It’s face-down, the case scuffed at the corners from being dropped too many times. A sticker of a small cat in sunglasses is peeling at one edge.
I swallow because I know I shouldn’t touch that phone. It’s a huge invasion of privacy, but what the hell was the text about? I’ve never seen her look so startled. And seeing her like that, seeing that someone hurt her, inches me toward a violent rage.
I stare at the phone for about fifteen seconds before I pick it up.
The screen is locked. It needs four digits, so what might she have picked? Knowing June, it isn’t four random numbers. To June, everything has some meaning and significance.
Melia comes to mind. I’ve been at enough Belrose dinners, enough birthday parties, enough of those chaotic Sunday mornings where everyone’s in the kitchen and Melia is burning toast and laughing about it, to know how June and Melia are less like mother and daughter and more like best friends.
I could be completely wrong about the passcode, but I take a guess.
I type in Melia’s birthday. November third. 1-1-0-3.
The phone unlocks.
A jolt runs through my stomach and it’s part satisfaction, part guilt. I know her well enough to guess her passcode. I alsoknow her well enough to understand that if she finds out about this, I might get the silent treatment forever.
I just can’t stand not knowing who harmed her, or if I can do anything about it.
The text is open on the screen, and it’s from an unknown number.
I read it.
My hands go still.
You’re a talentless bitch who has to be the center of attention. Do you even care how manipulative you are? You didn’t deserve a spot in the exhibition. Everyone knows you spread your legs to get chosen. Whore.
I read it twice because the first time my brain rejects it, refusing to process that someone typed these words and aimed them at June. It sinks in the second time, the anger arriving not as heat but like a cold, steel beam dropping into place inside my spine.
Putain.
I stiffen, and my hands—the hands that shake after nightmares and fumble with gloves every morning—are perfectly steady. Sculptor’s hands. They know how to be still when everything is falling apart around them.
I’m certain whoever sent this text was behind the flyers too.
I type a response, barely coherent of what my brain is spitting out.Pathetic coward. You’re such a loser that you’re jealous other people have talent. Show your face and we’ll have a real talk.
Send.
Now that it’s done, the rational part of my brain finally shows up. It walks into the room, surveys the damage, and informs me that I just made a choice about June’s safety without asking her.
Putain de merde.What did I just do?
I put the phone face-down, the same position she left it. My pulse is steady but my thoughts are running hot, and I can feel the anger sitting in my shoulders, in the locked muscles along my neck, in the base of my skull where tension builds when I can’t relax myself quick enough with weed.
Regardless of my stupid actions, someone out there is targeting her. This is no longer coming across as an angry student who’s hurt and lashing out from not getting picked. This is a person with long-term intent who’s willing to keep escalating things, only I don’t know what that intent is.
The classroom door creaks open.
June returns. Her eyes are red but she’s pulled herself together. She’s done whatever she needed to do in the bathroom to rebuild her walls, and she’s carrying herself like someone returning from a meeting, not a breakdown.
Then she sees me, and all the guilt probably written across my face in Sharpie.
Her eyes drop immediately to her phone. I don’t think I placed it back exactly where it was, and June notices the quarter inch difference.
She unlocks it. She sees the thread and my message at the bottom.
A sick feeling snakes its way through my abdomen.
