Life Without You

12

"Keep a little fire burning. However small. However hidden." 

* * *

As a child it had always just been me and my sister. I mean I had lived with my dad for the first nine years of my life and I had spent my entire childhood in my mother's apartment but I had never felt safe around them like I did Amber. My older sister had always cared for me. Even when she didn't have anyone to care for her. She was the only one who had ever actually cared about what happened to me.

So whenever Sam said that he was proud of me or that he knew I was going to do great on my next test I knew it couldn't possibly be real. I didn't know why Sam was so obsessed with helping me but I knew that it wasn't because he actually cared. Because Amber was the only person to ever do that and now she was gone.

And even though I knew I was probably just some kind of charity case to him he still made me feel hopeful.

Whenever he mentioned passing a test or told me that I was progressing really quickly I felt hope. I quickly pushed the feeling down because I knew hope did more damage than it helped. I needed to protect myself and if I continued to let Sam's words affect me I was never going to make it out of this stupid city.

But still, I wanted to pass that test.

I wasn't supposed to care about school, that wasn't part of the plan. But every tutoring session was making me care more and more.

"Okay, the Trig test is this Friday so we need to have our heads in the game the rest of this week." Sam said, a boyish grin taking over his face. "Did you bring your study guide?"

I pulled the three page packet out of my backpack. It had accidentally been folded in half and the corners were crumbled. I smoothed it out with my hand before looking back at Sam.

"Did a bear attack it or something?" He asked, fighting back a chuckle.

"I'm sorry I'm not as organized as you, Mr. OCD."

"Hey," He smiled. "You made a joke."

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it." I grunted as I pulled a pencil out of my bag and started to write my name on the packet. When I looked up to see Sam was still staring at me with that smile on his face. "What are you smiling at?" I asked.

"You." He said, somehow smiling even more.

"Well stop it, I'm trying to study."

This boy really was something.

"Stop!" I said, fighting back my own laugh.

"Okay, okay, okay, I'll stop, but only because we do need to study." Sam pulled his chair over to my side of the table before starting to explain the first question to me. "This one's simple. First you need to decide if it's soh, cah, or, toa."

I looked down at the triangle in the first problem. "Soh."

"And why's that?"

"Because we are trying to find the length of the side adjacent to the angle."

Sam beamed proudly. "Exactly! Now you have to write out the formula."

I picked up my pencil and started to scribble down the equation, using the eraser multiple times to get rid of my mistakes. "Sine of 46 degrees equals x over 14."

"Great! What's the last step?"

"I have to simplify it so I can put it in my calculator, which would make it 14 times sine of 46." I quickly typed the simplified equation into the calculator. "X equals 10.07."

"You're going to pass this test just fine, Sierra." Sam said, leaning back in his chair.

I moved onto the next few problems, occasionally asking Sam for help but for the most part I was doing pretty good on my own and Sam's constant encouragement only made me want to keep working.

"Sam!" A high pitched female voice rang out from behind Sam and I. We both turned to see who was yelling his name.

"Oh, hi Kayla." Sam said not sounding excited in the slightest.

I recognized Kayla from one of my classes. She didn't seem to like me very much, I didn't give that much attention to her but when I did it always seemed like she was glaring at me. She was beautiful though with long dark hair and big blue eyes. She was smart too which only made me hate her more. She was always getting every question right.

"So what are you doing here?" Kayla asked and I swear to God she was twirling a piece of hair around her finger.

"Just studying." Sam shrugged.

"Oh my gosh! Are you in the middle of a tutoring session right now? Her eyes flickered to me before she looked back at Sam. "You know they just let anyone in this school nowadays."

"It's a public school, Kayla."

Again Kayla looked over at me. "I know but they're other public schools. Ones that are probably a lot easier to graduate from, if you know what I mean."

"Sierra is my friend and it feels like you are trying to insult her." Sam crossed his arms over his chest. "And it's kind of making me mad." No one had ever called me their friend before. The only person I ever hung out with was my sister and I guess sometimes her friends were around but that's all they were to me. Her friends.

"I'm not trying to insult her." Kayla shrugged. "I'm just being honest."

"Well, honestly? You're being a bitch." Sam stated and when Kayla gasped I almost gasped too.

"Whatever, Sam." Kayla said, rolling her eyes before she turned around and stomped away.

"You didn't have to do that." I told him when Kayla was gone.

"Yeah, I didn't have to, I did it because I wanted to." 

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