Noted

EIGHT

"Did you get picked up from school? I couldn't find you at your lockers."

Kim's worried voice on the other line does little to renounce the headache June has while lying down in bed. After getting a scolding from her mum about missing the last two classes for the day, June will gladly endure twenty rounds of questions from her friends as a way of escaping the guilt eating her away.

"School was worried I might pass out if they kept me," June replies. "I think I dealt with enough humiliation for a day."

"It wasn't as bad you think."

"People were watching."

"And people always will. It's something new among their mundane life."

"But I don't like it."

June proudly pouts and Kim only sighs.

"I'm sorry that happened to you."

"Do you think people will forget by tomorrow?"

"Of course." Kim laughs. "Drama doesn't stay consistent two days in a row. It gets old and moldy. And if they do, you know they're bored."

June sighs into the phone, pressing a palm against her eye in an attempt to press out the memory from her mind.

"I just know he'll use it as bait."

She can picture Kim frowning. "Who will use what as bait?"

"Christian," June replies. "It's only a matter of time before he struts his own rouse."

"June, you're not making any sense," Kim says. "What has your accident got to do with Christian?"

It's the first time June admits she should've involved the girls in what's been happening with these notes. Recapping what has happened up until today with her confessing to Phoebe that she isn't, in fact, taking the high road, will most likely need to be repeated to the rest of the girls — a conversation she can only imagine will go one or both ways, depending on who she's talking to. Kim takes it like a student; answering with the appropriate oohs and aahs, never once interrupting while June delivers all that she's going through.

In the end, Kim just laughs.

"You don't feel even a little bit sorry for me," June states at her friend. "Why?"

"Should I? You're the one choosing to be involved in this mess."

June can't help but internally agree. "Even if I did want this to stop, it's too late; I already gave him permission to humiliate me."

"Why would you give a guy a reason to do that?"

The shame coaxing June's organs, mixing with her mother's guilt, turns June's headache into a sloppy puddle of wet concrete. God, she wishes she can dig inside and mop it up with a rag.

"I am an idiot."

Kim clicks her teeth. "No, you're not."

June turns on her bed and smothers her face in her pillows. "I am. I'm a complete idiot with no self-awareness."

"Seriously, June, stop belittling yourself, okay? You deciding to lure Christian into humiliating you probably came down to a very small conclusion: you're ready to bury the hatchet."

June's body tenses. "No. It's not that."

Kim cackles on the other end. "Oh, but it is. Don't worry girl, I'm sure Christian himself won't do anything that bad. He's a Nilsson boy. They're mostly all talk."

But they're not. June knows that Kim knows she said that to make her feel better about the scenario. All it's doing is putting her up against the truth in an intimate way.