The Benefits of Sexting

Chapter 7

Turns out, it didn't matter what Sawyer wanted.  He'd lied to me and made me look like a complete idiot. So, no matter how many times he called, I ignored him. Plus, he was suspended from school so I didn't even have to deal with seeing him in person. 

What I did have to deal with was gossiping sixteen-year-olds, and that was almost worse. 

I will not fight a sixteen-year-old, I told myself.  And no matter how much I wanted to shove her brace face into the lumpy mashed potatoes on her lunch tray as she snickered in my direction, I knew that it was the right thing to walk away.

"What a slut. She probably learned from her sister."

Okay that was enough...

I turned in the direction of Sarah, Leah's ex-best friend, so that I was fully facing her and her table of evil gossipers. As soon as we made eye contact she shrank back into her seat and looked down at her food, as if she knew I was seconds away from kicking her teeth out.

"I think you succeeded in making her crap her pants. Now move along," Ty said, grabbing my hand and leading toward our regular lunch table.

We sat down together, Ty setting down his tray piled high with food. Porter was on a mathlete field trip and our table felt oddly empty without him. "Did you hear about Sawyer?" Ty asked through a mouthful of french fries.

Who hadn't heard about Sawyer?

When I didn't answer, he laughed. "Is that a yes or a no?" Ty asked. "You kind of just grunted and bit into your apple. And since when do you eat apples?"

I swallowed the clump of chewed up apple in my mouth and looked down at the fruit in my hand, surprised to see it there. My breakup with Jack was actually driving me insane...

"Can we not talk about Sawyer?"

Ty looked as if he was about to say something but then he stopped, his eyes going wide as he looked behind me. I shifted in my seat to find Emily, Ty's ex-girlfriend, standing with her hands in her pockets and a shy smile on her face. "Hey, guys," she said, giving us both warm smiles.

Ty stood up abruptly, his chair shooting away from the lunch table as he did. "I have to pee." Both Emily and I watched as he vacated the lunchroom at an extremely fast speed.

"He hates me," Emily concluded, sitting down in the chair beside me.

"Well you did break his heart into tiny, itty bitty little pieces."

She sighed. "He won't talk to me. I need him to understand that I didn't mean to hurt him. I just—"

"Woah there, girl, don't explain this to me. Tell Ty how you feel."

Emily tucked a piece of her dark brown hair behind her ear and sighed. "But he won't listen to me. Every time I get near him he runs out of the room."

"Well, you kind of broke up with him without any explanation. Coming from someone who's been there, I know how crappy it feels," I told her.

Even after Ty and Emily's breakup, I was never hostile toward her. However, I was protective of my best friend, and I didn't want him to get hurt again. At least Emily was willing to talk to Ty. Jack wanted nothing to do with me. I peered over at his lunch table, unsurprised to find his best friend, Austin rowdily throwing food at one of the other guys. Jack didn't seem like he was in a good mood, I could tell by the way he was picking at his potatoes absentmindedly. Mashed potatoes were probably one of his favorite foods, so there had to be something wrong if he wasn't eating them.

As if he could sense my eyes on him, he peered over at my table. Not being able to stop myself, I smiled in his direction, feeling my heart start to beat faster under the pressure of his eyes. I didn't see if he even smiled back. Austin stepped in his path and looked back at me, a not so friendly looking expression in his eyes.