“It’s not what it looks like,” I stuttered.
I was getting pulled into a dynamic where I didn’t belong. James, on the other hand, looked like he was going along with it swimmingly.
“Listen to her, she has no idea! She’s just a nosy bitch.”
“What’d you do, June?”
Shocked, I felt my hands tremble. Everyone there was staring at me, and as upset as I was with William, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“I didn’t do shit,” I shouted.
James flashed a shit-eating grin, so I was forced to tell William. “I bet you’ll stop defending him after I tell you what he did to me. He locked me in your basement!”
William stared at me expectantly, as if those words weren’t that severe. “Look at him!” I exclaimed, having reached my boiling point. “A moment ago he was furious at the world, and now he’s laughing. He’s insane! He’s definitely bipolar. A lunatic. Nobody would want someone like him around them. Nobody!”
I struggled to breathe again. My outburst gave way to an unsettling silence throughout the house.
James wasn’t laughing anymore. He looked at me seriously, neither angry nor annoyed. Just serious.
William lowered his head. He couldn’t bear to look at me. Jackson, Marvin, and everyone else was staring at us.
“June?” William’s voice cracked.
“What?”
“Get out,” he ordered.
“Are you serious?” Dumbfounded, I muttered something unintelligible.
“I want you to get out of my house. Now.”
His words burned more than the thorns that had pricked my legs earlier.
“Maybe I shouldn’t’ve invited you.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I know he’s your friend, but he’s unbearable. He locked me in basement, you know?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
It didn’t matter? Behind him, James shook his head reluctantly. His self-satisfied smile vanished. He gnashed his teeth. His glare left me breathless.
“Get lost, you bitch.”
“Forget it, James.” Will interrupted his friend with a hand motion before turning away from me. What the hell was going on?
“William!” I called him, but it fell on deaf ears. He left me in the middle of the living room as everyone went back to what they were doing.
I ran off, totally humiliated.
Amelia was supposed to give me a ride home, but I didn’t know where she was. I walked through the front door and bumped into someone walking in the opposite direction.
“Sorry.”
“June! What’s going on?”
It was Blaze, and he looked more upset than I was.
“Are you okay?” I asked, noticing his puffy red eyes. His glistening cheeks left little to the imagination. He looked like he’d been crying.
