Julia At The Drive – In – Rainbow Rowell

There was a group of people at the edge of the snack bar lawn, standing in her view of the screen. People her age. Half of them were laughing. The other half were shushing. Someone dropped a drink and someone else squealed. More laughing and shushing. “Let it go, Wyatt.” “Shhh!”

Giggles. “I am letting it go. I’m—” That was Wyatt Hardy. Julia recognized his profile. She couldn’t hear what he was saying. He turned and started walking away from the group. “Wyatt!” a girl called. “Shhhh,” another girl shushed. “Shut the hell up!” some guy yelled from a car. Wyatt waved his arm at his friends, like he wanted to be left alone. The rest of them started walking toward the cars. One of the girls hung back, but then someone else pulled her along.

Wyatt kept walking. A little too fast. Toward the snack bar. He was rubbing the back of his neck. Julia watched. He was wearing jeans and a button-down shirt over a T-shirt with their school mascot on it. A thunderbird. He got to the snack bar area and stopped just a few feet away from her, like he didn’t know where he should go next.

He just stood there for a minute—fuming, it looked like. She’d never seen him angry before. Or upset. Or even at a loss. Wyatt Hardy always seemed like he knew exactly where he was in the world. He was the sort of person who never flinched when a teacher called on him, even when he didn’t have the answer.

He rubbed the back of his neck again and looked around. He looked at Julia. Then his face changed. He looked a little surprised. Like something nice had just happened. He smiled at her. Then raised his hand to wave. Julia sat up taller in the swing. Feeling caught out. She waved back. Wyatt kept smiling. He had the biggest smile. He took a few steps toward her.

“Hi,” he said. “Hi,” Julia managed. “It’s you again,” he said. She swallowed. “I guess so.” He motioned at the empty spot next to her. “Is this swing taken?” Julia stared at him for a second, then blinked and shook her head. She felt the curls bounce against her cheeks. Then Wyatt Hardy came and sat next to Julia.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Text copyright © 2026 by Rainbow Rowell All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Original Stories are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781662540745 (digital) Cover design and illustration by Erin Fitzsimmons Cover image: © hugolacasse, © Yulia Reznikov / Getty Images; © Robcartorres, © VIS Fine Art / Shutterstock OceanofPDF.com For Rosey, Get wrecked. OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS START READING ABOUT THE AUTHOR OCEANOFPDF.COM I just think it’s really toxic for you to bring up my voice,” Chloe said, “when you know I have trauma about it and probably ADHD.” “I didn’t bring up your voice,” Aiden said. “I just said you’re being whiny.” “That’s worse,” Chloe said. Julia didn’t say anything.

She was sitting in the back seat of Aiden’s Wrangler—in the middle, on top of the seat belt latches, so she could see the movie screen between Aiden’s and Chloe’s shoulders. She still couldn’t really see the screen . . . Julia had never been to a drive-in movie before.

She hadn’t realized that sitting in the back seat was going to be a problem. “You always do this,” Chloe said. “And you always do this,” Aiden said. Chloe and Aiden had started dating a few months ago, at the end of junior year. Aiden played soccer and was very active in DECA, which was some sort of marketing club. (Marketing what, Julia always wondered.

Like, shouldn’t marketing be for something? Was it like when people did cheerleading without any sport to cheer for?)

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: be162d3b948d978d
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,124,078 bytes (2.979 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781662540745
• Pages: 33
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 45.7 minutes
• Total Words: 9,141
• Total Characters: 50,749
• Average Words per Page: 277.0
• Average Characters per Page: 1537.85

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