Reality Babes

17- Kiss Me

He turned to face me, still looking kind of sarcastic. "Maybe because I have no desire to tell you anything, and the only reason I'm talking is because I know you won't leave me alone until I do."

I smiled. "You know me," I told him.

He sort of smiled back, except I could tell he was still sort of sad. After a beat, when it seemed that he wasn't going to say anything, I spoke again.

"So are you just gonna stand there and look out to the world all melodramatic-like or are you gonna tell me what's up?" Not my most tactful moment, but maybe it was necessary. 

"You're so pushy," he muttered.

"And you like to avoid conversations like this," I shot back almost immediately.

He sighed, and I could see the Bad Guy Sage beginning to return. "I'm gonna keep this really short and simple. Five years ago today my mother went into a coma and she has yet to come out."

My shocked silence didn't get the chance to last very long, because he started walking inside. I quickly grabbed his arm and held him back. "You are not leaving me with that," I told him defiantly. 

He groaned out of frustration, but pulled me inside with him, stomping out his cigarette on the way. He sat down on his bed, and I sat down next to him. "So," he finally said, not looking me in the eye while I stared intently at him. "You know how I'm a terrible person."

"No you're not," I said.

He gave me a look. "Avery."

"Okay, so you have your days," I said.

"Well, take me and all my terrible qualities, and times that by a million. That's my dad."

I opened my mouth to interject, then closed it back. He'd probably close up again if I spoke.

"My dad was an alcoholic, and the biggest dick you could ever meet. I still can't understand how my mother had children with him." he continued.

I took note of the fact that he said children, meaning he had a sibling. I just wondered if it was older or younger.

"He was a terrible person. So, naturally, I started to be just like him," he said.

"Don't say that," I muttered. No matter who his father was, Sage had a good heart.

Sage shrugged. "I started going to parties and drinking and drugs and just doing terrible things. And this was when I was like thirteen. My brother was the same as me, and he was older than me. I would tag along to his parties, and since I looked a good two years older than I was, no one questioned it."

I pulled my knees up to my chest then rested my head on them, wrapped up in his story.

"My mom didn't like the path we we're going down and tried to get us to stop. She signed us up for a bunch of auditions and stuff to fill up our time so we wouldn't party, but that never worked on my brother. I actually went to most of them because I actually thought they were fun. Anyways, one night when I was like sixteen and my acting career was starting to take off, my brother was driving home from a party, he was drunk, and he crashed his car. He died instantly, along with the three other people in the car."

I put my hand up to my mouth to stop the gasp that wanted to escape. His reason for being messed up was already ten times worse than mine.

"That night, when my parents found out, I ran away. I was gone for three days, and the only reason I came back was because I saw a mugshot of my dad on the news. He'd beaten my mother to the point where she was almost dead. I turned myself in to the police station, and they let me see my mother in the hospital. She looked terrible, and all I could think was that I let that happen to her-"