“June? Is that you?” June’s old highschool friend, Trisha, had a plastic cup of coffee in hand and she sat across from June without her permission.
June stared at her old friend in terror. Old thoughts penetrated June’s mind. She was sweating and her hands were trembling. June forced a trembling smile, “Y-yep. I-it’s me…”
“Is something wrong?” Trisha asked. “You don’t look so good.”
June shook her head. She wouldn’t look her old friend in the eye. She was too scared to.
Trisha took a sip of her coffee. “What’s your major?”
June felt an old rage at her friend overcoming the fear. She nonetheless answered her friend amiably enough, “I don’t know yet.”
There was silence, and then Trisha said, “June… I hope you can forgive me for before. It’s just that, if I sided with you, I would have been taken down with you…”
Tears fell from June’s eyes, and she sniffled miserably. “You abandoned me. I had to listen to you calling me a slut behind my back. I had to watch you pretend like we were never friends. I had to feel the scorn in your eyes when you would walk down the hall with some other girl and you’d both look down your noses at me. You threw away our friendship like it was nothing.”
“I know—and I’m sorry—it’s just, June… You were sleeping around like crazy. You were—”
June took her laptop with tears stinging her eyes and she stood up stomping her way out of the cafe. She couldn’t see through her own tears and she bumped into someone on her way out. Her glasses were knocked off.
The man she bumped into crouched and picked up her glasses. He placed them back on her nose kindly. “Are you alright?”
“I’m okay, don’t worry about me…” June said nervously, she tried to brush past him, but paused when he called after her.
“Hang on,” the man said. “Can I get you something to eat?”
June knew it was probably best to say no, and yet, her heart was practically begging her to say yes.
He was easy on the eyes like most of her dates were, and she found going out with men to be very comforting. “That’d be nice.”
June knuckled her tears away.
The man introduced himself, "I'm Kyle, by the way." He bought himself and June a donut and they both sat down on a couch to eat. Trisha had left the café, much to June’s relief, and she ate her donut--smiling shyly at Kyle.
He asked, “Why were you crying?”
June laughed ashamedly. “I’m just kind of stressed, I guess…”
Kyle shook his head. “Those weren’t stressed tears. Those were much worse tears. Those were ‘my boyfriend broke up with me’, tears.”
June giggled a little, and then she frowned. “I don’t know… It’s lonely here. I don’t have any friends. I haven’t had any friends for a long time.”
Kyle was shocked at how open she was being. “I’m sorry. I’ll be your friend.”
“Really…?” June said happily, wiping away tears of joy.
“Sure. I’d love to be your friend.” Kyle said, holding her hand affectionately.
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