Juniper Maddox should've expected nothing less of her best friends concerning her arrival back to Monaco. They'd make some huge deal out of it like they always did, and she'd planned to greet them with a hug as if they'd been separated for years before looking around in false awe, as she always did.
But Charles and Charlotte weren't waiting at the bottom of the stairs for her, her emotional capacity wasn't as it would be if it were them. No, her emotional capacity had overflowed.
She almost second-guessed that he was even there for her but her intuition was unnecessary as the sign in his hands clearly read her name. Her nickname.
She had sent him a message, she'd told him she was sorry for walking out and that she wanted to talk but she never heard back from him.
She'd been ghosted before and though what she felt for Alex was different to the others she'd been ghosted by -- she saw no need to treat him any differently in the instance.
This overflow is what Juniper still blames for her reaction to seeing Alex in front of her, her feet picking up too quickly as she practically launched herself at the guy in front of her.
It wasn't a gentle hug, she wished she could argue that it was. But her arms wrapped around his neck and she might've told everybody she was strangling him but his arms went around her torso too nicely, so no pain could've been felt by him.
"June." He mumbled into her hair before he let go of her and smiled.
She shook her head now, a sigh escaping her lips as she let her fists collide with his chest repeatedly. She'd imagined the moment too many times in her head so her punches never hit as hard as they might've done, as hard as they should've done.
"You never texted me back, Alex."
"You never texted me back, June."
"Because I never got a reply."
"I swear on my life, I sent you a reply." Alex shook his head at her, his hands resting on her upper arms with his eyes looking at her so intently that she thought he only still had hold of her to make sure she was actually there. "Hell, I even got Pierre to send you a message after I saw you guys had been together."
"My phone had died by that point, nobody would lend me a charger."
"I'll give you one in the car. You can read my text."
In the car? Read his text? Juniper could usually spot a lie, but this was clearly a truth that even the blind could see. She wasn't sure she entirely believed him, but she'd set out what she'd come back for anyway. She had come back for him and could admit this in some capacity.
So she followed him, out to the car where he'd carried her bags. Maybe it was against her better judgment, maybe she'd applaud herself for doing it in the future but at that moment, what had happened or what was going to happen didn't seem to matter. She was at home, and so it seemed as she climbed into his car, was he.
They drove in silence for a little while before the need to ask overcame her.
"How did you even know I was coming back?"
"I've been here every day the past few days, Charlotte knew you were coming back at the end of the day so she told me. She said that she'd seen you in Bordeaux, you'd told her how you'd complete your final capacity for wonder attempt."
June hummed in response, and when he glanced over to her, he understood why. Her phone had been plugged in for a couple of minutes at least by now, its display illuminating her face as the graphics popped up from the notifications she'd received. She'd been in her messages more times than she could count every time she'd found a charger, every time looking for a message from him, his number, maybe even something from someone claiming to be Lando or George. She still couldn't find the message, the fault hadn't been her own, hadn't been his either. Her messages from Pierre were the next thing she opened, seeing a screenshot of the message Alex had sent to her.
"I can't find it, but Pierre sent me what I guess you sent to him."
He glossed over her words, only meeting these with a nod as his thoughts had remained elsewhere. "Why would it have been your final capacity attempt, June?"
"I assume you were out, that's what Charlotte guessed and after I thought you hadn't responded, I believed it too."
He couldn't help but realise this was a fair enough belief, he probably would've thought the same of her if he didn't know her response time better. That's why he thought she hadn't given up, just that she had taken another break as Charlotte told him she did, that her phone had died and she couldn't find a charger, didn't want to find a charger even.
He hadn't necessarily even expected a response from her, the indicator from Charlotte seemed more likely -- so much more likely that he hadn't even pursued her about it, not the couple times he'd seen her at the races or the times he had returned back to Monaco and passed by her apartment.
"I'm not."
"You're not what?" She laughed, and he assumed it was because of how obvious the answer to her question was but how he had missed that laugh, how it was so much easier than anybody realised to draw it from inside of her.
"I still want in, and I'll prove it."
+
June had a vivid memory of the two of them walking through Monaco as they crossed the harbour where she told him how much she hated the prospect of boats. Looking back on it, she should've used National Titanic Remembrance Day as her national day on April 15th. A missed opportunity considering she thought she was about to be a part of a reenactment every time she boarded a boat.
It wasn't an unexplainable fear, it wasn't a phobia either, really. She knew why she hated boats, the moment sitting at the forefront of her mind as they had passed the harbour that day. She was 12 when it happened, her defining moment of consciousness as her parents had insisted on taking her out on the sailboat one of their friends had shipped to their house for easier collection. They didn't live near a body of water by any means, but they took the boat to a lake whilst Kamri and Lilia had been at some after-school club. This was before the bubble wrap, the only thing her mother wrapped her in that day was a lifejacket and then later on a towel. Other members of the public were responsible for wrapping the thermal blanket around her.
Her dad decided that for the first run, it would just be him and Juniper so that the best boating experience would've happened with the involvement of all three of them after he'd gotten the hang of what to do. The wind must've been off, he told everyone afterward, we took it out because Juniper wanted to, he told their friends. Their oldest daughter had always been close with Juniper, but after that day they didn't talk again because Juniper was apparently the reason her dad had adjusted the sails wrong, the reason he had to rush around to the other side where he left too much weight and the boat began to sway.
Slowly, left and right, then left and right, until it tipped.
It wasn't an unexplainable fear, and it wasn't a fear he didn't know about either.
Meaning the look on her face couldn't be interpreted as anything other than confusion, nothing that seemed to emulate happiness or excitement. Perhaps the look on her face could've been seen as fear, but that was true of her emotions too. Either way, a mixture of fear and confusion hadn't particularly been any way to fulfill her capacity for wonder. He'd been lowering her into this, the sound of the waves that had been playing in the background of their journey was way too noticeable now as he guided her out of the car and to the entrance of the harbour, making their way down the long stretch of decking that lead to the boats.
"Sailboats are the most likely to capsize due to their driver being inadequately trained and believing they know more about the boat than they do. This means instead of acting calmly when something goes amiss with the sails, they freak out. Luckily we're not going on a sailboat-"
"We're not going on any boat."
"Which means it's much safer, and it's a boat I've been able to drive since I can remember. Plus, we won't be that far out from the harbour so the water will be as still as it can be."
"Alex." She warned, but he shook his head at her.
"I know you trust me, so please, just follow that. We'll be fine, I promise."
June wasn't sure what possessed her to climb onto the boat, but she'd never held his hand so tightly as she stepped over the edge and landed herself into a seat, pleading that he was right -- that they would in fact be fine.
YOU ARE READING
CAPACITY FOR WONDER. | alex albon
Fanfiction"every time you try to fill the other with wonder, you give a piece of yourself to them, with how you attempt to do so." (IN WHICH!) june maddox decides to teach alex albon there is more wonder in life than ju...
