7. June
CHAPTER SEVEN
JUNE
Cinna and I barely make it out of Whitmore Hall when a voice cuts across the courtyard.
“Finally! I’ve been waiting for like ten minutes. My coffee is basically ice at this point.”
Aubrey is sprawled on one of the stone benches near the fountain, her combat boots propped on the edge like she owns the entire courtyard—which, knowing Aubrey, she probably believes she does.
Her dark hair is in its usual messy bob, the orange streaks looking like tiny flames, and she’s wearing a vintage Chanel jacket over ripped black jeans because Aubrey has never met a fashion contradiction she didn’t want to commit to.
“You could’ve texted,” I say, dropping onto the bench beside her.
“Could have. I chose drama instead.” She takes a pointed sip of her iced coffee, amber eyes flicking between me and Cinna. Those eyes make me think of a wild fall meadow, the way the green undertones shift under the yellowish hues depending on the light.
Cinna settles on Aubrey’s other side, graceful as usual. “We got caught up talking.”
“Oh you always do, Cinna.”
Cinna sticks out her tongue and Aubrey laughs.
“It’s a compliment,” Aubrey says.
“Is it, though?” I ask.
“Yes, take it,” she says to Cinna.
I met Aubrey freshman year, in the campus dining hall of all places.
She’d been in a loud argument with some guy about whether theater counted as “real art” compared to visual mediums, and I’d accidentally made eye contact while trying to find a seat.
She’d immediately pulled me into the debate as her witness. “You. What’s your major?”
I glanced around, hoping she was jabbing her finger at anyone else. She wasn’t. “Um, painting?”
“Oh, perfect! Tell this pretentious asshole that performance is just as valid as his precious canvases.”
The guy did look like a pretentious asshole, but I don’t really like confrontation. So I’d said, “I mean, I mostly just wanted a sandwich.”
She’d laughed so hard she’d snorted, and we’ve been friends ever since.
Our friendship isn’t soft the way mine and Cinna’s is. Aubrey doesn’t do soft. She does loud, and she’s loyal in a way that feels like being tackled rather than hugged. I love her for it, even when she makes me want to throw things at her head.
“Okay, but more importantly,” Cinna says, leaning forward with the look she gets when she smells gossip. “You said you had weekend news. Spill.”
Aubrey’s mouth curves into a wicked smirk. “I may have hooked up with someone.”
“Who?” Cinna and I say it at the same time.
“Remember that guy from the beginning theater showcase last year? Tall, curly hair, kind of looks like he’d never gone outside a day in his life? We have a running joke that he’s a vampire.”
“The one who did the performance about existential dread?” Cinna asks.
“That’s the one. Turns out he’s much less depressing when he’s not performing.” She takes another sip of coffee, deliberately drawing out the pause. “Also very flexible and creative with his body. Theater kids, you know?”
“Aubrey.” I’m grinning despite myself. “Details.”
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Cinna and I laugh. Then I say, “You’re not a lady.”
“True.” She launches into the story, gesturing with her free hand, her rings glinting. She’s always talking with her hands, carving the air into emphatic shapes.
She describes a party she went to and how “vampire hottie” was there. At one point, he quoted Shakespeare and she’d decided that was somehow attractive. Then they went back to his dorm and hooked up. She tries to end with, “Vampires have some positions I’ve never even thought of.”
Cinna is laughing but says, “Okay, details. You absolutely can’t end with that! What positions, girl?”
For a few minutes it’s just three young women on a bench in the morning sun, talking about nothing that will matter in a week. It’s nice. A moment I want to scribble on the pages of my diary and keep.
When Aubrey takes a longer breath, I hold up a finger. “One second.” I pull my diary out of my bag and balance it on my knee, shielding the page with my forearm even though neither of them is looking.
Cinna says, “There she goes with her diary again.”
I write quickly: Aubrey. Cinna. Sun on the fountain. Vampire sex gossip. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
That’s enough for now. I can expand on it later tonight. I close the diary and tuck it away. Then my attention is on Aubrey again.
“Anyway…” she continues. She spends the next ten minutes giving us all the details, then finishes with a dramatic flourish, concluding, “He texted me this morning asking if I wanted to get dinner, so clearly I ruined him for other women.”
“Obviously,” Cinna says. “It’s the combat boots.”
“I agree.”
We giggle together as the fountain behind us burbles and splashes. I’m about to ask Aubrey if she’s actually going to dinner with Vampire Hottie when her expression drops into a look I know means she has more serious drama to tell us about.
