Chapter 26
June
Oli and I took our seats in a campus cafe just next to a large window. I had a perfect view of the trees shining in the sunlight, but I was hardly paying attention to that. I couldn’t stop glancing at him, trying to make each peek quick so he wouldn’t catch me. He was so terrifying, I couldn’t look away.
“So,” he said.
Fuck. Shit, shit, shit. How the hell were we supposed to have a nice day? What were we supposed to talk about? This was so far out of my comfort zone. I wished my coffee had some alcohol in it.
“At your house,” I blurted, saying the first thing that came to mind. Yes, good job, June. Choose a casual topic like his traumatic home life.
He tilted his head like he didn’t understand.
Ah, this sucked. I hoped if I bounced my leg rapidly enough, it would just jackhammer right through to the Earth’s core and descend me to hell. I glanced at the table next to us. Two boys sat there, chatting much more comfortably than Oli and I were. I nudged my head toward them. “Think they’re cute?”
Oli’s smile grew wide, his mouth hanging open with just a hint of disbelief before he released a full, hearty laugh. I receded into myself, hunching over my coffee as my cheeks melted off my face. This was so not funny.
“June, you’re allowed to ask me if I like men.” His chuckles distorted his voice into a happy melody. “You don’t have to be so weird about it.”
I folded my arms and leaned back, staring out the window at the trees. “I’m sorry! It’s just… At your house, your father… It’s… Not in a judgmental way, but I wanted to know because… I don’t know.”
“I think it’s safe for us to say we just want to know more about each other by now.”
I snapped my gaze to him, and he dipped his chin to let me know he wasn’t offended and he was willing to answer. I nodded reluctantly.
“I went to prom with—”
“Wait!” I cut him off quickly. “Is this going to make me super jealous?” Oh, fuck… Did I just say that? I slapped a hand over my mouth. “Wait, that’s not what I meant.”
Oli giggled and reached across the table, holding his hand out toward me. I stared at it, refusing to place my fingers in his palm as he so obviously wanted.
“June, relax. We’ve seen each other undressed. We’re allowed to have a conversation.”
“The nudity was way easier than this,” I mumbled, shooing his hand away with a flick of my fingers.
He pulled it in with a snicker. “I went to prom with Kai and Jonah, but I spent most of the night talking to a boy named Alan. Very innocent, the whole thing. No need for jealousy.” I flipped him off. “We hung out a couple of times after graduation. One day, my father came into the TV room and found us holding hands, and that was it. Alan wasn’t allowed over anymore, and my family was…” He cleared his throat. “Destroyed.” He puffed a silent laugh to himself and took another sip of coffee.
“I’m sorry, Oli.” I caught his eye for only a split second before averting my gaze, staring anywhere but his face.
He shook his head. “It’s cool. At least I learned something about myself. I couldn’t really make sense of my feelings before that. So, yeah. My father is not very happy about my, uhm… Nothing. You get it.”
I took an awkward sip of my drink before shoving my hands down on the table, vigorously scraping the nail polish off my left thumb. “Can I ask another?”
I didn’t look up to catch Oli’s affirmative hum, but I heard it.
“Your parents are…well off. Why settle in that dusty, old town? No offense. Not in a rude way. I just…”
“Want to know more about me?”
I picked up an empty sugar pouch from the table, balled it up, and threw it at him. “Fuck you.”
He buried his top set of teeth in his bottom lip and chuckled. I might’ve smiled back. Only a little.
“Big fish, small pond thing, I guess. Besides, they did a lot of city living before I came around.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care, didn’t know, or didn’t care to know. Of all the topics I’d ever discussed with Oli, family was definitely the touchiest. “Your turn to tell me something now.”
I shook my head. Absolutely not. First of all, there was nothing to tell. The most interesting thing that had happened to me in the last three years was fucking my project partner, and he was already pretty well-versed in the subject. Second of all, I’d just put in tons of effort to learn about him, so that was enough energy expended from me for the day. I did my part. I played the Nice Day Game.
“Please?” he asked as he realized I wasn’t going to answer. “I want to know.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked sharply, feeling myself stiffening up already. “I asked you questions. I gave you a prompt. You’ve given me nothing.”
