Lovelanguage: Baking

Chapter 21 - Revelations

Julie walked through the day like a Zombie on Friday. Nathan drove to Uni with her again and they both wanted to take a different route to the lecture buildings than usual, eventhough it was a rainy day. It was the kind of day, where she had to force words out of her mouth and speaking exhausted her, but she still made sure to thank Nathan regularly and had a few nice conversations, so he wouldn't think she was mad or anything.

After a very awkward and anxiety inducing situation, where they sat in viewing distance of Theos and Noahs group, Noah went over to them and apologized for his "friends" behaviour, said that he wouldn't ever have wanted something like that to happen to Julie or anyone. And looking at Nathan he seemed to have wanted to say or ask something else, but decided against it and went back, which cut the conversation short and Julie was very glad about that.

The lectures felt like they would never end and she got some worried stares from some professors, who apparently heard what happened the last evening. Usually stares like this make her a little uncomfortable, but today she just felt nothing. And eventually the lectures were finally over. Nathan told her they didn't need to go through with the plan of her staying at his place for the weekend if she needed some time on her own and she really wanted some alone time, but at the same time she didn't, she was scared of how she'd feel if she'd be alone in her apartment again, so she decided to go through with the plan.

But on the way towards the barn her phone rang... it was her parents landline. She showed Nathan the display as an explaination and sat down at a nearby bench.

"Hello?" said Julie, trying to make her tone sound somewhat normal and not completely emotionless.

"Julie? How are you? We heard from the police, what happened? Are you okay? Do you need us to come over or talk?" her mothers worried voice was shaking a little.

"What? No! You don't need to come over... I'm okay... I'm fine really." Her parents always talked so much and needed her to behave in a certain way to be able to believe they have a somewhat normal daughter, despite her autism diagnosis, there was no way she could muster the energy to have them around her right now.

"Are you sure? We really don't feel good, knowing you're over there by yourself in the big city. Are you sure you don't need someone to look after you this weekend?" her mother insisted.

"Actually..." Julie paused for a moment, feeling kind of nervous to tell her parents about Nathan. But them just assuming she didn't make any friends in her first week – despite that making some sense based on her pervious track record – lead her to really want to prove them wrong. "... I actually am not alone this weekend. I made a ...friend, the one who helped me yesterday and... we're spending the weekend together sort of..."

"OH MY GOD!!!! YOU ACTUALLY FOUND A FRIEND?" her mother screeched into the phone. "Did you hear that Sebastian? Julie made a friend at Uni!" she heard her father mumbling something in the background. Her mother continued: "So tell me, who is she, what's her name, how did you become friends, what are your plans for the weekend? Do you have a picture together? What does she look like? How does it feel to finally have friends? Good, right? See I always knew you had it in you, you just had to try harder, didn't I tell you? And how was your first week of University in general? Is it as interesting as you imagined."

Julie took a deep breath, while this wave of understandable questions washed over her head.

"Well, his name is Nathan." She saw Nathan looking over to her, when her mother already stopped her.

"HIS? There is no way you two are spending the weekend together Miss!!! After what happened yesterday you should be more sensible and careful, do you understand me?"