After June
It’s been six years and 359 days since my best friend June Courtoreille died falling from a tree at a high school party. It’s been six years and 171 days since Sarah kissed me after she found me sobbing under a tree on New Year’s Eve and our friendship became something more. It’s been 6 days and 15 hours since that relationship was torn from my hands and ripped apart like a week-old newspaper you use as kindling.
The fire born from it will warm her while it disintegrates me.
“Lucy, are you listening?” My mother’s voice breaks the silent hum of the vehicle as we speed down the highway. I press my forehead harder into the glass of the passenger window, watching the green fields and forests pass. An unintentional breath huffs out and my mother scoffs.
“Lu, sorry. I’ll have you know that Lucy was my kokum’s, your chapan’s, name.”
“It’s not mine. And I’m not a girl,” I exhale again, as if that will relieve the annoyance twisting my gut.
“C’mon. Can we not argue? Not while you’re here for a visit for the first time in what? Three years?”
“Four.” I deadpan, tapping the glass with the tip of my finger and feeling its vibration through my temple.
“Look, so you and Sarah are going through a rough patch. S’not the first time? You girls—agh, sorry. I’m out of practice. You…” My mom pauses trying to find the right words to say. The ones that will magically break me out of my stupor after my almost seven-year long relationship crashed and burned. I hit my head against the window again.
“Lovers?”
“Agh,” I groan and press my head into my hands, “Gross, don’t say that.”
The car goes quiet again, only the gentle rumble of the engine thrumming as it propels us past a reserve. I watch the baseball fields, more decrepit than—
“I’m trying, Lu. I’m sorry. But you never picked up the phone when I called. I’m a bit rusty with all of this.” She waves her hand around the air idly before grabbing the steering wheel once again.
“My identity?” “You know what I mean. We don’t have many two-spirit folks ‘round here. Not in the bush.”
“There are probably a lot of us, but they were smart and didn’t want to deal with the headache of trying to navigate you old folks.”
“We’re trying.” My mother huffs and goes silent.
When I look at her, I’m surprised by her aged appearance. I shouldn’t be, people age. People die. But us arguing feels like when I was a hard-headed teenager and I expect to see her a decade younger.
“I know you are. Sorry, I’m just in a mood because of, well, you know.” I sigh, and my mother looks at me with a watery smile. Her right hand releases the steering wheel and grips my knee reassuringly. I feel like crying.
“Besides, this is the real me, the truthful one. I’d like for you to respect that.”
“I do, Pipikos, I do. I promise folks are a lot better about it now. We just need some practice. Two-spirit people were held in high regard once upon a time.”
“I know, I know.” I rub my hands over my face, and turn to stare back out the window.
“And you know your cousin Jay is two-spirit too, he’s dating a man.”
“Mom, he can be queer and not two-spirit. He can be straight and two-spirit. Two-spirit doesn’t have to do with your sexuality. It’s a community thing.”
“Agh, right right. But maybe he’s two-spirit.” My mother looks at me, eyebrows and shoulders raised.
“Yeah,” I laugh a bit, surrendering to my fate for the next week of explaining things again and again, “He might be. I’ll ask him about it.”
“Matt is putting together something special for the reunion to honor June.”
“I hate that we’re only doing this reunion cause they’re tearing down the school. Why does our reunion need to be there anyway? We could have just gone to the pub in a few years when it’s actually our ten-year anniversary.”
“The Cozy?” She raises her eyebrow, unconvinced that anyone would choose to host a reunion in the dusty, rundown bar in the heart of our small town.
When our eyes meet, it’s only a few seconds of eye contact before we begin laughing. Hard. I slap my knee and screech as my mother cries out, tears rolling from her eyes as she tries to keep focused on the road. We keep going for another minute before my cheeks are burning and I feel a dull thud behind my eyes. My mom sighs as she swipes under her eye.
“Yeah, I forgot there’s only one place in town to get a drink.”
“This isn’t the city, Pipikos.” My mom says, taking a breath in as we crest the hill and the town smaller than the size of my outstretched palm comes into view. My own breath hiccups, and I feel sudden unease grow with every passing light pole as we make our way back to my hometown.
Do you think she sees us?
What, like right now?
Ew, no. But maybe.
I’d like to think she has the
decency to look away while
we do the devil’s dance.
