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“But -”
“No ‘buts’ June,” he said, smiling sadly. “You’re taking your time and I can’t keep thinking you’ll come around to feeling like I’m feeling, and that’s okay! You’re entitled to your feelings and your life, but I am going to need time and space.” Colin sipped his coffee again. “We had a great time this week and we shared a lot, but it’s okay.”
No! She wanted to scream. Let me stay! Let me figure it out with you. But all June could do was nod as her coffee grew cold. Muir hopped up on the counter and butted his forehead against June’s hand. Without thinking, she scratched his chin, just the way she’d learned he’d liked this week. Another thing she would miss - having something fluffy around was nicer than she expected. Maybe she’d get a plant when she got back.
“What do your weekends look like?” June asked, feeling uncomfortable with the silence in a way she hadn’t yet since she met Colin.
“I read, play video games, watch TV, maybe hike. Probably the same as yours,” he smiled grimly. “I’ll probably get a decent drunk on tonight, though.” June’s heart burned at the thought of causing Colin pain at the same time she found that her evening plans were similar.
“Okay,” June said, quietly. “Thank you for the coffee. And everything.” What a terrible way to capture all that they had shared, everything that Colin had given her throughout the past few days. She set the cup back down on the counter, where Muir sniffed it, then wrinkled his kitty nose, which made June chuckle a bit. Colin looked down at her, perplexed by her laugh.
“Sorry,” she said again. “Muir made a funny face.”
“Stop apologizing, June,” he said bleakly. “I have a few things I need to do around here before I see you at breakfast.” June, for the first time, felt like Colin was kicking her out, where she had become so used to him asking her to stay, begging for a few more seconds in bed or one more kiss.
“Okay,” she replied glumly. “I’ll see you at breakfast.” She picked up the bag with her belongings in it, her fleece draped over her shoulder. She didn’t even have the energy to pull it over her head, wanted the sharp bite of the cool morning to sting her skin. June had just opened the door to leave when Colin came behind her, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her into one last, passionate kiss.
June tried to pour all the emotion she couldn’t say into her kiss, to tell Colin she was grateful with her lips, to confess her love for him with her tongue. He tunneled his fingers into her curls, angling her head so he could kiss her more deeply, and June gave it all back and more, her fingers grasping at his lean biceps to tug him even closer. June wished she could pause this moment, surround it in an antique frame, capture it in amber, freeze it in a snapshot. In this particular moment, with their mouths tugging and pulling and connecting, June had no worries about the future.
But it wasn’t to be. Easily, gently, Colin slowed the kiss, pulling back in small ways to signify something to June.
It was goodbye. June’s breath snagged in her chest as Colin brushed his lips over hers one last time. He pressed his forehead to hers as if he couldn’t stand to be parted and June ran her palms over his chest, dug in with the tips of her fingers, mouthed “see ya”, then turned around and walked out the door.
June walked the now-familiar quick distance to the teacher’s cabin and went to her room that she had only slept in for one evening. Her suitcase was still mostly untouched but the room felt sterile and unfamiliar. She sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands, engaging in the familiar routine of pushing down emotions and preparing herself for a day ahead. A day ahead where she would be in front of so many people, where she would have to put on her best face. It wasn’t necessarily a lie, per say, but a way of creating a new and different reality for June.
It was a lie, she realized. She had been lying to herself for the vast majority of the school year and was lying to herself now. But these lies, June thought, only truly hurt her. There was a part of her career over the past decade that relied on this type of self-sacrifice, whether it was financial sacrifice or personal sacrifice. Meeting Colin, for some reason, and being out here in the mountains, had at least helped her realize that she was done with this bullshit. It was time to take care of herself.
But first, she had to get through this last day. Push through the end of this school year and then she could use summer to settle herself and figure things out.
Pushing. Pushing. Pushing.
Taking a deep breath, June grabbed her water bottle and took an aggressive sip. She was caffeinated, she was hydrated, and she was ready for the day. She packed the little bit of luggage remaining, zipped up her suitcase, and moved it into the living room. She did one final once over of her room - if you could even call it that - then picked up her bottle and fleece and headed to the dining hall. Back to shit coffee for the rest of the morning.
“You’re here?” Kevin said, as June walked in and headed straight to the coffee machine.
“Yep!” June said, unnecessarily cheerful. “It’s Friday and we have to head back to the city.”
“You are so full of shit,” he replied, getting his own coffee and taking a pointed sip. “I can tell that you’re doing the whole ‘Look at me, I’m June and everything is fine and I am ignoring all of my feelings’ and I’m sick of it.”
“Wooooow,” June said, drawing out her response. “You’re just really going for it this morning, aren’t you?”
“I appreciate you trying to sugarcoat everything this year, but at some point you have to stop.”
“I’m fine, it’s fine, it’s no big deal.”
“What’s no big deal?” Kevin asked pointedly, and June gaped like a fish, her mouth open, trying to form words. Her immediate instinct was to cover her tracks and to not talk about Colin, but that was too obvious.
“Uh…teaching?” June sputtered.
“Liar.”
“Ugh, fine,” June sighed. “Colin and I cut things off this morning, but it’s fine. We knew that it was going to be a weeklong fling and I packed up my stuff this morning and we decided to just…end it.”
“You decided to just end it,” Kevin said, unconvinced. “This, from the woman who basically dragged John and I together and bullied him - in a loving way - to confessing his love in front of an entire brunch restaurant?”
“Kevin, I love you,” June said. How could it be so easy to tell her friends, her students, that she loved them, but it was impossible for her to find the words when she was bare and face-to-face with Colin? She took a moment and began again. “Kevin, I love you, and I appreciate so much what you’ve done for me this week. This year. You’re my best friend and I would not have been able to do this without you.”
“Woah, Lehrer, this is a lot of emotion for this early in the morning.” Kevin set down his coffee and reached out to give June a hug. “I’m used to this after a bottle of wine or four beers, but…wow.”
