Borrowed Time

Chapter Seven

Juliette had, unfortunately, fallen right into Esme's prophecy after she became sober. She had muted all notifications from Esme, hadn't said anything to her in Chemistry, and she'd refused every offer to study or get a ride home. And it wasn't even Esme's fault. It wasn't her fault that the slight crookedness of her smile made Juliette's chest hurt, or that the way that her piercing would peek under her lip made her feel faint... It wasn't her fault that Juliette couldn't get the image of her shirtless out of her head. None of this was something she'd done, she didn't deserve it... and yet Juliette couldn't help herself. All she could do was sit across the lunch room, watching Esme eat with one of the other basically unknown kids, smiling and laughing... she looked too perfect to be real, it almost pissed Juliette off.

"Hey... you haven't mentioned anything about Esme recently." Shelby said, and Juliette stiffened at this, turning away from Shelby a bit. She didn't want to talk about that, she didn't want to acknowledge that she'd been ignoring Esme's texts, avoiding talking to her during chemistry... she'd just said and done so much, and she knew that there was no coming back from that. She was fucked, utterly and completely.

"So?" She asked, sounding more hostile than she'd intended... It wasn't like Shelby had accused her of anything, all she'd done was say something that was true. She didn't want to draw more attention to the embarrassing things that she'd done and said.

"It just seemed like maybe you two were getting close, and now you're just... radio silent. Did something happen after the party?" Yes. But no, she didn't want her to know that. Juliette let out a high laugh, a bit too loud and a bit too shrill as she shook her head, twitching her fingers on the table. No.

"No! No, of course not, how could you even ask me that?" She asked, trying not to sound nervous. Shelby raised her eyebrow, a small smirk on her lips. Okay, so she'd just told on herself, good to know.

"I mean like, did you two fight." She clarified, and Juliette's shoulders fell as she relaxed. Shelby wasn't calling her gay... she didn't know... it wasn't any of that. She was just checking in.

"Oh... No. We didn't fight, I'm just embarrassed because I threw up on her shirt, that's all." She explained, and Shelby narrowed her eyes, nodding as she pursed her lips. It was clear that she didn't believe that that was the only thing that was going on... and just because she was right didn't mean anything.

"Mhm..." Shelby sighed, leaning forward over her food. Why was she being like this?

"What?" She asked, and Shelby shrugged, not looking her in the eyes.

"Nothing, you just get this little twitch in your lip when you lie, it's been like that since we were kids." Shelby mumbled, picking around at her food on her tray. She'd never actually told her that... Juliette knew she had to have a tell, Shelby was abnormally good at figuring out when she wasn't telling the truth.

"Hm. You've never mentioned it before." Juliette said, and Shelby sighed, setting down her fork as she tried to not glare at her. She pulled at one of the curls of her hair, stretching it with her fingers as she spoke, something she did when she needed to do something with her hands so she didn't fidget.

"You rarely lie to me, so it's not something that I really have to worry about." Shelby narrowed her eyes, working her jaw as she thought of what to say. "Seriously, Jules... You can tell me anything, why aren't you talking to me?" She asked, and Juliette shrugged. She didn't like going through this without support, but she didn't even know what Shelby would have to support her through, so it wasn't fair to talk about it yet.

"It's private." It was private, hell she didn't even know what she would tell Shelby about this... it was all too confusing, and talking about it only made it more real and made her stomach feel like it was going to turn inside out... She knew Shelby was upset because she felt like she'd missed something, but she hadn't. Nothing had truly become actualized yet.