She leans in, one plucked brow arched. But she doesn’t look excited as she normally does about sharing drama—the corners of her eyes are pinched.
“Speaking of weekend gossip.” She’s looking at me now, head cocked to the side like she’s sizing up how I’ll react.
“I heard something weird in my costume construction class yesterday.”
There’s a stuffiness in my head, like my ears don’t want to hear what she’s about to say. “Weird how?”
“Weird like, two girls were saying you bribed a judge to get into the fall exhibition.”
For a second, the words don’t make sense. They just hang there, nonsense syllables arranged together.
Cinna is the one to react first. “What? Who the hell would say that?”
“I know, it’s stupid.” Aubrey waves her hand dismissively because she’s used to gossip; she’s had rumors spread about her before and just ignored them like they were trivial.
“I’m just telling you because you should know people are saying it.
That’s how college students are. They repeat everything around them without thinking. ”
Cinna tsks. “That’s literally the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It was a student show, not some big award. Who would even bribe for that?”
“Right?” Aubrey shrugs. “That’s what I thought.
But apparently it’s making the rounds. One of my classmates and some girl I don’t know were being very whatever about it, like it was already a fact.
” She raises her coffee cup at me like she’s presenting the gossip in physical form.
“Honestly, just ignore it. You know I’ve had so much gossip about me, but don’t play into those fools and they’ll go away. ”
It’s still not sinking in, and I’m just staring at the fading frothy flower art on my latte.
Someone is saying I bribed my way into the showcase?
Cinna is right that it sounds ridiculous.
The exhibition features student work, doesn’t have prize money, and literally no one outside the art department cares about it.
And… me? Why gossip about me? I don’t say this because I have low self-esteem, but I’m kind of nobody. Just a normal student like all the rest, and I’m not even someone like Aubrey who gets in people’s faces, pisses them off, and creates enemies who are eager to spread rumors.
I’m nobody’s enemy.
“Maybe they were talking about someone else,” I finally say. “I’m not exactly known around campus.”
“They said your name. ‘June Belrose bribed a judge.’” Aubrey’s watching me, and I can tell she’s taking notes on my reaction.
Why, though?
“Hey,” she says. “It’s not worth losing sleep over. It’s obviously bullshit. But I figured you’d want to know. Better to hear it from me and not someone else.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Cinna reaches over and squeezes my arm. “People are idiots. Seriously, this will blow over in like two days. Someone else will do something scandalous and everyone will forget.”
“Probably.” I force a smile, trying to shake off the weird crawling feeling at the back of my neck. It’s just a stupid rumor. People say stupid things all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.
“That exhibition is overrated anyway,” Aubrey says. “I was a bit jealous, June, because you got in and I didn’t, but now I don’t care. Especially if someone is going to spread lies.”
“You entered?” I ask her. “I had no idea.” I glance at Cinna and she shakes her head; she didn’t know either.
“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t get picked and it feels embarrassing. It was video art of a performance piece. My teachers all gave it high marks last semester, so I thought it was good enough. But no one ever picks performance pieces.”
“That’s not true,” I say, but then I don’t have any proof.
I actually don’t see much video art or performance pieces at museums or exhibitions.
I guess the art world largely favors “sellable” art, like paintings, sculptures, and photographs.
I give her a side hug. “They were stupid for not picking you.”
“Thanks. Can we not mention the exhibition anymore?”
“Definitely.”
Cinna reaches past me and squeezes Aubrey’s knee. “You’ll get in next time. Your work is too good.”
“Obviously.” Aubrey takes a long sip of her coffee, and I can tell the vulnerability cost her something.
I pull out my phone to check the time, mostly to have something to do with my hands, and my stomach drops.
“Shit.”
“What?” Cinna asks.
“I’m late. I’m so late.” I’m already standing, grabbing my bag, doing the mental math of how fast I can get across campus.
Cinna looks confused. “You don’t have class right now. At least, you didn’t last week.”
“Last week, yeah. But I do now. It’s a whole mess.
” I’m walking backward, which is definitely going to end with me tripping over a cobblestone, but I don’t have time to explain properly.
“Long story short, I thought I was enrolled in Women in Art History. Went to lectures the whole first week. Turned in the first assignment. The professor finally checked the roster and was like, ‘Who are you?’”
Cinna’s hand flies to her mouth. “Oh no.”