by Alexa Woods
Not that June thought Arabella was selfish or only wanted to look out for
herself. She’d thought the opposite. That desperation and love for her
family had driven her to do something very stupid and sad. Why hadn’t
Arabella just told her the truth? Didn’t she trust her?
June kept her eyes locked on Beth. She was the picture of misery. Her
flushed face had become very pale, and her eyes were wet with tears which
she furiously didn’t allow to spill. Her jaw and hands were both clenched
tight.
“I know it doesn’t excuse anything,” Beth said very, very quietly, the
strain of keeping her shattered emotions from flying all over the room
showing. “But I did it for Amelia. The reason Shannon went to that meeting
with her teacher was because Amelia said that someone called her a retard.”
June ground her teeth hard. She hated that word. No one should use that
word. Arabella gasped. She put her hand over her mouth and watched Beth,
pain and empathy evident on her face. It absolutely astounded June how
much Arabella felt for Beth and for Amelia, who she’d never met.
“Kids can be so mean,” Arabella said, heartbroken.
She looked right at June. June tried to understand what Arabella was
feeling. What she’d been thinking. Had she wanted to save Amelia from the
same thing she herself had done when she found out she was being bullied,
or did she want to save Amelia from becoming herself?
“The thing is, Shannon finally got Amelia to admit it wasn’t a kid. It was
a teacher.”
“Why?” Arabella croaked. She clearly hadn’t known.
Beth shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess they were frustrated with
Amelia. Shannon thinks that Amelia might be on the spectrum. I’m
ashamed to say that I don’t know much about Asperger’s or Autism.
Shannon just told me after that meeting and Amelia hasn’t been in for any
tests, but the meeting was actually between both kindergarten teachers and
the school’s principal and it was suggested by the principal that Amelia
might need testing. Shannon was still disgusted with the teachers. No adult
should ever call a little girl a retard, or say they’re slow, or tell them they
can’t be who they want to be or make them feel like they’re not equal to the
other kids there.” Beth teared up and she sniffed, but she powered through.
“Shannon found this school that would be great for Amelia. The thing is,
it’s private. When she goes back to work, they would be able to afford it if
they pinched and scrimped in other areas, but they couldn’t afford it right
now. I had Arabella’s designs from that day she left the meeting. They were
there on the table. I thought I could beat the other company to the punch, or
that we could come up with something different enough that we’d be fine
moving forward. They were such early drawings, but that’s still terrible. I
know it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Really.”
June’s racing thoughts pinged off the inside of her skull.
“I can see that you packed your office,” Beth said softly, addressing
Arabella. “I’ll go do the same with mine. I’m sorry I even considered letting
you lose you job for me.”
“No one is losing their jobs.”
Beth and Arabella’s heads whipped around in unison.
“This is a mess and we’re going to figure it out, but no one is getting
fired. I really wish you would have come to me. Both of you.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open. “It’s not her fault. Don’t make Arabella pay
for what I did.”
“I wish you would have trusted me enough to talk to me,” June said. She
knew she sounded hurt and maybe it wasn’t entirely fair, but she was and
that was how it was going to be until she could sort out her thoughts in
privacy for a few hours. Maybe even a few days.
“But she’s—no!” Beth declared. “She tried to do something amazingly
nice for me. If I lost this job, we wouldn’t be able to send Amelia to that
school. Arabella didn’t even know the half of it, but she was willing to help
me. That’s very…it’s so noble. I-I can’t thank you. That’s not even the right
word. Either of you. But please, June, don’t be annoyed or mad at her. None
of this was her fault.”
Maybe June should follow her own advice and employ some of her own
truth. She’d been hiding for long enough, and Beth wouldn’t understand.
She knew what she was going to say wouldn’t leave Arabella’s office
anyway.
“She’s my girlfriend,” June whispered. “We’re dating. That’s why I’m
just…why I’m off.”
“What?” Beth, to her credit, was able to actually hide most of her
surprise.
Arabella said nothing. June realized she shouldn’t have said it like that,
just put it out there without even asking her if that was okay. Arabella didn’t
want it to be a secret. June knew she was waiting for her to make the first
move, especially at work, but she should have done it with far more tact,
less sharpness, and more consideration.
“Oh. I see.”
“Beth, if you need money for something like that, I want you to know
that you could come to me. We could work something out. An advance or
something like that. This isn’t the first time the idea has come up, either.
I’m actually considering making similar offers for some of the other
employees here.”
“You are?” Arabella asked softly.
