Dang I Did It Again Jane Stop This Crazy Thing
Jane and Julio was a short story I shared with readers on Tumblr in 2018. It was written very casually in a series of text posts and Tumblr ask responses, every bit oppose to a traditional prose style. It explores the backstory of Tori, Charlie, and Oliver's parents – Jane and Julio – and how they met in 1980s Mojacar, the Spanish town Julio's parents alive in. I hope you relish it!
today i've been thinking about what to proper noun Charlie and Tori'southward parents and now i can't end making upward an entire backstory almost them and how they met and vicious in honey god damn information technology
and then Julio and Jane met in the summer of 1986 in Mojácar, Spain…. Julio was a bookish literature student with round wire-rim glasses and wildly curly black pilus staying at his parents' house for the summertime before heading back to uni in the great britain… Jane was an introverted young woman who'd taken a solo detour while inter-railing to get abroad from her overbearing friends and family….. Julio can't bear to see this random English language daughter who never smiles eating alone at the local restaurant every night……………
***
ifididntlaughidcry:
please tell me julio try to woo jane through spanish serenades. he probably learned the lute for her
That would be a very Michael Holden thing to do HOWEVER Julio is not Michael, he is an awkward nerd and probably merely sat on the other side of the restaurant with a falling-apart copy of Brideshead Revisited, absolutely definitely Non there considering he really wants to know what the HELL this English girl is doing here all by herself in this tranquillity Spanish town… specially when he quickly realises she Can'T Fifty-fifty SPEAK SPANISH
***
thatgaypotterhead:
*AND THEN WHAT*
Well then of course a few days later on he runs into her at the local marketplace, where she is getting MONUMENTALLY ripped off by a local vendor because she is very clearly a tourist and tin can't speak Spanish, so he can't stop himself intervening and preventing her from spending like three times besides much on a god damn churro, and then he just buys the churro for her to salve time and easily it over to her and walks off, non even giving her time to say give thanks you (or endeavor to give him the money for it), super embarrassed because WHY the HELL did he practice that!?!?
***
itsfunnybecauseitstrue:
Please tell us more than about Jane and Julio, I'm in love with their story (also as someone who has Spanish heritage I'm loving that Tori, Charlie and Oliver do too!)
I AM VERY GLAD TO HEAR THIS
So Julio goes back to his parents' house to sit in the puddle and cringe in confinement for a few hours. He'due south also kind of annoyed at this daughter for beingness so clueless and forcing him to practise something then awkward. He stays in the pool for so long in fact that his parents recollect he'southward gone out for dinner again and they don't cook him annihilation. Julio is kinda peckish some seafood anyway so he goes out to the local eatery and is pleased that throughout most of his meal, the daughter is nowhere to exist seen.
Until he's finished eating, that is. He's sitting quietly with a glass of vino, re-reading his battered copy of To the Lighthouse, and then suddenly there she is, continuing in front of his table totally unsmiling, with a bit of paper in 1 hand. He says zip – he's sorta shocked and cringing at himself all over once more – and then she holds upward the piece of newspaper and starts to read off of it what sounds similar nonsense words. It takes him a moment to realise that she's attempting to give thanks him in Spanish for buying her a churro, so after she'due south been going for a picayune while he finally interrupts to say, "Er, actually, I speak English language?"
She stops talking and only looks at him, admittedly dead, then she says "Oh," slams down onto the tabular array what she owed him for the churro, and so practically runs away.
***
Bearding:
Julio really doesn't wait afterwards his books does he haha
He re-reads them until they literally fall apart and he has to patch them upwardly with sellotape (He probably has a bad habit of dropping them into baths and pools. He's also a corner binder -_-)
***
thatgaypotterhead:
Ok I'chiliad way too invested in this story to not hear more…what next??
WELL
Julio is officially VERY INTRIGUED. Not only is this daughter just… super out of identify in Mojácar, just she's also merely… REALLY weird. She doesn't seem to be hither with a friend or family member. He's yet to run into her smile, and writing out an amends in Spanish and then reading it to him? That was weird. Nonetheless, information technology's not like he wants to go searching for her or annihilation – he's not a stalker. He's but… a petty concerned for her mental wellbeing and general safety.
Wandering around town the whole of the side by side day is definitely nothing to do with her. He'south absolutely non hoping to run into her or anything. He only fancied a walk. That's all.
It's close to the evening when he decides he needs to distract himself, so he heads to a local cafe for a cold drinkable and a chat with some of the locals, who ever welcome him in for a few games of snooker when he'south effectually. Merely who should already be there when he gets there? THE Daughter.
He virtually runs out of in that location immediately – could his luck become whatever worse!? Just then he realises that… she's actually interacting with some people? She's mid snooker game, really, looking a picayune scrap lost, a little nervous fifty-fifty, as the usual middle-anile crowd of Spanish locals chat happily around her. How the hell did she get roped into this? Then again, Julio remembers the beginning fourth dimension he'd been roped into a iv-hr-long snooker tournament with the locals when he kickoff came here… just he'due south been fluent in Spanish his whole life.
The girl suddenly catches his eye, seeing him standing awkwardly by the door. She widens her eyes at him and shakes her head a little frantically, the universal bespeak for 'go me the HELL out of here'. Great. Now he's involved.
He heads over in that location, trying to calm his nerves. Why's he fifty-fifty nervous? He greets the locals he recognises and kisses a lot of cheeks, before finally reaching the girl's side, where she'southward standing, feet turned in, clutching the snooker cue like it'south a sword and looking like she'd absolutely rather be anywhere else.
The outset thing she says is, "Help me. I just wanted a cold drink."
