Noted

FOURTEEN

Well, fuck. Where else is she supposed to look now?

"In the text, when the main character mentions running through a field being chased by two black crows with feathers as shiny as a mirror, it can be seen as a metaphor that crows are a reflection of his parents that always hover over him, and that's backed up with the simile between the feathers and mirror."

June almost - almost - rolls her eyes back in her head. Make it make sense.

"And our second one," he continues, looking around the class briefly, "is when the main character finds his enemy through the field and protects him by drawing salt in the ground, which then wards off the crows. We said the salt was a symbol of their truce. They find refuge within each other..."

June's breath does a sudden take in. He looks at her again.

"...and solitude from the world outside."

Mrs Nilsson nods. "Well done. Group three. You're next."

June blinks and presses her fingers to his note. She makes the decision there and then. Be damn with the sudden uprise of her heart taking on more beats than she would prefer.

When the bell rings, the anticipation releases and she moves.

Knives. That's what it feels like when she opens her mouth to say, "Hey."

Christian's response is a mere blink. Great.

She clears her voice. "You...made some good points in class."

"So did you," he says, picking up his books.

"That was under a one-fifth ratio. Unless contribution of acknowledgment counts."

She could die right here. What is wrong with her vocabulary? She doesn't talk like this.

When he doesn't say anything, she falls back on the very last point of her internal list.

She gestures to his blazer. "I see you grabbed your blazer back from the library. It's a good thing it wasn't given in to lost and found."

She waits as a grin grows on his face. Her hand is crushing the note in her pocket. This is it, the bridge they need; they're both going to acknowledge what they're doing. All the note passing. The change of lockers. These secret conversations.

"Yes. My brother gave it back to me just before lunch finished. Luckily, or else I'd waste time making a trip there instead of leaving school when everyone else would."

Humiliation sweeps over her. She completely forgot about Zachary. Of course, he would.

"Oh, yeah that would suck." A nervous chuckle. "Well, glad you got it back."

At that point, Christian walks away at the call from Finn waiting by the door. And June dashes to leave with the hopes of never, ever mentioning the blazer conversation again.

In fact, she hopes bad enough, she brings out a pen and paper from her locker.

Just admit you don't want to speak to me in person so then I won't have to try. Stop pretending you want to be nice to me. Next time I won't tell you about your damn blazer.

***

MAEVE:
You are not going to believe this...

PHOEBE:
Did something happen with Ryan?

MAEVE:
Actually you will believe it