Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) (4 page)

“Hey, Axel,”
she answered
it. “What’s up?”

“Are you there yet?”

“No, I’m just getting on the bus. I’ll be
there in twenty.”

“I’ll be there in a half hour. Florian is
coming too, he says he’s feeling better.”

“Great! I’ll see you guys in a bit.”

Julia clicked
off and rooted around in her bag to get her MP3 player.
The bus slowly began to fill up. At every stop,
more teenagers got on, all of them dressed up for a night on the
town. She smiled – it was a good idea to get out of her slump and
hang out at the pub with her friends all night. Sooner or later,
she’d inevitably bump into Michael again, but at least she wouldn’t
have to face him alone.

“Okay, who wants
beer?”
Tamara asked, sliding off her bar
stool. Gaby’s sister was getting the next round. She patted the
leather of the seat and nudged Julia.
“Here, you can
have my stool. You deserve a seat.”

Florian and
Axel shot curious glances at Julia. They’d just
walked in, missing the entire conversation between Julia,
Gaby and Tamara about Julia’s nasty encounter with Michael that
afternoon.

“I deserve a
beer,” Florian added. “After
surviving
this terrible stomach flu that had me eating through a straw for
four days, I could do with a nice drink.”

“Yeah, that sounds like you’re fully prepared
to hold your liquor,” Axel grinned. “Make sure you don’t barf all
over me, okay?”

Gaby joined
her sister to help her with the drinks, and Florian grabbed the
stool next to Julia. “So, what happened to you? Why are you getting
a pity seat?”

“Oh, just –
crap. With men.”

“You
wanna
talk about it?” Axel said. “What
man broke your heart?”

“Michael
Kolbe,” Julia mumbled, not feeling very forthcoming.

“Kolbe
? That uber-dickhead?” Florian
exclaimed.

“Hey, can
you
keep the volume down?” Julia shushed
him uneasily. “Half the people in this pub celebrate his every
move.” In a soft voice, she recounted the short version of her
running into Michael to the guys, outrage written on their faces
when she finished.

“He only
preys on the innocent,” Florian said scornfully.

“Gee,
thanks.” Despite Florian’s tactless words, Julia couldn’t
help
cracking a smile. He was
undiplomatic, but he was also right, actually.

“Maybe we
should put up Michael’s picture on the dart board,” Axel suggested.
“So we can throw darts at his stupid face all night.”

“What
a
splendid
idea for a game,” Florian agreed. “We’ll call it Kill
Kolbe. Who knows, it might catch on. We could start a real
O’Malley’s trend here.”

In the
meantime, Gaby and Tamara had returned with a tray full of
drinks,
proposing a toast to the start of
the summer vacation. “Here’s hoping the people who hurt us in the
past all drop dead,” Gaby wished vindictively, shooting a wicked
grin at Julia.

Julia grinned
back
, clinking her glass against Gaby’s
drink. As she expected, it felt good to be out and about. She felt
stronger in the company of her friends. On the other hand, she was
more than glad not to have run into Michael by the time they left
the pub at eleven.

“We’ll go on
a shopping spree together soon,” Gaby said, hugging Julia goodbye.
“Or hang around in Mirabell Garden all day long to check out
boys.
I’ll get you through this. I
promise.”

“Thanks.”
Julia hugged her friend back. This was the start
of a new life full of new opportunities, and she’d make sure it
would be beautiful.

“I
’m going to run to Gran’s!”
Julia called out from the hallway while putting on her running
shoes. “I’ll see the two of you there, okay?”

“I’ll wait at
the front door with a gold medal and a choir singing the national
anthem,” Ms. Gunther teased her daughter, popping her head around
the kitchen door. “Have fun.”

Julia
sauntered dow
n the road leading to the
woods, speeding up once she was under the trees. It was a beautiful
Saturday morning, and the forest was peaceful and still. All she
could hear were the usual sounds of nature and the steady beat of
her heart. That was why she loved running here – in the stillness,
her worries always faded into the background. It was like
meditation to her.

Julia
left the main trail and went off-track for a
little ways so she could pause at the foot of her oak tree. Her
breathing slowed down as she leaned against the tree trunk, opening
the bottle of water that was in her small rucksack. Some clean
clothes were sitting next to her water bottle, so she could freshen
up at her grandmother’s house after her run. And last but not
least, her final report card. Her gran hadn’t even seen her
graduation marks yet.

All
her grades were good, but Julia was most pleased
with her final results in Music Education. She scored the highest
mark of her year for that elective because of the song she
composed. If only Michael knew it was written for
him
… he’d
probably laugh his head off.

Softly, she
hummed the tune
to herself, feeling
incredibly lonely for a moment as she rested her head against the
cracked bark of the tree trunk. Above her head, the leaves rustled
in the wind that suddenly picked up, as if the forest was
responding to her by singing back. Somewhere in the distance, a
bird chirped.

After a few
minutes of reminiscing, Julia decided her break was over.
She jumped to her feet and stretched her legs,
putting the water bottle away. The muscles in her legs felt warm
and taut after stretching. Light-footed, she cut back through the
trees to continue along the dirt road running through the woods,
reaching the edge of the forest close to Eichet after fifteen
minutes. The main road leading to the village was deserted. Julia
stuck to the middle, her sneakers hitting the asphalt like a
peaceful mantra. In the heat of the late June morning, she could
feel the slick sweat on her skin, vigor coursing through her body.
This was just what she needed. Running always revitalized her after
she’d spent too much energy on everyday worries, and lately, people
had been sucking up her energy far too much.

