Just ignore it. Just a normal truck. Only over-priced cow’s milk.
I find the picnic table farthest from it and sit so the truck is behind me.
Ignore ignore ignore.
Cinna isn’t here yet, so I spend a minute taking some deep breaths to calm myself. I pull out my phone, check the time, then shove it back in my jacket pocket. I pull it out again. The latest text from the unknown number is still there because I haven’t decided if I need to delete them or show the police. Would they even care? I bet they get reports of online bullying all the time but that doesn’t mean they can stop it.
I’ve gotten four now since the last Mixed Media class. Each one has been worse than the last, and the most recent one was bad enough that I couldn’t sleep afterward.
I wish I couldignoreall of it.
Cinna arrives in a wash of pale blue. Blue sweater, white jeans, honeyed hair catching the late-afternoon light. She drops onto the bench beside me and immediately leans in, bumping her shoulder against mine.
“You look stressed,” she says.
“I’m always stressed. It’s my identity.” I hold up my phone and angle the screen toward her. “Just another text last night.”
She reads over my shoulder and I watch her face change. The warmth drains from her forehead first, then cheeks, then mouth. Everything falls until her mouth is hard and determined.
“June, have you told anyone? Campus security? Your mom? We can’t let this keep happening.”
I sigh and set my phone down. “Yeah, and say what? Someone in their revenge era thinks I’m…” I gesture vaguely at the screen. Reading them out loud would make them real in a different way. On the screen they’re contained but spoken. They’d fill the air between us and I’d have to breathe them back in.
I’ve never been called a whore. I’ve only slept with two guys my whole life…
“Maybe if you tell authorities, they’ll stop,” Cinna says. “Or at least threaten the person. Say you’re calling the cops on them.”
Somehow, I doubt the person would care. And again, what can the cops do? They might not even be able to trace the number.
“I’m sure it’ll stop soon. Whoever this is will get bored. I just need to ignore it.”
Cinna nods vacantly. Normally her attention feels like a warm lamplight. Today, though, she seems elsewhere. Her fingers keep picking at the edge of her sleeve, rolling the blue fabric between her thumb and forefinger. Her eyes drift past my shoulder like she’s waiting for something, or she’s seeing her own thoughts and they’re concerning her.
“Hey.” I nudge her knee with mine. “You okay?”
Her eyes snap back to mine. “Hm? Yeah. I’m good. Just pissed on your behalf.” She smiles, but the smile arrives a few seconds late.
Before I can gently probe into what’s wrong—because I know my friend, and somethingiswrong—her phone rings.
She glances at the screen and her entire face tightens, chin to hairline. She stands. “Sorry. One sec. I-I have to take this.”
She walks about twenty feet away toward the maples at the edge of the lot, her back to me, phone pressed to her ear. Her free hand wraps around her waist. The burnt sienna light filtering through the leaves makes her look like a figure in an old painting. Girl facing the forest. Oil on canvas. I watch her for a moment, then look away as staring feels intrusive.
“June Belrose. In the wild.”
I glance up to find Vienna.
Vienna Ravene. Junior. Self-appointed queen of Alaria’s social food chain, and the only person I’ve ever met who can make a compliment sound like a death threat. We’re not friends. We’re not enemies either. We exist somewhere between mutual respect and irritation.
I met her my freshman year at a gallery reception where she told me my dress was brave. I told her that was a word people use when they mean ugly. She said, “Show me your work.” I could’ve ignored her, but I was bored, so I showed her some pieces I posted on my socials. She told me my paintings had “interesting energy, for someone who clearly looks like she doesn’t sleep enough.” I told her she had interesting taste in lipstick for someone who clearly peaked in eighth grade.
She laughed, which I later learned she almost never does in public. After that we started talking whenever we crossed paths.
She’s standing to my left with a coffee in hand, red lips, platinum hair that’s almost white in the fading light. She’s wearing an ivory coat and behind her, several feet away, there’s a cluster of girls I half-recognize from the Art History program. They’re standing in line for the crêpe truck.
“Oh, hey.” I sit up straighter on the bench and give her a smirk. “Aren’t you a little far from your throne?”
“Even queens need tacos.” She sits beside me without asking, crosses her legs, and sips her coffee like she’s treating this picnic table like a magazine shoot opportunity. “I heard the texts are getting worse.”
