The Older We Get

Chapter 19

               "Wha-" I stop the car and scurry to reach for my bookbag in the backseat, nearly kicking open the door in the process of hurrying out of the parking lot towards the two guys that have been giving me trouble lately. I don't even notice what I'm doing, barging in on their conversation until I hear Reen call out my name and it's too late for me to hide before I'm spotted by both of them, their eyes on me and my frazzled state.

Oh boy, I didn't plan for what would happen after they saw me.

"Sage." Joshua turns a bit towards me, and I avert my eyes from his towards Chandler's blue one's, their glow a bit shaded and blank, like I'm an intruder, but I can't help to leap in front of Joshua and frown at this...16 year old?

Sh1t, I forgot his age!

"Sage?!" Joshua leans to the side to get a look at my profile.

"Whatever you're doing stop it!" I yell at Chandler without warning. "You've done enough! Trouble everywhere you turn! You're such a pest! I'm telling you this time for real as well, butt out!"

"Sage-"

"Do you understand!?" I cut Joshua off and see Chandler give me a look before staring at the ground, a sigh coming out next.

"Sage, forget it." Joshua puts a hand on my shoulder and I had no idea it would feel this foreign even though not long ago we were kissing with...imitated passion?

"Josh-"

"He was apologizing." He turns me around a bit and for once doesn't bother with a weak smile, all the while I feel my zoom of strength diminishing.

"Uh-Apolo-g-gizing...?"

Huh?

"And explaining what happened. All of it."

"All of it?!"

What does 'all of it' mean?!

"Sorry again for breaking you up." I look at Chandler who seems to be addressing Josh and not me. "For me doing that to Sage's neck and everything else. She didn't do anything wrong. It was all me." His words come out, very, adult like, which is something I didn't expect, and I'm left feeling like a fool when he doesn't even give me a chance to speak up, walking off with his black book bag on one shoulder and his boots leading him towards the school entrance doors, no one around wise to what we three were speaking of.

I feel as though I'm still asleep.

"He came up to me out of nowhere and said he wanted to talk some things out. I wasn't too hot for the idea, but it helped, if just a little." Joshua says what's more than fair, and I don't know what to do here but feel like a complete ignoramus, the sun strengthening up with its shine while my ex waits for me to open my mouth and form a word, but I doubt there's any inside me to remedy my blunder in this situation.

It's stupid of me to be feeling this way, I'm sure but, sh1t, I feel like a rat on top of a rat.

"You said before that you don't want to be in a relationship with me."

"Joshua-"

"Lemme finish." He shifts and smiles. "It's going to be hard for me not to call you and talk about what I had for dinner, text you everything that made me think of you whenever I feel like it, and it's going to be hard not to throw my arm around you and call you 'babe' whenever I see you laughing..." In truth, our history is like a habit, and my end isn't completely without emotion. I understand how Joshua feels, if only a little. "I'd appreciate it, if we weren't friends for a while."