I decided to avoid the crowd and went outside to breathe in the tepid night air. I must’ve gone out the wrong way because I found myself at the back of the building. It was dark, desolate, and quiet.
“Everything okay?”
I jumped.
Hunter and his friends were sitting on a bench. All of them looked sketchy.
My mom would’ve called the National Guard, the sheriff, and probably the FBI if she knew I was talking with people like this.
“White, we don’t bite.” The clean-shaven guy whose name I didn’t know chuckled.
“Shut up, Marvin,” someone said.
I pretended not to hear that and started walking. I didn’t have any idea where I was going, but I soon realized that there was nothing in the direction that I was heading.
I turned around.
“June! Where are you going? Come here. Will’s coming soon.” I shot them a dirty look. Jackson was talking.
“Yeah, he said you could wait here with us,” added the girl Jackson had his arm around.
I took a deep breath and sat down on a nearby bench. I avoided the guys, glancing furtively at the girls with them. Their uninhibited manner of being, their flashy clothes, and their weird makeup. All of it emphasized how much they were everything that I wasn’t. I wanted to learn how to put on makeup like that, just like I wanted to learn how to wear those heels and behave in a way that my mom would describe as feminine and graceful. Instead I was just June, wearing a hoodie three times too big and jeans that made me look like I’d raided my mom’s closet. Jackson haughtily gave me a once-over and then asked, “Wanna hit?”
A girl made a joke that I couldn’t hear.
“No thanks,” I answered tersely.
“So, June, what do you think of Will?”
I kept my mouth shut.
“Is that William’s girlfriend?” asked the curly-haired girl who had her arm around Jackson’s neck.
“She’s nobody’s girlfriend.”
The cold blast from Hunter’s raspy voice made me freeze in place. I wasn’t going to give in. I didn’t want to start a fight. I just wanted William to come back.
But all my good intentions went out the window when James sat down next to me.
“Chill, Snow White. Nobody’s disturbing your date.”
“What do you want?”
James Hunter stretched his long arm along the bench as if to surround me.
I stared in front of me, trying not to fall into his trap and take the bait.
“Is it illegal to look at you now?” His voice was so deep and seductive that it could’ve made anyone forget the sarcastic, disdainful tone that went with every joke he made.
“You just told me two seconds ago that I shouldn’t even talk to you. Make up your mind.” I couldn’t see him clearly, but I could sense him. His arm muscles tensed angrily.
“James.” Jackson’s interjection wasn’t a call, but a clear order for him to calm down.
“What don’t you like about her? She’s cute,” said the clean-shaven guy I’d heard someone call Marvin.
The brunet stroking Jackson’s chest suddenly asked, “Do you think she’s more fuckable than me?”
I looked around uncomfortably, then saw a pair of blue eyes staring at me. James Hunter frowned with an air of superiority, then curled his upper lip before taking a deep hit from his joint.
