Page 36 of Say You'll Stay
My hand trembles, almost of its own accord, as I snatch up my phone and dial Judith’s number. I need her - my lifeline, my last tether to reality amid the maelstrom decimating what little sanity I have left.
The phone barely rings once before she answers, her voice a soothing balm that does little to ease the eternal burn.
“June? What’s wrong?”
I open my mouth, but the words refuse to come. All I can expel is a primordial sound of anguish - a wounded animal’s cry.
“Junie, talk to me. You’re scaring me.”
And that’s what finally breaks the dam. A torrent of rage and sorrow, of bitter jealousy and searing shame, comes pouring out in a frenzy.
“How could she, Jude? How could she do this to me?” Each question is punctuated by a fresh wave of torment crashing over me.
“She was mine. MINE. After everything, after laying my soul bare…she’s going to run away with HIM!” The roar that rips from my chest would be feral if it carried any less desolation.
Judith tries to reason with me, to instill some fragile sense of calm and rationality. But her words are a mere whisper against the howling gale of my emotions.
White-hot fury lances through me, an explosive bloom of lava incinerating any shred of coherence. I lash out, words becoming indiscriminate weapons - each syllable a serrated blade aimed at inflicting maximum carnage.
I can almost see them piercing Judith, her sharp inhales of shock and hurt like blood in the water. But in my crazed, consuming spiral, her pain only fuels my destructive tailspin further.
Horrible, unforgivable things leave my lips, vile shapes accusing her of being against me, of siding with that insignificant worm actively trying to steal away the only light in my bleak existence.
When at last I’ve fully expended the molten rage, I’m left hollowed out and seared from the inside. A charred ruin amid the ashes of what was once a deep, abiding love between siblings.
“June…” Judith’s voice is wet and gravelly, sloshing with watery tears. “I can’t…I can’t do this anymore. Not until you get help. Until you stop—-”
The line goes dead before she can unleash the killing blow. Beneath the crackling static, I can hear it anyway - the whispers accusing me of utter madness, of being a complete and irredeemable monster.
As the scorpion’s cage slams shut around me, I’m vaguely aware of muted footsteps approaching. In my shattered delirium, I almost expect a SWAT team to burst in, prepared to put down this rabid dog before I can infect anyone else.
Instead, it’s Amethyst who materializes before me, looking uncharacteristically small in the elongated shadows of my ruination. I barely register the trepidation in her eyes as she hovers in the doorway like a startled bird assessing the wisdom of entering this viper’s nest.
“June?” Her voice is barely above a breath, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the fragile detente. “Are…are you alright?”
The concern on her face, so sincere yet so wildly misplaced, almost splits the hairline fractures in my sanity wide open again. A harsh, barking rasp of bitter laughter explodes from the ruin of my throat.
“Alright?” My lips peel back in a cutting sneer as I regard this woman - this girl playing at having any comprehension of my anguish. “Didn’t you hear, love? The world is ending. Again. And this time, I’m the harbinger.”
I stalk towards her, each footfall carrying the weight of the world I’m no longer welcome in. A panther advancing on a trembling lamb, knowing full well it has invited slaughter.
When I reach her, I can’t help but drink in the details - the fluttering pulse in her throat, the rapid dilating of her pupils, the sweet, heady scent of trepidation and adrenaline. It’s intoxicating in a sickly, mocking sort of way.
Leaning in with excruciating slowness, I let my lips brush the delicate whorls of her ear as I murmur, “You should run, little bird. Before the Big Bad Wolf decides he’s forgotten how to play nice.”
She moves closer, her heels clicking against the floor. “I just wanted to check on you.”
Irritation flares within me, white-hot. “Didn’t I make myself clear at the mansion? I don’t want you, Amethyst. I will never want you.”
She flinches, hurt flickering in her eyes. “June, I’m just trying to be here for you.”
“Wasn’t it clear, Amethyst?" I snap, the words like venom. “Just buy a fucking clue with my mother’s money and leave me the hell alone. Christ?”
I can feel her recoil in reticent horror, but I pay it no mind. I’m far too fascinated watching the war between indoctrinated politeness and self-preservation play out across her delicate features.
When at last she retreats, it’s with a thin veneer of composure barely restraining the instinctive flight of prey leaving the presence of an apex predator. The door closes with shaking finality behind her.
In the echoing silence that follows, I’m left feeling…nothing. No guilt, no sense of shame or regret. Just a vast, empty crater where Cara’s brilliance used to reside, leaving me drifting in the cosmic void of loss.