***
Anonymous:
very of import Julio question. is he from mojácar or is information technology like his family'south summer residence? also they're officially get my new oseman characters otp
Julio's dad is Castilian, his mum is English. Julio's life has been pretty much split up between Spain and England and then far – he was born in England, spent his early years at that place, and then moved to Spain and lived and went to schoolhouse in that location until he was about twelve, and then moved back to England to become to secondary school there. When he went off to university, his parents moved officially dorsum to Spain while he studied in the UK, but he still goes dorsum to stay with them during the uni holidays. So this place in Mojácar is his parents' actual domicile. He also has an older brother, Antonio, but he'south married and living in England by this betoken.
***
Bearding:
Omg they are social nightmares. What happens next?
(i know correct… trapped in a room with a load of people whose linguistic communication you cannot speak…)
Jane is admittedly mortified to once once again be running into the nerdy-guy-that-she-thought-was-Spanish-merely-perhaps-he-isn't, simply she tin can't help only experience relief that there's another English-speaker in the room. She knew she should have left her friends at Bordeaux rather than waited until Spain – she at least knows some basic conversational French. Anybody in this fiddling town is so irritatingly friendly. Fifty-fifty if she spoke their linguistic communication, it's not like she wants to talk to anyone.
She stays silent as the guy effortlessly converses with the locals for several minutes. It's pretty impressive, actually. He must have lived here for a very long time. Eventually, he seems to swerve the conversation towards a goodbye and manages to become the both of them out of the buffet, just not before Jane has to kiss the cheeks of far also many former people who olfactory property of cigarette smoke.
Once outside, she quickly realises that she's escaped one awkward situation only to country herself in some other – walking silently through town aslope this guy with unfashionable glasses and unfathomably tangled hair. She notices of a sudden that he has a book tucked inside his shirt pocket, folded outwards so that the spine is slightly coming apart. Has she e'er seen him without a book on him?
It's him who speaks upwardly first. "Distressing about that. The locals love new blood."
Why on earth is he apologising? It'due south her who's managed to cause precisely one hundred pct of all their bad-mannered encounters so far.
"Also, you lot wait very tourist-y," he says, then looks at her and sees her frown. "I- I hateful- that's non a bad affair- y'all're merely- you're very pale and clearly not Spanish, so… I mean, yous look similar an English language person and they honey getting the tourists involved. So, yeah." He looks away and shakes his head a little.
"Sorry… for looking too tourist-y, then?" Jane says.
"Um." The guy looks a bit flustered all of a sudden. "It's fine."
They come to the finish of the street, the left plow leading to the steps that would accept Jane to the piffling hostel her sister Wendy had found a list for when Jane chosen home before she left Bordeaux, and the right turn leading down to the beach.
The guy points vaguely towards the sea. "I'1000 that fashion."
Jane smirked. "Practise you live in the sea?"
"Er… no, I- my parents have a business firm, um," he points more specifically into the distance, where the boondocks spread out into more rural houses. "Oh. Yous're joking."
"Yes. I don't actually think y'all live in the sea."
"Okay."
There'southward a significantly awkward pause. The guy shuffles on his feet for a moment, then yanks his book out of his pocket and promptly rips a folio out of it, making Jane really flinch – she's never been a big reader, but seeing someone just tear out a page like that…
The guy stares for a moment, every bit if shocked at himself, and so looks at Jane and says, "Do yous have a pen?"
Jane rummages in her handbag to find a pen. She also has a notebook, which she could accept given him a piece of paper from, but she doesn't tell him that. The guy scribbles something on the piece of paper and then hands it to her.
"That'due south- that's my telephone number. No demand to telephone call me. It's only, er, if you get lost, or, I don't know. You demand help with any… Spanish things."
Jane takes it and looks at it. Sure plenty, he's written a phone number, and even drawn what appears to be a rudimentary map of where he lives, though Jane has pretty much no idea how she would go nearly following it or why she would want to. At the bottom he wrote 'J. Spring', and so crossed information technology out, and wrote 'Julio' side by side to it.
"Okay, thank you-" But when Jane lifts her head, Julio is already gone downward the steps and heading out towards the ocean. She pockets the slice of paper and turns to head back to her hostel. Well. Maybe she wouldn't be totally solitary here later on all.
***
Bearding:
In example a million other people haven't already asked, WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Tell me Jane managed to call that number!
Julio's night is spent restless and full of regrets. Firstly, he'd ripped a page out of the book so frantically that he hadn't stopped to realise that information technology was a page he hadn't read, meaning that he couldn't really continue reading the book. Secondly, he knows the map was besides much. Absolutely also much. He drew in trees, for God's sake.
Thirdly, he isn't certain he even wants this girl to call him. At the time, he didn't run into it as any sort of movement on her – he was genuinely just trying to be helpful after seeing her look of absolute distress in the cafe. But at present that he thinks almost information technology, that'due south probably how it came across, and oh God. What if she actually does call, thinking that he wants a date or something? She'due south probably lovely just it's not like he'south especially looking for a girlfriend at the moment, he's had enough of the stress of that after- well, he doesn't want to think about Tracey correct at present. Or any girlfriends, past or potential. He just wants to have a relaxing summertime, equally usual, reading a ton of books while listening to the stereo by the pool. The thought that he might have to go on some sort of date sends his mind into Absolute Anxiety Mode.
Merely of course, she calls. The side by side morn, barely 10am, even. Julio's mum gets it, shouts at him to come in from the pool because in that location's a girl on the phone, Juli! An English language daughter!!
The first thing the girl says is, "Only so you lot know, the page from the book you gave me has a sexual practice scene on information technology, and if that's some sort of move, I'm choosing to politely ignore information technology."
Julio nearly hangs up the telephone and melts from shame.
They agree to come across at the market in half an hour and at the terminate of the (very short) phone call, Julio learns that the girl'due south name is Jane. He ends up making himself x minutes late because he can't decide which of his rather tattered baggy shirts and shorts to wear, and almost leaves the house wearing his Adidas on the wrong feet.
