"Um. Yeah, I do."
"That's cool."
To save myself from the unbearable silence, I redirect my attention to the possible layouts I'm making in my head. I'm evaluating whether it's worth it to move my bed around.
"Could you help me with this?" The boy nods silently and follows my lead. We rotate the bed and push it into a corner. He holds out his knuckles for a fist-bump. I don't leave him hanging, though it's tempting, for some reason. He looks incredibly pleased with this. I unload my books unto my shelf, while he hands me them and judges my reading choices.
He hands me a thin, worn-down copy of Tuck Everlasting. "Nice. One of my sisters had to read this for school. She read it to me."
"I didn't know you had two sisters."
"I didn't tell you, so I don't know why you would. My oldest sister is Cassie. The one I just told you about is Rae. You'll meet 'em soon."
"Oh?"
"We're neighbors, now, remember?"
"Oh, right."
He hands me the first four volumes of Harry Potter. "These are heavy," he grunts.
"Sorry." He tosses two copies of Matilda at me.
"Why two?"
I sigh and pick up the copy I dropped, and open it up to a random page.
"It's in French," I explain. "Mum's trying to teach me."
"Oh," he says simply, "how much are you through?"
"Halfway."
"Oh. Cool. Update me when you're done."
"Um, okay. That's... I'll do that." I don't know how to recover from whatever that was.
He nods, and gives me the rest of my books. I open up a taped up box filled with bubble wrap and trinkets. I hand the boy the bubble wrap and take to arranging the decorations. He looks like I just handed him the first gift on Christmas. He unfolds it and starts individually popping each bubble.
"Who are you?"
He frowns, looking up from his packaging.
"My name's Elijah."
"Cool. I'm June."
"Cool."
august 10, 2014
"Are you ready?"
"I'm the one at your door. Yeah, I'm ready."
"No need to be rude about it." I slide on my sneakers and close the door behind me. Mum is standing to face us, her phone in portrait mode and Elijah's dad, Joe, hovering behind her.
"Awe, my babies are going to middle school," Mum gushes, thoroughly enjoying her effort to try and embarrass me.
"Your babies?" Joe gives Mum a look.
"Sorry, ami. Our babies." Joseph's expression turns complicated.
Mum snaps as many photos as her phone can hold. Eli throws an arm around my shoulder and flashes a toothy grin.
They ceremoniously send us off to the bus stop, though Joe offers to drive us. Eli insisted we could walk the four minutes by ourselves.
My palms grow increasingly clammier.
"Hey, don't be nervous. I'm going with you, so you're not going to be the only one. And we have classes together, so we'll get to hang out."
YOU ARE READING
all our stars, bench trio
Fanfictionmusic runs through june gold's veins. so, it doesn't surprise her when fate leads her to start a band with three of her online friends. but when grief she had pushed down for have a decade begins to remind her of a boy she wished she could leave in...
chapter twenty-two
Start from the beginning
