Chapter 18
June
I let out a yelp as something poked my thigh.
“Shit!” I cursed.
I barely got out of the thorny bushes, but I didn’t have any broken bones and only a few branches in my hair. By some miracle, I’d made it. I felt my skin on the back of my leg burn and touched it. A little trickle of blood oozed between my fingers.
I’d declared victory too quickly, and that wasn’t even the worst part. A vertical tear in my dress ran down to my groin. Now I was going to kill him. I swear I was gonna kill him with my bare hands in front of everyone.
James thought I’d come back with my tail between my legs, but my thirst for revenge was too great.
I walked around the house and into the living room with messy hair, scratched legs, and a raggedy dress. Nobody noticed me. I could’ve screamed until I was blue in the face when I was locked in the basement, but nobody would’ve come to my rescue because of how drunk they were.
“Look who’s back! Stripper White,” Marvin blurted, massaging the nape of his neck.
I ignored him and scanned the room to pinpoint my target.
“You’d be a lot more fun if you dressed like that every day,” Jackson chimed in from his spot on the couch.
“And we’d all be happier if you fucked off,” I retorted. I heard laughter behind me. Crass and arrogant. Unmistakable.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” I snapped, whirling around.
“Cool and White in the same sentence. It’s funny, isn’t it?”
James Hunter looked me up and down without moving.
“You’re a coward,” I accused him.
“Oh really?” He snickered. He was still shirtless, but I didn’t pay attention.
“Come on, you’re picking on a girl,” someone said.
I raised my hand to slap him but he grabbed my wrist and threw me against the wall.
“Hunter, didn’t your parents ever teach you not to lay hands on a woman? Hmm?” I asked.
James swallowed, and I stared at the veins and nerves roping around his neck. He was too close.
Concentrate, June. You’re here to get revenge.
“I was taught that men and women are equal. And you’re the one who punched me.”
His lips moved in front of me, and I caught a glimpse of his perfect white teeth. Don’t get distracted, June.
“Because I hate you.” I paused. “Edward.”
His blue eyes blazed. James pushed his forehead against mine. His lips parted slowly and were so close to mine that I felt the heat coming off them.
“That’s Hunter to you, you little bitch.”
Suddenly a voice startled us.
“June, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
It was a rude awakening. The lights, the music, the party. William. He stared at me suspiciously.
His best friend and I were an inch apart against a wall. Fantastic.
William stared at my lips, then James’s.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing. We aren’t doing anything,” I said resolutely.
James pulled away, letting me breathe again. I rubbed my wrist.
“Can I ask what’s going on?” insisted William.
“Your little blowup doll is walking the streets like this, Will.”
James pointed at my ripped dress, causing me to pull it down on my thighs. I was sure Amelia would be pissed. I knew how much she loved this dress.
“I don’t want to hear you talk about her like this,” William said abruptly.
“Enough! You’re disgusting.” I piled it on.
But James didn’t seem remotely fazed. In fact, he seemed amused as he put the vape pen to his lips.
William, on the other hand, looked at me so seriously that I felt guilty for not doing anything.
“June, why were you so close together? What were you talking about?”
“Hunter’s being a dick, like always,” I explained, trying to stay calm. James grumbled, annoyed. It seemed like the situation was starting to bore him, so he turned around to leave. But William grabbed his arm.
“Now tell me what the hell is going on, James.”
Will’s face was bright red with fury, and I shivered.
I noticed a group of curious people had formed around us.
“Look, Will, I didn’t do anything,” spat James, attempting to leave again, but his friend didn’t loosen his grip.
“And what were you doing an inch away from her face?”
“It’s not my fault if I always find her in the middle of everything. If you want to keep her close, put a leash on her. Don’t give me shit about it.”
William flung himself at James. I was stunned. Two guys tried to hold him back before he could punch Hunter in the face. Will seemed intent on ripping him to shreds.
“You have to stop getting in the way,” he yelled.
Seeing him like this shocked me, while James kept acting like his usual blowhard self.
“Or what, huh?”
Powerless and terrified, I had no idea what to do. As much as I couldn’t stand James, I wouldn’t’ve ever let two best friends fight over me.
