・❥・
sawyer.iglesia: how's that tattoo holding up?
sage.like.the.color: still going on strong
him: i knew i did a good job
him: if you ever need another fake tattoo done you know who to call
me: i'll definitely keep you in mind
He's never putting a temporary tattoo on me ever again, especially after almost giving me a heart attack the last time. I swear, I almost internally combusted with how sweet and gentle he was being with me.
I can't let it happen again because if it does I'll fall at his feet and beg him to be mine. He deserves better than me. So, the next time that I see him, I'm gonna pretend nothing happened because I can't risk losing our friendship over this.
him: i better be the first option that's all i'm saying
him: anyway my scrimmage is about to start so i'll see you later
me: you mean talk to me later
him: sure
me: you're annoying you know that?
him: you love it
I roll my eyes and close out of the app, beginning to make my way to one of the study hall classrooms to meet up with Jake.
My Spanish teacher assigned a project for the class and said that we need to do it with our seat partner so I was stuck doing it with the son of a bitch Jake. Not to sound cocky or anything but I'm sort of a Spanish God when it comes to that class so I feel like my teacher is always coming up with ways to spite me in order to make me fail. Sitting me next to Jake and assigning us this project are just two out of the few ways that he loves to make me miserable.
Don't even get me started on Jake. He treats me like a piece of shit and then expects me to help him whenever he doesn't understand something. The worst part is I abide everytime because I'm too afraid to do otherwise. There's just something about him that makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I have this horrible feeling that he will try something with me if I don't listen. That dude has such a short fuse it's actually ridiculous.
When we were discussing where we should work on the project, he kept insisting that we work on it outside of school like at his house or the park and I immediately shut it down. I want to avoid ever having to be alone with him.
I came up with some lie about how my parents don't let me hangout with boys and then suggested that we do it in one of the study hall rooms. He eventually relented, thank goodness because I don't know what I would have done if he didn't.
I make it to the room and spot Jake sitting in the back on his phone. I make my way over to him.
"You're late," is the first thing Jake says once I sit down in one of the chairs.
"Sorry, my teacher let me out a little late." No she didn't, I was just stalling so I didn't have to see your ugly ass face.
"Don't be late next time." I roll my eyes and start taking out my supplies from my backpack. "Did you hear me?" he asks after I don't respond.
"Sorry." Stop apologizing, you didn't do anything. "I'll be here on time." He seems satisfied with my answer because he nods and starts to unpack his backpack too.
We discuss what we're gonna do on the project, which took longer than it should have because Jake wasn't willing to compromise on any of my ideas but it's whatever. We finally start on the project both working peacefully on our assigned parts until Jake decides to open his stupid mouth after only thirty minutes of working.
"Sage, what the fuck are you doing?" he questions harshly. All of the students look over at us and I send them all what I hope is a smile.
I turn back to Jake. "What do you mean?"
"What do you mean?" he mimics. "We're supposed to be writing everything in the imperfect, not the preterit, dumb ass."
"No we're not. I looked back at the instructions and it said preterit," I defend, trying to keep my calm so we don't attract any more attention.
"You're wrong," he counters.
"I'm not, you can look at the instructions if you want."
He opens up his chromebook and I assume goes to the document that has all of the instructions on it. After watching him skim the document for a few seconds, he roughly closes his computer and then turns to me.
"If you saw that I was doing my part wrong then why didn't you say anything? Now I have to redo everything," he complains, as it's my fault that he did his part wrong.
"This isn't my fault," I say.
"Of course it is," he amends.
"No it's not. You mixed up the instructions, not me. Don't go blaming me for something that I had nothing to do with," I defend, my voice strong. My eyes slightly widen at the realization that I just stood up for myself.
"Oh yeah?" Shit.
"Yeah."
"Well now, you're gonna fix my mistake. I don't feel like redoing it," he orders.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. You're redoing my part of the project." This bitch.
