Back Into Your Arms

When I first met Julie, she seemed like someone straight out of a teen movie. She was pretty, she was thin, she didn’t have much money but that never stopped her from wearing the latest fashion.
At first, she wasn’t friends with Mel, she was just another girl in the class, but after they were assigned to work on a project together they became friends.

Julie had a reputation before becoming friends with Melody, but Melody was always the kind of girl not to care too much about the past. Julie was known as the mean girl from junior high, by the time she had started high school very few people wanted to be her friend, but Melody befriended her.
They started hanging out and slowly but surely you could see Julie becoming a different person. Her makeup became less heavy and the girl started to smile more.

At this point in time I had no clue Melody had any feelings for me, she had started talking to me more but that was about it, I thought she was just being friendly. Melody got sick one week and my partner in class had not shown up, so Julie and I were forced to be each other’s partners for the day.

“I hate these writing assignments” she whispered over to me during class.

“Really? I don’t mind them too much”

“Mel loves them, I don’t know what she finds fun in them”

“She finds them FUN?” I laughed. I didn’t mind them but I sure didn’t find them fun.

“Right? She’s different, but I love her for it”

“You guys are pretty close”

“Yeah, she’s my first friend in a long time but anyways let’s get this stupid writing assignment over with”

We wrote for about 15 minutes straight and then we were told we had to share it with our partner, I was hesitant but it was mandatory. She took my paper and I took hers.

Her writing wasn’t awful but it wasn’t very interesting. I looked over and she was reading mine with great attention.

“Wow, John this is almost poetic” she smirked.

“Oh please”

“No, really! Who is this about?” she laughed. I wanted my paper back but she just smiled and re-read it.

“No one”

“I don’t believe you”

“Pure fiction”

“You know, you really don’t look like the writing type, but I guess I was wrong”

“What do I look like?”

“You play baseball, you look like you’re one of those jerks” she said pointing over to some guys in my team that were sitting across the room.

“Prejudiced much?”

“Oh please, I’m sure you have prejudiced ideas about me too”

She wasn’t wrong, but at the same time, I believed she was a good person in despite of it all.

“The past is your past, why judge you by what others said about you? From what I see, you’re quite different than what they said”

She smiled, a weak but true smile.

“Thank you, O’Callaghan, maybe you’re not so bad yourself”

I suppose that’s when she started to notice me.
Tim, my best friend, was friends with Melody since junior high. I noticed her beginning to talk to him more and I honestly began to believe maybe there was something going on between them.
I had secretly admired Melody from a far, so this broke my heart and I couldn’t help but confront Tim about it.

I remember he just laughed and laughed and laughed.

“YOU’RE FREAKING FUNNY JOHN”

“Bro, I’m serious, I just want to know”

“Bro, my heart belongs to Ashley”

“That’s what I thought but then you started talking to Melody a whole freaking lot”

“Yes, I have been, because Melody is giving me advice on how to win Ashley over”

“Melody gives advice?”

“Yeah, great advice too”

“Oh”

“Yeah, why are you so concerned?”

“I just thought maybe my best friend was keeping things from me”

“C’mon John, maybe it’s you keeping things from me”

I rolled my eyes but deep inside I was sighing in relief.

Melody started to show up in my life a whole lot more because of Tim and with her came Julie.
We all got a long pretty well, everything was going great until Mel confessed to me.

That week, Julie got into a fight with Mel. Mel was really sad, and I being a new boyfriend, was terrible at comforting her.

“I don’t even know why she’s mad” she sighed as we ate during lunch.

“She’s just ignoring you, maybe she’s just busy?”

“No, no, it’s not that, somethings up, she practically hissed at me when I stopped her from walking away after class”

“Her period?”

“John” Mel glared at me.

“I’m just saying” I said in my defense.

“She’s my best friend, I don’t know what I did wrong”

“Maybe she’s upset that we started dating?” I suggested. She thought about it for a second.

“I never really told her that I liked you”

“You didn’t?”

“No…I told her I liked someone but I never said who, I also never told her I had planned on asking you out, maybe she’s upset that I hid this from her and kept it a secret, God I’m so stupid”

That was the conclusion she made. I didn’t feel that was it though.

But Mel talked it over with Julie and then called me to tell me that they had made up.

Julie started hanging out with Mel again, but she always seemed upset whenever she was with me, I assumed she just didn’t like me, it never crossed my mind that she was upset because she liked me.
We continued like this for a long time, until Mel’s accident.

Strangely enough Julie called me to let me know about Mel.
She was the one that told me Mel had lost her memory, she was the one that told me that Mel’s parents never wanted to see me again.

She invited me for coffee one afternoon, and I agreed because I wanted to know how Mel was doing. We had coffee and talked but she mentioned nothing about her.

I was walking her back to her car when she threw herself onto me and kissed me. She kissed me with so much force, I was confused beyond my mind about what was going on.

“STOP” I said to her as I pushed her away. She looked so hurt.

“John”

“WHAT THE HELL was THAT?” I asked her wiping my mouth.

“I love you”

I was stunned.

“I’m sorry but I’m in love with Mel, YOU KNOW THAT, WE ALL KNOW THAT”

“MEL IS NEVER GETTING HER MEMORY BACK”

“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT”

“She doesn’t remember a single thing about you, you need to move on”

“Move on to you?” I spat.

She was breathing heavily now.

“WHY NOT?”

“You’re Mel’s BEST FRIEND”

“Her best friend? Maybe, but she sure as hell isn’t MY BEST FRIEND”

“What?”

“I liked you first John”

“Excuse me?”

“She never took into consideration my feelings”

“Did you tell her?”

She hesitated.

“I was going to”

“But you never did”

“No, but-”

“NO. She liked me since Freshman year Julie”

“She’s lying”

“EVEN if she WERE to have lied, I don’t like you Julie, I like you as my friend but never have I had romantic feelings for you”

She started to cry, tears of anger.

“You’re a freaking jerk”

“You’re even worse, you kissed your friend’s boyfriend hoping that maybe you would have a chance now that she has forgotten everything, God Julie, she’s not dead”

“I HATE YOU, AND HER”

With that she left, and she never answered my phone calls again, or updated me regarding Mel. I thought they had stopped being friends, when I found out they had remained friends I was baffled. But I didn’t want to tell Mel. It looked like Julie and her had regained their friendship and I didn’t want to ruin that. I wanted to leave it in the past, and blame Julie’s actions on being young, hormonal and not knowing how to keep friends, but now Julie had confessed it all and more.
Julie’s past actions were despicable. The question was, was she still a bad person? Or had she truly repented and changed her ways?