𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐒 | 𝐆𝐢𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬

20| Innocent.

20 | Innocent.

| Sage's POV |

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Walking down sidewalks while reading has never ended very well for me. Yet, here I am, once again.

And once again, running into someone.

Surprisingly though, this time I stopped myself! That right there, folks, is called growth.

"I'm sorry—oh. Oh! Wesley, hi." I smiled, balancing my book back on the stack of them in my hands, pulling up my backpack.

I swear this thing weighs forty pounds.

"Sage? Hi, it's nice to see you." He replied, handing me a book that fell onto him. "Thanks, you too. What are you doing here?"

"My parents had to meet someone. It got boring so I just started walking around." He explained. I nodded, "oh cool. Do you live around here?"

"Harford," he said. "You go to Chilton then too, I'm guessing?" I asked. "Yeah, I'm surprised I haven't seen you around." I shrugged, "I keep to myself mostly. Plus, I think you're in the grade above me."

We talked for the next few minutes, mostly about school. He was pretty cool, but I meant it when I said he wasn't my type. I don't think I was his either.

He ended up having to leave to go back to his parents. "Good luck," I smiled. "Thanks." He said.

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"I'm terrible at coming up with names." Mom groaned, sitting across from Luke. They were currently talking about something involving business, while I was studying.

"When we first bought our house, we wanted to name it. You know, like Jefferson named his place Monticello." She explained.

"Monticello was a plantation owned by one of the most famous people in the world. We can hardly compare." I told her, looking up from my notebook.

Mom brushed me off. "But, all we could come up with The Crap Shack."

"I thought Chateau Relaxo was fitting, but I guess not." I shrugged.

"Coffee?" I looked up again, seeing Jess. I sighed, setting down my pen. "What do you think?"

"Why are you glaring at me?" He narrowed his eyes. "I'm hoping you'll spontaneously combust!" I smiled.

"I hate you," he mumbled, pouring my coffee, his eyes on mine.

"Why? I'm lovely."

He stared at me blankly. "Just not to you, of course." I added on.

"Ah," he nodded once, "makes sense."

My mom cleared her throat, making my eyes snap away from him. "How are you, Jess?"

"Oh, I'm not bleeding or anything," he replied, purposefully hitting my shoulder with his elbow.

"How unfortunate." I said, hitting him back.

He rolled his eyes, looking at Luke. "Do you want me to go to school or do you want to openly defy child-labor laws?'

I tossed my notebook in my bag, zipping it up and throwing it on my shoulder. " I should go too," I told my mom.

"Go." Luke said, "stay out of trouble."

"Guess that means calling off the chickie run," Jess said, grabbing his coat. "And canceling the strippers scheduled to let termites out into your principles car." I teased, smiling.

"How will I ever survive?" He walked backwards towards the door, facing me, as I followed him.

I shrugged as he opened the door for me, "it's a mystery."

"See you!" I called out to my mom, walking outside with Jess right behind me.

We looked at each other, breaking off into our separate paths. "Have a good day, idiot." I smiled.

"You too, princess."

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School sucked, as usual.

But, I will say, all that studying for my psychology test a few weeks ago, definitely paid off, 110%. I got the extra credit from the writing portions.

"Hey, you," I felt someone nudge my shoulder.

"Hi, Jess." I said, not even bothering to look up.

"How was school? If you even went today, that is." I teased, smiling a bit. He only shrugged.

"Oh!" I moved my backpack to the front of me, pulling out a book. I handed it out to him.

"Oliver Twist," he mumbled, taking it.

"I owed you," I said, watching as he opened it, flipping through the pages.

A small smile tugged on his lips as he read the annotations, the small notes in the margins. I tabbed it like he did, luckily enough we had pretty much the same style when it came to writing in books.

Eventually, he looked up, meeting my eyes. We stopped walking, staring at eachother. He leaned against a pole, one I had actually ran into from time to time.

"Thank you," he said.

I smiled, looking across the street when I heard commotion. Nearly half the town was standing there, all crowded in front of Taylor's grocery store. I looked down at the pavement, seeing a chalk outline with tape surrounding it.

I felt my mouth open, as I looked back at Jess. Judging by the look on his face, I could immediately tell he did it.

"Oh my god," I laughed, "you're so mean."

He scoffed, "I am not."

I raised an eyebrow, watching as he reevaluated his statement. "Fine, maybe a little bit. But only to some people."

"Oh yeah? And who are you nice to? Besides me, occasionally, at least."

I didn't really see him ever with anyone else. I'm assuming he had friend's, but honestly, with Jess, who knows. He also didn't seem like the type of person to  need friends, or maybe even want them.

"No one," he shrugged. "I don't care about anyone else. They can hate me all they want."

I resisted the urge to smile. "That's not a good mindset to have. Or very nice."

"Like I said," he inched his face closed to mine, leaning down. "I don't care."

His eyes pooled into mine, and suddenly I forgot how to breath.

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