author's notes: so sorry for the long wait, you guys! i really wanted to get this one down right and it took me longer than i thought it would. thanks so much to everyone that reviewed last chapter, hope you enjoy the new one! special thanks to my beta Inwenalas.
characters: June (OC), Sebastian, Joe, Blaine, Tina, Joan Wilder (OC)
CHAPTER SUMMARY: June gets a letter from Yale, but she's too afraid to open it.
BUT YOUR WORDS ARE LIKE WEAPONS;;
chapter fourteen
She's pretty sure her legs are shaking, but the nausea making its way up her oesophagus is of more immediate concern to her as she stumbles her way to her locker. Little to her surprise, Joe's already waiting for her there.
"Hey, are you okay?" Joe asks, eyes narrowing on her face. "You look a little pale," he adds, and places a hand on her shoulder.
June pulls a letter from between her book and shows it to him: it's a letter from Yale. "This was in the mail yesterday," she says, feeling her stomach stirring again. "I managed to sneak it out before my parents saw it."
"You haven't opened it."
She looks up at Joe; his eyes steady her, but her heart hasn't stopped racing since grabbing that letter from the mailbox yesterday. She knows acceptance and rejection letters were being sent out, but she had no idea they'd get here so soon. "You know how I really only applied to any other school for safety?"
She knows she was about to make a point, but her anxiety gets the better of her. She sinks back against her locker and closes her eyes. "Why did this have to be the first one to arrive?"
"Maybe—" Joe starts, and she opens her eyes again, "—you could wait for the others?"
June smiles; Joe makes an excellent point, of course, she could wait for other letters to arrive before she opens this one, just to cushion the blow. She looks down at the letter, her entire future contained inside, her ticket out of here, everything she's been working towards for the past six years. Her freedom.
"But what if I got in?" she asks, biting the inside of her cheek. "It's Yale," she breathes, heart rate spiking again. "Oh God, what if I didn't get in?"
Joe puts a hand on her shoulder again, but Blaine joins them before he gets the chance to say anything.
"Hey guys, what's going on?" Blaine asks, but all June manages is a whine before slumping forward against Blaine, her forehead landing on his shoulder. Blaine's hand comes around to rest at the small of her back and she hears him whisper something to Joe.
Joe takes the letter from her and holds it up so Blaine can see.
"Is that what I think it is?" he asks. "Why haven't you opened it?"
June moves back to look at Blaine. "Because it's my entire future packed in an envelope. All my hopes and dreams could be fulfilled or destroyed once I open this," she rants. "I'm not strong enough for this, I haven't slept at all, and—"
Both of Blaine's hands land on her shoulders. "June," he says, "Breathe."
June draws in a shuddery breath, but it makes her queasy again.
"You know you'll have to open it eventually," Blaine says.
June nods.
"So—" Blaine says, and takes the letter from Joe, holding it out to her. "—why not do it with your best friends here?" he asks. "Unless you want Sebastian—"
June rolls her eyes. "Shut up," she says, but smiles in spite of herself. Blaine's right, she'd much rather do this with her friends than in front of her parents.
She takes a deep breath. "Here goes nothing," she says, her hands trembling around the letter. Blaine clasps his hands together excitedly and she hears Joe's sharp intake of breath. She rips the envelope open, unfolding the letter inside meticulously. Her eyes trace the words on the paper, but catch immediately on a particular phrase: we are sorry to inform you…
The world stops turning around her.
"I didn't get in," she says, crumpling the letter in her hands.
Tears shoot into her eyes, her heart drops and all of a sudden it's hard to breathe.
"I'm going to be stuck here forever," she whispers.
"June—" Blaine says, but she turns away from him, her feet carrying her away.
She rounds the corner and enters the girls' bathroom, hiding in one of the empty stalls. She sits down on the toilet seat and puts her face in her hands. That's when she breaks down. She didn't get into Yale, her one dream, her biggest hope of getting out of this town, of getting away from her family, of being free.
She tries to control her sobbing but she fails miserably, tears drop through her fingers, sorrow wrecking her entire body. She's never getting out of this town, she'll be stuck here forever with homophobic parents because she's too afraid to come out to them without first having some security.
She'll watch Blaine take off for New York with Kurt and she'll hear their stories about how amazing college is and how liberating New York is compared to Lima, Ohio. Sebastian will leave for college too, Harvard or Princeton, and he'll forget all about her.
And she'll be here, confused, closeted, dreaming of the life she could have had.
"June?" someone calls out to her. It takes her a few moments to realize it's Tina's voice.
June takes a shaky breath, but doesn't say anything. She's not really in the mood to talk to anyone right now, even though she might have been in here for hours already.
"You know I can hear you sniffling," Tina says.
"Did Blaine send you?"
"Joe did," Tina answers. "Blaine wanted to come in here himself."
June sniffles again and blows her nose on some toilet paper. She gets up and opens the stall door, Tina's eyes reading nothing but worry and understanding. "I'm so sorry about Yale," Tina says as June makes her way towards the mirror. She looks a mess. "But you applied to safety schools, right?"