The showtime thing Julio notices when he sees Jane again is that she's a bit sunburnt, which is kind of hilarious, because it makes her wait even more than similar a tourist, but also sort of tragic, because that has to be kind of painful. Julio had spent well-nigh of his childhood in the Spanish sunday – sunburn was somewhat of an unknown to him.
Aside from that, she still looks merely as unsmiling and aloof, and Julio'due south striking with a fresh wave of marvel about why she is here.
"Deplorable I'k late!" he says every bit he approaches, and she looks up from where she's leant casually against a wall in the shade.
"Were y'all busy reading?" she says.
"What?"
"You're always reading." In that location's a break. "I always encounter you reading in the restaurant."
Julio'due south genuinely taken aback. "I didn't realise you noticed me in the restaurant."
"How could I not with you sitting at that place like… I dunno, Edgar Allan Poe."
Julio snorts. "I similar to think my aesthetic is slightly more than modernist than gothic."
Jane shakes her head resignedly and starts walking off, seemingly talking to herself. "He's a literature nerd. Noted."
Julio stands still for a moment, just watching her walk away. Perchance she doesn't want to spend the day with him after all. But and then she turns and widens her eyes expectantly, and so gestures with her head for him to follow. Which he does, like a gormless idiot. Because, equally reluctant as he is to admit it, he's intrigued by her, and he thinks, possibly, she's intrigued by him too.
(i'k tired & going to bed merely thank u for joining me on the chronicles of janio this night and i will definitely continue this story tomorrow, just message me and i'll write the adjacent function when i get a spare moment!!)
***
solitairians:
simply defenseless up w jane & julio, im far too emotionally invested in them already. please write more i beg u
Hither WE GO LADS
Jane isn't sure whether she just wants company or if she's been getting tired of having to gesticulate wildly every time she wants to communicate anything in this town, but for any reason, she's glad to spend the morning with Julio. They wander effectually the streets of Mojácar chatting idly, Julio showing her the various areas of involvement among the white, dusty buildings that she's failed to find herself – the good cafes, the best shops, the occasional bit of historical Spanish compages. This is all very interesting but honestly, Jane doesn't care that much about this town. Jane can't assistance but want to know a little more than about this guy who was fluent in both English language and Spanish and liked to spend his time sitting lonely eating tapas and trashing his own books before he'due south even finished reading them.
She learns he'due south a final yr literature student – just a yr older than herself, so – and is some sort of unknown mix of Spanish and English ethnicity with a few other things thrown in in that location equally well, due to what sounds like the enormous and complicated family tree of his male parent. She learns that he's quite chatty when talking nigh his interests – namely, literature or music – only stumbles over his words when she tries to talk to him about his academy life or friends or why he's decided to spend a whole summertime in a dusty Spanish town past the sea with only his parents for company.
Notwithstanding, she can't really talk, can she. She's doing something somewhat similar and she certainly doesn't feel like explaining herself and getting into the details about Lisa and Colin and what happened in Bordeaux to this guy she but spoke to properly for the first time concluding night.
By midday it's getting too hot to stay out in the sun for too long – Jane doesn't have a hat and her skin is already burnt enough, and then they head for lunch. Julio suggests trying a new identify, but they both decide to get back to their usual restaurant. It sort of feels like theirs, now, with its white tablecloths and San Pellegrino umbrellas and Duran Duran always playing on the stereo. Their waiter even smiles and greets them when they get there – albeit in Spanish, so Jane just has to stand there while Julio has a full-on conversation with him, awkwardly turning and translating to her every few sentences with an apologetic expression on his face. They end up sharing seafood paella and Jane realises, subsequently they've been chatting for a good half an hour, that information technology's not actually that awkward between them anymore.
It's nice, fifty-fifty. She feels more relaxed in this moment than she has been since she got here ane week ago, considering, she realises, she doesn't experience alone anymore. She doesn't feel like she has to human activity a sure way or pretend to be annihilation she's non. She tin can just be Jane hither.
Toward the end of their repast, she can sense that he's trying to bring up the guts to say something. She's already learnt that Julio has absolutely no poker face – he's the near easily readable person she's ever met.
"What?" she asks, with a smile.
"What?" he says back, failing to pretend that he'south not got a burning question on his tongue.
Jane takes a sip of wine. "Yous want to say something."
Julio looks embarrassed for a moment. "Well… okay." He looks downward, then support at her from beneath his mass of curly hair. "I just wanted to know why you're here, actually. Why you're in Mojácar all by yourself, walking around like… I don't know." He chuckles. "I mean, you tin't even speak whatsoever Spanish."
"I know gracias," Jane snaps.
"You didn't even pronounce that correctly," Julio points out.
"Details, details."
Jane knows she should have expected the topic to come up. She recognises that her solo presence hither is odd, to say the least. Merely… she just doesn't want to get into information technology. She doesn't want any of the situation with Lisa and Colin to cloud this guy's view of her. She doesn't want to be that Jane – the Jane who'd lost her lifelong best friend to a smarmy graduate student and had to literally leap transport to go away from them without explanation. She but wants to be this Jane. Who can tease a guy about his dilapidated books and drink vino leisurely earlier three o'clock, who tin wander the white streets alone without having to talk, who can swim in the ocean simply as the sun sets and non accept to remember almost friends, or uni, or going domicile to her female parent who volition just despair at another of Jane's summers wasted and spend the next few months ignoring her. She wants to be this Jane, who doesn't accept to endeavour to push away the loneliness that has grown with her ever since she can remember. She can choose to exist lonely here. In that location is power in that.
"Exercise y'all listen if I don't get into it?" she tells Julio. "I just… I but like existence here. Just hanging out."
