You're Enough, June Nelson

Chapter 6

KIRA CAMPBELL ✔️ JOHNNY WILLIAMS ✔️

All that's left to talk to is Jose Martinez. But I know he won't vote for me. He won't vote for me because he's secretly dating Cheyenne. No one knows. Not yet, anyway. Cheyenne's reputation could never handle her dating a member of the Glee Club.

The entire school will find out next year when Jose publically breaks up with Cheyenne in the culinary quad. It'll even make the front page news of the Bloomford Bulletin much to Cheyenne's dismay.

Do I risk it? Do I ask him to vote for me instead?

I can't tell him I know about his clandestine affair with Cheyenne. Blackmailing a teenager is beneath me, and I'm not interested in ruining his relationship. Relationships are hard enough without external noise.

It's the internal noise that does a relationship in. Just like it did with Sutton and me.

For a moment, I let myself feel whatever low, sorrowful emotions I have left over from Sutton's breakup speech. The speech where he told me he was in love with some chick named Horn.

Does it hurt, June? Yes.

If it does, then why aren't you laying on the floor a bawling, sobbing mess?

Six months isn't a lifetime with someone, but it's long enough to dream about a future. Sutton wasn't forever. He was just a moment. Moments pass. He will pass. These emotions will pass.

I know when people aren't moments. I know when they're forever. Grieving a moment is heartbreaking. Grieving a lifetime without someone is life-altering. Earth-shattering. I've had to do it more times than I can count. It never gets any easier.

"Well?" Dina taps her foot restlessly against the concrete outside the Language Arts building. "What have you decided?"

I don't need Jose to win. I just need Kira and Johnny. But if Johnny decides not to vote for me, I'm going to regret not talking to Jose.

"We corner him by the band room," I settle.

"What are you going to say to him?" Dina asks.

I shake my head. "I have no idea. We'll figure it out when we get there."

"We're really doing this!" Dina squeals as we walk down the hall side-by-side, the crowd getting thicker as our peers trickle out of classrooms to eat lunch.

Dina slips her arm through my elbow and holds tight. Something taut and unyielding squeezes in my chest.

Dina was never just a moment. She was a lifetime—a forever friend.

Why did I make so many bad choices? Why did I let my pride—my ego—get in the way of our friendship? Why did I walk away from this? Why did I think I could find something better?

Because, June, you didn't know this was forever until it was too late.

A lesson learned. To date, the hardest one learned.

"There he is!" Dina points toward the tall figure leaning against a brick wall. 17-year-old Jose is chatting up one of the Glee Club members as we approach.

"What do you think Jose is up to in the future?" Dina whispers.

He went on to star on Broadway and has had several small TV roles. I shouldn't second guess every tidbit of information I'm feeding her, but this feels harmless.

"Broadway," I grin. "He won a Tony award in 2018."

"Shut up." Dina jumps up and down. "Should I get his autograph now? You think it'll be worth anything in twenty years?"