The Heir of Stephen Knight

TO THE RALLY

Chapter Three: TO THE RALLY

“ What do you mean you are not going to the rally?” exclaimed Beatrice Eckomoff who was standing with her two hands on her hips and her fuzzy eyebrows all squeezed and funny looking.

Her expression was angry, but June knew she wasn't surprised. Beatrice had been talking about the rally for months, especially because she was the one in charge of planning it all, and the fact that everybody that was somebody was going to be there, but that was exactly why June didn't want to go.

Too many people in one place.

“ Everybody's going to be there.” She whined confirming what June already knew.

“Exactly why I'm not interested. Besides, I have exams next week and I have a lot of things I need to go over.” June knew this wasn't going to dissuade her, not easily, at least.

“Campus is going to be empty. Not even the cleaners and Mrs Clintus, the weird librarian who always smells like sugar plum, are going to not go to the rally. You're hurting my feelings.” Beatrice said, throwing herself on her creaking queen-sized bed with her face down.

She murmured into the holy white duvets something about how June never went with her to all the fun places she wanted to go to.

This was a lie though. Just two months ago, after a campaign of coercing and bribing and incessant pleading, June accompanied her to one of her rich friend's pool parties where everyone either wanted to talk about how they spent their vacation on their daddy's yacht or how they had dinner with the president and gave him a nickname.

It wasn't that June hated Beatrice's friends; she just thought they were really bad, misguided people who needed therapy.

Bad people who had no good intentions for good people; good people like Beatrice.

Even though they had been friends for two years and had lived together for the same period of time, June would never understand what she saw in those people.

“ You can go on without me. You said Taylor would be your wingman.” June said, trying to comfort her by sitting next to her and stroking her hair.

“ Taylor's a dunce.” She said, finally turning her head to face the ceiling.

Beatrice Eckomoff was a wonder to behold. Six feet tall with legs that went on forever and ever; she had skin as smooth as honey and fair as porcelain.

Her curly 15 centimeters long hair was fiery red and this matched her temper and her feisty spirit.

Her eyes? They were as blue as glass, and staring at them too long would make anybody weak in the knees.

Not minding that she was filthy rich, she could get whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted whenever she wanted; she was too beautiful to say no to. She was so beautiful it hurt to be around her.

“ Well, I'm sure she'll behave tonight. It's your big day.”

Sigh.

“ Fine,” Beatrice said, getting up from the bed to pack her hair into a bun.

“ Do what you like, read with dust and spiders. I'm not even going to miss you.” She lied.

After one too many hugs, a few kisses, and the entire room filled with the heavenly fragrance of Beatrice's perfume, June was finally able to schedule her time for the topics on the syllabus she wanted to cover.

After contemplating whether to shower or not, she decided on the latter and settled on stealing some of Beatrice's sweet-smelling fragrance that she was sure men offered to gods back in the day to appease them and get their blessing.

When she was sure she was good to go, she checked the mirror. 5 '11, blue eyes, her skin the feel of velvet but the color of milk, her brown hair, and her lips like the wonders of freshly picked strawberries.

Breathtaking is what they should have named her, but her mother revered Shakespeare and her father breathed poetry.

So she was named June, in relation to Shakespeare's “Shall I compare thee to a summer day,” and indeed, she was more temperate and more lovely than summer.

She wore a spaghetti strap top, an over shirt large enough to fit famous Hollywood “the Rock,” a pair of skinny shorts she had cut to reach where her curves stopped, and some Nike sandals that Beatrice had gifted her on her nineteenth birthday. She also stuck a doughnut in her mouth to complete the look.

The lobbies were dark; it was going to rain, and the clouds were pregnant with H20. The rooms echoed and the large halls were silent

June felt like Alice in Wonderland even though she was still at Eckomoff University, and every corner was going to be filled in five hours or less. But she wasn't going to allow herself to think about the future. All that mattered was the present.

So she hummed tunes and swirled like a princess in an abandoned castle with her headphones blasting Harry Styles in her ears.

But the funny thing about abandoned castles is that they're never truly abandoned.

There was always someone or something lurking behind the shadows, and on that day, his name was Stephen Norman Knight, and he was sitting in her spot at the entrance to the library.

The door was locked but June could see him through the window-like glass that was in the door, but she couldn't see him well. She saw someone wearing a hoodie casually chewing gum. He was leaning on the chair so she knew it was a man.

‘Just go somewhere else.’ something told June, and seconds before she turned around, she chose not to listen to the voice. And that was where her bad decisions started from.

‘ The library is big enough for both of us. Right?’ So she thought to herself before she knocked.

Unsure if he had heard her the first time, she knocked again.

‘Why did he lock himself in in the first place?’ she thought, and so she knocked again. And again, and angrily the fourth

time, the fifth time, and the sixth time…

Of course he was an arrogant prick.