When Sebastian Met June ✓

Part One

Elementary School:

Seven-year-old June is petite for her age. Her limbs stab out at weird angles, all sharp and bone.

Her almond-shaped eyes, which are large in contrast to her pin-sized nose, are dull in intensity. The vibrancy of the children's eyes around her are not met with that of June's introverted glare. She's seen unspeakable things; things that have made her eyes water and nose runny, keeping her lips sealed shut.

June only smiles when her younger sister Nadine bubbles over in laughter at random jokes. She grins softly at seeing the happiness painted on the face of her younger blood, the one person she cares for most.

June relishes in reading. Novels of any kind, she breathes the words in as her oxygen. June can read much better than anyone her age, much advanced for her age, but you won't know because June seldom talks. Only can you hear her whisper through the thin plaster walls as she sings Nadine to sleep, soothing her in the creaking rocking chair that was once hers; in the room they share.

June's mother is an addict, anything she can get her hands on, she exploits. June hummed herself to sleep when she was two, learned to change herself when she was three, and taught herself to read by four. June protects Nadine from their mother's wicked curse, making sure Nadine's honey brown eyes stay youthful and bright.

Nadine sees the world in a vast color, as if her world is that of watercolor paint and crayons. June sees the world as dull, decrepit. Her world was drawn in the harsh pen strokes of a person who doesn't appreciate art. Her world is tainted, fragmented around the edges, like a shattered mirror.

By seven, June's view on life is already tainted.

---

June sits at her desk with her head lowered, her snarled curls obscuring her face from view. Her chewed sweatshirt sleeves are too short, her old jeans are ripped, and her shoes are crusted with mud, the toes scraped open. Dark brown rings form beneath her eyes from many sleepless nights, staring openly at her ceiling. Listening to her mother sit outside on the deck, crying over her existence as she brings the charred cigarette to her cracking lips.

"Hello," a unique little boy says, catching June's wavering attention.

He sits down at the blue plastic chair next to hers, placing markers on the table with great force. His action figure backpack is thrown to the space between them, where her's would also be, could she afford one.

June stares, her mouth pressed in a thin line, wary of this shaggy-haired somebody. Surprised by his overbearing presence.

"I'm Sebastian," he shoves his hand out like an adult, how he'd seen his father do before. June stares, nibbling at her lip in anguish. She wants him gone, far away from her. She'd rather be alone, in the silent way she likes it. She can only breathe properly when the world is at a standstill.

"What's your name?" He asks again, pestering her with his chalkboard voice. The first thing June notices is the blue of his eyes, almost crystal-like. They are eerily clear, staring deep into her own murky brown hues as he continues to smile; It edges her rage.

June has a temper she can't control.

Its warning signs start at her ear, the pointed tips turned red. Then a static fills her senses, a burning sensation in her chest that rises to her throat. Her fists ball at her sides in rage. June will bottle it up until she explodes.

"Do you not have a name?" He tilts his head, not reading her social cues. Frustrated, June slams her clenched fists on the table, rattling its surface.