Chapter Text
Friday, January 7th
45 days left
Jules
Jules races through the crowded hallways of Columbine High and slips into her film class just as the bell rings.
Mr. Harper stands by the entrance, arms crossed and frowning. “Well, I’m thrilled you could finally grace us with your presence,” he says dryly as she enters the room.
She offers a sheepish half-smile and makes her way to her desk at the back of the class, where Emily and Leah sat. As soon as she plopped into her seat, Emily leaned in and mimicked Mr. Harper’s stern tone.
“Thrilled you could join us,” she whispered, her imitation spot-on.
Jules chuckled softly and rummaged through her bag, eventually pulling out her binder and dropping it onto her desk. She flipped it open, and her eyes landed on the sheet of paper containing the instructions for their film project:
Create a short film or documentary on a topic you’re passionate about, or that reflects your life.
Use key filmmaking techniques, such as visual composition, editing, and sound design.
Your film can be narrative, documentary, or experimental, but it should be both creative and authentic. Consider themes like personal experiences, hobbies, challenges, or meaningful concepts.
Jules stared at the words. Her mind went blank. A film about her life? Nothing about her seemed particularly “compelling.” None of it felt important enough to turn into a film.
She glanced up, and her eyes landed on the boy sitting a few desks ahead. His mop of dirty hair flopped over his forehead. He was tall and lanky, easily over six feet, but his lean frame gave him a boyish quality.
Dylan was handsome, though not in the conventional way. His face was kinda soft, and his nose was a little crooked, as though it had been broken once and never quite reset.
He mostly kept his head down and bent over his notebook. Whatever he was writing seemed to absorb him completely. The only time he seemed to break that focus was when he leaned over to speak to Brooks.
Brooks was the shorter and stockier one, with dark, wavy hair and an always faint, unmistakable smell of weed that seemed to follow him everywhere.
Jules often spotted the two in the hallways with their own group of friends. She wasn’t sure which clique they actually belonged to, somewhere between the stoners, the geeks, and maybe even the loners, the ones who didn’t quite fit neatly into any group but managed to move between them all the same.
Regardless of where exactly they sat on the popularity totem pole, Dylan and Brooks are definitely not the kind of guys Emily and Leah would ever be interested in. Her friends were drawn to boys like Tray Odom and John Porter, who were popular, confident, and always the center of attention.
But Dylan and Brooks had always kinda faded into the background, practically invisible to most people. At least most of the time. Sometimes, the football players would pick on them. It was usually small things, snide comments muttered just loud enough to be heard, or a shoulder bump in the hallway that looked accidental but wasn’t.
Other times, though, it was bigger, like that day during a school assembly in the gym a few months ago. One of the football players, bored and looking for a laugh, tossed a water bottle at them and their group of friends. It wasn’t the first time they’d been singled out, and this time, Dylan had had enough.
He snapped and, without hesitation, he stormed over to the group of football players and threw the first punch. In an instant, the gym exploded into chaos.
Students scrambled to get out of the way, and fists flew as the fight spiraled out of control. Teachers rushed in and managed to break it up before things went too far. It was the kind of fight that people still talked about and, for better or worse, impossible to forget.
"Alright, listen up," Mr. Harper said. “I will allow you to work in pairs or groups if you would like. You can choose your own partners." He paused, letting his gaze sweep over the room. “But choose wisely. This is a major grade.”
The class erupted into murmurs, and Emily and Leah quickly shuffled their desks closer to Jules, forming a small circle. They wasted no time, quickly launching into a conversation about their project ideas.
"I’m thinking my film will be about my life as an influencer,” Leah announced, pleased with herself. “Like everything that goes into it, you know? And how it has totally changed my life.”
Jules nodded absently, and her pen moved across her paper as she doodled a sunflower.
Over the past year, Leah had officially become “internet famous,” somehow racking up 10k followers on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. It had quickly become her entire personality.
Leah vlogged about nearly everything. Shopping hauls, product reviews, and her so-called “relatable” morning routines. Jules couldn’t help but secretly judge the kind of people who actually watched and followed that kind of content. Seriously, how interesting could it be to watch someone ramble about their haircare secrets or favorite oat milk lattes every single day?
“That sounds amazing,” Emily gushed, nodding in approval. She turned to Jules. “What about you, Jules? Any ideas yet?”
"I don’t know yet."
"Come on," Emily teased. "You’ve gotta pick something good! Maybe... oh! You could do something about fashion or photography or something cool like that."
Jules forced a half-smile. Fashion and photography? That wasn’t her. Not really.
"Yeah, maybe."
Before Emily could press her further, a crumpled paper ball sailed through the air. It bounced off Dylan’s desk and landed squarely in his lap.
Scattered laughter rippled through the class as Dylan frowned and picked up the paper slowly. The girls watched the scene unfold, and their conversation had become forgotten for the moment.
