The Road Trip//h.g.

11. apologies

*Hayes's pov*

I sat in my kitchen on Monday morning, waiting for nash to get downstairs to take me to school. I munched on Cheerios and scrolled through twitter, until something caught my eye.

@JacobGates: I guess queen bee isn't as strong as we all thought?

And he inserted a recording that sounded like Sophia talking about her cuts

Oh god.

How did he get that? It's not like she goes around telling everyone who will listen. Has she seen this yet? I sure hope not. I haven't talked to her since yesterday morning.

"Oh god, this is not good." I say to myself.

"What's not good?" Nash asks, rounding a corner into the kitchen.

"Oh, uh, I forgot to do a project." I lie.

"Oh, ok. You ready to go?"

"Yeah." I grab my backpack and head out to Nash's car.

~&~

I got to school a little bit later, went to my locker,and looked around until I found Sophia in the art room, hunched over a drawing. I quietly enter the room and sit down next to her.

"Hey." She beats me to saying.

"Hi." I kiss her cheek. "I didn't know you could draw?"

"It's really nothing." She shrugs. We both look down at the beauty in the scene she has just drawn. It's a lake, with a canoe in the middle, and the sun setting in the background.

"C'mon babe, it's a lot more than nothing." I see a slight smile creep onto her face as I call her babe.

She stays silent, and blows some loose strands from her curled ponytail back.

"Are you ok?" I blurt.

She thinks for a moment, as if deciding on an answer.

"Well, I lost pretty much all of my friends, and I feel kind of worthless, so no, I'm not okay." Sophia goes around the room, putting back the colored pencils she had been using.

"Worthless?"

"Do you need a dictionary?" She sasses me.

"Sophia, why do you feel worthless?" It breaks my heart seeing someone this beautiful hate herself.

"Because Jacob didn't want me, and Alex doesn't want me, and Liz doesn't want me, and Matt doesn't want me-"

"Hey,no no no stop that." I interrupt her. I grab the sweater she had been wearing off a chair and she slips it on over her tanktop.

"How about instead of going through all the people you don't think want you, how about going through the list of all the people who do want you?" I suggest.

"Like who?"

"Well," I pull her into a hug, "your mom, Anna, Paige,....me."

"Hayes, I...I'm so sorry if I made you feel like I didn't want you to be here." She confesses.

"Why would you have made me feel that?" I ask, sitting down in a chair and pulling one out for her to sit in.

"Because...I said no one wanted me, when you were right there, and you are so good to me, and I just....I don't know." She struggles with her words.

"Sweetheart, you are so beautiful, inside and out, I don't know why anyone wouldn't be good to you."

She smiles at me, and I kiss her forehead.