So he didn't call.

Not until one particular afternoon when everything he loved about Chicago seemed miserable and cold instead. The brisk wind had become a chill drizzly rain that turned the busy streets into a forest of umbrellas, all of them right at eye level. The walk to his apartment from the market seemed to take forever, the bags of groceries slippery with the rain, threatening to drop right out of his hands, water dripping off his nose and down inside his jacket. The stairway up to his apartment seemed narrow and dark and it smelled like old stale food. Even his apartment, which he loved for its open space and its white plastered walls and the light it offered, seemed just like a big empty hole.

The only bright spot he could see in it was a picture of Julie, smiling her sweet smile. In that moment, he missed her more than anything. And he knew that of everyone he could talk to, she would understand. She would listen, the way she always had—the only person who really ever had—and she would know how he felt.

Sitting on his narrow bed, the room too chilly to take off his jacket, making him wonder how bad it would be when winter really set in, Matt couldn't stand being alone any longer.

He pulled his phone out and started to dial. Then he thought better of it. He moved to the window, looking out over his little piece of Chicago. Julie would love this, he thought. He had to tell her about it. It wasn't real if he couldn't share it with her.

Knowing she would be mad, that she wouldn't understand, he hesitated. And then he punched in her number and waited for her voice, hoping she would pick up. It seemed to take forever, but then he heard her on the other end of the line.

"Hello."

"Hey. Julie. Um ..." Of course, now that he had her on the phone, everything he wanted to say went straight out of his head and left him speechless. Wordless. Art was better—you could say so much more with a picture. But he had to say something. "How you been?"

"I—I can't talk to you right now." There were tears in her voice, he could hear them, and he felt terrible that he had made her cry. That he had hurt her so much it made her cry just to talk to him.

Then she was gone, and he was more alone than ever. Deep down, he knew this was really why he hadn't called—because if he couldn't talk to Julie anymore, he wasn't sure what he was going to do.

But the next day, in the middle of the gallery, setting up a show, he called her again, because he couldn't just let things go like that.

"What do you want, Matt?" She sounded mad, but at least she had picked up.

"Hey. How are you?" There was silence, and he wasn't sure if she had hung up. "Uh, hello? Are you there?" He went outside, into the fresh air that still smelled like last night's rain. "Julie? Did you hang up?"

"No, I didn't."

Matt launched right into the apology she deserved. "Look, I know you're mad, all right? And I'd be mad, too, you know, I'd be furious if that happened."

"Great. Can I go now?"

"No! I—I just wanted to tell you that, um, that I'm in Chicago."

"I know. I talked to your mom and your grandma."

He pushed on, even in the face of her hostility. If he could just tell her enough, just get her to talking, they could get through this, he knew they could. "I just got a job at this art gallery. I mean, it's just entry level stuff, but, I don't know, it's pretty exciting, and I'm gonna start school next semester. And, uh, I got an apartment."

"That's great. It sounds like you've got it all worked out."

"I don't know, it's just weird, 'cause, like, I got everything worked out, it just—I don't know, it just doesn't feel right, you know? It's just ..." Time for the truth, for her, and for himself. "'Cause you're not here."

"Well, I'm glad I mean something to you," she told him. He could hear her start to cry, and he wanted to be there to tell her it was going to be okay. But maybe it wasn't. Maybe it never would be. "Just ... not enough to call me 'til now."

"Julie, look, I'm sorry, all right? I just ... I was really upset, and—"

"And how do you think that I felt?"

"No, you're right. You know, with everything that I was goin' through, I—"

"Matt, we were together for almost four years. I know everything about you. You were my other half. I hate you so much for leaving me!"

He leaned his head against a chain link gate, feeling the cold metal pressing into his forehead. She did. He had felt it all the way from Dillon, how hurt and mad she was. He had been afraid she could never get past it, afraid of what he would lose if he faced her pain. Or his own.

"How could you do that to somebody that you love?" she asked him.

He wished he knew. He'd just had to get away. "I don't know. I just thought—I just felt like that was what I had to do."

"Well, I have to do what I have to do. And whatever's missing in your life? I suggest you go and find it."

"Julie. Don't say that, all right?"

But it was too late. With a brief "Bye, Matt," she was gone, and he really was alone.