"And what if I don't want to redo it, Jake?"
"Then you'll regret it," he threatens.
"I'll regret it?" An incredulous laugh escapes me. "Who the hell even are you? I don't ever remember giving you the right to speak to me like this." I'm so tired of his bullshit. I'm done.
"I can't talk to anyone however I want, especially you," he answers, a scary glare settling on his face.
"Especially me? Okay, you know what? I'm out of here, I'll finish this project on my own." I quickly shove everything in my backpack no matter how much it pains me to see it all unorganized. I have to get out of here, I can't stand to look at his face for another second.
As I'm standing up, Jake reaches across the table and grabs onto my wrist harshly. As I'm trying to wriggle out of his hold, I look up trying to catch the eyes of the other people in the room but they all look like they are doing their best to avoid looking at Jake and I.
I can feel my eyes start to water out of frustration because no one is willing to help me and Jake's grip on my wrist is starting to hurt more by the second. I don't give up though, one final yank and my wrist is free, allowing me to hightail out of the room and get as far away from Jake as I can.
Jake calls out my name behind me but I don't even bother to turn around. I don't have the heart to hear what he has to me.
This is what I get. The first time that I decide to open my mouth and actually speak up for myself, this stupid shit happens. I get harassed and assaulted and nobody even made me move to help me, they all just turned a blind eye to it and left me there to fend for myself. I can still feel his hold on me. I cradle my wrist to my chest and start to walk faster, wiping the continuous tears that keep falling with my other hand.
All of the noise and voices around me start to mesh together, so I don't process the familiar voice that keeps calling out my name until the person said voice belongs to, steps in front of me.
"Sage... Sage, what's wrong?" Sawyer asks, his voice full of worry. When I look up from the ground and meet his eyes, all I see is concern. More tears start to fall. "No, no, don't cry. I don't like seeing you cry, never have." He gently pulls me into his chest and just holds me.
"I'm oka—"
"Sage!" Jake exclaims.
As I flinch to the sound of Jake's voice, Sawyer tenses. Instead of trying to pull away from Sawyer like I had originally planned to, I bury myself further into his chest.
He leans down and whispers in my ear, "Is this the guy that made you cry?" I don't speak, just tighten my arms that are around his waist. "C'mon baby, talk to me."
"Yeah," I sniffle. As I say this, Jake stands right in front of me and Sawyer.
"Who the fuck is this, Sage?" Jake demands.
"Who the fuck you are?" Sawyer fires back.
I take a deep breath and then step out of Sawyer's hold to look at Jake.
"What do you want, Jake?" I ask, my voice small and defeated.
"You didn't answer my question," he states.
"What do you want, Jake?" I repeat.
"I came to take you back to the class so we can finish the project." He tries to reach out for me but I take a step back. He tries again but this time Sawyer steps in front of me stopping him. I hide behind Sawyer, grabbing two fistfulls of his shirt in my hands so that I have something to hold on to. He reaches back and rests one of his arms on my waist.
"Don't touch her," he grits out.
"Look man," Jake starts. "This isn't any of your concern so if I were you, I would stay out of it."
"Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do if I don't?" he asks, egging him on.
"I don't know man. Just give me the girl—"
"Her name is Sage."
Jake rolls his eyes. "Give me Sage and let me do what I want with her, yeah?"
"Are you her boyfriend?"
"Well no—"
"So I'm not gonna just give her to you and let you do what you want with her. And, even if you were her boyfriend, there's no way in hell that I would just hand her over to you."
"Look bro—"
"No, bro, you look. I'm not just gonna stand here and let you talk to Sage like you own her. Leave her alone man and just get the hell out of here." Sawyer's about to turn to walk away but Jake speaks up.
"Make me," Jake says, and I swear I can hear the smirk in his voice.
Sawyer turns back around to look at him. "I'll call my boys and the four of us will make you, if that's what you want?"