Shut up, Lu. Don’t call
us and our love a devils
anything.
That’s what some people
think, Sar.
Well, they’re wrong. When
I’m with you
I feel the most right. Even
when we’re doing the most
mundane things.
Like doing the dishes,
which we never got
around to, by the way.
Yes. Even that I want to
do forever, only because I
get to do them with you.
Sometimes, when you
leave for work trips, I go
to sleep at 7 just so I can
be with you again.
….hm.
I’ll see you in dreamworld,
then?
Until June.
Until-
I startle awake, pulling the tangled sheets around me. My hand searches to my right, fingers stretching until I realize I’m back on the Settlement, and I’m the only one in this bed.
My breath is wretched, coming in and out fast because the air is too thin to properly grasp oxygen. My shirt sticks to my body, glued there by sweat and the sensation is horrible. I rip it off and throw it across the room so the only thing I’m coated in is stillness.
In the middle of the bush my ears roar with silence, as if my thoughts are rushing like a flood with no stimulation to hold them in. I’ve grown used to the city and all of its sirens, shouts, and general thrum of life. The forest is alive, too, but in a way that doesn’t insist on being heard—it just is.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, and pad over the creaking wood floorboards to my dresser. I grab an old baggy shirt and throw it on while gently placing the photos of me, June, and Sarah facedown so I don’t have to look at them.
My mouth is dry and raw so I head to the kitchen.
The linoleum peels in the most trodden places, the biggest patch being in front of the coffee maker. The clock ticks aimlessly as I brew a batch, measuring the grounds, and grabbing a filter from the cupboard.
My mind drifts into a trance through the familiar motions, interrupted by my mother’s slippered steps as she enters the kitchen.
“You’re up early. Your shift at the store isn’t until 11, right?”
“Mah, I work down at the law office now. Shift’s in an hour.”
“You… what?” I blanch, and my mother gives me a good long stare before turning to get started on breakfast.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask as she points to the fridge, signaling me to grab eggs.
“I tried to. You never picked up the phone. And besides you’re too inside your head for your own good. That’s why you and Sarah…” I take in a sharp breath and my mom stops buttering the toast she just made.
“She called you? And you both talked about me? Behind my back?”
“We’re worried about you, Lu.”
“No, you both have moved on with your life. Like she never mattered.”
My mother levels a deadly stare at me, and I feel every inch of my body stop. “You know that’s not true.”
I deflate a little, unsure of myself now.
“I’m sorry, ma. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t sleep much.” My mother resumes buttering the now cold toast. I step in front of the stove and flip the eggs.
“You want any cheese with your toast?” My mom asks.
I nod my head and she retrieves some Kraft singles from the fridge and throws them onto a couple pieces of toast. I finish the eggs, grab two cups of coffee and head to the kitchen table.
We sip our coffee and bite into our breakfasts.
“Why couldn’t you sleep?” My mom asks finally. I sigh, and put my toast down, the yolk bleeding onto the plate.
“I was waiting.” I said mildly, pulling a long sip from my steaming coffee mug. I look out the window and see the sky lighten to a hazy purple.
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Sar, I guess. We’ve never broken up for more than a week. And…” I think back to the long night, watching my phone to see if it would light up with a call or text from Sarah.
“You guys will figure it out.” My mother presses her cold hand into mine for a moment.
“I don’t think so, Ma. Not this time.”
“What is it exactly that you’re fighting about? I could barely keep up with Sarah when she called. She was worried sick about you after you disappeared.”
I grimace a bit, remembering running from the apartment in the dead of night. I ended up walking the neighborhood back and forth for hours, lost in my own thoughts.
I sigh and run my hands through my disheveled hair, pulling at it. “I should apologize for that.”
“From what I’m guessing, that isn’t the only thing you need to apologize for.”
“Hey, she’s the one leaving me, okay?”
My mom blinks her eyes a couple of times, as if she’s trying to figure out if I’m speaking English or not, clearly not believing that Sarah would do such a thing.
“She got a position as head coach for some university track team in a whole other province. They’re national winners and are heading internationally. Sarah wants to go train them.” I grit out the last bit like something’s stuck in my teeth. I still can’t believe Sarah would betray June like that, betray me like that.
“Wow, that’s amazing! She must be over the moon.”