Julio looks a petty disappointed, merely he says, "Yep, yeah of course. That's fine."
They finish up their wine a petty more awkwardly than they'd started information technology, split the bill, and head out onto the street. Jane thanks him for hanging out with her, then gets the odd impression that he'd idea they were hanging out for the whole twenty-four hours, but the error has already been made, and information technology's besides awkward to acknowledge that she wouldn't mind that at all, she just thought he'd have ameliorate things to do. They office ways, and Jane wanders down to the beach, where she'due south been spending about of her afternoons so far, stretched out on the sand with her shirt rolled up, re-reading the only volume she brought with her this summer – Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings, a fantasy novel that Julio would probably have some very negative opinions nearly.
But but an hour after she and Julio parted means, Jane's bored. She can't stand up to read any more most Garion and the God damn Orb of Aldur, and she'due south annoyed that she so quickly causeless that Julio would take had plenty of talking to her, just would information technology be awkward to go to the phone booth and telephone call him again? Twice in one 24-hour interval? Was that a piddling desperate? That was a little desperate.
She did it anyway.
"I thought yous'd probably had plenty of hanging out with me," she admits to him over the phone. "But I feel like… perhaps you wanted to hang out for the whole day."
There'due south a intermission. She wishes she could come across his face so she could know exactly what he'south thinking.
"I did," he says, "I-I mean, I practise. Desire to hang out. With yous."
"I'grand at the embankment past the children's park."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Oh and… tin you bring me a book? I simply brought ane with me and I'k on my fifth re-read."
This fourth dimension she can hear the smile in his voice when he says, "I absolutely can."
***
Anonymous:
janio. Janio. JANIO. JANIOOOOOOOO. I LOVE THEM. Please write more than when y'all tin can!!
the saga continues…
Julio dusts off his old bicycle because he foolishly promised he'd encounter Jane at the beach in 20 minutes when it is, in fact, at least a good one-half hr walk away. Fifty-fifty Papá gives him a funny look from the patio when Julio waves and cycles off down the empty road. He and Mum are definitely non used to seeing Julio do and so much physical action.
He cycles through the faded streets and down long, barren roads, a copy of The Groovy Gatsby tucked under one arm – a prophylactic selection, he thought, since it was pretty enjoyable even if yous weren't into old books. He feels sort of nervous again, simply that's nothing unusual, is information technology? He'southward never been that great at relaxing around other people. But, he realises, he'south not nervous in an I'd-rather-be-at-habitation mode. Considering he likes Jane. And hanging out with her isn't awkward and stressful, like information technology usually is with most people.
He finds Jane in the beach play park. She'southward swinging quite enthusiastically on the swing set, kick her legs high into the air, her hair swirling effectually her as she flies through the air. A couple of kids are watching her from a corner, mouths dropped open up. Julio wonders whether she's having a fleck of a 'moment', so he waits until she notices him rather than interrupting. She slows down a piddling before leaping off, landing similar a cat on the tarmac, and walks over to him.
Julio can't stop himself from smiling. Who is this daughter and why, exactly, is she similar this?
He presents The Great Gatsby to her and she seems to approve of the choice. She tells him about Pawn of Prophecy, which Julio threatens to throw into the ocean, and Jane calls him a serial book murderer. They become and become ice cream and sit on a demote and consume in silence for a little while and it's peaceful, God, it's then, so peaceful. So they can't stop chatting again, first about Julio'southward mum'due south ambition to get a sea kayak, then about how much coin there'd be in an play park designed for adults, then nearly Jane'southward summer three years ago working at a seaside arcade, and then more than, and more than, things that don't matter and Julio tin't recall.
They spend the rest of the afternoon like that, moving onto the beach itself and sprawling out in the warm sand.
"What did you practise here earlier today?" he asks her at ane indicate.
"Just this," she says, eyes shut, "but by myself."
"Accept I ruined your peaceful alone fourth dimension?"
"No. It however feels similar peaceful lonely time."
Julio isn't certain whether that'south a skillful affair or not.
They become for dinner at a pocket-sized cafe, since they had a large meal for dejeuner. They sit down outside at a plastic table and chairs and so the ocean is yet in sight. Music spills out of a nearby restaurant, the locals laughing and drinking merrily as the sunday goes down. Julio knows he and Jane haven't really talked nigh many important things, and really, he still doesn't know her very well – he doesn't know much near her past or future or why she's here. Simply he knows that she saves her smiles for proficient jokes, and wrinkles her olfactory organ at mistreated books fifty-fifty though she doesn't read much, and believes an empty swing is an irresistible invitation. He knows she doesn't like owing people (specially for churro), and respects languages deeply despite being terrible at them, and is honest when she makes a mistake because she doesn't similar miscommunication.
He knows those things. And he likes all of them.
They sit for a long time after their meal until the sun has set.
"I think nosotros should go for a swim," says Jane eventually.
And Julio could not agree more.
***
solitairians:
hey alice….. how about some more janio 👀👀👀 (if u feel like it ofc im not gonna force u to do anything lol)
hELL Yes
The beach is most totally dark. Jane can only merely run across the fuzzy shape of Julio in forepart of her, the moonlight shining on the tips of his pilus. He's the only thing she can meet, actually. Him and the moon. She feels hyperaware of him, his as well-large sun-faded shirt, his long legs, his dark curls, left too long after a haircut peradventure, his hands and elbows smattered with tiny freckles that go away in the winter, and, in his back pocket, a book. She feels used to his presence already. Attached to him. Condom with him.
They start just past kicking their shoes off and paddling. The water is cool and feet sink into sand. They dare each other to wade out farther and further, until Julio'due south shorts are half-soaked and Jane's sundress is floating around her, and so Jane decides to bite the bullet and remove her dress entirely, in one roughshod swoop, and run back to the shore to tuck information technology safely underneath her shoes earlier jumping back into the water.
