‘What makes you so damn sure that you’re worth it, huh?’
“My mother told me to be nice and friendly so I did and now I’m terrified that he may actually of seen that as me opening up, warming up to him. I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of that. Talking briefly over a meal I can do, knowing I don’t actually have to come back and trust and open up my arms welcoming someone into my life. I’m selfish. I’m the kind of selfish that would risk hurting someone else to stop me getting hurt.” I replied. Quinn did her usual thing of noting everything down before looking back up to continue with what it was she was planning on talking about.
“How do you really feel about the situation, with new people with getting to know them, with letting them in.”
“I don’t know. I want to get to know these people, I want to be able to let them in, but I can’t it’s like I’d rather be alone than risk getting hurt. The idea of wounding back up where I am truly terrifies me.”
It was true. I was terrified that if I allowed someone new in that they would end up hurting me. Trust was something I couldn’t give. People counted on trust both ways for friendship, never mind a relationship to work. Not that I had planned on stumbling onto love any time soon. I wasn’t one who was going to.
***
Two day’s had past since my birthday, and all the weather had seemed to do was rain continuously. There were times I liked the rain, often enough it became boring and brought only peoples moods down. I’d never particularly been mood affected by the weather but on certain days it had it’s affects.
Today the sun had finally made it’s appearance once again, allowing pure Garden time after I had finished the hours of home schooling. Often enough I would just sit on the outside couch that was covered by a small sheltered section about it, scrolling through the endless pages of Tumblr, and watching many a you tube video. Of course there were day’s I replaced it with a book, or a fashion magazine.
Today the plan had been to scroll endlessly, reblogging until I grew bored and decided to switch for something inside to do. That was until Sawyer’s head popped up over the fence separating our gardens. “Hey, do you fancy going somewhere?”
“Don’t you have friends?”
“Don’t you?” He asked back, raising his eyebrows as he waited for me to answer, but I just went back to my laptop. “An hour and then I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the day, I promise.” He offered making a small smile making an appearance on his face.
“It‘s still a no either way.” I decided to ignore the question, and jump back to the first.
“Fine, then you will be stuck with me standing here talking to you all evening, or playing music you take a disliking to incredibly loudly until you agree.” He said making a challenging face.
I sighed, but kept scrolling and switching from certain sites back to others, hoping that if I annoyed him he would get the message. I didn’t understand why someone would try so hard to spend time with me.
As I ignored him, he began to talk about the pointless things. “You know the weather is just great, the sun is out the weather is warm and you know what would be great? If you just said yes to a stroll I’m pretty sure this would be a hell of a lot better. Actually cake, cake would be delightful right now.”
“If I go inside will you go?”
“I’d more than likely knock your door a few times, and play old 60’s music obnoxiously loud so that you could hear it.
“Make it half hour of my time.”
“Great, meet me out front.” He smiled, before he disappeared.
Leaving a note, I said I wouldn’t be long and slipped out to find Sawyer already waiting. His guitar strapped around him, while spectacles sat comfortably on his nose. The glasses didn’t particularly suit him. “You look awful with glasses.”
“I can’t see with out them, usually I wear contacts but I ran out.”
“You wasn’t wearing any a minute ago?” I asked making sure I wasn’t imagining things.
“I took them off so while I popped my head over. I can see with out them just not well.” He explained before starting to walk up the road slowly for me to start following along.
“Why did you try so hard to talk to me? Normally people don’t really like people who stick around when they aren’t wanted.”
“You could of told me you had plans in five minutes and I would of stopped asking.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I frowned hoping he would.
“I’ll answer if you answer mine. No ignoring or running away.” He said his expression turning rather serious, while he met my gaze, holding it for a few seconds before I nodded in agreement.
“I heard you didn’t actually have any friends, that you were kind of a loner from people in my classes. I’ve been there, no one wanted to talk to me through most of my schooling. I had braces for a year, I kind of spat a little when I talked to people, I have a learning disability which people found out about and I was kind of weird. I was really into my gaming and my superheroes. I suppose I was that really stereotypical geeky swat.” He laughed slightly. “It just takes a few people to actually try and care and get to know someone, before people see they aren’t really alone.”
“I’m not a loner, I talk to people.” I snapped, as he opened up a gate that lead down to the park which consisted of a little lake area just down the small grassy hill from the playground.
“Family members don’t count.”
“I have issues okay. I just prefer to be on my own, which is why you are kind of ruining that.” I replied. Part of me couldn’t help but admit he was right, people hadn’t really tried, but at the same time I was never willing to let people try. It was only recently I had began to socialise with Harper. A small, petite ‘goth’ girl. I wouldn’t of used the term friendship to explain us. I’d of said more along the lines of someone I just spent an hour or so with on the odd occasion.
“For some reason I don’t believe you.” He said before coming to a stop a few meters away from the lake. A few small ducklings followed around the mother, while a swan stayed swimming happily on the other side, where some people were stood with their children, throwing in bread.
“I learnt a Rae Morris song for you. It’s Grow, and if you don’t know it I think I might have to throw you in the pond,” he joked laughing slightly as he said it.
