Tom and Julie – Part 2

The Transformation

Continued from Shooing Jealousy Away.

Julie came to me last night bubbly and smiling, as she is most of the time lately (more on that in a moment), and said, “Tom wants us to start working out together.”

I said “Oh really?, I thought that he was still grounded?”

Julie said,  “Yes he is, but he says we should start sending workout routines to each other.” I gave Julie a look and she laughed and said, “Yeah mum I know, but he’s trying!”

The joke between Julie and I was that poor old Tom has been so lost the last week since Julie has been shooing him away (whenever he tries to make trouble) that as Steve put it, “Tom has been left shadow boxing trying to figure out how to play the game now Julie has changed all the rules.”

I have never seen such a dramatic transformation as I have witnessed in Julie’s world this last week.

I have an admission to make however in that I helped Julie along a little by talking to Tom’s mother about Leah at school and warned her that grounding Tom may not keep him away from her encouraging his smoking.

Tom of course was curious about how his parents found out about him buying cigarettes for Leah. Julie was really worried about this and so I suggested she tell Tom it was probably her mother (me!) who informed his mother.

Tom was angry at first and said, “Why did you tell your mum about me and Leah smoking?”

Julie said, “Because I was upset and mum is my best friend, I tell her everything!”

Then Tom started grilling Julie again about why she was so upset about him smoking with Leah, acting like her feelings about this were wrong and even calling her controlling.

This is when Julie, my fast learner, said, “Okay I gotta go now, I will talk to you tomorrow.”

When Julie spoke with him the next day she asked, “What are you up to?”

Tom said, “Not much, I’m just sitting here smoking a durry (Australian slang for cigarette).”

Julie said, “What!, oh okay I will talk to you later.”

Then to Julie’s surprise Tom said, “No don’t go, sorry I was joking, sorry.”

Julie responded by saying, “Why would you joke about something like that when you are already grounded?” Tom could not stop apologizing then and saying she was right, it was a stupid thing to say.

Now don’t get me wrong because we like Tom and the upshot of  his story in all this is that Julie’s new strength has begun rubbing off on him.

You see Tom has had his fair share of jealously to deal with lately too.

Last weekend Julie went to a movie premiere and got to meet and go out with Tom and Julie’s favorite TV actress with her friends. Julie got the invite after responding to a instagram message the celebrity had sent out to her fans.

Tom would have been there too except that he was grounded.

The next night Julie went to a party and texted Tom that all the boys she knew from primary school were there:

Tom asked, “What do they look like now?”

Julie said, “Hot.” and then after a few more texts between them Tom didn’t answer.

The next day Julie said, “What happened to you last night? Where did you go?”

Tom said, “I was feeling jealous and so I decided it was best if I signed off for a while.”

A few days before that Tom had even asked Julie, “Why have you stopped talking to me when you don’t like what I’m saying?”

Julie answered simply, “Well why should I keep talking to you when you’re being like that?”

Not only did Julie get to meet her favorite actress, so many positive things have happened in her world in this last week that I couldn’t possibly write about them all. Briefly her end of term presentation went  well and she will probably get full marks for it, including a private presentation to her teachers and family and a class she had to teach as part of her term assignment.

Just as important, instead of feeling at Tom’s mercy with her jealousy any longer, Julie has realized that Tom does not have enough interests in his life and that is why he has been using his ‘game’ of smoking with Leah to stir the pot with herself and his parents.

This gets back to Julie letting me know that Tom wants them to start exchanging workout plans.

I said to Julie, ” Maybe while Tom is still grounded it would be a good time to lend him and interesting book to read?”  Julie has been a bit frustrated Tom doesn’t read).

Julie smiled and said, “That’s a good idea,”  and with nothing more said between us, Julie came home from the library tonight with a book picked out just for him.

 

Kim Cooper