June, Reimagined (54)

June could barely feel her body, let alone find the words to explain.

Matt took money from his pocket and placed it on the bar. “Fuck this. I’m out of here.” And he stormed off.

June tried to rise, but the pain in her head wouldn’t allow it. She finally fumbled to her feet and grabbed at her swimming head.

“Peanut.” Lennox took her arm to steady her.

She shoved him away. “Don’t.” She thought she might puke. “Why did you do that?”

“I just . . .” But Lennox fell short of words.

“What is wrong with you? He didn’t do anything.”

June needed to find Matt, and quickly. She needed out of the pub and away from all the eyes. She needed aspirin. She needed to lie down. But as she tried to leave, Lennox stopped her.

“I need to look at your head, Peanut. You might have a concussion.”

June pulled away. “How many times do I have to tell you—leave me alone.”

She burst through the pub door into the cold night air, where Matt was pacing the sidewalk, eyes downcast, focused. When she called his name, he stopped.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the peanut but—”

Matt grabbed her. He picked her off the ground and held her tightly to him. Warmth returned, calm followed, and June’s heavy head fell to his shoulder.

“I can’t believe I almost lost you,” Matt said. June clung to him as if he were a buoy in the middle of the ocean, something steady in the chaos. “Were you scared?” Matt whispered into her neck.

“Terrified.”

He set her down and took her face in his hands. They were just inches apart, so close she could feel his heat even in the cold night.

“Fuck, June . . .” He rubbed his thumb over her cheek. She couldn’t calibrate where she was or what had happened. Panic, pain, and confusion muddled her mind.

“You forgot your—”

Matt and June turned, his hand falling from her face, to find David carrying their coats and bags, and June’s camera.

“I’m sorry,” David stammered. “I’ll just—” He motioned toward the pub.

“No. Thank you.” June collected the items from David.

“Are you sure Lennox shouldn’t . . .” David trailed off.

“No.” June turned to Matt. “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”

“Then I bid you both adieu.” David bowed and added, “‘This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property foredoes itself and leads the will to desperate undertakings.’”

June and Matt left David outside the pub and walked back to the inn. After two Advil tablets and a lot of water, June began to feel better. She and Matt climbed into bed, facing each other, and fell asleep. Two sides of a single clam shell. But June awoke multiple times that night, her head aching. She tossed and turned, trying to find a position to make the pain go away, but nothing worked.

June replayed the night over and over, like a bad movie, until one thing became abundantly clear. Matt Tierney may be lying in her bed, but he was not the same Matt she had left in the States. He wanted something from June. What exactly, she wasn’t sure, but whatever it was, it terrified her.





TWENTY-TWO


Matt stood in front of the unicorn statue in Falcon Square in Inverness. June snapped a picture of him. The day was cool but sunny, which meant that every person in the Highlands was outside. People crowded the square, clutching shopping bags or sitting on restaurant patios, bundled in down jackets and hats, but basking in the sun.

“Between this unicorn, fairies, and skirts, I’m rethinking my stereotype of the Scots,” Matt commented.

“People who call them skirts usually end up kilt.” June took a picture of two children running around the square.

“Very punny.”

“You have to admit, it’s beautiful here.”

Matt nodded. “It’s nice.”

Nice? Matt was never so simple with his opinions. Future lawyers never were. If you asked what he thought of the falafel he ate for lunch, you’d get a diatribe about the gaseous nature of the chickpea. “But . . .” June begged.

“But nothing,” he said. “It’s great.”

“It’s great,” she mocked. “You must have more to say than that.”

“I’m just taking it all in.”

At June’s request, Hamish had given her the past two days off, and in that time, she and Matt had spent every second together, drama-free. No arguments. No contrasting opinions. No snarky commentary about the Brits’ bad teeth, or their propensity for monochromatic food, or how the men wore too-tight jeans. Matt couldn’t walk down the street in Columbus without remarking on the cracks in the pavement, but for two days, he hadn’t said a critical word. And while that, and the quickly healing bump on her head, should have made June happy, it only made her more anxious. Matt may not have been sharing his opinions, but he had them. He was hiding them for a reason, and June feared the moment they would overflow.

“Well, I for one find carpet in pubs rather charming, don’t you?” June said. Matt agreed too quickly. “And the tartan curtains. The Scots have really embraced the decorating diversity of flannel. Oh, and the coffee. Maybe the best I’ve ever had.”