My mouth drops open and I guffaw, abruptly standing,
“Did you not hear me? She is leaving me, Mom. Like I’m yesterday’s leftovers.”
“She’s not leaving you.”
“Well, she didn’t exactly invite me out with her.”
My mother raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. “What exactly are you two fighting about?”
“Ugh, I just told you!”
“You said she got an amazing opportunity, and she’s taking it. I’m proud of my daughter-in-law.”
“My God, you just don’t get it.”
“Lu, please come back here!”
The lunch crowd rushes in and I look up from my laptop. A big yawn rips out of me and I must be obnoxious because a couple old white ladies give me a raised eyebrow. I roll my eyes and their jaws drop further. Where do they get off trying to shame me in a cafe named Mitso—obviously a Native establishment.
Cracking my knuckles, I sit up straight from my hunched position and hear pops as my vertebrae align into what is probably their proper position.
You’re going to be a hunched kokum someday, my love. A cute kokum, but hunched.
I huff out a laugh at the memory of Sarah’s words.
But just as quickly I feel an ache deep in my chest, and the line separating each eyebrow deepens. I look around to get my mind off of Sarah and find myself staring directly at a white blonde head of hair that immediately sends my stomach to the floor.
Felicity’s looks haven’t changed much since high school except for the weight that now fills her figure in a womanly way. I hate to admit that it suits her.
Do you think the Suburbia
Queen will ever outgrow
her mean streak?
Nah, that’d mean
that she’d have to
be a human being.
Ha, yeah. What I wouldn’t
pay to see the day she
apologizes.
Won’t be any time soon.
Especially not to us.
Yeah, Sarah really slapped
the shit out of her, huh?
Fok yah she did.
That’s our girl. Who
would’ve thought?
We’ll be long gone out of
here anyways before she
grows a conscience. Living
it up in the city, while she
rots away here.
Exactly, we won’t
be around when she
grows the balls to say
she’s sorry, Junie.
“Uh… Lu? Did you hear me?” Felicity stares down at me, head tilted to the side with a curious look on her face.
“Huh?” It takes me a few seconds to realize that she’s actually here, standing in front of me. I hear June’s laugh fading into the recesses of my mind. If that’s how her laugh even sounded. Every year I grow more unsure.
The tears that pool are searing. Felicity looks taken aback, and her hand goes to her torso where a baby is strapped to her. The baby’s hair is dark and thick, its skin more reddish than the warm white of Felicity’s. It’s a cute baby and for half a second I wonder if she’s a nanny or something.
“Look, I’m glad you’re here. Is Sarah around? I wanted to say…” Felicity begins but I cut her off.
“No, she isn’t.” I deadpan, my eyes dragging back up to her face from the baby.
“Oh. Right.” Her head tilts and she almost grimaces as if wondering if she should ask, and because it’s her, she does. “Are you two still…?”
“Yeah.” The word comes out on impulse, and so does my flinch when I realize. “I mean no. I mean…it’s not any of your business, okay, Ms. Suburban Queen. You made our lives hell in high school. I don’t owe you anything. And I sure as hell don’t want anything from you now.”
Felicity takes a step back and at that moment the waiter who has been steadily filling my cup of coffee free of charge comes to our table and easily slides an arm around her shoulder.
“You alright, babe?” He asks, eyebrow raised as he considers the tense table. His long hair is separated into one braid, neatly oiled down his back. I suddenly feel sick.
“Yeah, yeah. No, I’m fine, Lu and I were just—”
“Finishing.” I say, flipping my laptop screen shut a bit too hard and quickly shoving things into my bag. Felicity further sinks into herself and red-hot annoyance colors my cheeks. I zip my backpack up and stand from the table, knocking it with my knee.
“You don’t have to hear me out, you’re right. But just…” Felicity sighs, rocking her legs up to soothe the now fussing baby, “I’m—”
I shove past her, careful not to touch her or the baby. The waiter says something about the bill, the free coffees are no longer free but Felicity stops him with a hushed tone.
I rush outside into the warm summer air. And run straight into Sarah. She looks bewildered once she locks eyes onto whoever just shoved her. I take a breath and a big step back.
God, she looks good. She always does. Shining and outstanding like the Northern Star leading you back home on a cold winter’s night. Her hair’s natural waves are more defined, and I wonder if it’s that new product she ordered a few weeks back. She’s wearing that orange, red, and purple shawl she bought when she went on a trip to Morocco with her college friends. The ache in my chest suddenly cracks.
