40. June
CHAPTER FORTY
JUNE
The campus is eerily quiet because most students left days ago.
Finals ended, the fall semester came to a close, suitcases dragged across cobblestones, and the whole place emptied like a gallery after closing.
The ivy on Morrison Hall has turned into the brown of burnt umber, bare in patches where the cold has touched it.
A light dusting of snow covers the pathways and the quad, thin enough that the cobblestones show through in spots.
I crunch through it. The loud sound somehow makes me feel small.
Dorien is one of a handful of students given approval to stay in the dorms over winter break.
He told me once that Christmas at the Kael house involves a catered dinner for people who only talk about surface-level things, his mother retiring to her room with a bottle of wine shortly after eating, his father taking a call from overseas.
I’m sure he loves being on campus instead.
I pull my puffy jacket tighter. The air is somehow finding every gap to make me shiver. Above me, the evening sky is filled with gray clouds. The forecast says there will be a few inches of snow tomorrow. Real snow, not this dusting. It’ll be enough to bury this campus in white.
Aeron loves this time of year.
My feet slow and I stop on the path between Founder’s Hall and the residence buildings. I look up at the flat, colorless sky and think about my brother.
He told me once that the light after a heavy snowfall is indescribable.
He said it’s the purest light in existence because every surface becomes a reflector and the whole world turns into a single continuous glow.
He’s tried to capture it. Watercolor, acrylic, oil.
Every attempt ends the same way: he stares at the canvas, shakes his head, says what he made is a lie.
“The snow is more honest than I am,” he told me once, and I laughed because I thought he was being dramatic.
My heart aches because he won’t see the snow tomorrow. He’s in a clinic upstate, far away from us, and the snow will fall on an empty campus without him here to try and fail to capture it.
I keep walking.
The dorm building rises ahead, dark brick softened by the dusting of snow collecting on its ledges and windowsills.
Most windows are dark, though a few glow from desk lamps lit by students who stayed behind for whatever reasons people stay.
Loneliness. Avoidance. A home that isn’t worth going back to.
At least Dorien has company.
I take the elevator to Dorien’s floor. The hallway is silent and smells like old carpet. Dorien’s room is at the end.
When I reach it, I notice his door is cracked about ten inches.
That’s not like him. Dorien is deliberate about his spaces, about what he lets in and what he keeps sealed. I pause with my hand raised to knock, then lower it. The crack is narrow, just enough to see warm lamplight on the floor inside.
I push the door open and walk in.
He’s shirtless—that’s what I notice first. I see his back, bare from the waist up, the planes of his shoulder blades shifting as he leans forward. He’s at his desk and his body is pressed against someone, and my mouth drops open silently.
My eyes bounce around colors first.
Pink. There are long fingernails, painted electric pink, gripping his back.
Black. The black of stiletto fuck-me heels. A woman’s legs are wrapped around his waist, calf muscles taut in those heels.
White. The white border of the polaroids from his desk scattered on the floor around them, knocked loose by whatever happened before I opened this door.
Then I notice form: Dorien’s hands braced on either side of her on the desk surface. The tilt of his head. The composition of two bodies tangled together in a way that cannot be mistaken for anything other than what it is.
I gasp.
Dorien breaks the kiss and glances over his shoulder. The woman shifts to look at me past his arm.
Cinna’s face. Champagne-brown eyes with gold flecks. Blonde hair messy, falling across one shoulder. Lips swollen. She looks at me and her expression falters, guilt flooding in like a glaze, turning her whole face translucent with it.
“I’m sorry you walked in on this,” Dorien says as he straightens.
“You said this was for the best.” His voice is calm.
He doesn’t move away from Cinna or reach for a shirt, just turns slightly toward me.
“After some thought, I realized how right you were. And I’ve kinda had a thing for Cinna.
” He pauses. “Your words gave me permission to pursue it.”
Cinna’s fingers are still on his back. She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t untangle her leg from around him. Her eyes drop to the floor, but she stays exactly where she is, not speaking, not moving.
Tears fill my eyes so fast I can’t see for a few seconds.
I turn and run.
I’m sobbing before I make it ten steps.
Dorien calls out behind me. “June. June, wait.”
I don’t wait. I keep fleeing, my vision smeared, swiping at my face with both hands. The elevator is up ahead. When I reach it, I hit the button and the triangle lights up. I stand there shaking, tears streaking down both sides of my jaw, dripping off my chin.
Dorien catches me in front of the elevator. He rounds the corner and stops a few feet away. Cinna appears behind him half a second later, trailing cautiously, her palms holding her stomach.
“I’m sorry you found out this way,” he says.
I spin to face him. “How could you? You’re a bastard. You said you loved me, but you obviously don’t.”
“But we ended it.” He spreads his hands, palms up, like he’s offering me reasonableness and expecting me to take it. “Cinna came by just a bit ago. We were talking and I realized the attraction is stronger than I thought.”
“This makes it seem like everything you said to me was a lie.” My voice cracks along the seam. “We barely broke up!”
Cinna steps forward. “Why is there a timeline?”
I shove a finger at her. Every muscle in my arm is locked. “Stay the fuck out of this.”
Her arms cross and she shrinks back.
“I’m sorry but I do like Cinna,” Dorien says evenly, as if I’m the one being insane here.
A lurching vertigo makes me sway so I press a hand to the wall for balance. The elevator dings and the doors open, but I don’t leave yet. “I’m at a loss for words,” I say. “You’re with her even after what she did to Aeron?”
“She didn’t…” He runs a hand through his hair.
“Look, we talked and I’m not making excuses for the texts and the rumors, but Aeron is an adult and made his own decisions.
” He glances over at Cinna. “She feels horrible and knows her actions were misguided, but it’s not like she handed Aeron the coke. ”
My palm connects with his cheek and the skin-on-skin sound ricochets through the empty hallway. Dorien’s head turns from the force. He sighs, and when he faces me again, his eyes have gone flat and unreadable.
Cinna loops her arm through Dorien’s elbow. She presses close, claiming him as her territory. “I’m sorry, June.” Her voice is deflated but I sense a hint of victory beneath it. “I truly never meant to hurt Aeron. That’s the truth.”
“Fuck you,” I say.
Dorien reaches past me and pushes the elevator button so the doors open again. “Just go home.”
The tears keep coming and I let them. I don’t wipe my face. I stand there with my fists at my sides and let Cinna see every single one, because I want her to look at what she’s done to my life.
She starts to pull Dorien away. She tugs his arm and turns, no longer looking at me, already moving back down the hallway toward his room. Her shoulders are back. Her chin is lifted. She walks like a person who finally got the thing she’s always wanted.
Dorien follows.
Then, just before they round the corner, he glances back over his shoulder at me. His body is between us and Cinna is ahead of him, turned away. She can’t see his face. Only I can.
He grins.
It’s a fraction of a second. His lips curve and his eyes find mine and there he is, the real Dorien.
I grin back. My face is soaked, my eyes swollen, tears still running, and I am grinning so wide my cheeks ache.
They disappear around the corner. The elevator doors start to close, so I stick my hand out, forcing them to stop and open again. I step inside. Leaning against the wall, I catch my warped reflection in the brushed metal. My face is wrecked but I’m grinning.
Then I’m laughing.
Oh, Cinna.
Payback’s a bitch.