"There's a reason why they're called safety schools," June chokes out, feeling a fresh wave of tears hitting her. "Yale was—everything I ever dreamed about."
Tina throws an arm around her. "Come here," she says, and pulls June in for a proper hug.
#
Despite Kurt being in New York he's never really felt alone this school year—June made sure to be there for him whenever he needed someone to talk to and all of the New Directions have become close friends of his. The loneliest he'd felt were those two weeks him and June weren't talking. Now he's feeling an entirely different kind of lonely.
Actually, he feels powerless. June went home before lunch and hasn't really been returning his texts—he wants to go over there and be with her like she was always there for him, but he knows she doesn't want him near her parents.
"Hey, killer," he hears behind him in line. He rolls his eyes (something he thinks he definitely got from June) and turns to face Sebastian, giving him a less-than-impressed look. Sebastian's long since apologized for kissing him, and they've gone back to their family-friendly texting, but he did that for June's benefit, not his own. He'd feel a lot more comfortable around Sebastian if he'd stop flirting all the time.
"I'm sorry," Sebastian apologizes. "Blaine," he corrects and looks around. "Where's your lady sidekick?"
He'd find the time to be genuinely surprised by Sebastian's immediate self-censorship, but at the mention of June he realizes he's upset for her. "She's—"
"Something wrong?"
"She got a rejection letter from Yale today," he answers. "She's a mess."
He's not sure 'a mess' quite describes the state June's in; she's always talked about Yale like it was her life's goal, the way that Kurt and Rachel used to talk about NYADA, like he's been talking about NYADA for quite some time now—this pursuit was something they could share. It was different with Kurt—every time NYADA came up with him it was just another reminder that his boyfriend would be in New York rather than a car drive away. Talking about the future with June meant working to the point where they'd both get what they wanted.
But now—he's not sure what he can say to her to make her feel better.
And he can tell from the look in Sebastian's eyes that he understands how bad June's feeling. "She's at home?" he asks.
Blaine nods. "She doesn't want me over there." He stares down at his feet. "With her parents—"
"Yeah, no," Sebastian says. "I get it."
Blaine's never even met June's parents let alone been over at her house, but he knows Sebastian has. And June and Sebastian are friends after all. "You should go see her," he blurts out. June could just really use someone to talk to, even if it's Sebastian.
"I'm not her best friend."
He can't tell if Sebastian's just reluctant to do this for him and June or if he considers himself a lesser friend to her than Blaine is. But he laughs, because the reason June invented to convince her parents they shouldn't meet him was so ridiculous it's funny. "She's convinced her parents I have a super jealous girlfriend that doesn't want me to hang out at another girl's house," he says, realizing too late that Sebastian can just as easily make Kurt the butt of a joke.
And there was a time Sebastian would have, where taking a swing at Kurt or their relationship would have been fun for Sebastian, but apparently Sebastian sees no humor in anything he's just said. Sebastian frowns to himself: "I suppose it's always easier to accept a lie when you can't bring yourself to consider the truth."
It's the first time he can tell just how close Sebastian and June have gotten; for her to talk about her parents to him, for him to know and care about the way they treat her, he's underestimated the depth of their friendship. And June had already told him she knew Sebastian the same way, despite being in love with him.
That's why he finds himself wanting Sebastian to go over and be with her. "I'm really worried about her," Blaine says.
Sebastian seems to think this over, but only a few moments later he flashes him that Smythe grin and grabs his wallet. "Got it covered, killer."
#
He pulls up to June's house no ten minutes after he leaves Blaine at the Lima Bean. Last time he was there he was dropping her off after Paris, because for some reason her parents hadn't wanted to make the trip to the airport; he actually suspected June told them he insisted on dropping her off himself, just to avoid his parents and her parents meeting. June had made it very clear her parents didn't like anyone who was different than them, and she was ashamed to just be associated with them.
Blaine or Kurt never met her parents, and she hadn't even introduced the kid in the wheelchair to them when he'd asked her out to prom—in fact, he thinks June and the kid even met up at school just to avoid all that.
But as far as the Wilders are concerned he's as straight as they came—he's fairly sure he can make it through the front door. There was a time where he wouldn't have even considered coming here just to comfort June. Now Blaine hadn't even needed to ask, he knew just as well as Blaine how much Yale meant to June and how terrible she must be feeling. But he never thought he'd actually care this much.
He's not fooling himself anymore, he knows he has feelings for June, but he still hasn't decided what to do about them. Is it really worth destroying their friendship over, if that's what they have in the first place? He's gay, he's known that for a very long time, but now this—these feelings for June are real. But are they deep enough?
As he approaches the front door June's mother exits the house. "Mrs Wilder," he says, and smiles; he can be polite when the occasion calls for it.
"Sebastian, what a nice surprise," Joan Wilder says, visibly cheering up. "I guess you heard about what happened."
"Blaine told me about it," Sebastian says, gauging Joan Wilder's reaction to the mention of the name. But she doesn't even flinch, so he thinks it must be true—June must have her parents fooled completely. He knows Blaine feels sad for June and sad for her parents that they can't communicate about this important part of her life.
