Chapter Twelve: Julia, the Queen of Hearts:

How long has it been? Wallace struggled to speak again.

“Julia is that you?” he asked. The strawberry blonde girl perked up.

“Wallace, what are you doing here?” she asked.

“I go to school here now,” Wallace said. His crush blinked.

“What?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding.

“Oh…” Julia said. She tried to force herself to smile.

“Who is that?” a girl asked from the circle. Julia and Wallace looked up. The girls looked at them with strange looks on their faces.

“Oh!” Julia shouted. “This is Wallace. He came from my hometown.” The country boy smiled and waved.

“Hello,” he said. “I was just hanging out in the library.” A fat moment of silence hung over them. Julia’s face started to ache as she forced herself to smile. Wallace struggled to say something, anything. The leader of the group clapped her hands together.

“Okay, we need to get back on track here!” she said. Julia cleared her throat.

“Yes! Let’s do that!” she was quick to say. Wallace took a step backwards before looking around.

“Oh…” he said. “Oh! Oh! Uh… goodbye.” The country boy turned and hurried out of the library. They were probably whispering about him now. Somehow, that didn’t matter to him. He got to see his beloved Julia again.

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“What are you doing after high school?” Julia asked him three months ago. Wallace lifted his head from the grass.

“Hm?” he asked.

“After graduation, what do you plan to do?” she asked. He took a moment to think.

“I don’t know, really,” Wallace said at last. “You?” Julia lay back with a smile on her face.

“An actress,” she said. “Or an artist.” He nodded as he thought that.

“Those suit you well,” Wallace said. His crush reached up towards one of the puffy clouds in the sky.

“I am going to School of Visual Arts,” she said. He gave her a funny look.

“Where is that?” he asked.

“New York,” Julia said. He wrinkled his nose.

“Why would you want to go there?” he asked. His crush frowned.

“Aren’t you tired of this town?” she asked.

“Not really,” Wallace said. Julia sat up with grass tangled in her long hair.

“We can’t spend the rest of our lives here,” she said. “There is nothing for us in this town. Don’t you want to go out there and see what the world has to offer?” That question alone started Wallace on his little mission to fly away from his hometown.

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The country boy stood outside the library and frowned. What exactly was he doing here? He found his girl but now what? Wallace didn’t know how to do any form of art. He couldn’t even draw stick figures probably. The country boy just followed his crush upstate on a whim. But now he needed to prove that he was worth her time. He didn’t even know how to do that.

The country boy was about to get the answer that he needed. It would take just one walk-by in the hallway.