Something Borrowed

Chapter 1. Deadlines

Chapter 1. Deadlines

June Is dead. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. June, my ex friend, is no more. June, the girl with brilliant eyes, with smart mind, with wily smile... she is no more. How could she be no more?

Tamara was having a pleasant dream. She was about to kiss a handsome man she had never met in her life. She was leaning in and he was leaning in and her eyes were closing and someone's phone rang. Tamara groaned. Who the hell is calling? Go away. I am going to kiss this handsome stranger!

The loud shrill of the phone grew and grew until Tamara couldn't bear it. She picked her phone with a frown, mumbled a hello and with a word, it was as if her world had shifted.

"June is dead, Tamara." It was her mom's voice on the other side and it was like a violent slap of ice cold water on her face. Her mom's voice, small and tiny sounded like a thunder in her foggy brain. Crashing. Clanging. Breaking.

The sleep in her eyes was instantly gone, to be replaced with bewilderment and confusion.

June? My June?

She hadn't been my June for a while now. Tamara reminded herself. Her heart clenched painfully as Tamara shut her eyes with a wince.

The hand around her phone tightened, before shaking like a last leaf on winter storm. Her heart thundered, twisted and her skies became dark. The turmoil in her was real. So was the absolute sense of calmness seeping through her nerves.

She didn't know what she was feeling right at this moment. Was it relief? Was it pain? Was it guilt? Was it sorrow?

What the hell was this feeling, of loss and tranquility mixed with a pang of regret and remorse? Why was everything always obscure and murky when it came to June!

Oh, June...

Tamara remembered the e-mail June had sent her just a month ago to her office mail id. She hadn't opened it for a week and then when she opened it and read it, she scoffed and closed it without even fully reading it, disregarding June and her words. Knowing June, Tamara was sure it was another one of her manipulative tricks. But now... she wondered. Now she wasn't so sure anymore.

Should I have gone? Should I have trusted what she had written? Could it have been the truth?

Tamara didn't know. She didn't know then, she didn't know, not even now. She still couldn't believe June was dead. So how could she believe that June could have been murdered?

Her lips trembled. And she realized she was crying. For June. For the girl who had made her life miserable, but then misery wasn't the only feeling. June had also made Tamara happy, immensely so. She had made Tamara laugh, cry and scream.

All of Tamara's feelings for June had always been a messy, messy cocktail of everything good and bad. Tamara never hated her fully. She couldn't love her, fully. It was always this uncertain compass needle, swinging, forever swinging, never finding its correct direction.

“Mom?” Tamara's voice was barely a whisper as she wiped her tears away. "How? I mean, how?"

Why?

“Yes honey, and the doctors are saying... something about a drug overdose. They are doing an autopsy later this evening."

"Murder?" Tamara said without actually thinking about it. Her words even sounded absurd to herself, but she wasn't sure, now that she knew June was actually dead. June wasn't dead a month ago.

I should have gone... The guilt was immense.

"No, no, not murder. Honey, we are not in a crime novel, here. Our small town barely has any entertainment. She ODed." Mom said as if it was something very acceptable, but why would June OD?!

Somehow Tamara couldn't believe it.

June was not a drug addict. She couldn't have been. June was always disgusted with people who used drugs to run away from the reality of their life. She would say they were cowards who could not face their lives without the use of drugs. June was not a coward. She had never been.

"Her funeral is on coming wednesday. Do try to come, Tamara. Put all your misunderstandings away. Grace Miller will be happy to have you there. She deserved at least that.” Her mom said in a soft tone. Tamara couldn't understand any of the words. She was lost in the violent cyclone swirling inside her mind. It was strong, it was suffocating and Tamara felt like she would be washed away if she didn't hold on properly.

"I-I don't think-" She stuttered as she pinched between her brows. "I don't think I can come, mom."

"Ssh, Tamara. I know you stopped being friends, but she was your friend once and you need to say goodbye. You need to see her and let her go, too."

Can I let you go, June? Can you let me go?

Her Mom only knew the half of it. She still believed that June and Tamara had stopped being friends because of the distance. Because they hadn't tried enough to save their friendship. But she was so wrong. Tamara had done everything she could to save their friendship, and still...it was not enough.

"I still don't know. I will try, mom, but I am not promising anything." Her voice had a little bite and her mom must have heard it. Her mom sighed and Tamara knew she would be shaking her head, with a small frown on her lips right about now.