Julio watches, saying zilch, and when Jane returns to him, she can see the broad-eyed astonishment through his glasses. Jane isn't expecting anything from him though – she knows that he knows that. She knows that Julio won't have it as an invitation or a suggestion of anything – he'due south not that sort of guy.
"You're going to go your book wet," she tells him, gesturing to his back pocket
He stares, taking a moment to realise what she ways, before letting out a laugh. He rushes back to the sand and, like Jane, strips downwardly into his underwear, before joining her again in the ocean.
They just float for a while, drifting further out so letting the waves push them dorsum. And they talk, something that seems to grow both easier and more than wonderful every fourth dimension it happens. Words join the gentle rush of waves and the faint echo of music from restaurants up on the seafront. Julio has to go along wiping his spectacles, and Jane laughs when he dunks his head in the h2o, entirely flattening his untamed hair. They lay in the shallows for a while, letting water and sand cover them, blending them with the darkness. They hold easily and whisper secrets. Then they swim as far as they can earlier Jane can only just accomplish the sea floor and they don't dare go any further – not when they tin't tell the sea from the sky at the horizon.
Jane has never felt so at peace with the world.
Jane had thought from the offset that she might end up kissing Julio. She'd idea information technology from the showtime time she saw him sitting alone in the eating house, leg tucked up underneath him and a volume three inches from his olfactory organ. She had imagined information technology would happen under the Spanish lord's day in the sweltering heat – viscid, awkward, maybe a little premature.
But instead it happens under the moon in the cool h2o, when Jane looks up and they're a lilliputian closer than she thought, and there are drops of body of water water in his curls, and he smiles then wide.
Soft. Quiet. Inevitable.
***
choasset:
How are Janio doing? Likewise you are a word sorcerer and fifty-fifty this small side story is a masterpiece
Julio cycles back to his parents' place that night feeling lightheaded and jittery. He can't stop smiling.
He'south never kissed anyone like that before. Every bit in, it felt different somehow. New. Even with Tracey, his ex, who he'd been with for over two years, it hadn't been like that.
Kissing Jane had felt natural. Like this was his identify in the world. He wants to do it again. And once more. For the residuum of his life.
He collapses into bed, seawater still drying in his pilus, and has happy dreams.
And he wakes up eight hours later practically shaking with anxiety.
What if she's not actually into him? What if she merely wants a summer fling? What if she's merely the sort of person who kisses whoever's effectually? Where does she even live in England? If they end upward together, are they going to be immediately a long distance couple? God, he doesn't even know her final proper noun. He doesn't even know why she's hither, alone in Mojácar. He doesn't know when she's going to exit.
Does she similar him as much every bit he likes her?
Does he like her every bit much as he thinks he does?
He tin't phone call her – she's the one with his telephone number. So he spends the morn floating in the pool, too restless to read, cursing himself for getting so attached to a person he notwithstanding barely knows. But if that's true, why does he feel more connected to Jane than he ever felt to Tracey? Or anyone in his entire life?
He eats luncheon with his parents for the first time in several days. Mum lays out the usual continental spread, Papá smokes lazily at the head of the table. Mum can tell something's up with Julio, only she doesn't say annihilation. Julio eats quietly, praying for the phone to ring.
It does so at 2pm.
"Sorry I didn't call this morning," she says. "I felt nervous."
There is the honesty Julio likes then much.
"That'southward okay," he says, sinking downward the wall to sit on the tiled floor, wrapping the telephone cord around his wrist.
They pause for a moment, listening.
Then she says, "I have to exit in two days."
In that location it is. The timer is set up.
Julio lets out a breath. "I'm glad yous told me that."
"What d'y'all hateful?"
"I felt like y'all'd but disappear forever. No phone number or… surname."
"And you wouldn't like it if I did that?"
The conscientious optimism in her vocalization is unmissable. Julio smiles. "No. Not at all."
At that place's another long pause.
"See me by our restaurant?" she says.
"When?"
"Now?"
"Okay!"
"Oh and…"
Julio waits.
"My surname'southward Driscoll. Expect me upwards in the phone book, if you want."
Then she hangs up. And Julio laughs and his center aches. He likes her and then, so much.
And it's probably going to end in heartbreak.
***
Anonymous:
May you continue the Jane and Julio story?
Jane spends the night in two minds.
One half of her is buzzing with joy. Reliving his fingertips on her cheek and his express joy equally he wiped the seawater from his glasses so he could see her improve.
And the other one-half?
The other half knows she needs to end it. Equally soon equally possible. Before she gets too fastened.
The scribbled-on page ripped from the eye of a book, tucked safely under her pillow, argues that information technology's already too belatedly for that.
As soon equally Julio appears at the end of the street at 2:30pm the side by side twenty-four hours, all those bad thoughts are forgotten. Instead her mind is filled with the billowing folds of his shirt (seriously, is it iv sizes too big?), the book in his breast pocket (closed, thankfully for the spine in question) and the dimples in his cheeks when he smiles at her (she only noticed them for the first time yesterday – a pleasant surprise). She gets the sudden urge to simply osculation him in the street. It's not like anyone here knows her or would care.
They don't bring upwardly last night'south kiss. They just stroll gently through boondocks and down the dusty roads until they get to Julio'due south business firm. Or his parents' house, she supposes. It'southward a big, beautiful Spanish villa with spacious grounds and a pool. Julio's male parent is out, just Jane meets Julio's mother, a tall English woman who smiles at Jane with such kindness that it most breaks Jane.
She came hither to be alone, so she couldn't do whatsoever more damage. Only hither is another relationship she's about to destroy.
