until they figure out where to put the displaced teachers.
The rest of the damage was sustained by the old maple trees that line the entire main drag through town—fifty or sixty years’ worth of growth wiped out in five minutes. When I drove in to meet up with June and Lucas for lunch, I counted maybe six still standing out of the more than twenty that should be. Most of the businesses look fine; the streets are messy as hell.
I’m a few minutes late, and it looks as though my friends have already ordered and gotten their food, which is fine because really, I just came to talk.
I slide into the booth to join them and dive right into the meat of my problems.
“I fucked up.”
June and Lucas don’t even flinch.
“Did you guys hear me?”
Both of them are staring down at their bowls of pasta. I’ve been eating at this joint my entire life and I know the pasta here is shit. They’re teaming up on me, which is seriously irritating.
“Hey!” I smack my palm on the table between their two drinks. June flinches and drops her fork, quickly running a napkin over her mouth to clean the splatter of sauce left behind. Lucas merely glances up, still masticating the world’s worst penne.
“We’re listening.” June clears her throat and sets her napkin to the side, folding her hands on the table in front of her. After a few seconds she elbows Lucas, and he huffs, but sets down his fork and pushes his bowl away.
“Yeah, what she said. We’re listening,” he says with a preteen-girlish roll of his eyes.
“Wow. I didn’t realize I was such a burden. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t spend the last three months listening to both of your bullshit.” I move to slide from the booth, but Lucas juts out his leg and leans forward with a stiff arm, staring me down.
“Relax, dude.”
I glare at him for a hard second, still considering barreling through his barrier and jetting out of here, but then who’d I have to talk to about this? I breathe out long and hard but slide my way back into the booth, centering myself across from them.
“We didn’t mean it,” June starts, but before her apology gets wings, Lucas makes sure it crashes and burns.
“Speak for yourself,” he cuts in. “I meant it. Tor, you’ve been telling us the same thing for the last five days. It’s this endless circle of ‘I wasn’t really that into her’ followed by ‘I really blew my chance.’ Just . . . pick one.”
By the time Lucas is done, June’s glare at him does the job so I don’t have to. When he slowly turns to meet her gaze he flinches a little in his seat.
“What? You know I’m right.”
June just shakes her head then turns her attention back to me.
“Anyway, please, Tory. You can talk to us, or me at least,” June says. Lucas snorts out a laugh and shakes his head, pulling out his phone to scroll through social media.
June waves her hand to bring my attention solely to her. I take another deep breath and shift in my seat, leaning forward on my elbows and resting my forehead into my hands so I can knead away at my temples.
“I’m guessing you haven’t talked to Abby.” I stop rubbing my head long enough to raise my brow and glance up at June.
She tilts her head sideways and squints her eyes.
“I have not.” Her voice sounds suspicious.
“Okay, maybe I’m not fucked, then,” I say, leaning back into the soft, squishy padded back and let my shoulders sag. Damn, they were up to my ears tense.
“You’re going to have to give me details if you want my advice, Tory.” June’s method has always been no-nonsense. I think it’s kinda why we clicked all of a sudden. She’s helped me get my shit together more than she realizes. We both assist Coach Newsome’s class for our last hour, which means we basically sit in the back and do whatever. I don’t think June would let me out of that room, though, without checking to make sure I actually did my homework or studied for whatever test is coming up. This might just be the first semester I pull off a 4.0.
“Things got pretty chaotic at the game last night, with the tornado and shit. Everyone was running toward the back hallway, through those main doors—you know the ones?”