His lips curved up falsely to hide his defeat. He thought for a moment, twisting his cup on the table, before saying, “You never answered Tiff’s question at the Nature Club. Your favorite memory.”
“Eavesdropper!”
He shrugged but didn’t answer. I couldn’t decipher the expression on his face, but it was like he pitied me already. Like he already expected that my life was tragic.
The highlight reel began running through my head again, Alana’s face passing in front of me a hundred different ways at a million miles a minute. My heart folded in half, then in half again, and in half, in half, in half, until it had folded so many times that it could no longer crease over itself. “I don’t have one. Next question.”
“Why don’t you have one?”
“Why are you so pushy?”
“Why are you so defensive?”
Shit. My chin pushed my lower lip into a downward curve, my jaw quivering already. I was either about to get very mad or very sad. Or worse, both. I wished he could’ve just read my mind. That way he could’ve known more without me having to say it.
“Because I’m all alone,” I whispered, swallowing as much of my whine as I could to produce those words stably. I could see it in the way he stared at me. I could see exactly what he was looking for. He was looking for Alana. “You already know,” I said as I realized.
“I saw your Facebook.” He glanced at his cup, thumbing the lid shamefully.
I nodded. Asshole. Stalker. Fucking dickhead. I hated that. I found it so fucking offensive that people would look at me with pain in their eyes as if it was theirs. It was mine. It was my subject to divulge or to hide. It was my hurt. My best friend.
“She had leuk—” I cleared my throat, my nose leaking already. I still wasn’t ready to say it. “We were seventeen,” I said instead. “Feels like yesterday. I think it’ll always feel like yesterday.”
He stared at the table as he silently rose, picking up his chair and moving it next to mine. He sat back down and pulled me off my seat, placing me on his lap. I draped my arms over his shoulders, and while I really hadn’t expected it at all, everything just kind of spilled out of me.
“I talk to myself, you know? I don’t have a lot of friends. Just a box with a few of her Pez dispensers that I cling to with my life and the delusion that she might be in the wind listening when I say things aloud. She just has to be in nature. She has to be, because she’s certainly not here with me. So, where else would she be?” My throat forced down three quick gasps, slicing my words. I was officially crying. I don’t know why, but I kissed him. My face twisted into his. “Sometimes I dream of her so vividly, that I think her…death was the dream. I see her so clearly when I’m sleeping, Oli, and I can hear her, and I talk to her, and she responds. I swear, she does.” I buried my forehead in his neck, my shoulders jumping. “It feels so real, I think it can’t possibly be true that she’s gone. Until I open my eyes. Then I’m forced to remember all over again. Though, honestly, some days I simply choose not to. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. Hell, I think I’m fucking crazy.” I shook ferociously, squeezing my face to keep my hysteric wails from flying out into the open cafe around us. I was sobbing my words more than saying them. “Other people survive it. Why not her? Why didn’t she? I don’t understand, Oli.”
He hugged me tightly, pausing time as he tucked his nose into my shoulder and slid his hands over my back, grounding me to him. I’m not sure how long we sat like that.
Finally, he said, “June, you are the most resilient, most intelligent, most beautiful person. I do hope you know that.”
I sniffled loudly, the corner of his skin in which I was hiding full of heat from my own breath. “No. I didn’t know that, actually.”
“Then it’s my honor to be the one to tell you,” he whispered.
I hooked my fingers onto his flannel, wrapping it tightly in my fists. My body continued to vibrate in his hold, though I could feel it calming down. I just needed to stay like this for a while longer. I just needed him to not think I was crazy and to not lie to me and tell me something like she would always be with me.
Without my asking, he did just that, sitting with me silently for a few more minutes until the skin on my cheeks was stiff from the dried, salty tears. Only then did I lean up to look at him. He trailed a finger over my temple, my cheekbone, like he was memorizing every inch of my face, catching my eye so genuinely it made me want to vomit.
“Ew, Oli.” I pushed at his chest and tried to get up, but he grinned and pulled me back down.
