Chicago (a Friday Night Lights fanfiction)

Hey

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Happy Valentine's Day."

Julie laughed. "You called me to say Happy Valentine's? You dork."

Matt smiled, shifting the phone to his other ear so his drawing hand would be free to sketch her smile from memory. "Well, I didn't have anyone else to say it to. Except my grandma."

"Matt Saracen. Are you telling me you didn't call your grandma on Valentine's day?"

"Of course I did. I just figured I'd call you, too. Unless I'm interrupting something?"

"You mean, like a date? Me, find a date? In Dillon?" Her voice softened. "There's nobody left here who's worth the trouble."

He'd told himself that he'd be okay with her dating, but it was a relief to hear she wasn't. "So what you been up to?"

"Same old, same old. I want to hear about you. How's Chicago?"

So he told her—about the freezing winds and the seventeen layers of clothes he wore anytime he left the apartment, about the things he was learning in his classes, about the terrible art he was making as he tried to put those things into practice, about the few friends he had made and the occasional trips they made to a bar or another gallery.

*****

"Hey."

"Hey."

"So, I graduated."

Matt nodded, even though she couldn't see him. "I know. I'm sorry I couldn't make it home for it."

"Landry told me you couldn't get the time off work."

"Plus I'm taking extra classes over the summer, so I can catch up on some of the time I missed."

"Oh, yeah? What classes?"

"Mostly basic stuff—math and English, the stuff they make you take everywhere. I'd rather get those out of the way in summer so I have time to focus on the art in the winter. I am taking a photography class, though, that's pretty cool."

"I bet."

"So, last summer at home, huh? How are your folks handling it?"

"They're crazy, like usual. They can't decide whether they want to cry, yell at me, hug me, or bore me to death with endless advice."

That all sounded pretty good to Matt, but then, he'd never had parents, not really. He and Shelby talked occasionally now, which was nice, and she checked in regularly on his grandma, but it wasn't the same. No one had ever tried to bore him to death with advice, that was for sure. "I bet you're pretty excited to get out of there."

"You have no idea." There was a pause, and then she said, "Well, maybe you do."

He did. And except for leaving her behind and missing his grandma, he had never regretted his decision to get out of Dillon.

*****

"Hey."

"Hey."

"I just wanted to call before you left to say good luck."

"Thanks. I'll need it."

"Come on. UT won't know what hit it."

He could practically hear her frowning. "I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not."

Truthfully, Matt wasn't sure, either. He wasn't even sure what he'd meant by it—just to be supportive, he guessed. It was what people said. "Well, then, how about 'I'm sure you'll do great'."

"Seriously? That's all you've got for me, cheesy platitudes?"

"That's it."

"And here I was hoping for all sorts of advice on how to make friends and get by on my own and all that kind of thing."

He looked around at the little apartment he loved so much. "Yeah, I don't think what I'm doing is your typical college experience. I don't have a roommate, for one thing."

"My roommate sounds bo-ring. I bet she studies all the time and is asleep by nine." Before he could say anything to that, she warned him, "And don't tell me it would do me some good to be just like her."

"Your mom say that?"

"And my dad."

"I figured. You see Landry's last show?"

"Yeah. It was ... nice. But sad. You know? And then we wanted—I don't know, some kind of last hurrah. So we went to the Landing Strip."

Matt grinned. "I heard. At least, what Landry remembered."

"He was pretty drunk."

Suddenly he missed them both fiercely, and despite the joys of his current life, would have given a lot to have been at the Landing Strip with them last night, to have pretended to rock out one last time to the music of Crucifictorious. "Do you know my grandma has all their songs on her MP3 player?"

"I know. She insists on playing them whenever I go see her."

"Thank you for doing that."

"You don't have to thank me. I love your grandma. I'm really going to miss her."

"She'll miss you, too," Matt assured her. It worried him some, what his grandma would do without him or Landry or Julie to go check on her. Shelby went, sometimes, and the nurse she had in there was really good, but ... it wasn't the same. "I wish I'd been able to stay longer when I came home last month."

"Me, too. She's gonna be okay, though, Matt."

"I know." He didn't, and neither did Julie. His grandma was only going to get worse. Every time he went home from now on she'd be a little less herself, a little less the woman who had raised him and taken the best care of him she knew how. "Hey, Julie, I've got to go."

"Me, too. I'll ... talk to you after I've got settled in at school."

"Good luck."

"Thanks."