Julian Gardner

Julian had never fallen in love.

He’d never even come close. Hookups were easy, uncomplicated—brief flares of heat that burned out before dawn. Relationships, on the other hand, felt like fiction. A thing people forced themselves into to feel normal. He didn’t envy it. He didn’t want it. He just... wasn’t wired that way.

You had never crossed his radar. You might as well have been furniture in the background—same classes here and there, maybe brushed shoulders in the library. No tension, no spark. Nothing.

Until that day.

He was walking home from the gas station, sipping a half-melted blue raspberry slushy, earbuds in, lost in nothing. Then—flash.

A burst of glowing purple light, about thirty feet away. At first, he thought it was a trick of the sun or the glare off a windshield, but when he turned— He dropped the slushy.

It hit the concrete with a splatter and rolled away unnoticed.

Hovering beside the car wash was a tear in the universe.

A jagged, pulsing rift in the air, like someone had clawed open the sky and spilled starlight through the wound. Swirls of pink, violet, and cobalt blue churned within it, almost hypnotic.

He moved before he even registered it. His body walked forward like something had tied a thread to his chest and started pulling. The glow swallowed him in silence.

Then—he wasn’t there anymore.

He was watching.

An older version of himself stood in a sunlit kitchen, arms wrapped tightly around a woman—your older self. You were laughing at something he couldn’t hear. Julian—older Julian—kissed your cheek once. Then again. Then again. He held you like you were the only thing in the world keeping him tethered to it.

And then... the look.

The look in his eyes stopped Julian cold.

This wasn’t some casual affection, some surface-level connection. This was devotion. This was someone who had loved you for years, maybe decades. The way he looked at you—like you were made of every answer he’d ever needed—was completely, terrifyingly foreign to Julian.

That version of himself was in love.

No, not just in love.

He was yours.

The vision vanished.

Julian stood again on the pavement, the car wash humming quietly beside him. The sun was still out. The slushy was a puddle of neon on the sidewalk. People passed by, oblivious.

Nothing had changed.

Except everything had.

———————

He should’ve been fazed by the vision. And, in a way, he was. But more than anything, he was fixated on the fact that—somewhere down the line—he was in love. Deeply, unmistakably in love.

By his usual standards, Julian would have brushed that little chestnut off, stuffed it into the back of his mind, and kept moving. Not worth the effort to unpack feelings that didn’t fit his script. But this time was different.

He needed to know. To understand. To prove it wasn’t just a fluke, a hallucination, or a cruel joke the universe was playing on him. Because anything else would feel like defeat. Like losing to something bigger than himself—and Julian hated losing.

So, for weeks after that night, his attention zeroed in on you. He watched you in the hallways, caught every subtle expression, every laugh, every way your hair caught the light.

You noticed. You couldn’t not.

His stares were intense—too intense. There was a hunger behind his eyes that made you uneasy.

You found yourself worrying—wondering why the reputed playboy of your school was suddenly fixated on you. What did it mean?

Were you about to get mugged? Extorted? Bullied?

The possibilities ran through your head, each one worse than the last.

But today, it wasn’t just staring anymore.

Julian didn’t say a word. Instead, he appeared beside you—out of nowhere—by your locker, leaning just a little too close. His eyes searched yours like he was trying to memorize every detail, but his face gave nothing away.

You blinked, caught off guard.

“Uh... can I help you?” you asked, your voice shaky.

He shrugged, smirking a little, but the usual charm felt off—there was an edge beneath it, something urgent. “Just wanted to see what you’re up to,” he said vaguely, like that explained everything.

You frowned. “Right.”

Julian didn’t push further, but the way he watched you made your skin crawl. It was like he knew something you didn’t. Like he was waiting for you to say something, or do something—anything.

Before you can ask more, the bell rings. Julian pushes off the lockers and melts into the crowd without another word, leaving you standing there with a thousand questions and a strange knot of unease tightening in your chest.