Chapter 19
June
“I couldn’t breathe anymore. I didn’t even hit back once. Maybe I deserved it,” I heard him say through clenched teeth.
James wasn’t happy to relive what had happened, and I felt bad for making him tell me, especially because he didn’t deserve Amelia lying about that.
“Amelia felt betrayed.” He justified her actions as he continued to blow clouds of smoke into the morning air.
“Violence is never the solution,” I said, digging my heels in. “So you lied to Brian to protect Ari?”
“I think so.”
Or was Amelia so angry and disappointed because she was in love with you? But it didn’t seem necessary to ask him.
“And I got between them.”
“Well, you knew they were together. You could’ve avoided it, James.” I grabbed the hem of my uniform skirt between my fingers and fiddled with it.
“Don’t you think it takes two people to do something?” He glared at me.
“So does Amelia know about you two?”
“No. Ari ended it with me. At least she tried to.”
“But she couldn’t, could she?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Ari told her it happened just once, and Amelia believed her. Then she stopped talking to me.”
So Amelia stopped being friends with James after that night? Something wasn’t adding up.
“Weren’t you and Brian friends?”
“Years ago. When we were kids.”
I thought about the photo Jasper had shown me with both of their families together.
“Then what happened?”
“So many things. Too many.”
“You’re not telling me everything, James.”
“And how do you know that?”
“You sent Brian to the hospital the next day. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Something happened that night, otherwise it doesn’t explain it.”
“June? Is that you?”
James stood up when he heard William’s voice.
I turned around to meet his gloomy eyes, scrutinizing me.
“Are you smoking?” He looked disgusted.
“No, I was . . . we were talking.” James didn’t say anything, and Will lowered his gaze.
“Okay, I’m going back inside.”
“Will, wait for me.” I tried to get up with every intention of following him, but James stopped me. I felt the skin on my wrist burn and my head spin.
“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.
“Everything’s okay with James right? You’re not gonna take it out on him?”
“No, don’t worry.”
I didn’t like to see him like this. Maybe I should’ve gotten a little more mental clarity and then talked to him. But it wasn’t easy. What if Will had a disproportionate reaction?
“Are you coming to Tropical tonight, June? They decorated a carnival for Christmas, the whole school will be there.”
I was puzzled by his suggestion.
“Christmas is months away.”
William smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes?”
After everything that had happened over the last few days, it would’ve been better to barricade myself in my house. But I could use the opportunity to talk with Blaze.
“Okay, but then I’m gonna sleep at my house.”
“Suit yourself, June.”
I leaned in to give him a kiss on the lips, but William pulled back. He turned around and slammed the door on his way out of the bathroom, leaving me to stare at my reflection in the mirror like an idiot.
>> <<
“I’m coming back tomorrow, is the house still in one piece?” my mom asked on the phone.
“I don’t know, I’ll let you do the honors of checking for people when you deign to come back home.”
“June!”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“What’s going on? Bad grade?”
Yeah, because in my boring life the worst thing that could happen was to get a bad grade, right?
“I’m going, Mom. Dinner’s getting cold.”
I hung up, and I was happy to see that Blaze had answered my text.
Blaze: Yeah, see you there June
After making a sandwich, I jumped into the shower and straightened my hair. After a half hour, I heard honking. Jackson was here.
I locked the door and rushed down the driveway.
“What do you want? It didn’t take me that long,” I grumbled when I saw James leaning on the door of the fire engine–red car.
He wasn’t wearing his usual studded leather jacket. Instead, he wore a dark button-down shirt checkered with different shades of gray. The first two buttons were open, and a little silver chain peeked out.
“You were so fast that I managed to smoke an entire cartridge.” He showed me the empty vape pen cartridge.
I shot him a look, then sat in the back seat squeezed between William and the car door.
“Sexy.”
Marvin leaned over to look at me, and William elbowed him.
James got into the car and fell silent.
“Who died?” grumbled Marvin. “No music, Jax?”
“Shut up, Marvin,” Jackson ordered.
“What the fuck is your problem? I can’t ask to put music on, I can’t talk about the girl drooling over the hand tattoos yesterday.”
“Hand tattoos?” I asked, intrigued.
“Do you like them, June?” Marvin asked me, smiling.
“I’m not crazy about them,” I admitted, observing his fully tatted neck.
“She was obsessed, even with the rings.” He addressed Will, who didn’t seem interested in the subject at all.
“And rings? All the girls like them, don’t they?”
“I don’t know.” I looked down at William’s completely tattoo-free hands and shrugged slightly.
When I looked in front of me, I stared at James’s hand grabbing the headrest of the front seat. I usually didn’t notice guys’ hands, but James really had nice hands. I gulped, and turned to the window, while Marvin teased Jackson by tickling his neck.
“Are you an asshole?”
“What, you don’t like it, Jax?”
“No. Especially not when I’m driving!” complained the blond, adjusting the collar of his letterman jacket. Will burst out laughing.
“Cut the shit. We gotta talk about serious stuff.” James said those words gruffly, breaking up the laughter. “Someone should talk with Blaze. I wanna know what the principal’s plotting,” he added.
“How’s your relationship with Blaze?” Will turned to me, and I couldn’t help but frown.
I wanted to talk to Blaze, not use him to get information.
“Good, but—”
“I’ll go talk to him.” Jackson cut me off.
James put his arm around him, but Jackson dodged him.
“You’re a bastard, Jax,” spat James, laughing and rubbing his back.
James’s hands climbed back up along the nape of Jackson’s neck, then he ran his fingers through his friend’s hair.
“Why?” asked Jackson, tensing up but without pulling away from his friend’s touch.
“Why are you saying that?” demanded Will, who seemed to not understand.
“Come on, everyone knows Blaze would pay to have all of this Greek god to himself,” chortled James, giving his friend a pat on the stomach.
I saw Jackson hold his breath. James’s hands weren’t that indifferent to him, then. He seemed tense.
“James,” warned Will, “enough.”
“What the fuck did I say?”
“That seems like a great idea,” I added, but James attacked me immediately.
“Did anyone ask for your fucking opinion, White?”
I sensed a hint of jealousy in his voice. What did he know about Jackson and Blaze? If there was anything to know.
I stared daggers at him when he gazed at me. You’re a moron. You don’t even notice how everyone around you is feeling!
But I kept that to myself, otherwise all hell would’ve broken loose. Their group’s balance was a lot more fragile than it seemed. All it took was one misstep or one wrong word, and everything would teeter dangerously.
Finally, we got to Tropical. The surrounding area seemed brighter and more colorful than usual thanks to the big temporary amusement park that had been built.
Before I could even go into the crowd, I heard a familiar voice.
“Jamie.” Taylor.
The blond raised an eyebrow, intrigued by my presence. The duo exchanged a quick kiss, but she seemed particularly interested in me. We got in line to go inside, and while the guys smoked, Taylor came up to us.
“Tell me, you came here from nowhere—how did you end up with the most popular guys in school?”
A pink sweater emphasized her tiny waist, and her long legs were wrapped in a pair of dark leggings. She really was beautiful.
“They call me a compulsive social climber. Now that I’m with them, I’ll start feeling like the queen of this shit. Oh, no, hold on, that’s you, Taylor.”
For a moment, her haughty mask slipped and she looked at me, terrified, but when James flashed her a grin, she composed herself immediately.
“You’ll never be like me. You’re with Will, not with James.”