Leah leaned in. "I wonder if they’re, like… gay together."
Emily’s eyes widened, and she let out a quick, shocked laugh before clapping a hand over her mouth. "Oh my god, stop!"
“Ladies!” Mr. Harper’s voice cut through the classroom. He shot a pointed look in their direction, and Emily immediately straightened up, though a small smirk still lingered on her face.
Leah leaned in again, her voice quieter this time. “I’m just saying... have you ever seen either of them with a girlfriend?”
Emily paused as if she were giving the question actual thought. “I mean… no.”
“Exactly!” Leah added as if she’d cracked some unsolved mystery.
Jules shifted in her seat, feeling slightly uncomfortable. “They’re probably just... I don’t know, private,” she muttered.
She wasn’t entirely sure why she felt the need to defend them, but it came out instinctively. Dylan and Brooks weren’t like the other guys at school. Loud, obnoxious, and constantly vying for attention, but that didn’t make them weird. It just made them... different.
Emily raised an eyebrow. “Private? Please, Jules. No one’s that private. They don’t talk to anyone. ”
Leah’s lips curved into a sly smile. “Maybe we should set you up with one of them and find out.”
Emily’s eyes lit up as if Leah had just given her the best idea ever. “Ooh, I dare you to ask Dylan out, Jules.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks. “You guys are so dumb,” she muttered. She rolled her eyes in an attempt to brush it off. Emily, however, wasn’t letting it go.
She pouted dramatically. "Come on, do it. You owe me, remember?”
Jules groaned internally, already dreading where this was headed. Of course, Emily would bring that up. She had a knack for keeping a mental tally of every favor she’d ever done, and cashing them in at the worst possible moments. Like last semester, when she handed Jules her history notes for the midterm, which were basically the entire test.
Then, there was Christmas break, during which she had been grounded for sneaking out. Emily had swooped in, charming Jules’s parents with a fake “group project” excuse so she could still go to that concert.
Yeah, Emily wasn’t going to let her forget any of it. Taking a deep breath, Jules stood from her chair. This would be quick and easy, she told herself. She would just walk over, ask him out, and get it over with. No big deal.
Dylan and Brooks stared up at her, clearly confused by her sudden presence.
"Uh, hey," Jules began awkwardly. “Um, how’s… your day going?”
Dylan blinked, and his lips parted slightly, as if he wasn’t sure if he should respond or not. “Uh... good? Yours?”
“It’s going good, thanks. Um…” She trailed off.
She could practically feel Emily and Leah grinning at her from across the room, waiting for her to follow through. Steeling herself, Jules forced the words out before she could think twice.
“I wanted to ask if you’d... maybe like to go out with me sometime?”
"What?"
She cleared her throat and pushed on. "Do you want to go out with me sometime?" she repeated.
For a moment, Dylan just stared at her, like he was trying to figure out if she was serious or maybe what her angle was. And then, he shook his head.
“No.”
The word hit harder than Jules expected. Dylan didn’t offer an explanation, didn’t try to soften the blow with anything. Just… no. She had known this was part of the dare. She hadn’t expected him to say yes, but the outright rejection stung more than she thought it would.
Jules forced a small, shaky laugh. "Okay, cool." Just as she was about to turn and make a quick escape back to her desk, Mr. Harper’s voice rang out.
“Miss Sanders, do you mind telling me what you're doing out of your seat?”
Jules froze mid-step. “Uh, I was just—”
“Talking,” Mr. Harper cut her off. “But this isn’t social hour. You should be working on your project.”
“I was just about to go back to my desk,” she stammered out a half-ass explanation.
Mr. Harper’s gaze narrowed. “Really? Well, since you're so eager to chat instead of working, I’ll make things simple. You’ve just been reassigned.” He pointed across the room. “Dylan, Brooks—meet your new partner. Juliette, you’re with them now.”
Her heart sank. “Wait—what? But I—"
“No buts," Mr. Harper snapped. "You’re wasting class time, and I’m done with the excuses. Get to work.”
This was supposed to be a quick, silly dare, not something that would backfire this spectacularly. Jules wanted to crawl under a rock and disappear, but instead, she forced herself to move and grab her things from the desk she had been sharing with Emily and Leah.
She shot them a desperate glance while doing so, and they didn’t even try to hide their amusement.
“Sorry!” they mouthed in unison, but the way their shoulders shook with barely contained laughter told her they weren’t sorry at all.
She slid into the empty seat next to the boys and tried to ignore her classmates' stares and muffled giggles.
Brooks looked up at her and gave her a slight nod. Dylan, however, didn’t even acknowledge her. His head was bent over his notebook, and his pen moved steadily across the page like she wasn’t even there.