June knew Arabella must be thinking about her dad and his mounting
medical bills. She saw a brief flash of her pain cross her face before
Arabella neatly tucked it away beneath the surface again.
“Thank you.” Beth headed for the door. “I’m going to be in my office. I
need a few hours to think about all of this. How to go forward from here,
but if you need me…”
“No, that’s fine. I could use a few hours myself,” June told her.
Beth left much differently than she’d come in. Her color was normal, she
walked at a rate that wouldn’t put her at danger of breaking an ankle or her
neck as she snapped a heel off. She looked dazed, but there was no doubting
her relief.
“I guess we should probably talk later,” Arabella ventured softly. She
hadn’t moved at all. Her lovely blue eyes flicked up off the floor and landed
on June’s face with enough intensity to nearly rock June back.
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“Are we…are we breaking up? Are you that mad at me?”
“No.” June hadn’t even considered that. Well, not once she’d calmed
down. Even before she got to the office, she hadn’t been thinking about
how to dump Arabella. She wanted to try to understand, hear her out, and
then make a decision. She didn’t want to be that person who couldn’t get
over themselves and made someone choose between their family and her. In
a very roundabout way, that would have been what she was doing.
“Okay. We’ll talk after work, then?”
“Yes.”
“Not date night, though. You could come over if you wanted.”
June wanted to be on neutral territory when they talked but having a
ny
kind of personal conversation in public just didn’t feel right. She nodded.
“Did you tell Summer?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you want to?”
“Kind of.”
Arabella sunk down in her chair and let out a massive sigh. She swiped a
few tendrils of hair off her forehead and June realized it was damp. Very
damp. Those strands were wet. “I’m glad you decided to hold back until
you heard me out.”
“How do you know I wasn’t just too busy, or she didn’t answer her
phone?”
That earned her a shaky smile. “Because I know you. So, thank you. I’ll
see you tonight. Whatever time works.” Arabella twisted in her chair to face
the boxes she was going to have to unpack, then abruptly twisted back. “I
spent a lot of years being really shitty and basically cowardly. I want to be
better, but I’m not even halfway there.”
“I think you’re more there than you think.” June pointed to the boxes.
“You better unpack your plants. It’s nice that you’re a plant person. Most
people don’t have them in their offices. I’d really miss seeing them when I
came in here.”
She left when Arabella nodded. She knew what June was trying to say.
That really, she would have missed Arabella a heck of a lot more.
Chapter 22
Arabella
It was hard for Arabella to go home, prepare a meal and uncork a bottle of
wine like she normally did. She knew it wasn’t a regular dinner, and even
though June had said she didn’t want to break up, Arabella didn’t feel right
about putting so much as a jar candle on the table. She didn’t go overboard
making anything fancy either. Just a salad, half a ham she stuck in the oven
to warm up, and mashed potatoes.
June said she’d be there at seven, and like all the other times she said
she’d be anywhere, she was right on time. Arabella wondered if June had
ever been late for anything in her life. It was just one of the many things
Arabella appreciated about her. One of the many.
It was awkward at the door. She didn’t know what to say, so she said
nothing. June gave her a tight smile and since dinner was ready, the mouth-
watering smell of the salty ham overflowing from the kitchen, she followed
Arabella in.
They sat down across from each other at the large round table. Arabella
had everything set already. The ham was out, sizzling in the square
casserole dish. She’d whipped the potatoes with a hand beater, an old trick
of her mom’s that guaranteed fluffy, creamy mash every single time. The
lettuce in the salad was borderline bad with brown, wilting edges, but
Arabella had picked out the worst of it and used the rest.
Honestly, she barely paid attention as she filled her plate. She was much
too fixated on June. She waited. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing or
pick up the conversation where they’d left off in the office. She’d hoped
June had thought past that already. She knew she had, but she didn’t want to
just blurt out something if June was on a completely different wavelength.
It was hard being silent and even harder to be patient. Arabella cut the
slice of ham on her plate and waited. She dipped a piece in mustard and
nibbled at it, hardly tasting anything except the sharp tang of the spicy
grainy seeds and the salt from the meat.
When June set down her fork gently, Arabella nearly leaped out of her
chair.
Tears pricked at the back of Arabella’s eyes, but she kept her eyes wide
open and didn’t blink, hoping the dryness of her eyes would clear them
away all on their own. The pain from earlier was back, radiating from her
chest up into her throat and down into her stomach. She felt heavy, and the
last thing she wanted to do was eat anything, so she set her fork down too.