“You couldn’t of just actually waited until your BBQ to play for someone and call me over?” I questioned, curious as to why he was so eager to play.
“You really don’t make it easy for someone to try and talk to get to know you, you know.” He said, sorting his guitar as I finally sat down next to him on the grass.
“You going to play?”
“Sure.” He began checking the sound with a few chords before he began playing.
It was soft and beautiful and I sang the words to myself inside my head, instead of allowing them to tumble out in a horrible pitchy tone death way that would of ruined the lyrics that Sawyer did sing. His voice had a unique tone, like a few guitar playing artists, it was something you couldn’t really describe, it was just something you said you liked or didn’t. I took a personal liking to it.
“That was really good, do you practice often?”
“Thanks, yeah I suppose. I used to teach in a small music shop a few towns over before I moved. I’m hoping to start up again.”
“You should you are good. Now if you’ll excuse me you’ve had half an hour.” I said whilst getting to my feet, to brush myself off.
“Have you ever done anything spontaneous?”
“Of course.”
“I meant recently. The answer I’m guessing is no, so how about staying until you really want to go home. Make that your spontaneous thing, this that can be classed spontaneous for you.”
“Can we go get coffee?” I asked, pursing my lips together as I stood twiddling my thumbs.
“Do you actually want to?” He asked in a caring, sincere way that showed he wasn’t prepared to force me into doing something.
“We ran out of coffee in my house so I need to pick some up, so yeah.” I smiled, pulling down my cardigans sleeved over my hands to cover them up, a habit I did when I was nervous and wasn’t sure what to say.
“I’m sorry. I just, why do you push everyone away, what is it you are so afraid of?” He asked, only to see a few tears begin to form in the corners of my eyes. Swiping quickly at them before they could fall he fell silent for a few seconds, “I’m sorry you don’t need to answer that it isn’t my business.”
“It’s fine, but I think I’ll pick that coffee up another day if you don’t mind.” Right now all I wanted to do was wrap myself in a blanket watching old movies that were filled with cheesy lines that should never of been said and horrendous hairdos.
“I’ll walk you home.”
The walk was pretty silent apart from the when Harrison Miles pulled up along side us. “Hey Matthews what you doing with this whack job?” Nodding over towards me as he said whack job. I just continued to walk on, ignoring him. I only knew insults and hurt feelings would come from Harrison. He didn’t seem to understand that he really hurt people, it was all just something funny to him.
“Her names Willow, not whack job.” Sawyer replied, before beginning to walk down after me. “And I’m walking with her Harrison.”
“Hey if you want to chill with her fine, I’m just saying it isn’t a good idea. Freaks aren’t exactly great company, anyway Sophie and Amy are having a party next weekend, told me to give you this.” He said chucking over a gold envelope to him before driving off, with a last words of “See ya.”
“Willow wait!” Sawyer said jogging up behind me, only to find we were now standing outside his house.
“Are you okay? Don’t pay attention to-”
“Is that who you heard I was a loner from?” I asked, hoping the answer was no. It was hard to believe that me and Harrison had once been friends, we’d gone to each others birthday parties and use to hang around together in the school yards.
“No, I heard a couple people talking about it as I said, look what he said Harrison’s a complete idiot who doesn’t take in account peoples feelings he sees things black and white don’t listen to him.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for tonight your guitar playing is good so your voice. Later.” I said putting up a small smile before walking up my own drive.
***
I laid down on the sofa gazing up at the ceiling while I thought about everything. Imagining Sawyer as a lonely, isolated kid seemed hard. He was friendly and sweet but with humour it seemed ridiculous that he would have been that kid.
It had been the sound of knocking that had pulled me out of my train of thought and back into the reality of the present day. Draping the blanket around my shoulders I shuffled through the rooms and hall to open the door only to find Sawyer holding a pot of coffee and a small little note.
“I wanted to apologise for my question and comments earlier. Willow will you forgive me by taking this coffee and if not I am even prepared to show you the photo of this dorky kid a few years ago. It honestly isn’t a pretty sight. Heck, if this could be a way to earning friendship with the loner I’d gladly take it.”
I smiled, raising an eyebrow as I took both the picture and the coffee. Looking down at the picture Sawyer was exactly as he described. He had shaggy brown hair, with teeth that seemed to refuse to go straight, but the braces looked like that were beginning to do their job in certain areas. His clothes were off poor choice, they looked as if they had been matched by a blind man, while in his hand he held up what looked like a limited edition comic book.
Biting on my bottom lip to suppress a laugh I hand the picture back over. “You hadn’t found contact lenses yet I see.”
“Thanks for not laugh, but you are allowed to you know.”
“I know, but I thought maybe I’ve been rude enough to you today.”
“Sorry can you say that last part again?” Sawyer smirked, placing his hand to his ear, waiting for me to repeat. “I don’t think I quite heard you the first time.”
A/N : Okay I haven't actually read over this chapter at all in the sense of looking for mistakes and errors so apologies for the amount that might be in here. ANYWHO, I really hope you like this chapter and let me know what you think please? Vote, comment, and thank you for reading! Have a lush day :P
xoxo