Julio's pool is modern, clean, and absurd. They change into swimwear – after yesterday's body of water exploits, Jane thought it pertinent to bring a swimsuit forth in her handbag. Julio settles onto an inflatable with the practised ease of someone who has done so a hundred times before. Jane paddles awkwardly in the deep cease, not certain what to do with herself, earlier Julio offers to accident upward some other inflatable for her, leaving the pool to exercise then.
Alone in the pool, Jane wonders what it would exist like to holiday hither every summer with a family that loved her. In that location would exist overflowing meals round a big table with a gingham tablecloth. Five people in the pool at once and a game of volleyball. Strolls on the seafront. Farmers' markets. Waking upward to the sound of children'due south laughter and the scent of fresh pastries. Nights curled upward with a warm trunk beside her, the steady sound of someone else's breathing.
It's a dream. That's all.
Julio reappears with a tiny inflatable shark, babbling nearly how information technology was the but matter he could find and he thought it'd be a chip bigger one time he blew it upwardly, but he quietens when he sees Jane sitting on the edge of the pool, legs in the water, hastily trying to wipe tears from her eyes earlier he sees. Information technology'south too late. He's seen.
He leaps straight into the water, making a splash so loud it actually makes Jane leap. He swims over to her, putting his hands either side of her legs and gazing up at her with an expression of deep concern.
"What'south wrong?" he asks, his voice a low almost-whisper, the voice of their nighttime conversations in the ocean.
Now that the tears have started, it's impossible to become them to end. And Jane always cries when people enquire her that question. Not that many people ever have, though.
"I similar it here so much," she manages to croak out, half hiding her face up with one hand. "I really… actually similar it here with you."
Julio's concern doesn't allow up. He just laces his fingers with her free hand.
For a moment she thinks he's going to question her. Demand answers, force her to share what'southward incorrect.
But it turns out he doesn't need to.
"This is something to exercise with the reason yous're here," he says. A guess, peradventure, or maybe he only knew. Possibly they're already getting good at communicating without saying anything.
Jane just nods, eyes on her knees.
"You don't have to talk about it if you don't desire to."
Jane nods over again.
"Do y'all desire a hug?"
Jane thinks about it, and and then she nods a third fourth dimension.
She slides into the puddle and into his arms. They both sink down into the shallow end where they can sit down on the puddle floor, half submerged, and Jane tin rest her caput on his shoulder and concentrate on the warm condolement of his arms around her. He'due south stiff for a moment, only so she feels him relax and pull her closer, wrapping around her like a protective coating. She lets herself close her eyes and listen to the soft buzzing of cicadas and the calm rhythm of Julio's breathing.
This. This is what it would be like, she thinks. That dream, with the gingham tablecloth and the pastries in the morn. That'south what this feels like.
***
Anonymous:
Whatsoever Janio today perchance?
They sit in the puddle for a long time before Jane tells Julio her story.
Not that there'south much to tell, she says to him earlier she starts. But Julio can run across she needs to get it out – he's go painfully aware of how much she keeps cached inside, implied. So she tells him that she hates her parents and does everything, anything, to stay away from them and their manipulative behaviour. She tells him how she booked the first train she could with her best friend at the beginning of the summer, hoping to take off with her for the next three months, but Jane'south best friend invited her new boyfriend along, who turned out to be overly flirty and made a motility on her at to the lowest degree once a twenty-four hours behind Jane's best friend's back. The best friend noticed, and idea Jane was flirting dorsum. Things escalated until Jane concluded up pouring a whole strawberry daiquiri over the boyfriend'south head on a boat trip on the Garonne river in Bordeaux, and when her friend and the boyfriend had both started shouting at her, Jane had merely stood up, jumped off the boat, and swam to shore.
She tells Julio she thinks that was when she striking stone bottom.
She tells him that she went straight back to their hostel, packed her numberless, and got on the first train she could find and stayed on that railroad train all the manner to Murcia. Then she looked at a map, picked somewhere she thought she could disappear, and got on a jitney to Almería.
She tells him she doesn't call back she has e'er enjoyed beingness effectually a unmarried person in her life. She tells him that she'south gotten so expert at being quiet and passing the fourth dimension, shutting everyone out so she doesn't have to process anything anymore. She tells him that she just wishes she could feel at domicile somewhere, she wants to feel prophylactic, loved, and fifty-fifty happy, sometimes.
She thought that coming hither would save her from being constantly reminded of what she doesn't accept. Only she tin can't escape information technology anywhere.
She tells him that she thinks this will follow her for her whole life.
And Julio doesn't know what to say. He honestly doesn't. He tries to think of something he could say to make it better, but, he supposes, sometimes things are just beyond that. There's no way to make information technology better with kind words. At that place'due south no way to reverse years of bad feelings.
So he tin just hold her in his arms and wait.
***
Anonymous:
any janio tonight?
Jane doesn't regret telling Julio all that. Probably considering, later on tomorrow, she'll never see him again. And she quickly picks the mood back up, splashing effectually in the pool with him and making jokes, flicking water at his spectacles and dunking him when he's least expecting information technology. And they're both smiling again, for at present, at least.
They go out for dinner to their eating house and it feels like a goodbye. Their conversations seem to be reverting back to how they started – awkward. Mayhap Julio's a bit put off now. Or possibly Jane but can't see the employ in trying anymore. She's scared him off. And she'll be gone tomorrow.
This is how it always goes for Jane.
After they've paid their nib, Julio gives her a grin and says, "Want to go to the beach?"
Jane assents. Might be a squeamish way to stop it, she supposes.
The moon is high in the sky as they stroll across the sand. She takes his hand. Information technology already feels familiar and warm to her and she gets a pang in her chest. She doesn't want to leave. She doesn't ever desire to leave here.
"You lot've met me at my worst," she tells him at some betoken in their idle dark conversation.