“So,” Jules began, shifting awkwardly in her seat, “what’s the plan for the project?”
Dylan paused. “Didn’t you read the assignment sheet?”
She felt her face heat up. “Well, yeah, obviously. I just thought we could brainstorm some topics for the film…or something.”
“Well, I had an idea,” Brooks chimed in. “What if we did a film where we interview strangers?”
Jules wasn’t sure where Brooks was headed with this, but she found herself intrigued nonetheless. Besides, it sounded a lot more interesting than the ridiculous ideas her friends had thrown out earlier.
“Strangers? What would we interview them about?” she asked Brooks.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Random stuff, like that guy—Ted Zhar. You know him?”
Jules tilted her head, trying to place the name. “Um, I think so. He’s that guy on TikTok, right?”
Brooks nodded. “Yeah, that's him. He asks stuff like ‘What’s your biggest dream?’ or ‘What’s your biggest regret in life?’ They’re pretty fun to watch.”
His idea didn’t sound half bad. Actually, it sounded pretty cool. There was something captivating about the way strangers would spill their lives to someone with a camera, share personal stories they might never tell the people closest to them. It was real and human in a way most things weren't.
Dylan let out a quiet sigh and finally set his pen down. “So, basically, you want to rip off someone else’s idea?”
Brooks shot his friend a sideways look. “It’s called inspiration. Ever heard of it?”
Jules glanced between them. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same,” she offered. “We could put our own spin on it. Ask different kinds of questions.”
“Like what?” Dylan asked.
Brooks leaned back in his chair, smirking. “Oh, I’ve got a good one, ‘Why is Dylan such a pain in the ass?’”
Dylan rolled his eyes, and Jules couldn’t help the quiet laugh that escaped her.
“Seriously, though,” she said, stifling her smile. “It could work if we made it our own. Maybe we don’t just ask strangers. We could talk to people here, students, teachers, whoever.”
Dylan snorts. “You really think anyone in this school is going to give us interesting answers?”
“Well, maybe not everyone,” Jules said quietly. “But you never know. Sometimes people surprise you.”
Dylan opened his mouth, but whatever response he might have had was cut short by the bell ringing.
“Alright, guys. We can resume our projects next week,” Mr. Harper told the class. “Work on it over the weekend, and I’ll see you on Monday.”
Jules quickly shoved her things into her bag. She didn’t bother to wait for Emily or Leah. Still, by the time she reached her locker, Leah was already there, leaning against the metal doors.
When Leah spotted Jules, she straightened up. “Oh my God. I can’t believe Mr. Harper actually stuck you with them,” she said.
Jules spun her locker combination. “Yup.” She pulled the door open and grabbed her math textbook.
As they made their way toward the cafeteria, Leah immediately launched into a spirited monologue about her upcoming cheer competition.
“The routine’s finally coming together, but Amanda still keeps messing up the lifts,” she complained. “And if she drops me one more time, I swear to God…”
“Uh-huh,” Jules muttered, but truthfully, she wasn’t listening. She used to care about cheerleading, used to love it, even. She’d been on the squad herself once, throwing herself into every practice, every routine, like it was the most important thing in the world. But that was two years ago. Before her brother died. Everything changed after that.
Cheerleading was the first thing to go. Not because she was forced to quit, but because it just didn’t matter anymore. The energy she used to have for the sport evaporated, and she had simply stopped caring.
Sometimes, though, she missed it, not the routines or the competitions, but the purpose, the feeling of belonging to something bigger than herself.
That version of her felt like a stranger now, someone who hadn’t learned just how quickly life could fall apart, and Jules hadn’t quite figured out who she was supposed to be since.
“So, are you going to Tray’s party Friday night?” she asked as they sat down.
Leah immediately perked up. “Oh my God, yes. I heard he’s getting a keg this time.”
Jules scanned the cafeteria without really focusing on her friends' words. That’s when she spotted Dylan. He was sitting with Brooks and a couple of others at a table near the back. He leaned back slightly in his seat, one long arm draped over the back of his chair, the other lifting a soda can to his lips.
Brooks was talking, his hands gesturing wildly as he spoke, while Dylan listened with that same distant look she’d seen in class. Whatever Brooks said must’ve been funny, though, because Dylan’s lips curved into a brief, faint smile before he took another sip of his drink.
Then, without warning, his eyes flickered in her direction. Jules quickly looked away. She didn’t know why she’d been staring or why it mattered that he’d noticed. He was just Dylan, but as she sat there, pushing lettuce around her plate, a quiet thought settled in her mind. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who felt like they didn’t belong anymore.
-----
Jules pulled into the driveway and turned off the car. She stayed in her seat, staring at the house in front of her.
It was big, beautiful, and everything people probably thought it should be, the pale walls, tall windows, and perfectly trimmed hedges made it look more like something from a magazine than a real home.
