AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You put a big display in my locker when I opened it?” She said slowly, perhaps realizing I still didn’t know what she was talking about. “Snowflakes fell out, hanging all around my face, and there were twinkly lights … and …”
Nothing was coming to me, and I definitely hadn’t done that. And she realized it too.
“Oh, my God.”
“June.” I reached for her, my heart lurching. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t done it. What did matter was someonehaddone it, and if it had been signed by me, that meant someone did it deliberately to hurt her.
“Oh, myGod.” She repeated, pulling back from me as she tried to stand.
“Whoa, wait!” I grabbed her, frantically pulling her back to the floor, simultaneously trying to stop all the dishes from being upended by her sudden movements.
“Someone … they …”
“Yeah, I think so too.” She dropped back on the ground in front of me with a thud as she covered her mouth with her hand, her cheeks flushed a bright red, and her eyes welled with tears.
“June, look at me, please.” She continued to stare off in the distance, and then, slowly, her eyes drifted to me as if seeing me for the first time.
“Evan.”
“Yeah?”
“I …” I shook my head quickly, cutting off what was coming next. I didn’t need an apology. It didn’t matter to me. It was a misunderstanding, a horrible one, but a misunderstanding. Plus, I still owed her an apology for the beached whale comment. And … It hit me why this had happened. And I knew exactly who’d done it.
“That fucker.”
“Huh?” She blinked out of her reverie to look confused at my sudden outburst.
“Brendan Lewis. He knew I liked you. That’s why … When I told him I thought you were hot, he’s the one who told me you were a beached whale and someone like me shouldnevergo for someone like you. I guess, knowing I liked you, he set up that prank to get you to go to the winter formal knowing I wasn’t going so you’d be stood up.”
“And told everyone, so they knew to look out for me and laugh at my humiliation.” I reached for her hand, grasping it tightly as my thumb stroked the back of it. “Hang on. You liked me?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I? Look at you. You’re gorgeous, and I always thought you were funny. You were the only one who made me laugh after my dad. I always thought if we got together, maybe I’d feel … normal again.” I frowned to myself and then shook my head, “but this isn’t about me. Well, it is, I did call you a beached whale, but it’s not what you think. Brendan elbowed me when you tripped that day and nodded at you and said, ‘what did I tell you?’ And I said, ‘she’s not a beached whale, you asshole.’ You must’ve heard the beached whale part.”
“So, you never?” She blinked as she stared at me, her mind probably reeling at her new reality.
“Never. Not once.” I let go of her hand, reaching instead to cup her face as I leaned closer, my heart thumping in my chest. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was sixteen.”
“What?”
I licked my lips to make sure they weren’t dry from the fire before closing the distance between us and pressing them against hers.
june
I was still processingeverything he’d said when he kissed me. His hand was gentle as it tilted my mouth to his, and he pressed his lips to mine, moving them carefully as he tested to see what would happen. But I was still shellshocked.
Everything I’d believed about him until this moment was wrong. I’d gotten it so utterly and completely wrong that my life felt like a lie.
When I didn’t immediately do anything, Evan finally pulled back, and the sad expression on his face would have been comical if not for the fact I was still reeling over the fact that Evan Butler, the hottest guy in our school, thought I was gorgeous.
“Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”
I blinked as my mind slowly caught up to what was happening here. “No, I liked it. I’m just …”
“I get it, I should’ve waited, but I wanted to show you how I felt.”
“Felt.” My brain felt sticky as it tried to keep pace with this conversation.
“Well, no, not felt. Feel.” My eyes widened as I stared at him, and then I repeated the word back to himagainlike I’d lost my mind. And well, I kinda had.