Sarah’s gaze softens and she’s reaching a hand out, mouth slightly open when a booming voice sounds from the short walkway to the parking lot. We both jump a bit and turn to see Matt and a woman I only recognize as his wife from his social media posts, arm in arm walking toward us with big smiles.
“Hey! Well, looky who’s here. I thought you might be hanging ‘round this old place.” Matt says cheekily.
The woman, tight curly hair dancing in the wind, extends her hand out to shake mine. Her skin is soft and warm and strangely comforting despite her being a stranger. I can’t help but note she looks nothing like June and I wonder if that was on purpose or not. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself—Matt and June never made it official.
“Hiya, I’m Maria. You must be Lu of Lu and Sarah.” She smiles and it feels like being punched in the gut when the sentence sounds weird, as if it’s not complete.
June should be a part of that sentence.
My eyes dart over to Sarah who is looking anywhere else but at me.
“Uh, yeah… I better get going.”
“What are you talking about? Stick around! We’re meeting Felicity too. In fact she might already be here with that cute baby of hers…”
The blood rushes out of my face as my eyes widen.
They invited her here? To meet with them? As if they were all grand friends in high school and not like Felicity bullied June for nearly five years. No, the only person who should be here with them was June.
Matt trails off, eyes slightly widened as they regard me. Only then do I realize my mouth is hanging open and I’m shaking from head to toe.
I feel Sarah’s heavy gaze too and it’s too much. The tension in my shoulders, stomach, and head is at its breaking point and I feel the seams holding me together fray and unstitch.
I’m terrified of what may come out.
“Is everything alright, Lu?” Matt asks me but he’s looking above my head at Sarah. I bump into him as I make my way to the parking lot to the spare truck that I took from my mom’s. The one I basically had to jumpstart this morning when I left in an angry hurry.
Why are you always running, Lu?
“I gotta go… I…” I’m not sure if they hear me between the stuttering slams of the heart in my chest. I slam the truck door, turn the key in the ignition and peel out of the parking lot.
I don’t look back to see if they’re still standing there.
The restless energy festers, grows, and mutates into something darker, uglier. It’s been there since Sarah first sat me down to break up with me on our bright orange couch—the one she let me buy despite it being an eyesore and going against Sarah’s carefully curated color palette. She loves—loved me that much.
What had been a weighty pebble in the depth of my stomach has now taken up residence in my chest, throat, and mind, constantly flickering and aching with a mix of confusion, heartbreak, sadness, and rage. A sickness that keeps growing with every intrusive thought reminding me of how good it had been. How well Sarah matched me, and I her. How it was when we were a trio and not just a duo. How I thought a relationship, founded in friendship and cemented by the suffocating weight of grief, would last forever.
Sarah and I were supposed to last forever.
Until June.
What?
You know, instead of
saying something
cliche and basic like
forever or always…
Until June?
Until we’re with her
once again. That’s how
long I’ll love you ‘til.
Something stronger
than time holds us
together, my love.
June?
Hmm. And what about after?
Shut up you know what
I mean. I love you,
Sar. Until June.
Until June…
A text from Matt lights up my phone while I’m parked in my mom’s driveway. The sun has set, I don’t know when. I turn the key and head back into town.
The bar is ratty. Its stucco exterior is permanently stained with years of debauchery, the wood rotting. It’s perfect.
My rez truck roars into the parking lot, sliding in between shiny cars and only when I put it into park do I realize I drove the entire way without a single song playing.
The interior of The Cozy is warm, filled with mingling bodies. Across the room I see Matt and I beeline over to him, joining him by leaning against the bar, a big smile transforming his face as he watches his wife over at the dartboard, demolishing the competition.
“Okay. I’m here.” I deadpan, tapping the bar with two fingers to signal to the bartender that I’m ready to order.
“Lu! My dude, glad you can make it!” Matt’s grin doesn’t lower an inch as he sets his gaze on me. There is something about him that makes you want to smile and laugh, and the right side of my mouth lifts slightly.
“Sorry I was being a real bitch before. I just—”
“Let high school you shine through when you saw Felicity, huh?” Matt nodded his head, his smile a little more admonishing than joyful.