“Too late. You already opened up. I’m in now.” He squeezed me in a hug.
I fussed, grasping for my drink to wash down the post-cry thickness in my mouth with an eye roll. He was so fucking annoying. He kissed me repeatedly anywhere his lips could reach, and I was furious with my cheeks for stretching themselves into a smile. I couldn’t even contain it. Who the fuck was I?
By the time I was giggling like an absolute loser, smacking at him playfully, a voice cut in, slicing through our little force field. “Project going well then?”
We both froze. I glued my gaze to Oli’s as he bit his lips back, trying not to burst out laughing. I slowly turned my head, catching a glimpse of a pair of brown corduroys, a tan sweater vest, and sandy brown hair. Fuck.
“Oh, it’s going just fine…Mr. B,” I said, forcing an awkward smile as if I weren’t 100% seated in Oli’s lap right now.
“Mhm,” Mr. Brown hummed, his eyebrows lifting. He almost looked impressed. “You know, I’d been wondering why you two seemed to be getting along better in class.”
“Excuse us, sir,” Oli said in that all too familiar tone reserved for authority figures. “We apologize.”
“For what?” asked our wisecracking professor. “It’s a public space. By all means, please use it.”
Mr. Hatzakis, unaware of Oli and me apparently, approached with two coffees in hand. “All set, babe.” He kissed Mr. Brown on the cheek as he handed him one of the cups before jumping slightly as he finally noticed us. “Ah. Hello, you two. I— Sorry.”
“Public space,” Mr. Brown repeated with a shrug. He patted Mr. Hatzakis on the arm, silently communicating that it was time for them to leave. “I’ll see you two on Tuesday. Enjoy your weekend. Be safe.” He eyed us down pointedly for that last sentence. The two men exited the cafe with their coffees. Oli and I remained frozen, our chuckles trapped behind pressed lips until they had officially disappeared in the distance, at which point we both settled in to look at each other.
“Can you believe that?!” I asked.
“I knew it!” Oli said simultaneously.
“Wait, you knew?” I pushed myself more comfortably into my seat atop his legs, settling in for the hot gossip.
He wrapped his arms around my waist. “Are you kidding me? Don’t you see how Professor Brown looks at him?”
“No! I thought they had a nice friendship, but I also kind of thought they annoyed each other.”
“Oh, absolutely, they do. But it’s much more fun to fuck someone who annoys you.” A palm fell to my ass, and I jumped, giggling as Oli stole a kiss.
“That might be the first time I’ve ever agreed with you, sir.”
◆◆◆
I glanced up at Oli twice as we sat in the library. I was editing the final draft of our essay, and he was supposed to be editing the final draft of our presentation. Instead, he was staring at me, and I knew exactly what that look on his face was. It was pity.
Fuck.
I never should’ve told him all that stuff about Alana. Now that I was calmed down and refocused, the mortification was starting to settle in. I couldn’t believe I’d let him see me like that. Crying, naked, completely bared in every sense of the term. I wanted to lock myself in my room alone for the rest of my life.
I glanced at him again to find that he was still looking at me, tilting his head now as if he wanted me to engage. I sent him a stink face as I returned to my work, hoping my expression was rude enough that he’d stop with whatever he was up to. I advanced to the next page of the document. I thought I’d seen a typo on there the first time I read through it and I didn’t want to forget.
“June?”
“Oliver.” No typo. I must have imagined it.
“Are you okay?”
“Don’t.” I held up a hand in his direction as I scanned the page once more just in case. “The introduction to section three could use some work.”
“I know you’re working and all, but you just seem like you—”
“The sentence structure too.”
“June.”
I snapped my head up. “Oliver. Shut it. No more feelings. We have a project to finish.”
He stood from his seat, sighing heavily. “The project is finished. Get up.”
I most certainly did not get up. I crossed my arms and pretended to look at the computer screen. My vision went out of focus, the white document blurring as my eyes began to sting. Shit. I’d let him in, and now everything was totally out of my control. I needed to find some sort of anchor in my own refusal.
“Get up, June.”
“No!”
