June First

by Jennifer Hartmann

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.

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

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

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

“I would’ve waited forever, Junebug…but I’m really glad we didn’t have to wait that long.”

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.