Their eyes locked, and June tilted her head a little, studying Arabella. “I
don’t know if you know this, but there isn’t some force out there in the
universe that wants to punish you. I think you believe you have all this stuff
to atone for and the things happening now are a direct result of things
you’ve done in the past.”
“Some people might argue that’s the case,” Arabella choked out. She
didn’t expect June to lead with something so very perceptive, but why not?
This was June, and her emotional intelligence, let alone her regular
intelligence, was off the charts.
“I don’t think it is. I know a lot of things are interconnected, and actions
have ripples and consequences, but as for some universal, karmic, cosmic
punishment? I’m not down with that. I’m not a big believer in you having to
beat yourself up about things that happened a long time ago.”
“That’s not why I was going to not tell you about Beth.”
“Then why?”
“I… Because I didn’t want Beth to lose her job. Amelia should have the
opportunity to go to a good school. A school that’s just right for her.”
“You were worried she was getting bullied?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure what I thought. I was worried, yes, that she
would hate her entire school experience. That she wouldn’t fit in, and she’d
always know that. That she’d get picked on and that she’d be unhappy. Or
that she’d be so unhappy the only way to bring herself any pleasure would
be to turn the tables and pick on other kids. I don’t know. That doesn’t even
make sense. I just kept seeing Shannon’s face. She looked so tired. That
kind of tired that people get when their loved ones aren’t doing well. I know
exactly what that kind of tired feels like. It goes straight down into your
bones, and it becomes you. I only spent an hour or so with Sky, but she’s
the sweetest. I imagine her sister isn’t much different. I didn’t know about
the stuff with the teacher. I just, I guess I wanted to spare someone else
because I couldn’t go back and undo the things I did and spare those kids. I
wanted Amelia to have a good school experience, so she didn’t have to go
somewhere every single day hating and dreading it.”
“Is that what it was like for you? You hated it? Dreaded it?”
Arabella bit her lip and finally nodded. “I guess I did. Being fake all the
time is a pretty hard thing to maintain.”
“I think some people don’t have a very hard time of it. I think some
people actually like it.”
“That was never me.”
June reached for the bowl of salad and put a few more slices of tomato
and cucumber onto her plate. “Do you think you need to punish yourself?”
How was Arabella supposed to answer that? She wasn’t even sure how to
honestly answer it for herself. “I don’t know. It wasn’t really about that.”
“So, you were just going to give up your job, your health and dental
benefits, and your salary to take the fall for someone else because you knew
they needed their job every bit as much as you did?”
From anyone else that would sound totally condescending, but not from
June. She asked with a genuine curiosity that invited deeper introspection
and meaningful conversation. She wasn’t sneering
or pointing fingers or
laughing about how silly that sounded. She wasn’t sitting there saying she
didn’t believe Arabella had it in her to do something good like that just
because she cared. Anyone else probably would, but not June. Even if they
weren’t dating. Even if they didn’t work together. Even if they weren’t
some level of friends, June would still believe her if she thought she was
being sincere.
“Yes. I kept thinking about the kids. How can the world be a better place
if the next generation has to keep doing what we did, and our parents did,
and our grandparents did? How can anyone be better? The world seriously
needs a lot of better right now. Like your company. It does a lot of good. If
Beth had just stolen my designs and sold them because she wanted some
fast cash and put the blame on me because she was an asshole, you better
believe I would have stood up for myself.”
“So it wasn’t that you were scared to talk to me? That you didn’t trust me
to work things out with you and be fair to Beth?”
Arabella held her breath until her lungs ached, then she slowly released
it. June’s eyes were so pretty and dark that she just basked in them, losing
herself in their softness for as long as she could.
“If there’s anyone I trust, it would be you,” she said softly.
“Beth stuck you in a hard spot. I’m not mad. It isn’t fair for me to tell you
that you did something wrong.”
“You’re not mad at me anymore?”
June’s face was soft and a little sad. “No. I was disappointed in your
office, but I needed time to think. I shouldn’t have been. That wasn’t right. I
know how new we are and that means that we don’t have that deeper level
of intrinsic trust, but I hope we can get there.”
Arabella found she was fighting back tears again. She reached across the
table, past her plate, past June’s plate, and grasped her hand. June’s fingers
clasped back. It felt so astoundingly freeing to be able to do this. To still be
able to reach for June’s hand and have her squeeze back. To have her here.
To have that piece of her soul and offer hers in response. Arabella had
thought that, along with losing her job, she was going to lose June.
That had stung far worse than any of her worries about how she was
going to come up with money for the thousand things she needed it for, how