Julie is a girl who is perfect. Tall, but not too
Author:unloginuser Time:2025/01/12 Read: 5323Julie is a girl who is perfect. Tall, but not too tall, blond, but not dumb. She has a lot of people who want to be her friend, but she doesn’t have a best friend, someone to confide in.
One day, a new girl enters the school. She is connected to myriad machines. She walks up to the front of the room, clunky machines rolling behind her, and simply introduces herself as Suzie. Julie is assigned to be her buddy, as all new students get one. Julie tries to be kind, but the machines make her apprehensive. She confides in it to her mother at dinner.
Along the next few weeks, Julie grows fond of Suzie, and the machines don’t really matter. Suzie is sweet and cheerful, albeit the fact she is connected to an abundance of tubes and machines.
One day, Julie has a bad fall off her bike and breaks her arm. She remembers that Suzie told her address. With her non broken arm, Julie walks her bike all the way to Suzie’s house. Suzie’s mom answers the door, and is promptly horrified. She calls 911, and tells her to rest in Suzie’s bed. When she enters Suzie’s room, she is surprised. Suzie is sitting on her bed, but seeing Julie covered in blood, offers her the spot. When Julie asks why she offered her bed to a blood-covered person, Suzie says “You’re the injured person, you should rest. Besides, blood can be washed away, death can’t.” Julie is flustered at the death thing.
While waiting for 911, Julie looks around. Suzie’s bed is custom made, with a little square container thing to hold her machines, and a ramp to roll them up. Suzie also loves art. 911 arrives soon, and Suzie tells Julie “goodbye!”
The next day, Julie has just gotten her arm into a cast. Her mother gets a call. Suzie is sick in the hospital, Julie doesn’t worry too much, as she believes Suzie will be fine.
When Julie wakes up the next day, her mother is sitting on the floor of her room, crying. She informs Julie that Suzie passed away at 4:00 in the morning. Julie, shocked, begins to sob. Julie was really close to Suzie, so her mother allows her to stay home from school.
In a few days, Julie goes to Suzie’s house to help prepare for the funeral. While her parents recommend burying her with one of her machines, Julie disagrees, saying she would’ve wanted to be free of the machines, and recommends burying her with a sketchbook of hers.
meanwhile, at school, people are treating Julie weird because of Suzie’s death. Julie dislikes it, but doesn’t say anything. However, when a kid makes a joke about Suzie’s death, Julie punches him in the face.
At the funeral. Julie walks up to Suzie’s casket. Suzie looks peaceful, as if she were only sleeping. Julie sits down next to the casket and speaks to Suzie, talking about how she should’ve spent more time with her and that she was sorry. Julie ends with “If ghosts are real, you can haunt my house because honestly, I want to hang out!”
Julie makes a speech at the funeral, talking about how she only knew Suzie for 6 months, but Suzie was the only best friend and confidant she ever had. After the speech, Julie walks to her seat, thinking about how she really misses Suzie, and she’ll never forget her.
The squeak of Julie’s perfectly polished sneakers echoed down the polished hallway. Perfect. That was the word that followed Julie like a shadow. Perfect height, perfect blonde hair, perfect grades. Perfect, yet profoundly lonely. She had acquaintances, admirers, even a devoted following of those who craved her friendship, but none she truly connected with. A best friend? A confidante? A void yawned where such a relationship should have been.
Then came Suzie.
The new girl lumbered into homeroom, a bizarre contraption of whirring machines trailing behind her like an improbable, metallic pet. Tubes snaked from beneath her clothes, connecting to a small, rolling cart. She simply said, “I’m Suzie,” her voice surprisingly soft against the backdrop of the whirring.
Julie, assigned as Suzie’s buddy, felt a knot of apprehension tighten in her stomach. The machines were unsettling, alien. That night, over a perfectly prepared dinner, she confided in her mother. “Mom, she’s… different. All those machines…”
But weeks melted into a surprising friendship. The machines faded into the background as Julie discovered Suzie’s gentle humor, her infectious laugh, her surprising talent for sketching fantastical creatures in a worn sketchbook. Suzie, despite – or perhaps because of – her dependence on the machines, possessed a depth that Julie had never encountered.
Then came the bike accident. A sickening crack, searing pain, and the familiar sting of blood. Only Suzie’s address, hastily scribbled on a napkin, came to mind. With her uninjured arm, Julie dragged her bike, a trail of blood marking her path, to Suzie’s house.
Suzie’s mother’s horrified gasp was the last thing Julie remembered before darkness swallowed her. She awoke in Suzie’s room, the plush bed surprisingly comfortable. Suzie, pale but calm, sat beside her.
“You’re the injured one,” Suzie said, her voice a little weaker than usual, “You should rest. Besides, blood can be washed away. Death can’t.”
The chilling words hung in the air. Julie’s gaze swept across the room – a custom-made bed with a built-in compartment for Suzie’s machines, a gentle ramp for easy access. A stack of sketchbooks lay open on a nearby table, overflowing with vibrant, otherworldly creatures.
The ambulance arrived, sirens wailing. Suzie’s quiet, “Goodbye!” echoed in Julie’s ears.
The next day, a cast secured Julie’s broken arm. The following morning, her mother’s sobs shattered the fragile peace. Suzie had died at 4:00 AM. The news hit Julie like a physical blow. This wasn’t just a quirky acquaintance; Suzie was her best friend, her confidante, her missing piece.
The funeral was a blur of somber faces and hushed whispers. While Julie’s parents suggested burying Suzie with one of her machines, a symbol of her unique life, Julie insisted on the sketchbook. “She wanted to be free,” Julie whispered, clutching the worn book.
At school, the whispers followed her, cruel and insensitive. A tasteless joke about Suzie’s death sparked an unexpected fury. Julie, the picture of perfection, punched the boy squarely in the face. The shock on his face was palpable.
Standing by Suzie’s casket, Julie saw not death, but peace. “If ghosts are real,” she whispered, “You can haunt my house. Because honestly, I want to hang out!”
Her eulogy, raw and honest, spoke of a friendship that blossomed in six short months, a bond deeper than any she had ever known. “Suzie,” she concluded, her voice thick with unshed tears, “was the only best friend I ever had.”
As she sat alone, the weight of grief pressing down, Julie knew she would miss Suzie terribly. But Suzie’s brief presence had shattered Julie’s perfect, lonely world, leaving behind a space filled with the bittersweet memory of a friendship that transcended the ordinary and the extraordinary, a friendship that had changed her forever.
