Anywhere With You ? {J.C.}

"And I am stop and go
In your eyes
And I am stop, oh, darlin' let me go."
-Soma

Harlow sat behind the wheel, laughing hysterically. She could barely breathe, her eyes were squinted and her cheeks were aching. Tears had already begun to fall from her eyes and all she could seem to do was grip the wheel in order to not piss herself.

Julian was laughing too, but only because the sight of Harlow losing it was entertaining to watch. He'd never seen her so... well, happy.

Needless to say, they hadn't even made it off the street across from the Mercy Lounge. Julian had pulled out a joint, lighting it up before Harlow even had time to put the key in the ignition. He wanted her to let loose—he wanted Harlow to just enjoy herself for the night and skip school tomorrow. What was one day's worth of school work going to hurt? If he didn't know any better, he would swear she was using it as an excuse to leave. But it wasn't valid enough—not for Julian.

"You good?... you alright?" Julian spoke in chuckles, holding the joint between his fingers as he waited for Harlow's laughs to subside.

Things suddenly grew serious; Harlow's fit of giggles died and was quickly replaced by silence. She became worried when seeing that Julian's kind face had turned hard under the weight of her gaze. Looking back into Julian's eyes, Harlow wanted to cry.

The way he was looking at her—those dark eyes filled with kindness and worry made her realize that perhaps she had been transparent all this time—perhaps he saw through the way she was starting to feel about him. She needed to distract him—to derail what she was sure he was thinking.

"I'm gonna have to move away soon. My mom waited until the last minute to tell me, but... we're gonna lose the house. I'm either gonna have to take that scholarship from Stanford or finish the year at Dwight in a few weeks. That's why I need to go home- why I can't miss." Harlow admitted; by the questioning look on Julian's face, she wished that she hadn't.

He shifted in the passenger seat, tucking his foot under the bend of his knee before looking back to Harlow. "What do you wanna do? Like... what do you wanna do with your life? Since you and Alex aren't together, you don't really have a reason to stick around anymore, you know. So, if you go to Stanford, what would you do there?"

Harlow's face fell; the truth was, she'd never really thought about it. On paper, she was set to study biological and biomedical sciences; but in her heart, she wasn't so sure. Perhaps she had never really wanted to go to Stanford after all.

"Biological science." Harlow spoke flatly.

"Alright... what is that... exactly?"

The question caused Harlow to burst into laughter again, as if their conversation had never turned serious. "Um... well, it's... bioengineering. I'd study artificial tissues and organs and... I'm too high to explain this." She chuckled again.

"Do you have a passion for doing that? I mean... is that what you wanna do for the rest of your life?"

"Well... no. Not exactly. I don't- I don't know. I just... I know I'd be good at it- I'd make good money doing it."

"But that wasn't what I asked you. I asked you if that's what you wanna do."

Harlow suddenly took offense—her brows furrowed and things weren't so halfhearted anymore. She had taken what Julian said to heart; it felt like he was attacking her.

"Make money? Yeah, that's exactly what I wanna do. Not all of us were lucky enough to go to a Swiss boarding school and have rich parents-"