“For once in your life, can you not fucking butt in?” William shoved him.
“I didn’t do shit,” replied James, barely swallowing.
I was overcome with the same feeling again. It looked like James was scared of Will.
“Why were you with him?” William turned around to face me, but I was speechless. I wasn’t expecting for him to interrogate me.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I stuttered.
I was getting pulled into a dynamic where I didn’t belong. James, on the other hand, looked like he was going along with it swimmingly.
“Listen to her, she has no idea! She’s just a nosy bitch.”
“What’d you do, June?”
Shocked, I felt my hands tremble. Everyone there was staring at me, and as upset as I was with William, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“I didn’t do shit,” I shouted.
James flashed a shit-eating grin, so I was forced to tell William. “I bet you’ll stop defending him after I tell you what he did to me. He locked me in your basement!”
William stared at me expectantly, as if those words weren’t that severe.
“Look at him!” I exclaimed, having reached my boiling point.
“A moment ago he was furious at the world, and now he’s laughing.
He’s insane! He’s definitely bipolar. A lunatic.
Nobody would want someone like him around them. Nobody!”
I struggled to breathe again. My outburst gave way to an unsettling silence throughout the house.
James wasn’t laughing anymore. He looked at me seriously, neither angry nor annoyed. Just serious.
William lowered his head. He couldn’t bear to look at me. Jackson, Marvin, and everyone else was staring at us.
“June?” William’s voice cracked.
“What?”
“Get out,” he ordered.
“Are you serious?” Dumbfounded, I muttered something unintelligible.
“I want you to get out of my house. Now.”
His words burned more than the thorns that had pricked my legs earlier.
“Maybe I shouldn’t’ve invited you.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I know he’s your friend, but he’s unbearable. He locked me in basement, you know?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
It didn’t matter? Behind him, James shook his head reluctantly. His self-satisfied smile vanished. He gnashed his teeth. His glare left me breathless.
“Get lost, you bitch.”
“Forget it, James.” Will interrupted his friend with a hand motion before turning away from me. What the hell was going on?
“William!” I called him, but it fell on deaf ears. He left me in the middle of the living room as everyone went back to what they were doing.
I ran off, totally humiliated.
Amelia was supposed to give me a ride home, but I didn’t know where she was. I walked through the front door and bumped into someone walking in the opposite direction.
“Sorry.”
“June! What’s going on?”
It was Blaze, and he looked more upset than I was.
“Are you okay?” I asked, noticing his puffy red eyes. His glistening cheeks left little to the imagination. He looked like he’d been crying.
“Yeah. I just got into a fight with someone. What happened to you? Why are you leaving?”
It seemed like Blaze was the only one who’d missed the show.
“I don’t know. William . . . everything’s so weird,” I commented without thinking about it.
“William isn’t what he seems to be,” I heard him whisper.
“Blaze.” His dark eyes were focused on the floor.
“You might think I’m jealous, but it’s not like that.”
“I know you aren’t. I saw you with Jackson.”
I bit my lip after that slipped out.
“Jesus, June. You can’t say stuff like that out loud,” he said, then stormed off.
I faced the music for the umpteenth time and peeked outside.
“June, there you are!” Poppy beckoned me and gave me back my phone.
“Where’s Amelia?” I asked, confused, ignoring the group of girls with Poppy.
I saw her motioning for them to zip their lips.
I was such an idiot. Why was I so eager to join a group when everyone did nothing but hide things from me and screw with me? I was alone. Again.
>> <<
The walk home was almost two miles in the dark, and I held back my tears the whole time.
Luckily, my mom was still painting in her studio when I got home, so she didn’t notice my indecent outfit. I locked myself in my room with a sigh of relief.
The sense of guilt for what I’d yelled at William, combined with the humiliation I felt, converged into a tangled mess that was too painful and impossible to figure out.
I walked into the bathroom and rummaged through the drawer under the sink, fumbling around frantically.
I held my breath as I ran my thumb along the ceramic curling iron.
Then I plugged it into the outlet. I sat on my bed and stared at the little red light with a heavy heart. I couldn’t think about it.
Finally, the light turned green. I was home free. It would all be over soon.