27. June
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
JUNE
Ifold a sweater and toss it into my luggage. It’s already Sunday afternoon and our little weekend is over.
I’m not sad about leaving. If anything, I’m relieved. This cabin has been gorgeous and it was nice to take a break from normal life, but the past two days have been an emotional obstacle course.
Last night was especially difficult. I lay in the dark listening to what sounded like Dorien having sex.
My thoughts were spiraling so much that I had even considered he was fucking Cinna.
She’s had a crush on him for years, and we were all pretty drunk last night, so I thought, What if she wandered into his room and he was horny, so… ?
Even though I now know that it was Carter and Vienna, my heart still aches. I don’t want to think about Dorien and Cinna together. And I don’t want to think about Dorien having a hookup with any other women. He’s hot, so I’m sure he’s had plenty of hookups by now.
But I don’t want to think about it.
I stuff a pair of jeans in my bag and wrangle my emotions back in check.
It is kinda funny that Carter and Vienna are having a fling because he doesn’t seem like her type at all.
I really want to talk to her about it, but she’s still ignoring me.
She hasn’t forgiven me for accusing her of starting the rumors, and I’m worried she’ll never speak to me again.
That’s why I won’t accuse Aubrey of anything unless I have concrete proof. I won’t lose more friends over the stupid rumors and texts. I won’t let whoever is behind them ruin my life.
I zip my bag and look around the cozy little room one last time. The white bedspread with the little tassels. The wrought iron chandelier I wish I could take home with me even though there’s nowhere to hang it. I love this cabin, but I’m ready to go home.
I need my studio. I want to mix paint and cover a canvas with my feelings and not think about boys, jealousy, or anything. I’m ready to focus completely on school, get my grades up, and paint a masterpiece that will win the Alaria Prize and get me that meeting with a MoMa curator.
Someone knocks on my open bedroom door. I turn to find Cinna. She leans in, still wearing her gold laurel wreath from last night. It makes me smile.
“Trying to create some goddess energy?” I ask.
“Definitely.” She glances at my luggage. “You ready?”
“Just about.” I set my rolling luggage on the floor. “Where’s Aubrey?”
Cinna’s whole body sags. Then she tilts her head so far back I can see up her nostrils. “Ugh. Aubrey always leaves things for the last minute. Her stuff is exploded everywhere.”
I need to see this. I leave my bag by the door and follow Cinna down the hall to their room.
Just as she said, it’s a disaster. Clothes are draped over the chair, the lamp, and the bed frame.
Her witch hat from last night is on the floor with a sock in it.
There’s makeup scattered across the nightstand.
Aubrey is in the center of it all, folding a top at the speed of someone who has already accepted she’ll be the last one packed and is at peace with it.
“This is art,” I tell her. “I’m tempted to snap a few pics with my phone.”
“Shut up.” She grins.
“Need help?”
“Sure.”
I start gathering clothes and folding them while Cinna hovers near the window, scrolling on her phone. Aubrey is telling us about the guy Carter wants to set her up with.
“Kyle, I think? He showed me a pic and… meh.”
I laugh. “Carter thinks a guy is a winner if he has a pulse and he’s tall,” I say as Aubrey heads to the bathroom. She disappears inside and I hear her gathering toiletries, bottles clinking together.
“At least he’s trying,” Cinna says without looking up from her phone.
I fold one of Aubrey’s tops and lean over to place it in the open suitcase on the bed. The inside is a mess too, clothes jammed in without a strategy. As I try to make room, my fingers graze something hard near the bottom.
I’m not trying to be nosey, but I don’t want to smash something delicate, so I fish out the object. It’s a phone.
It’s not Aubrey’s. Aubrey’s phone has a rose gold case with a crack across the top right corner and a flower sticker on the back. I’ve seen it a thousand times. This phone is blue and looks cheap.
There’s a swirling, sinking feeling in my gut, so I tap the screen. It doesn’t have a lock code, so the screen lights up at my touch.
A text thread fills the screen.
I read the first message and my vision narrows.
Then I read the next. My own phone number is at the top of the thread.
These are the texts. The vile, anonymous texts I’ve been receiving, the ones calling me a fraud, a slut, telling me I don’t deserve my spot at Alaria.
The ones that made me cry at 2 a.m. The ones sent to Dorien too.
Every single one, typed from this phone.
In Aubrey’s suitcase.
My hands go numb first. Then the numbness climbs my wrists and forearms, seizing my lungs until I can’t breathe. Aubrey is still talking from the bathroom, telling Cinna about a guy from one of her classes who brings donuts for everyone once a week.
“I think his family owns a donut shop?” she says.
“If you don’t want to date him, I will,” Cinna teases and they laugh.
Their voices sound so far away.
Cinna glances up from her phone and her eyes widen. “June? You okay?”
I can’t speak. I hold the phone out to her.
She crosses the room to take it, giving me a weird look. Her eyes move across the screen, and I watch her face shift from confusion to fury in the span of two seconds. She sucks in air and looks ready to scream.
“Aubrey!” Cinna’s voice cuts through the air. “Get in here. Now.”
Aubrey steps out of the bathroom holding a cosmetics bag. She glances between us with her brows furrowed. “What?”
Cinna gets in her face. “What the fuck is this?” She holds the phone toward Aubrey, screen out.
Aubrey squints at it. “Uh, a phone?”
“Don’t try to be cute. It was in your bag.
” Cinna’s voice is climbing and I’m glad she’s able to speak because my brain has completely shut down.
All I can do is stand here and watch. “It’s got every text that was sent to June,” Cinna says.
“Every single one. They all came from this phone and it was in your suitcase.”
Aubrey stiffens and her mouth drops open. “Uh, okay. I’ve never seen that phone in my life. It makes no sense that it was in my bag.”
“Bullshit!” Cinna is yelling now, which I’ve never seen her do. “How could you do this? It’s so sick to send these texts. I-I can’t even—”
“I didn’t do anything! What are you talking about?”
They’re screaming at each other, but all their words are a blur in my head because my heart is pounding so loud. Aubrey’s voice breaks on the word “never” and Cinna’s hands are shaking, but I feel so far away. I’m not even in my body, watching this happen to someone who looks like me.
I walk out of the room, and don’t say a word to either of them.
When I get to my room, I close the door and sit on the bed. Through the wall, Cinna and Aubrey’s fight continues, muffled but fierce. I hear Cinna say “you’re sick” and Aubrey say “I’m telling you it’s not mine” and then louder, both of them at once.
I stare at my hands in my lap. They’re still numb. My brain keeps looping. How? How could Aubrey do this? Why? We’ve been such good friends. Comforted each other. If Cinna wasn’t already my bestie, I could see Aubrey being that. If I ever got married, she’d be a bridesmaid.
I trusted her.
Why? Why would she do this to me?
I hear footsteps stomping through the hallway. Aubrey’s voice is brittle and cracking as she yells, “I don’t need this shit!”
Her boots hit the stairs. The front door opens and crashes shut hard enough that I feel the vibration through the bed frame.
Carter’s voice calls out from somewhere. “What the hell was that about?”
There’s silence for a long moment. Then my door opens and Cinna is there, face flushed, eyes wet.
She doesn’t say anything. She crosses the room and sits beside me on the bed and puts her arm around me.
I lean into her and the tears finally come like a downpour.
My bestie holds me tighter, her chin on top of my head, and I cry into her shoulder because someone I trusted was the person hurting me and I can’t make that make sense no matter how many times I try.
Cinna’s hand moves in slow circles on my back. “I’ve got you,” she says softly.