Michael
telling her,
I’ll see you soon.
Her father’s voice mixing in with Michael’s
words:
I’ll come and visit
you girls as often as I can
. People
promising her things without meaning a single word.

Her best
friend Gaby was a breath of fresh air in that respect. She was
always completely hones
t, not bothering
to beat around the bush. When Julia and Gaby met in high school,
Gaby had already been in the habit of wearing strange outfits,
carrying around a black backpack decorated with Placebo and Nirvana
patches for a school bag, despite the teachers’ rebukes.

“I don’t mind
sitting next to you,” Gaby had
declared
to a bashful Julia on their first day of school. She’d plunked her
old, tattered backpack down on the seat next to Julia’s. “You’re
the only real person around here.”

“How
– how do you know?” Julia had asked, a bit taken
aback.

“Your eyes
tell me you’re not that fond of people. So you don’t bother lying
to them either. You’re not a fake.”

Julia had
immediately felt protected by Gaby’s extravagant and rebellious
behavior in class. Later, Gaby had told her that she felt safe
around Julia because she exuded such peace and tranquility. Gaby’s
parents were loud and extroverted people with a wide circle of
friends, who didn’t have a lot of time to spend with their two
daughters. Tamara had adapted, playing the good, oldest daughter
who was never a burden to her parents, and Gaby had dug her heels
in and decided to dress just like the rock stars she adored and her
parents abhorred. Despite that, Tamara and Gaby got along very
well.

Julia
turned
into her gran’s street and caught
sight of her grandmother waiting for her in the front
yard.

“Faster, Julia,” she called out. “Tea’s
getting cold!”

Her
mom and sister had come by bike and were in the
living room with tea and slices of ginger cake. Julia kissed her
grandma on the cheek as she barreled inside, kicking off her
sneakers in the hallway.

“Just gonna freshen up,” she panted, taking
the stairs two steps at a time. The water from the shower heated up
quickly, so it only took her ten minutes to wash up and get back
down for her own share of tea and cake.

“Any plans
for
the summer?” Gran inquired curiously.
“You have three months off, after all.”

Julia shrugged. “Don’t
know.
I could find a job, I
guess.”

Her mother
didn’t have
the money to take her and
Anne anywhere special. Julia had counted on spending her vacation
in Salzburg, but now that summer was here, the three months ahead
seemed to stretch out endlessly. Uni would only start at the
beginning of October, leaving her plenty of time to get a summer
job and save up, but frankly, she wasn’t stoked about the idea.
Last year, picking orders in a musty garment factory had driven her
absolutely nuts after two weeks.

“Axel told me
he was planning a trip to London,” Gran said.
“Didn’t he go last week?”

Julia shook her
head.
“Florian got sick, so they
postponed.”

“Why don’t you join them? That might cheer
you up.”

Julia
looked down at her hands, feeling caught. Her
grandma seemed to have a sixth sense for these things. If anything
was ever the matter with her, Gran always knew immediately. “I’m
okay, thanks,” she replied, not wanting to worry Anne and her mom.
She quickly dug around in her backpack to find her report card.
“Here, have a look at my scores.”

Gran
chuckled.
Julia couldn’t help but smile
as well. This was stupid – she sounded like she was trying to prove
her life was great by showing off her grade point
average.

“Julia had
the highest score in Music Ed,” Anne chimed in, beaming proudly at
her sister.
“She played one of her own
songs.”

“Why don’t you play it for Gran later?” her
mother suggested.

Great. She’d
feared as much – having to play
the
infamous song that reminded her of that one particular person she
wanted to forget about. “Yeah, I will. Let me drink my tea first,”
she grumbled.

When Julia
fled into the
back yard after finishing
her tea and her reluctant musical performance, her grandmother
followed her, falling into step with her on the path along the
rhododendrons.

“My sweet
Julia, what is the matter with you?”
she
asked gently.

Julia sighed
deeply.
“It’s nothing, really. I just…
have to let go of things I should have left behind a
long
time
ago.” She slumped down on the bench between two large
bushes.

“So what’s his name?” the old woman asked
after a few beats of silence.

“Michael,” Julia whispered, her voice
catching in her throat.

“Did you
write
that song of yours for
him?”

“Gran,
you
really
are a psychic,” Julia exclaimed huffily.

Her
grandmother gave her a lopsided smile that border
ed on a grin full of mischief, then looked serious again.
“He inspired you, and t
hat is beautiful.
You will always have that. The love you felt for
him is not lost – you will learn to give it to someone else, once
you’ve left his memory behind.”

“Give it to
someone else? I don’t know if I can. It all felt so intense that it
left me drained. Even
if I know now that
he didn’t deserve my love.”

Julia fell
silent, her eyes trained on the dark-green witch ball on a
stick
standing next to the rhododendron
bush. In the convex glass of the sphere, she looked alien, a
strange, distorted version of her staring back from a far-away,
green-tinted world. How nice it would be to crawl away and
disappear inside a dream bubble like that.

She closed
her eyes and fought back new tears. This was ridiculous – she
should cheer up. Gran had said such sweet and wise things to her.
Still, she couldn’t help but bawl when her grandmother settled on
the bench too and put an arm around her shoulders. “You should
allow yourself to mourn the things you lost, dear girl. But please
remember to cherish the things you still have.”

Gran was
right – she still had all
the poems she’d
written in her diary while sitting under her oak tree, dreaming of
Michael. She still had her song – the haunting melody she’d
performed during the graduation ceremony in front of an enthralled
audience. Her mother had been so emotional when she’d brought Julia
a bunch of flowers on stage right after the performance. These were
moments she’d keep close to her heart for a long time to
come.