"Fine bro." He directs his next statement towards me. "But next time your little boyfriend won't be here to save you Sage."
Sawyer starts to step towards Jake, but the grip that I have on his shirt—jersey, actually—is able to hold him back. I assume that Jake is gone because Sawyer turns around and focuses his attention on me.
"Who the hell is that guy, Sage?"
I sigh and look down at the ground. "He's my Spanish partner and a real asshole."
"Yeah, no shit sherlock." I give him a 'really' look. "Sorry. So, what happened between you guys?"
I tell Sawyer about the project and how Jake messed up and then blamed it on me and was gonna make me do his part of the project because he swore it was my fault. By the time I'm done with the story, Sawyer's fired up again.
"Fucking bitch. He probably has a little dick so he picks on people half his size to make him feel better about himself."
"He does give off small dick energy to be honest," I joke which lightens the mood because Sawyer chuckles.
"I'm sorry that he blew up on you like that Sage. You didn't deserve it and I'm glad that I was able to catch up to you before he tried anything," he admits.
"Yeah, me too. Thank you for saving me." I meet his gaze and try to muster up a smile.
"If anyone ever bothers you again, please let me know and I'll handle them."
"You'll handle them?" I ask, trying to hold in my laugh.
"That's what I said."
"Okay mafia, I see you," I tease you.
"Shut up. For real though, if someone bothers you like this Sage, please tells someone. If it's not me then the school or your teacher or someone. I don't want you to be in danger."
"I will, promise." He gives me a satisfied nod. "So, can we just address what you were doing here, at my school."
"I had a scrimmage against your school like I said earlier."
"And you didn't think to tell me that it was against my school?" I ask incredulously.
"Well I did say that I would see you later, I thought that would sort of make it obvious," he says like I would have caught on to that.
"I thought you were just being stupid."
"Wow," he draws out.
"Stop." I shove him playfully. "You know what I mean."
"Do I though?"
"No. We are not doing this right now so don't even start with me." Sawyer laughs.
"I should probably get back—"
"Sawyer!" someone yells from somewhere nearby. Sawyer tenses.
"I'm coming coach!" he yells back. "Come with me?"
"That's what she said," I say, trying to keep a straight face.
"You have the humor of a sixth grader," he grumbles
"C'mon," I scoff. "You gotta admit it was a little funny."
"It wasn't."
"Whatever, I'll come with you." I'm able to keep my composure this time.
"You did that on purpose." Sawyer tries to act annoyed but I can see the little smile threatening to escape.
As we're walking into the gym, I spot my principal and another important looking man standing next to him.
"Hello, players," the important looking man calls out. "My name is Mr. Henderson and I am the principal of Atticus High School." What's Sawyer's principal doing here? "I'm going to need all of your attention because I have a very important announcement to make." The gym quiets down and then he speaks up again. "Atticus High School is shutting down."
"What?" Sawyer mumbles under his breath as the hold gym erupts into chatter.
"Quiet down everyone. The school has been losing a lot of students and staff at an ungodly rate. I have been talking to a lot of the schools around the area and Mr. Brown has agreed to take in all of the remaining students from Atticus High."
"Welcome students, we are excited for all of you to join the Gray Hill High family," my principal, Mr. Brown announces to all of the students.
Sawyer and I look at each other with astonished expressions.
"Holy shit," we mutter.
Word Count: 2402
author's note:
HI BAES! Here is Chapter 9!! I know that this chapter probably didn't have a lot of Sage and Sawyer like you guys would have wanted but hopefully there will be a lot more of them with the way that this chapter ended. I hope you guys are excited because I AM!! They won't have to keep bumping into each other out of nowhere anymore because there is only so many things that I can think of to make them interact with each other. Anyway, I'm just excited for what comes next.
Be sure to let me know your thoughts on the book and characters :)
I love you and I am proud of you. I hope that you have a beautiful day <3
elisa <3