And he says, "Then you can only go more wonderful."
It nearly breaks her.
They sit down on the edge of the pier and dangle their blank feet in the h2o. Julio reaches out suddenly and hugs her close to his chest. And they sit down there for an 60 minutes or and then, talking, laughing a fiddling. If Jane didn't have that feeling of dread in her centre – the knowledge that she has to go habitation – she would experience happy, maybe.
She kisses him ane terminal fourth dimension, running a manus through his untamed pilus, trying to commit all of this to retentivity. As she kisses him, crazy thoughts bound to her – maybe they could meet upward over again in England, maybe they could work something out, maybe she doesn't want to say goodbye, ever – no. This is merely a meagre summer fling. Even if they carried it on, she'd only ruin information technology, similar she does everything.
When they say goodnight, Jane is relieved he doesn't enquire her to call him in the morning. Because she'southward not going to.
***
solitairians:
so….. how about some janio 👀
Julio spends the next twenty-four hour period drifting in the puddle with a book on his chest, waiting for the phone to ring. Information technology rings once, at 5pm, but information technology'southward only a neighbour, calling to see if Julio's parents are even so on for dinner. In his rush to get to the telephone, Julio'due south book falls into the water, and when he returns to the puddle to fish it out, seeing all the text smearing together, he just starts crying.
He knew she was going to go.
If it had simply been a summer fling, Julio thinks he'd be able to deal with it. When he was seventeen he'd had a 'summer fling' with a Spanish girl he met in this very same boondocks – it was all giggles and ice cream and mitt-holding. And when they had to part means, it had been distressing, sort of, but he hadn't felt the ache in his breast that he does now, the ache that just makes him desire to weep and not stop crying.
He knows this matter with Jane wasn't a summertime fling. And it wasn't for her either.
She wouldn't take talked to him like she had in the pool yesterday if she'd thought this was a summer fling.
Merely she went anyhow.
He doesn't know her telephone number, and so he can't telephone call her. He doesn't know her address, so he can't fifty-fifty write to her.
He can't call back her surname. He tin can't even find her in the phonebook.
He gets out the worst of the tears before laying out his book to dry in the sun. Then he settles back into the pool, letting the at-home pull of the water soothe him until he's half-comatose on the bladder. Trying to forget it all. Trying to forget her.
The residual of Julio'south summertime stretches out similar that. Hazy days spent in the puddle or laying in the sand at the beach. He reads twice the number of books he unremarkably does every summer. He takes idle walks around town, through the white streets of Mojácar, running a few errands for his parents but more often than not just walking for the sake of it. His parents chastise him for not wanting to socialise. His mum asks him where that nice English girl went. He tells her he doesn't know.
And half dozen weeks pass. And summer is over.
Julio packs up, every bit he has done every year, and goes dorsum to England, dorsum to the run-downwards flat in Cambridge he shares with a immature lecturer and a flighty international student. He'southward pleased to render to his bookshelves, at to the lowest degree. And perhaps throwing himself dorsum into his studies will assist him forget the girl he still can't forget.
September turns into October. Leaves brainstorm to fall, lining the cobbled streets of Cambridge. Julio gets used to dressing warmer once again – jumpers, jeans. He gets a haircut. Merely everywhere he goes, he feels the ghost of summer following him. He wonders how he'd been so unaware of the depths of his loneliness until now. Maybe because he'd finally gotten a fiddling taste of what it was like to accept found your person.
Julio shakes all these thoughts from his head as he leaves the library ane belatedly October night. He wraps his glaze around him and examines the books he borrowed – a couple of academic texts on W.H. Auden. That'll go along him occupied for this evening at to the lowest degree.
When he rounds the corner to his apartment, though, he's surprised to find that the door is blocked past a effigy who appears to be examining the buzzers, trying to find the right i to press. The figure turns abruptly at the sound of Julio approaching, a little startled, swamped in a huge denim jacket.
It's Jane.
***
Anonymous:
Janio pretty please. I need my babes to exist happy
Jane regrets everything the moment the train leaves the station.
She regrets ruining their terminal day with her pathetic grizzling. She regrets getting used to the warmth of his palms and the feeling of his hair between her fingers. She regrets that moment in the body of water when the moon reflected in his glasses and she pressed her forehead against his arm for no reason other than she felt safe, and at home.
She regrets leaving him backside without fifty-fifty a telephone call.
She cries into her rucksack as the train soars through the Spanish countryside.
Summer continues as it always does and Jane tries to practice what she always has – printing down her feelings and but get past. Her mother is angry at her for a long time, but it'southward not similar that'southward annihilation new. Her sis isn't there to be on her side. And she doesn't hear from Lisa and Colin at all – non a phone call or even a postcard. Jane wonders whether that's it for her and Lisa. She wonders whether it's bad that she doesn't care that much.
At the back of her mind always is him. Julio. J. Leap, an untidy scrawl of messages underneath a manus drawn map on a page torn out of a book. She keeps the page in her bedside drawer. She imagines she can smell the body of water salt on it, or feel his skin when she brushes the messages. The sun high in the heaven, warming her cheeks. Fantasies, fantasies.
She goes back to university in Bath in September as early as she can just to get away from her parents and their snappy words, their abiding badgerer at her presence. She finds a little comfort in being alone again in the studio apartment she's rented for the year. She can cook her own meals and curl upwards to sleep to the hum of the radio without her dad skulking round like he's set up for a fight or her mother frowning downwards her nose at her. She's almost at peace once she's lonely once again. She even might have been, were it not for him.
She had found a proficient person, and she gave up because she was scared and tired and and so, so used to being alone.
Her classes start in early October but she feels like time has stopped. Like nothing at all has happened since she said bye to him on the streets of Mojácar and the world is waiting until she fixes it. Until she fixes everything.