It doesn't make him sad.
It makes him furious.
"I'm headed to the grocery store for her favorite ice-cream," Joan says. "She's been crying for hours." She shakes her head. "But what can we do? It's not like we could've applied for her."
He recognizes the parents speak immediately, though God knows why Joan's telling him this. He wants to tell her that June's been working for this on her own for years, that despite her parents wish for her to do good in school it's all her and no one else. But what would be the point of telling her mother that?
"I should go see her," he says.
Joan nods. "She's in the living room."
He makes his way inside, balancing the carton with coffee in one hand. He can hear the TV playing, and when he rounds a corner into the living room, he can see June sitting on the couch, knees drawn up high to her body.
She casts him one glance before returning her attention to the television, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. "How'd you get in here?"
"Your mom let me in on her way out," he answers. June sniffles, but refuses to look at him again. "Blaine told me what happened." More silence follows—June's fiddling with a tissue and fighting more tears.
He doesn't know what to do, he just stands there with one hand in his pocket, struggling for words, watching June struggle and he feels powerless. What can he possibly say to her to make her feel better? He knows for a fact that she'll get into another great school, but Yale was her dream, and even though she'd never said it in so many words, he know she considered Yale her ticket out of here, away from her parents, free from this closeted life.
But there's no reason any other school can't do the same.
"I brought you this," he tries, holding up the coffee he got for her.
June releases a shaky breath and looks up at him. "I hate you."
He smirks. "You don't," he says and walks over the couch. He sits down next to her and hands her the cup of coffee.
She takes a sip, but recoils as soon as the coffee moves past her lips. "Oh my God," June exclaims. "Is there—Is there Courvoisier in this?"
He grins. "I thought you might need something with a stronger punch."
June shakes her head, but can't hide a smile; he'll consider that a small victory. He glances at the television, playing the movie version of Rent, the coffee table strewn with used tissues and a pile of chick flicks. As far as stereotypes go, June's pretty much got this one down.
They don't talk for a long time, they watch the movie until the end and by that time June's eyes are watery again, but he thinks that's more because of the movie. Once the credits start rolling June stares down at the floor.
"You didn't have to come," she says.
"I'm sorry," he lets the words slip involuntarily.
June puts a hand over her eyes and a sob rips through her body—she huddles over and pulls her knees up to her chest, unable to control her tears.
"Hey, don't—" He straightens himself out and stretches out a hand tentatively. "Don't cry." He scoots closer to her, but June doesn't stop crying and he can't stand this—there's so many things he could say, that it's not the end of the world, that there are other schools for her, but seeing her in pain like this—he honestly didn't think it would affect him like this.
"I have absolutely no idea how to comfort girls." He puts an arm around her and pulls her into his chest. "Or guys," he adds. Maybe he says it to make sure she knows this is uncharacteristic for him, or that she's someone special to him; he doesn't know which one he'd rather have her know. But something tells him June already knows this isn't his usual style.
June cries into his chest, hands clinging to his blazer, one of his own stroking up and down her back. "Honestly, you should see me with Belle."
June chuckles through her tears. "I've seen you with Belle, doofus," she says, and sniffles, moving back to look at him.
There's only a few inches separating them—he's reminded of that night in Paris, the last time he had her this close willingly, and he knows he probably shouldn't say what he's about to, but the words slip out nonetheless: "There'll be other dreams, you know," he says.
June casts down her eyes—the loss makes his heart sink in an unfamiliar way, so he's encouraged to keep talking. "You get straight A's and you've got extra-curriculars. You applied to every Ivy League school in the country. They can't all reject you."
But June only shakes her head and moves out of his arms. "That's not even—"
"What is it?"
She looks up again. "I need a full ride, Sebastian," June says. "Not just to get out of the house, but—"
It hits him then: the way she always talks about her brother, the way she feels about her parents, the reason she was drawn to Blaine and Kurt and even him. He always figured Yale was about getting into a prestigious school and that the distance afforded made the perfect escape from an oppressive life in Lima. But this goes deeper.
"You're thinking of coming out to your parents."
He doesn't make it a question, because it all makes sense—it explains why she's so upset—losing Yale isn't just about losing a potential future, it's about her identity and the kind of person she wants to be.
"Not thinking," June corrects, not once releasing his eyes.
He feels his heartbeat rising.
"I'm doing it," June adds. "I want to be brave. I just need a little security first."
He nods without saying a word. Of course he understands. How can he not? He wonders if she's told Kurt or Blaine about any of this, or that Joe guy for that matter.
June takes another sip from her coffee but pulls a face. "How do you drink this stuff?" she asks.
He grins. "I've built up a tolerance."
When June smiles at him, and he realizes he's the one that put it there he feels his stomach stir in a way it had previously only done for guys—he's always thought June beautiful because he was a comfortable guy and admitting that someone's beautiful had nothing to do with being in love. But now, finding beauty when all she's done these past few hours was cry, where did that come from?
Yeah, he's in trouble.
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