spoken word. (gxg)

eighteen.

eighteen.

   There was one conclusion I came to as the sun rose, cold air burning my nose and throat with each rapid breath. I couldn't let June know. I wasn't some damsel or ingenue in an action movie, I was an independent almost-adult who's behind had been saved by June and her family more times than I wished to recount.

Besides, if whoever was doing this was using me to get to June, telling her would do nothing but play us right into the enemy's hands.

I re-dialed Tyler's number.

"You can't tell her," I demanded. Silence, then an angry huff.

"I haven't yet-- I was hoping you would." That was good news.

"Hear me out," I pleaded, one hand running through my hair to comb out the debris. "I think that I can handle this myself. It might make things worse if June knows."

"And why is that?" He asked, voice gruff, sounding like he didn't believe me.

"Well, first off, I don't know if you've seen how June acts when she fights, but she... loses it." The night if my assault flashed through my mind. Tyler grunted in disbelief.

"I was the one who taught her to fight-- she's always cool-headed," he said harshly. It was news to me. June wasn't cool-headed when she fought my attacker— not at all. Suddenly, everything made sense.

It reminds me, she had told me. Revenge, they had discussed. Whoever it was that assaulted me, June had a history with.

"But not in this case, right? Whoever this is, they set her off like no other," I reasoned, crossing my fingers that my theory was true.

"Yeah," he assented begrudgingly. I did an internal fist bump.

"She already has enough to handle on her end, won't it just be worse if she knows that I'm being affected, too?"

"So what you're saying is that if she knew something happened to you, it might make her freak out more? Make her lose control?" I couldn't read his face over the phone, and his voice was monotone. It was unsettling.

"Well... not exactly," I flushed, "what I meant is that this might be a ploy— the revenge you guys were talking about."

"...so, because the other side is trying to use you to get to June, if you just pretend nothing is happening then their tactics won't work?" When he said it out loud it sounded kinda dumb. I nodded, forgetting he couldn't see me.

"Exactly-- it'll give her the advantage. I'll be fine-- it's not like I haven't dealt with slashed tires before," I argued weakly.

"And the assault?" He reminded me, "promise that you'll come to one of us if something like that happens again. And tell me every time something happens, no matter how little."

"You won't tell?" Like I would report anything to him. What if he wore down and told June? I shivered. That wouldn't be good.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Mia," Tyler warned me before hanging up. And God, I hoped so too.

I was doing long-procrastinated calculus homework when my phone rang. What was it with the phone calls, today? I checked the time-- 5th period must have ended just recently. I felt a pang of guilt. Did June show up as I asked her to, expecting me to be there?

What was embarrassing was how my heart clenched when I thought of her. I wanted to see her face, run my hands through her hair— smell the vanilla of her skin while we listened to a book together.