June First

by Jennifer Hartmann

“Her name is June.”

June always feels like a new beginning.

The truth is, my mother wasn’t wrong when she told me that June was a new beginning. It just wasn’t the beginning anybody wanted. It was the beginning of a horror movie, or a scary book. A nightmare. It was nothing like the magical fairy tales she’d read to me every night at bedtime.

“I didn’t forget. We’ll keep her safe from all the bad things in the world.” As I say it, I realize I don’t know how to do this yet. And then I think— Neither did my mom.

“I’ll love you like my very own, Brant. I’ll love you like Caroline loved you. You have my word.”

it makes me both happy and sad at the same time. Happy because I feel loved. Sad because the person I love most isn’t the one holding my hand and singing me lullabies.

I feel claimed. And after losing everything I love, it feels really good to belong to someone.

She claimed me like the sunrise claims the morning sky with lightness and blush, promise and wonder. She claimed me like a cyclone funneling through a quiet town, taking no prisoners. She claimed my good and my bad, my light and my dark. She took my broken, ugly bits and molded them into something worthy of display. She turned my agony into art. June claimed me in a way that could ultimately be defined by a single word: Inevitable.

She told me once, a long time ago, that that recital might have been her very first memory—only, she doesn’t remember the recital itself. She remembers me.

She doesn’t know that I made a wish that day, standing in my front lawn, begging the cotton-candy clouds for a baby sister. And then I got one. I got June in exchange for my parents, and in the mind of a small, damaged child, it felt like I had caused their deaths. My wish had come true at a terrible price. It was all my fault. So I refused to ever see her as my sister. I refused to see the Baileys as my true family because that would make me guilty.

And I know now the real reason it hurt so goddamn bad—the painful, deep-seated reason that changed the course of my entire life. Yeah…I know now. But I didn’t know it then, and I’m glad I didn’t. It was for the best. Because the moment it hit me, one year later, I wished I had never figured it out…

He hasn’t called me Junebug. He hasn’t called me Junebug in twenty-six days.

“Why her?” I swallow, watching him readjust his wrinkled shirt. “Why June? She’s sweet, and good, and pure—” “Because she’s yours.” He says it so simply, so matter-of-factly. Because she’s mine.

I’d rather be dead than become my father.

I had no idea the one person I’d need to protect her from was me.

If my father hadn’t murdered my mother, I would still just be the neighbor boy and she would be the girl next door.

He turned the only girl I’ve ever wanted into the only girl I can never have. But I still love her.

But here’s the thing about trying to bury something that isn’t dead— Sometimes it comes back, madder than ever.

The first law of nature is self-preservation. Cut off that which may harm you. But if it is worth preserving, and is meaningful, nourish it and have no regrets.

“I bought it because you used to tell me that your mom smelled like desserts. I know my birthday is the same day she…” She swallows, glances up at me. “Well, you know. I wanted to give you a reminder of her every June first—a happy reminder. A sweet memory hidden in the sadness.”

I’m hopelessly, irrevocably in love with you, June Bailey. The desperate, aching kind of love. The kind there’s no coming back from. The kind there’s no way out of. The kind that’s going to be the death of me one day. I fall more in love with June than I ever thought possible as we clutch each other in a moonlit graveyard on her eighteenth birthday, with my mother on my mind and the scent of sweet desserts dancing in the air.

This isn’t my first kiss, but my God…it feels like it.

“You were unsure which pain is worse: the shock of what happened, or the ache for what never will.”

The quiet is where I overthink. The quiet is where I backslide. The quiet is where I second-guess everything.

“You’re not responsible for the way others react to what you need to do to get better.”

“I’m sorry.” I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry for shutting you out. I’m sorry for kissing you back. I’m sorry for loving you all wrong.

“I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but the thought of another man putting his hands on you makes me borderline murderous.”

But he’s not mine. I have no reason to feel jealous.

I stay. And I wonder if I’ll ever leave.

that there are worse things than loving the wrong person.” I stare at him, waiting, my stomach twisting into knots. “And that’s losing them.”

“It’s not fair that your face is so perfect, a piece of art on display that I’m not allowed to touch. I should only adore it from afar, even though its beauty calls to me. Even though I’m convinced it was created just for me.” Her eyelashes flutter as she sways, as if she’s drunk on more than rum or whiskey, as if she’s drunk on her own words. “It’s not fair that it holds two eyes that look at me the way they do, like they were made for seeing only me. It’s not fair that it has lips that I’ve memorized, that I can’t forget, and a tongue I’ve dreamed about tasting me over and over again.”

“You’ve never felt like my brother!” I shout, temper flaring, cheeks burning hot. I stare at him with a heaving chest, balled fists, and swiftly falling tears. “Theo was my brother. You’ve only ever felt like…mine.”

“No relationship comes without a fight, but it has to be worth fighting for. It has to be worth all the sacrifices you’ll inevitably have to make.”

“It felt like I’d give my dying breath just to have one more weak moment with you.”

Passion is meaning. Passion is purpose. And tragedy is simply the risk we take in order to experience it.

“I stayed away because I’m completely defenseless when I’m around you, June. Logic flies out the window, and all I want to do is whisper pretty lies into your ear, telling you we’re going to be okay. I can’t be around you without touching you, and I can’t touch you without wanting to keep you.”

“I don’t want to leave,” I begin, placing my own hands over his, keeping my voice low. Tears pour down my face like a fractured dam. “I want to stay and build a life with you—a beautiful life I know we deserve. I want to marry you, Brant Elliott, and I want to make love to you every night beneath rainbows and stars. I want to have children with you. I want to raise them strong and brave, just like their father, and I want to sing them lullabies by the light of the moon.” My words clip with grief, and I take a moment to find my voice again. With a sorrow-filled sigh, I finish, “I don’t want to chase my dream because it’s not a dream without you in it.”

Theodore thinks she loves Brant more than him, but I told him he was wrong. She doesn’t love him more, she just loves him differently. I’m glad he didn’t ask me what that meant because I don’t know.

June 23, 2008 June told me she wants to marry Brant one day. I told her she couldn’t because he’s her brother. She said, “Theo is my brother. Brant is my handsome prince.” This kid watches too many Disney movies.

Something I never thought I’d see again. My cherished stuffed elephant. Bubbles. It’s Bubbles.

She found him. June found him for me.

I’ve always put June first. She’s always put me first. And I hope, I pray, I beg, That someday… We’ll finally be able to put us first.

“Brant means ‘sword.’ Brave, gallant, a stalwart defender.”

“There’s nothing plain about a masterpiece.”

A moment that confirms that we were never wrong. Our love story was never wrong.

“I’m done missing you. I’m done sleeping alone. I’m done wishing for a future with you when you’re still here.”

“Never underestimate a man willing to wait forever for the woman he loves.”

True happiness is a puzzle. It’s a jigsaw puzzle we’re all carefully putting together, searching for those pieces that link and connect, that allow us to move on to the next part of the puzzle.

Never underestimate a man willing to wait forever for the woman he loves, for there is nothing he’s not capable of. Noble to some. A fool to many. But to that woman? He is everything.

Just as we cannot force ourselves to love someone, we cannot force ourselves to unlove them either. Fate can be foolish, and fate can be careless. But fate is always true.