I groan and Matt slings an arm around me and turns us to face the bar. We’re squished between a couple groups of people getting steadily more drunk with each passing shot, so Matt is forced to press right against me as he leans down to speak.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you and Sarah, or even what happened with Felicity, but Lu, I care about you, okay? You know that. And somewhere along the way I think I promised our girl up there that I’d look after her best friends.” Matt isn’t smiling anymore as he regards me carefully. I feel my throat tighten. “I know this isn’t easy for you coming up on seven years. You have to remember it isn’t easy on any of us. We lost her, too, you know.”
My throat closes, and my chest tightens painfully. So much for escaping.
Tears prick my eyes, and before they fall Matt pulls me into a hefty hug. It’s been more than a week since someone’s hugged me.
“Can I get you folks anything?” The bartender asks from the other side of the bar and we separate.
Matt lists off something to drink, and looks at me.
I feel some of that laughter leave my system as the decision weighs heavily on my mind.
“Actually, Matt, I was hoping to steal Lu for a while.” Sarah pipes up from behind me, and I whip around to look at her. She has a smile plastered on her face, and grabs my arm. If I flinch, we both ignore it. If my hand snakes across to rest on top of hers, we ignore that too.
“Of course, of course. I should probably make sure my partner is squeezing the old football guys out of every dollar they got!” We all laugh and Matt leaves with a drink in his hand as Sarah leads me out of the crowded bar.
In the warm night air, I let myself believe that everything is fine and we’re just us, going on a walk after hanging out with our old school friends. When I peak from my peripherals and see dark circles under Sarah’s eyes harshen under the yellow streetlight, the fantasy fades quicker than it came.
Sarah unwinds her arm from mine, and I shudder a bit from the loss of contact.
“You know you shouldn’t drink when you’re like this.” She says, folding her arms around herself as she begins walking in the opposite direction of main street. I take a few quick steps to catch up with her.
“Oh, like what?” I cringe the moment I say it, and Sarah stiffens, then sighs as she shakes her head.
“Lu—”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s not what we’re fighting about, so let’s cut the crap.”
Sarah huffs out a sharp breath out her nose, looks at the shop fronts and not me. We’re quiet as we round the corner to the street beside the train tracks. The air has grown a few degrees colder and I try to cover up the shiver of my body because I’m not entirely sure it’s the weather that’s causing it. I hear the distant sound of teenagers on the tracks and I can only just make out their shapes as they run along the boards.
Slow down, fok. Not all
of us are track stars in this
trio, y’know.
Boohoo. You’re the only one who
doesn’t do track here, Lu.
Shut up, June.
C’mon, it’s not even hard
to do. Just step on the
boards and not the cracks.
Easy for you to say, long
legs Sarah.
You’re just mad that if we
were being chased by a train
you’d be the first to go.
Shut your pie hole.
Lu can’t be the first one
to go. Every trio needs
their loser.
Oh, that’s it, Sar. Get over
here. I’ll show you what a
sore loser looks like.
“… listening to me?” Sarah’s voice cuts through the ache, but the echoes of our teenage shrieks are still bouncing around my head and the only silhouettes on the train tracks are the ones in my mind. I blink, trying to remember what Sarah had been saying and she sees it clearly on my face.
“This, Lu. This is what’s wrong. Not me taking that job in a different province, one that I’ve dreamed about. Not this stupid school reunion. And not even June’s death anniversary. This.” Sarah stops in front of me and bends down to catch my gaze. Her eyes are watery and face reddens with every word, “you aren’t here with me. You haven’t been, maybe not ever.”
“You took the job?” Is all I can say, breathless with hurt. “You’re leaving me, then? You’ve decided. You’re leaving me and June here to rot while you go live it up?”
Sarah walks in a circle as she screams into her hands.
“You are stuck in the past, Lu! You can’t be with me, because you’re always back there with her.”
“You’re the one abandoning me! Why should I be with you if you’re obsessed with leaving me, leaving June? Do you even think about her anymore?”
“Every. Single. Day!” Sarah shrieks, and I take a step back from the ferocity of it. “I think about her constantly. But not because I want to. It’s because you only think of her. And I can’t compete with a ghost, Lu.”
“She was our best friend! And you want to just forget about her?”
“You are also my best friend, Lu.” Sarah’s gone quiet now, her breathing eerily still. “I’m still here, in front of you. But it’s like you never see me.”