The stone fountain in the middle of the driveway bubbled softly, and the path to the front door was lined with colorful flowers that her mom paid a landscaping service to keep pristine.
Her parents had built this life from the ground up. Her dad was a corporate lawyer and spent long hours at his firm in the city. Her mom ran an interior design business that catered to people who wanted their homes to look just like this one.
Jules’s eyes drifted to the corner window on the second floor. Her brother’s room. The blinds had been shut for two years now, the room left exactly as it was the day he died. She finally grabbed her bag and stepped out of the car.
Inside, the home was spotless, as always, thanks to Maria, their longtime maid. Jules found her in the living room, fluffing the oversized throw pillows that lined the cream-colored couch.
“Hello, Miss Juliette,” Maria said warmly.
“Hi, Maria,” Jules replied and offered a small smile.
She made her way to her bedroom and nudged the door shut behind her. She sat down at her desk and pulled her laptop toward her as she settled into the chair. She scrolled through social media and skimmed her notifications.
After a few minutes, she switched tabs and opened her email. She knew she should be doing something productive, like working on the half-finished essay or starting the math worksheet she’d been avoiding for days, but the thought of tackling them right now felt exhausting. She skimmed the inbox, and most of it was the usual junk, then something caught her eye.
The email's subject line was bolded: You Have a Notification on EndLing.
She had signed up for EndLing two months ago. It was during one of those endless nights when her thoughts spiraled to places she didn’t dare speak aloud.
It was a website for people looking to connect, though not in the way most would expect. It offered something that felt strange and horrifying and, at the same time, comforting. In short, it was a place for people who wanted to kill themselves but didn’t want to do it alone. Users posted on forums, sharing their stories or simply asking for a suicide partner.
Jules made her own post a while back, keeping it short and to the point:
17. CO. I'm tired of feeling this way and looking for someone to do it with me.
She’d checked a few times in the days after with an odd mixture of dread and hope. But as time passed, she stopped looking. No one had responded, and a part of her had been relieved. She told herself that maybe it was a sign that she wasn’t ready or that it was just a thought she could push away. But that wasn’t entirely true, and now, she stared at her laptop screen.
The email read:
Wurmhole has responded to your post on EndLing.
To view their comment and reply, click the link below:
View Your Post
Jules clicked the link, and the page automatically refreshed. The EndLing site was plain, with a gray background and simple text boxes. The posts were listed in neat rows with usernames and replies displayed beneath them. She scrolled to her post and read the response.
Wurmhole:
Hey. I feel the same way. I’m 18 and also in Colorado. If you’re serious, you can private message me on here.
Jules leaned back in her chair. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Someone who understood, who would take the step with her. She had reached out into the void, and the void had answered. She clicked on the user’s profile and hit the “message” button.
Sparrow17: Hey, thanks for replying. I wasn’t sure anyone would. I live in Littleton, Colorado. What about you?
The seconds stretched into what felt like hours before her inbox chimed with a new message.
Wormhole: Honestly, I wasn’t sure anyone would either. I’m in Littleton too. Small world, right?
Holy shit. They’re here. In my town.
Littleton wasn’t exactly tiny, but it wasn’t big, either. What were the odds? She tried to picture them, this stranger who had replied to her, sitting somewhere nearby, typing the same kind of post she had. She paused and debated what to say next. But before she could type anything, another message popped up.
Wurmhole: Do you want to meet in person? Since we’re close, it might be easier to figure this out together. But only if you’re serious. I’m not looking for someone who’s going to back out.
Jules raised her eyebrows and reread the message. Meeting in person made sense, she supposed. If they were serious about this, it was the next logical step. But it sounded risky, didn’t it? What if they weren’t who they said they were? What if something went wrong?
She wasn’t naïve. The stories about meeting strangers from the internet were practically burned into her brain, teachers’ lectures, her parents’ stern warnings. Don’t trust anyone online. Don’t meet up with people you don’t know.
But this was obviously different, wasn’t it? And, honestly, in the grand scheme of things, if you considered what she was planning anyway, the idea of this person being, like, a serial killer almost seemed... irrelevant. What was she afraid of? That they might hurt her? Wasn’t that the point?
Meeting in person sounded simple enough, but it wasn’t simple at all. Meeting would make everything real. Once it was real, there’d be no going back. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment before she typed her response.
Sparrow17: I am serious. We can meet. Just name a place and time.
The reply came almost instantly.
Wurmhole: Clemson Park. Monday. 4:00 pm.
Jules stared at the message. Clemson Park wasn’t far. She’d been there plenty of times on summer afternoons with her brother. She could see it in her mind now, the faded playground equipment, the small pond with ducks. She typed one last response.
Sparrow17: Okay. I’ll be there.
She hit send before she could overthink it. The decision was made.