Restoration (Tales From A Warming Planet Book 4) by J.G. Follansbee

Author:J.G. Follansbee [Follansbee, J.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joseph G. Follansbee / Fyddeye Media
Published: 2018-05-09T22:00:00+00:00

C H A P T E R 14

♦ ♦ ♦

WE NEED TO TALK.

Junie clenched her fists as she stared at the text from Alex in her minds-eye. When she got the text, her first sensation was a sharp pain in her stomach, just beneath her sternum. Her first emotion, upon understanding the text, was the terror that comes with knowing an awful future. Her fingernails dug into her palms, but she was unaware of the pain, focused as she was on fighting back her tears, which blurred her vision in the same way that space and time for her was twisted and stretched, turning the hallway between the classrooms of Rast High into an endless tunnel and her journey from fifth to sixth period into a milk run across a galaxy. The experience added up to a truth: Her relationship with Alex was dying, if not dead.

Talk about what?

About things.

The automated emotional signature on Alex's text was sadness and dread, but Junie's empathy for him was as a pebble is to a mountain, insignificant compared to the laceration on her soul. Junie's throat closed as if some devil choked her.

What sort of things? Junie swallowed hard when she sent the response.

Junie, you're making this harder than it has to be.

Junie debated whom she should hate more: Her father, for bringing her Utility, tearing her away from Alex, weakening the bonds that left her relationship vulnerable to a break; Alex, for starting this thread, not to mention showing no fidelity to her around the whores at Sierra Vista; or her so-called “friends” back home, who took perverse delight in sending her images of Alex enjoying the attentions of half the sluts in the South Bay. Her inability to resolve the triple dilemma magnified the numbness that made the hall walk an endless trudge. Her feet felt as if they were weighed a thousand pounds.

Are you breaking up with me? Junie backspaced out of the text, regaining a measure of self-control as she took her usual seat in physics. Is something bothering you?

I don't want to hurt you.

She laughed a little. The line was such a cliché, only slightly better than “It's not you, it's me,” or the god-awful, “Can we just be friends?” Her laugh broke Tiffany's concentration. She glanced at Junie as the latter girl bent over her tablet, sniffed, and hated her body for giving away her emotional state.

“Are you alright?” Tiffany said.

Junie pretended she was fine, but she was not convincing.

“You don't look that good. Are you sick?”

Junie pinged Mr Henderson and asked to be excused. She was finished with the required questions, and she had no stomach for the extra credit problems. Henderson let her go. With Tif's eyes following her, she went straight for the bathroom, found a stall, and closed the door.

I'm alone. Do you want to use voice?

Not really. Text and sigs are better.

Coward.

She thought-sent the single-word text impulsively, and regretted it, but felt satisfaction, even glee. Her emotions fired at random, like the particles from a decaying radioactive substance.

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