“Of course I see you! I love you. We’ve been together for nearly seven years.”
“But there’s always been three of us in this relationship.” Sarah shoves her hands through her waves. “I sometimes wonder if you’d love me at all if it weren’t for June’s death.”
The air is sucked out of my lungs, as if I’ve been punched in the gut by a fist the size of a planet.
“What are you saying? No, what are you asking me?”
Sarah doesn’t say anything for a long while, just wraps her arms further around herself. Even now a part of me still wants to grasp her hands and pull them away so I can be the one wrapped around her, comforting her.
“I’ll never ask you to choose. That’s not fair to either of us. I love June, too. But I can’t let her death hold me back, not anymore. That’s not what she means to me.” Sarah sniffs and turns to face away from me. “I’ll never ask you, because I know what the answer would be.”
My breaths come out fast and words choke my throat, wanting to spill out of me and onto the ground around us, and I don’t want to know what they’ll say.
So I do the only thing I can think of.
I run.
The hill where June died is now covered in tall grass.
It’s clear the high school kids don’t party here anymore. Why would they? It’s haunted. The only evidence of life on this hill is the path trodden by years of feet making their way to the bench overlooking the sweeping valley. My own feet have only been here a couple of times, so I wonder who else visits her.
The wooden bench itself feels well-worn, stripped, years of rain beating down on it—but the wood planks aren’t cracked, and the plaque isn’t rusted.
We are forever yours,
June Courtoreille.
I trace my finger along each word. June’s Dad asked me, Sarah, and June’s cousin Arnie, who was more like a brother, to help him figure out what it should say. We were seventeen and the only meaningful promise we could give was that we wouldn’t forget her.
The plaque softens at the edges, then blurs altogether as my eyes fill with hot tears. Each drop is another regret, another word I had wished I said. As they fall, each one faster than the last, all of the heartache and anger from the past week seeps out of me and into the bench. I watch the tears hit the wood, the surface water tensions holding for only a moment before the bubble pops and pools, spreading thinly into the grooves before disappearing to where I cannot see.
Turning, I lean back into the bench, resting the base of my skull on it and looking up at the stars dotting the sky as the tears fall out the corners of my eyes.
As if film has been washed away by my tears, I finally see what’s underneath the pile of ash that had once been a person, that had once been me.
Fear.
“I’m scared.” I say into the night summer air, rustling the grass around me, trees whispering as their leaves brush. I fool myself into believing that it’s June—and maybe it really is.
Arnie said that he had seen June here once, a year after the accident. He helped her leave this place and now she has moved on, past this bench, this hill, and this plane of existence.
Yes, this place is haunted, but only by tragedy.
“But I’m still here.” I whisper to myself, each word a breathless realization of what Sarah had been trying to say this entire time.
Of what my mother was hurt about.
Of why it felt like everyone was moving ahead without me.
Because they have and I’m stuck here, scared to take a step forward because that means leaving the past behind. I’m too scared to change because that also means leaving behind the version of me that June had known and loved. I don’t know who I am if I’m not orbiting June like a planet to its sun.
The sun is dead now, and so is that person I used to be. I can’t keep pulling both of them along, not if I want a future. Not if I want…
More tears fall and I roughly wipe them off as I sink further into the bench. I imagine what June would think, seeing me here after seven years unable to let go.
She would be disappointed. This wasn’t the life she had planned out for us when we were teenagers. Being stuck wasn’t what any of us wanted all those years ago.
Sarah’s hand had been on my knee and June sat across from us. What was it she said?
I want to just live. To keep doing the things I love with the people I love.
I nod my head, the tears streaking down my neck as I look ahead into the night. Another breeze stirs. The stars blink in and out and there’s a satellite moving slowly across the horizon.
I miss my alarm in the morning. The last dredges of my dream still cling to my mind while I get dressed. Something about June—I don’t dwell on it because I have to leave before I’m too late. A packed bag and hastily scribbled note later and I’m kicking up gravel as I race toward town. I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, nervous with energy. It might already be too late.
By the time I park and fly out of the truck, the reunion has been on for more than an hour. I run up the steps to the front door and wrench them open. I don’t stop to look at the graduation photos, or even the old art studio I used to go hide in, I just go straight to the gym.