"Tamara, Tamara..." She said. "Okay. Do what you want to. You are 27. I don't need to tell you what is right or wrong." Oh. Tamara could so hear the subtle innuendo there. The thinly veiled barb. She wasn't stupid.

"So, in other words, you are telling me what is right without even telling me what is right or wrong!" Tamara huffed crossly and she chuckled.

"When did I do anything like that?" Mom's voice was almost innocent.

"Mom, I have known you for twenty seven years. You think you are so subtle, but you are not." Tamara mocked with a small smile. They talked a little about her siblings and nephew before her mom hung up.

Tamara closed her eyes and leaned back against her headrest, pulling the blanket all the way up to her chin, finding comfort in the familair warmth.

She thought about June, pale and chalky inside a coffin and her heart felt like a shredded paper.

Should I have come to see you, June? Did I kill you by not coming?

The stench of guilt was strong, but the doubt was stronger.

But you always lied, June. You always, always lied. You are like that boy who often cried wolf. So can you blame me if I didn't trust your words?

The whorl of memories were stronger and Tamara couldn't resist its vigorous pull. She knew she shouldn't do this to herself, if she gave in she wouldn't come back, but she had no other choice. She was weak, she had always been weak when it came to June.

The big black box of memories—the ones Tamara had never wanted to look into, to open—snapped open with a loud, deafening bang. And out dripped feelings, toxic, killing, venomous... drip, drip, drip. The memories were festered and decayed with years of betrayal and lies and grudges and bitterness. Even the beautiful ones were tainted with deception and Tamara's heart cried out loud in agony and pain.

June. Why would you always do this to me? Why?

June and Tamara had been best of friends from sophomore year. There were fat chances for them to become enemies even in the beginning, but they had maintained their friendship without ruining it, or in other words, Tamara had saved it from utter destruction. She probably shouldn't have carried such a big responsibility, a big burden on her small shoulders. It almost destroyed her in the process. It took her a long long time to come out of June's shadows and find the light.

Tamara could still remember the first day she had met June.

Tamara closed her eyes with a small smile.

I still don't know whether I regret meeting you or not, June.

Maybe I do, maybe I don't.

***

(Flashback)

It was two months into sophomore year and it was a cold winter evening, when a truck stopped in front of the house next to Tamara's house. The house next door had been empty for a while since the previous owners had moved away.

Tamara was sitting with her sister, talking about something with Holly, but in reality, she was just there to stare wistfully at Lucas—at seventeen, he made fifteen years old Tamara's heart go pitter patter without even looking back at her—and daydream. Of course, he didn't even look up from his book. He never looked at her. But she never let it deter her.

"So... I said to Talia that if we do that more than two hours a day we probably won't need..." Tamara's mouth was going on and on, but even she didn't actually hear herself as she was talking. It was just an excuse to be there and Holly knew it, too. Holly shook her head at Tamara with a frown and pinched her under the table.

"You..." Tamara bared her teeth at her sister. "Ssh." She warned. "And make your friend look up." Tamara whispered so only Holly would hear it.

"What do you think, Lucas?" Holly asked the boy who was staring into his anatomy book like all the secrets of the universe was hidden inside it.

At seventeen, Lucas was still lean. His shirt was still one size big on his frame, but when he talked, it was like music, like magic. He only talked when he actually cared to talk. There were no small talks or empty words in his dictionary. The intelligence in his soft brown eyes, the way they glinted when he was talking about something that mattered to him, it always made Tamara feel like she could listen to him go on and on about central nervous system, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, myelinated axons, Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome—the reality that she, the girl whose dream had always been about writing and dresses, fashion, knew all those big words were proof of how much she liked Lucas—all her life.

"What?" He blinked at the sisters, his eyes bewildered. He looked at Tamara and was very fast to look away.

"Tammie has a doubt," Holly explained helpfully, "you might be able to help her."

Lucas looked at his friend and narrowed his eyes with suspicion. He looked at Tamara and then looked down at his book and sighed.

"What is it, Tamara?" The way he said her name, half in exasperation and half in defeat made Tamara smile inside. She loved it when he spoke her name. The way the word rolled out of his tongue was so absolutely perfect, or maybe it was all in her lovestruck brain, but she loved it.

"So... I read somewhere that a normal kiss burns 6.4 calories per minute. A passionate kiss can burn up to 20 calories per minute. So if we kiss for more than an hour per day, does that count as exercise?" Tamara looked at him and blinked.

