I’d never turn my back on them even if someone held a gun to my head. Especially not for a fucking princess.
With my head heavy with thoughts, I left the bathroom and quickly noticed that Will was with her. They were talking with a stranger.
June looked at them with her cold eyes and sulky lips. I thought about that sensation again.
About when I put my forehead on hers before collapsing and closing my eyes. Silence. Finally.
There was none of that annoying background noise in my mind. For once my fucking brain stopped, and there was only space for calm and the sound of our breaths.
Will moved his blond curls from in front of his eyes while he narrowed his gaze at her.
“Show me,” he said.Fuck it, let’s do it.
29
June
James held my hips firmly. I could feel the strength in his fingers.
“White . . .”
While he was still behind me, he started whispering in my ear so William wouldn’t hear.
“What the fuck did you drink?”
“Nothing, I mean—”
The thrill of his body pressed against mine was becoming unbearable, and his warm lips were digging a significant hole in my stomach.
Did I like this situation?
Right then I did, absolutely. I just didn’t want him to know that.
A little reprimand formed on my lips when I felt his hips press against mine.
“Quit moving, then.” He breathed in my ear, while Will was intent on letting our noses graze against each other in the dark. And as soon as Will brought his mouth to mine and brushed against my lip with his tongue, something inside me twitched.
I understood that it was all real, and that I wasn’t imagining it. For a moment I felt like I was another person. And my mom’s voice echoed in my confused head.June, behave. June don’t talk back to yourgrandparents.
June, don’t talk when the grownups are talking. June, sit right when you wear a skirt. June, pull yourself together. We’re in a hospital full of terminally ill people, your brother’s sick. You can’t laugh like this.Moved by a force of rebellion, I pushed William and broke free of that weird situation.
“June?” Will tried to call me.
And then James’s voice got farther away.
“Let her breathe.”
I didn’t turn around or look back. Right then I wanted to think I’d imagined all of it. I could’ve sworn that if I turned around, I’d catch them dancing that way with another girl. I stumbled between people while my head was filled with questions.So is this what’s going on? You’re gonna let them treat you like an object just because they’re two good-looking popular guys?
I’d gone to a lot of schools, and I’d seen so many girls cry in the bathroom, but what always struck me was the fact that the ones least expected to suffer were the ones who did.
And every time I asked myself the same question:Why did the most beautiful, popular girls, who had character and self-esteem in spades, put up with how the biggest assholes in school treated them and lied to them?
For the first time I put myself in their shoes and realized that those guys knew how to put anyone through the wringer.
I hadn’t asked for that situation, but I didn’t regret it.
You’re not yourself, June.I should’ve gone home. I needed to drink water. My throat was burning.