Opening the doors, the large room is severely decorated and brimming full of people. I recognize the voice speaking and stop in my tracks.
Arnie LittleBear, June’s cousin, is just stepping off the stage to thunderous applause. I missed all of the speeches and actual ceremony but that doesn’t matter. My eyes slide around the room as they try to locate the one person they want to see in this mess of people I sort of recognize. But there’s no yellow, wavy hair attached to a tall, beautiful, headstrong woman. I step into the crowd now broken up into conversations.
Arnie notices me and kindly excuses himself from the crowd of old classmates likely there to admire the famous poet and writer.
“Mah, Lu, where the heck have you been?” He laughs and pulls me easily into a hug. I wrap my arms around him tightly and am surprised to feel a braid growing down his back. He had cut his hair to the scalp seven years ago. And he kept it short for many years. To feel it now as my arms squeeze him makes my chest warm.
“The famous Neechie poet of our age graced us with his presence?” I smile cheekily up at him and he shakes his head before throwing it back with a loud laugh.
“You know I wouldn’t miss something like this. I paid for it.” He grasps his collar and shifts it animatedly and I laugh before his words sink in.
“What? You mean the reunion? Hard to believe Matt would let you.”
“No, weenuk, I mean the library.”
“The library?”
“Mah, you didn’t hear my speech? My assistant wrote it out so thoughtfully, too.”
“What do you mean? You’re a writer and can’t write your own speeches?”
“I’m talking about the library at the new school, chisk. I made a donation to help them build it and they let me name it.”
I pause for a moment, my eyes looking to the side and then back to Arnie as I try to comprehend his words. He shakes his head again and punches me in the arm.
“That’s why Matt wanted everyone here. The library is named after June. Her legacy is secured, no thanks to you.” He wiggles his eyebrows and laughs at his own jib, but I can’t focus on anything except two words.
“Her… her legacy?”
“Yeah. By the way, where’s your partner in crime?”
When I don’t say anything else and stare open mouthed at him, he just clicks his tongue and looks over my head and his eyes light up and he waves, “Hey, Matt! Y’know where Sarah ran off to?”
“Yeah, she said she needed to head out right away. Probably gone now.”
“Mah, but I—hey, wait, where are you off to now, Lu?” Arnie yells after me as I turn heel and run, making a beeline for the doors leading to the side parking lot.
“Sorry, gotta run. Text me when you’re in the city. See ya, Matt!”
“Wait!” I hear Matt call over the hubbub.
“Wow, this is the welcome home I get from those two…”
I push open the double doors and they slam loudly against the railing—loud enough to get the attention of the crowd I just ran through in the gym, but also the few smoking just outside. Felicity is one of them and before I can ask the question she’s jutting her head out to the front of the school.
“Thank you.” I say sincerely, and mean it. She gives me a smile and then I’m running past her and the others with lit cigarettes in their mouths.
My feet slap the pavement and I nearly slip as I round the corner. A door slams a few cars down and I’d recognize that color of blue paint in a car lot the same way I’d recognize that head of yellow hair if all the world had lined up beside her. I’d recognize each strand and the way they shine differently in the light of the sun and the moon and the warm lamp on our bedside table. I’d recognize it even if it was dyed black and cut short, or if she lost it all.
I’d recognize her. Even when we’re old and my grandfather’s dementia finds its way down to me. Even when the sun finally has enough and burns itself out and the world is cast into eternal darkness. Even when we find June on the other side with the ancestors, I’ll still be able to pick Sarah out just by the feel of her hand in mine and the way her lips curl over the sound of my name.
“Lu.” Sarah stands, eyes wide and half outside her car.
“Sarah.” It’s only a few short steps to her and she pulls me in the same way I pull her mouth to mine. My hands rest on either side of her face, a perfect fit that still makes my stomach flutter.
“You’re right. I am stuck,” I pull back and press our foreheads together, “I was stuck. But I don’t want to be anymore.” She’s crying and I swipe my thumbs over each tear as they fall down her face.
“Me and you?” She asks, and it sounds so right when she says it. I don’t know if I can promise everything will be perfect from now, or that I won’t still feel the pull to the familiarity of the past.
Or if I can ever fully let June go.
But I know now that that’s not what she’s asking for.
Instead, I give the answer that will forever be true.
“Always.”
Photo graciously provided by Will Paterson from Unsplash.
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