He flushed a bright red as he looked at her, his eyes wide and perplexed. Holly closed her mouth as she laughed next to him without making a sound.

Lucas looked around, looking for a way out of this conversation, to escape. Oh, but the poor guy knew he was trapped.

"What do you think, Lucas?" Tamara teased him and he sighed and closed his eyes as if he couldn't believe he had voluntarily walked into the cage again.

"You are fifteen. You shouldn't be kissing-" He said with a small scowl on his beautiful lips.

"Oh, Lucas. Grandpa. Even ten years old are kissing. I am fifteen. Just give Nat and Neil a year or two and they will be kissing, too." Tamara said all too seriously.

Natalie and Neil were Tamara's twin siblings. They were six and they were absolute menace. They were an accidental surprise to their. Holly and Tamara adored them and spoilt them.

"You talk too much." Lucas said with a frown as he glared at his best friend. "Holly, from tomorrow you should come to my house."

"Just answer my question and I will leave you alone." Tamara said with a smile.

"I don't know-"

"Have you kissed anyone more than an hour?"

"You..." Holly bumped Tamara's shoulder with hers when she looked at Lucas and knew he was getting very angry. "Go. Enough."

"What? He wants to be a doctor, no? He should know about all this." Tamara said defensively and Lucas looked like he wanted to drag her by her ear and throw her far, far away.

"Yes." He said as he looked at Tamara without any feeling. His brown eyes were dark and threatening. Tamara wanted to kiss him and see how his eyes would change. Would it change stormy and hazy? Would he even want to kiss her?

"Yes what?"

"I have kissed. That is what you wanted to ask, right?" He looked at her, his eyes cold and aloof. "I am a seventeen year old guy, Tamara. And so yes, I have kissed girls. Now go." He said in a stern voice as he dismissed her and her face fell as she stood up and turned away from him.

She shouldn't have asked him anything, of course, she knew about the girls. She was the only one who had liked him for a while, if she could even call this weird feeling that. She wanted him to look at her like she was not just a little girl, not just Holly's sister he had to put up with.

I am not a little girl anymore, Lucas.

"Luc, no need to be so rude, she is just-" Holly said.

Tamara walked out, her face red and angry, but she could hear him saying, "...she is crossing a line, here, Holly. I can't let her do that. She is just a kid."

Kid? What the hell?

Tamara scoffed. She was just two years younger than them. She was humiliated, offended, her heart was bruised. Feeling angry with him, with the world, she stomped out of her house and stopped in the doorway, taking in a deep breath to calm her frayed nerves.

"You stupid stupid guy." She shouted and that was when she had noticed the girl standing next to the almost empty truck.

The girl sullenly looked at her and there was a disgusted frown. Their eyes met. Tamara, usually nice and friendly Tamara was not in a mood to smile, and it looked like the other girl was not, either. They both glared at each other, each lost in their own anger and humiliation. The girl turned away from Tamara and Tamara walked back inside the house, swearing under her breath about a very rude Lucas and the rude girl.

That night, as Tamara got ready for bed, she heard screaming through her opened windows. It was strange to hear noises from the house that had been silent and empty for so long. It was so wrong, but Tamara couldn't help it. She eavesdropped, she shouldn't have.

"I didn't want to be here, mom. You- you are the one who destroyed everything." The girl sounded angry.

"But doctor Cameron said you need a change of scenery, baby. This will be good for you, good for us, you will see." The woman pleaded with the girl.

The girl screamed and yelled.

"I don't need a change of scenery. I need my dad."

"Honey, he left us. I didn't..."

"No, you pushed him away, mom. Why can't you be-"

Suddenly it felt really invasive to listen to it, anymore and so Tamara left the room, feeling so bad for the new girl. She couldn't imagine being without her dad, or move far away from her home.

The next night, Tamara heard the same girl. This time she wasn't screaming, she was singing, but her singing was almost like a scream, too. It was like she was doing a private concert to herself. Tamara looked at the clock and it was one. What the heck. She rubbed her eyes and banged her head against the headboard. Angry with the girl, she opened the windows and shouted, "Stop screaming, you sound like a dying donkey. I am trying to sleep here."

She stopped singing and her windows opened. "Don’t be jealous." She said and she started singing again, this time louder than before.

At that moment, Tamara was so sure she was going to hate the new girl.

She should have stuck with that thought! She shouldn't have changed her mind about the new girl. She should have never doubted her first impression.

Liking the new girl, Tamara wouldn't know then, would become the biggest mistake she had ever made in her life.

___