Anywhere With You • {J.C.}

||Twenty-One|"Baby"||

"Rise to the bottom of the meaning of life, studied all the rules and didn't want no part, but I let you in just to break this heart."
-New York City Cops

Harlow expected Julian to bail, or if by some chance he kept his word, would knock on the front door and escort her to his car for a nice night out. It was eleven o'clock at night and a barrage of insistent banging on her window caused Harlow to jump out of her skin.

It was Julian.

She saw his face peering above the windowsill with a goofy grin, waving. She questioned how he had made it onto the roof—how he had managed to slip past the gate and around the side of the house without her mother seeing him.

Harlow raised the window, peaking her head out. "What are you doing?!"

"I wanted to see you."

"I mean, what are you doing on my roof!" She was yelling in a whisper, leaning out of the window to see if anyone had witnessed a crazy teenager climbing up the side of her house.

"I had to talk to you... alone. Nikolai understood." Julian started through the window, but Harlow was blocking his entrance. Something seemed off—Julian was happy—too happy. She could swear he was drunk, but there wasn't a fog of alcohol lingering around him. It was like he had taken speed, but his tired eyes told a different tale.

"Why didn't you just come through the front door?" Harlow questioned, stepping back to give Julian room to climb inside.

"Well, that wouldn't have been much fun now, would it?" He chuckled, tripping over the windowpane. She "shushed" him, giggling as Julian got to his feet.

"How was the show?"

"Oh, baby... it was- it was awesome. It was... one of the best shows I've ever seen. I mean... that's what I wanna talk to you about. Something happened to me- I can't explain it." Julian was talking fast, towering over her with his hands on her shoulders. "I wanna start a band. I've been writing songs for a long time now and... I gotta do this. I don't know how I'm gonna do it, I can barely speak in front of people, let alone perform in front of people, but... I gotta do it." Julian was laughing nervously through his nose—she could feel his hands trembling against her arms as he stood before her, professing his insanity.

"You wanna start a band?" Harlow laughed. "That's why you snuck up on my roof... to tell me that you wanna start a band?"

"It's stupid... you're laughing at me." Julian let his hands fall from her shoulders.

"No! I think it's great. I just... are you gonna sing, play guitar, drums? Do you know anyone that does those things?"

"I'll figure it out, I'll... I'll make it happen."

For the first time ever, Harlow saw that Julian was determined. He had a drive for this that he'd never had during their many tutoring sessions of calculus when he was still a student at Dwight.

"Nikolai plays bass. Not well, but... he can get better. This guy I used to go to boarding school with, Al... he's a mean guitarist. Valensi, he plays too."

"You're really serious about this." Harlow spoke in disbelief, peeling her eyes away from the overly confident soon-to-be "musician." She made her way to the bed, settling in the mattress—it was going to be a long night. She hated to admit it but, she'd had high expectations of how the evening was going to unfold.

Drunk.

High.

Sex...

Something other than Julian excitedly making future plans. Harlow wished she could be happy for him, but truthfully, she was a bit jealous. She had no idea where her life was headed or where she wanted it to go. Julian, however, had seemed to find his calling in only one night.

"It's dumb, isn't it? You'd tell me the truth, right? Like, if it's stupid, you'd tell me." Julian had practically repeated what he had just said, only phrasing it a little differently. It's what he did when he was nervous—Harlow knew this.

"Jules, it's not stupid. I'm happy you know what you wanna do and that you're actually... passionate about it. But, if you're asking me if you're any good or not... I have no idea. You've never played me a song and I've never even heard you sing before. Maybe the chorus to that Velvet Underground song about Lisa, or whatever. And there was that "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side."" Harlow laughed, remembering when they were just friends—before sex had complicated everything and Julian had suggested through that song that they consummate their flirtatious manners, jokingly.

It was a simpler time—a simple drive from Dwight to Julian's house on a Monday afternoon for another lesson he wouldn't learn anything from.

"Lou Reed." Julian murmured, taking a seat beside her in the bed. "You know... I wrote a song about you. It's not finished, it still needs work, but... I did, I wrote a song about you."

Harlow was trying not to smile, but couldn't contain it. "Jules, you already have access to my pants, you don't have to try so hard." Harlow joked, nudging his arm with her elbow.

Julian laughed. "I'm serious."

She looked over at him—her eyes narrowing skeptically with a faint smile on her lips. "Is it bad? Not the song, but what it's about?"

"Not really. Just... a lot of confusion about what's goin' on."

"Well, will I get royalties or something if it makes it to radio?" Harlow giggled.

"I don't think it works like that." Julian smiled, shifting his gaze to watch himself pick the cuticle around his thumbnail.

"Why'd you come over earlier to convince me to go out tonight if you were just gonna show up at my window?"

Julian looked to Harlow guiltily—his face like a little boy that had just been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. "'Bout that," he reached into his leather jacket, pulling out a sandwich bag. There were two tiny sheets of paper Harlow could see through the transparent plastic.

"Acid?... you wanna trip acid with me?"

"I told you we'd do drugs."

"I was thinkin' Mary Jane, not psychedelics." Harlow chuckled nervously, she'd never taken acid before. The truth was, she'd heard horror stories of people tripping acid; that it was wise to be in a stable mindset before taking the trip. And Harlow was not in a good mindset—not by a long shot.

"You don't wanna do it?"

"Not really... I've never done it before."

Julian leaned back in the bed, settling his weight into his elbows. "It'll be fun, I promise. The whole point of acid is to get a new perspective, and baby... I really need one right now."

"On one condition."

"What's that?"

"You gotta stop calling me baby."