cherry [fezco]

1.1

| call out my name— the weeknd|

Two weeks had passed since the carnival, and Juniper hadn't been doing good. She had distanced herself from me, and the rest of the group. The last day I had talked to her was the night of the carnival. She tapped on my window, around 12, tears streaming down her face.

"Juniper?" Rue asked, rubbing the fatigue out of her eyes. Juniper offered a small, short lived wave. Rue opened her window.

"Can I come in?" She asked, biting her lip, and she tasted the saltiness that her tears left. "I promise I won't stay for long."

"Of course," Rue held out a hand to help her balance while she crawled through the window. Juniper wiped her face with the back of her wrist before sitting down on Rue's bed. Rue softly sat next to her. She reached up to tuck piece of Juniper's hair behind her ear. "What happened, Juni?"

Juniper let her shoulders bounce naturally as she thought back to the events that occurred a few hours prior. Soft sobs slipped past her lips as she broke down. "F-Fezco," She managed to say before losing her breath.

Rue sighed, knowing the moral reason of Juniper taking the night off of work and going to the carnival was because Fezco had invited her. She wouldn't go on to ask more until Juniper had calmed down. Rue didn't want to rush her.

Juniper sniffed before turning to the other. "I can't see him anymore," she muttered, watching the expression on Rue's face change.

"What?" She shook her head slightly in disbelief. "Why not? Who told you that you couldn't see him?" Rue started listing off questions that fluttered into her mind.

"He did," Juniper wrapped her arms around her torso. "Fez said he wasn't the safest person to be around and said we should stay away from each other."

"and that was it?" Rue scoffed and wrapped her arms around Juniper. "I'm so sorry Juni," she whispered. "I know how much you were starting to like him."

Juniper nodded slowly. "I really was," she confessed. "and I guess I thought he was starting to like me too."

Now I hear you saying: all of this because of a boy she didn't even know very well? Well yes and no.

I say yes because Juniper felt oddly attached to Fezco. There was something about him that made her open up quicker than she ever would. Maybe it was the way he acted, or his aura. Or maybe it was his personality, the way he treated her, or all of the above. Juniper had no idea what drew her to him, but she knew that she felt incomplete without him in her life. Its funny how just one person can effect your way of living. For me, that person was Jules, and for Juniper, it was Fezco.

She laid in the dark of her room more often than she would see the sun. Her curtains were always drawn, and she always had earbuds in. Juniper didn't know what else to do besides just let her mattress absorb her body and listen to her music. Her mind was in such a fragile state that nothing felt real. Juniper kept that night on replay, wondering if there was something she could have said or something she could have done that would have made Fez change his mind. Juniper couldn't think of anything that would have saved them, and thats what made her break down. She wanted to believe that there was always a way to fix things. but without a solution, things remain broken. Juniper would have rather pressed hard liquor down her throat than swallow the fact that maybe Fezco was right.