“Yes.” He glared at me, as I did him. “You’re mad now, aren’t you? I’m sorry but you’re mad all the fucking time, and you don’t deserve that. Neither do I, frankly. I know a cool place we can go to get the anger out of you. I’ll take you there.”
I switched escape tactics, looking around to make sure our side of the library was empty before standing and closing my laptop. Rounding to the short side of the long table, I sat my thighs back on the surface and motioned for Oli to stand in front of me. He placed himself between my knees, and I reached up to kiss him. He wouldn’t be able to ask me invasive questions if our tongues were knotted.
“Let’s do it here,” I whispered. His lips pressed into mine with such intention that I was sure he was starving for me, but he groaned and stopped himself.
“You don’t need to talk about your feelings to process them.” He kissed me again. “But bottling them up doesn’t help.” And again. “I appreciate what you told me today, and I have a feeling you don’t want to talk anymore.” I seized his neck tightly in my fingers and bit onto his lip to shut him up. Still, he spoke. “There’s a middle ground where you can get it all out without even having to open your mouth. Unless you want to.”
“If I open it, will your cock slide in?”
He chuckled. “Not where I’m taking you, no.”
“The only place you’re taking me, Oliver, is right here on this table.”
He pushed my hair behind my ear, his nose and lips tickling the skin on the side of my face as he murmured, “Just come with me. Don’t you trust me?”
Good question.
I stared at the bookshelves over his shoulder, wondering if I did or not. I think… I think I trusted him so very much that I didn’t trust him at all. Is that possible? I trusted him so much, would’ve let him take me anywhere, would’ve done anything with him. And for that reason, I didn’t trust him. Because that’s a lot of power for one person to hold over another. He could do with me as he pleased, and who was I to say his intentions weren’t atrocious?
Oliver backed away and looked at me. I hadn’t said anything. Neither had he. I think he really was waiting for me to answer. He closed his eyes as if to regain his composure and dropped his hands from where they sat on my shoulders. He looked so disappointed with my lack of response. As he turned to grab his things off his chair, I could’ve sworn he shook his head.
“Come on,” he said quietly. He hauled his bag onto one shoulder, kissed me on the temple, and started to walk away. To leave me sitting on this table.
“Oli, you can’t leave.” My feet stung as I landed hard on top of them. “I thought…” I thought we were going to spend the night.
“I would never leave you, June. But I’m leaving this library. It’s your decision if you’d like to come with me or not.”
I paused, twiddling my fingers. “If I don’t, will you still come by later tonight?”
Oh god.I wished I could’ve sucked those words right back in because something about them did not sit right with him. The way he froze and looked at me was one of the most earth-shattering things I’d ever seen in my life. His eyes widened. His chin floated out. His fingers around his backpack straps loosened. I was too taken aback to hear what he muttered under his breath, but it sounded an awful lot like he was telling me I’d just broken his heart.
What did I say? What did I do wrong? I just wanted to know if I could see him later. “Oli, I...” I shook my head. I don’t even know how I planned to finish that sentence.
“I need,” he said slowly, “to leave. Are you coming or not?”
“Do you want me to come?”
He closed his eyes as if in pain. When he opened them again, his brows were low over his gaze. “June Sharma. Get your things, and come with me. Right now.”
I scattered to scoop up all of my materials, throwing my pen and notebook into my bag and shuffling to his side. When I reached him, I looped my fingers around his, hooking his large digits into mine. He seemed sad, and he liked holding my hand last night. I thought it would’ve cheered him up, but the look on his face did not change. His eyes were on mine, but the second my fingers took his, he looked down at our hands.
“We’re having a nice day,” I clarified with a little shrug. I was trying to be nice. To help.
As if it were possible, his expression broke even more. How shitty of a person did I have to be to try and cheer someone up and, in doing so, make them feel worse?
“June, sometimes, you’re just plain me—” The largest, strongest man I’d ever known spoke with a voice that was so small and incredibly frail. I nodded, encouraging him to continue that sentence. He registered by way of returning his gaze to mine, but he never completed his thought. He just stared at me for a few long seconds before pressing his lips together, deciding against it, and walking out of the library, my hand in his.