In the second calendar week of Oct she buys a map of Cambridge. That's one of the things she knows nigh him – he's a nerd, of course, and got into Cambridge University. She doesn't know why she buys the map but she ends up sitting up for a few nights, scouring over it, imagining which huge Cambridge college building he lives in. She imagines him in big leather armchairs with a tweed jacket on and a decaying book in his hands. She imagines him sitting upwards by candlelight, writing passionate essays in that nearly illegible scrawl. She imagines herself there with him, staying warm under scratchy blankets.
In the third week of October she feels and so restless that she doesn't go to any lectures at all. She ends upward tracking down the book that the ripped out page had come from and reading the whole thing, thinking it'd give her some sort of closure. It doesn't. Information technology just makes her require him. And it'due south not fifty-fifty a very enjoyable book.
The fourth calendar week of Oct, she wakes up fully intending to get to her morning lecture equally normal, just ends up walking to the train station and asking the ticket office near getting to Cambridge. She buys a ticket, and the day later that, she goes to Cambridge.
She doesn't know what she'southward doing or what she expects. She'due south not fifty-fifty sure he'd call up her if she found him. More and more than their brief summer days are starting to feel like a dream, similar they happened in some other universe. Maybe she would stand in front of him and he'd wait at her blankly, strangers over again. Maybe so she would become some closure. Or perhaps that would just about finish her.
She locates a cheap B&B owned past a cheerful and unquestioning elderly adult female. And then she roams.
The first twenty-four hours, she holds out hope of just running into him. She hovers past the library, exterior some of the larger colleges, by a few tearooms and even a bookshop. But in that location's no sight of that dark hair. She lays in flowery sheets that night most at the point of giving up and going back to her tiny flat in Bath.
And then what? Never seeing him again? Another alone twelvemonth?
The 2nd day, she swallows her pride starts asking people. She targets students mostly, request whether they know a literature student with wild hair and silly round spectacles. She asks over twenty people before someone tells her yeah.
He points her towards the southward of the town and writes downwards an address on her leaflet map of Cambridge.
She goes without hesitation. It hits her then as she'south striding through the cobbled streets, crunching leaves beneath her feet, that she is hither considering what she felt with Julio was the best thing she'south ever felt. Possibly that's selfish, or possibly he felt information technology as well. And, for once, Jane doesn't retrieve she tin alive with not finding out.
She'south merely trying to determine which flat she should buzz kickoff when she hears the footsteps, and turns, and finds him there, arranged up in woollen coat with a stack of books under one arm.
The first thing he does is drop all his books on the basis. Then he bends over, hands on his knees, and simply starts crying.
'Oh no,' Jane says. 'Oh God.' She doesn't know whether to go for the books or the tears get-go, just ends up going for the books, jogging upward to Julio and picking them up from the footing ane by one while he'southward frantically rubbing his eyes and trying non to sniff too loud.
'Er, here.' Jane hands him the books, feeling her face burning. 'Sorry.'
Deplorable. And then many things she'south sorry for.
Julio shakes his head. 'You lot surprised me.'
'Yeah. Understandable.'
There'southward a silence while Julio wipes his spectacles on his sleeve. Jane takes in his slightly altered appearance – his pilus, a little shorter and more than tamed, his skin, a lilliputian paler without the Spanish sun, his body all wrapped up in thick autumn wearable, but even so with the bad-mannered bookishness of his linen shirts and shorts he'd worn in the summer.
'Are yous angry?' Jane asks him, not specifying what he might be angry for. Leaving him. Coming hither unannounced. Letting them fall for each other in the first identify.
But Julio shakes his caput. 'I keep thinking I should be,' he mumbles. 'But… I think I sympathize y'all too well already.'
This makes Jane more flustered than she could possibly have imagined.
'Not used to that,' she admits immediately.
Julio chuckles. 'Did it scare you off?'
'Mayhap. Or maybe I was just a sad idiot who doesn't know what'due south good for her.'
Julio meets her optics again.
'Information technology wasn't merely a summer fling, was information technology?' he asks.
'No,' says Jane. 'I don't exercise those.'
'How the hell did you track me down to my flat in Cambridge?'
'With great effort. Learn to give a girl your phone number, for God's sake.'
So they're both grinning. It feels like the beginning breath of brisk autumn air.
'Practice you want to come within?' Julio asks, his vocalisation somewhat breathless.
'Yes,' replies Jane.
He nods awkwardly and steps past her to unlock the door. She stands very still for a moment while he's doing so, merely watching his startled profile. And then she does something very dissimilar her.
She slides her artillery around his waist and buries her face up into his coat. She closes her eyes and Jane feels warm all over, but like she had in the summer. Maybe it hadn't been the Spanish heat that had done that.
Julio freezes for a small-scale moment, unsure. Then he murmurs her name, 'Jane,' and bundles her into a hug, wrapping himself around her similar that afternoon in his pool. 'I'm… so glad you're hither.' His voice breaks halfway through. 'I'chiliad so glad…'
He presses a kiss to her forehead. And so she tilts her caput and presses a kiss to his lips. And then they stand up there in front of the unlocked door for a few minutes, close together in the autumn air.
That'south not the starting time moment Jane thinks she'due south found it, nor is information technology the last. Much afterward, years afterwards maybe, she realises it is one of the many, many moments in her life she knows that she'southward found dwelling house.
***
Thank you so then So MUCH if you've been following along with this little story of Tori and Charlie's parents and how they met. I have had immense fun telling it and I'thousand so grateful to y'all all for being here to enjoy information technology with me 💕💕💕
Source: https://aliceoseman.com/extras/bonus-stories/jane-and-julio/
0 Response to "Dang I Did It Again Jane Stop This Crazy Thing"
Post a Comment