“Let him cool off, he’ll treat you badly if you chase after him.”
“Cool off? I didn’t do anything, James! We were just talking. Now we can’t even talk?”
I thought about William’s disproportionate reaction toward Brian again.
“Now do you get what I was talking about when I said I didn’t want to see him suffer?”
I frowned.
I knew that James knew Will better than anyone else and just wanted to protect him, but I hadn’t done anything to make him react that way.
“There’s no reason to be jealous,” I murmured to myself.
“Are you sure?”
James’s harsh tone made me jump.
“You better get back to class,” he said.
I went back in and caught a glimpse of William’s silhouette turning a corner in the hallway.
“Will!”
I followed him even when he went into the men’s bathroom.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he responded coldly.
Something was breaking between us. I could feel it. Especially on my end, despite William staring at me disappointed.
“Don’t ever cut class,” he said sternly.
“James was telling me something about Amelia that was important to me, Will.”
“You could’ve asked me.”
“No, because he was the only one who knew.”
William was tense, tapping his fingers on the sink.
I stared at his clear eyes reflected in the mirror. He tousled his hair.
“Everything’s fine, I’ll be okay.”
But his excessive reaction troubled me.
“Are you this mad just because I was talking to James?” Was Brian the problem? Or maybe I wanted to hide the fact that the only problem was the toxic relationship that William and I were building. We weren’t together, but he was extremely jealous.
“It’s not the first time this has happened, June.”
“What?”
“Forget it.”
Right then I understood that being close to Will might be a lot harder than I’d thought.
James wasn’t that wrong after all.
