Most girls had a best friend who was also a girl.  Julia had never quite managed that.  Instead she had Jamie, who was far better in so many ways.  But sometimes he didn’t understand some of the things that other girls understood – like how sometimes a girl just needed a chance to vomit up all of her insecurities, to get them out of her system, and to hear how brilliant she was over and over while bashing her least favorite people - preferably while eating some good Honeydukes’ fudge.  That was the sort of mood Julia was in.  She didn’t think she had walked into the room feeling that way, but somewhere along the line, in all the talk of dating and kissing and boys and girls, Julia had sunk into a little hole of self-pity.  

She wriggled her arm free so she could wrap it around Jamie, too, as he crushed her against him.  He might not understand everything, but he understood hugs like this, and she let her weight sink into him, like she belonged there, even if breathing was slightly difficult.  

Julia associated hugging with her mother.  Mum was the greatest hugger.  She could hug you until your bones were cracking and all the yucky things in your heart melted away and there was nothing left but peace.  This was that sort of hug.  Ever since mum had gone, these hugs had been rare in Julia’s life.  Courtesy hugs were commonplace at school, and when relatives were around during the holidays, but they weren’t real hugs – not like this.  

It was working, too.  She wasn’t thinking about other students or popularity so much anymore – but she was thinking about her mum, and how she wished she could talk all of these things out with her.  Her mother would know what to do about all of it – how to be noticed for the right reasons without looking like a creep, and whether there was something she wasn’t doing right.  Sometimes Julia felt like she was raising herself along, at the mercy of her sisters and her aunt and her dormitory full of teenage girls, who all seemed to have their own ideas of what a girl ought to be.

“Please don't go becoming a tramp.  It would ruin everything.”

Julia felt a laugh growing in her belly.  It percolated up until she smiled through the tiny tears that had been pricking the corners of her eyes.  Julia tipped her head to the side, until she felt him through her hair.  Her throat was burning, and her nose, like it was full of bubbles.  

“I won’t be a tramp,” she promised, though her voice squeaked a little when she spoke.  She didn’t think she could be a tramp if she tried.  Wasn’t that half the problem?  She was entirely too boring for that sort of naughtiness.  Tears were burning narrow lines down her cheeks now, and Julia moved to rub them away with her sleeve.  

“Sorry,” she murmured.  She didn’t want to be a crybaby, and it seemed to highlight what a complainer she was today.  But she was moody and thinking about her mother – whom she’d been contemplating earlier that morning, as well – and she kept on soaking up the persistent tears with the edge of her sleeve wrapped up in her knuckles.  “I’m sorry,” she squeaked out again.  “I just really miss my mum today.”



Life unfolds in proportion to your courage.