It'll be

chapter nineteen.

Sage stepped out of her car worried about Darren. She had been successful in dodging his calls, but now, she couldn't run anymore. She took out her tote bag from the backseat and a bottle of water. In her stomach was unsettled butterflies and there was a fearful lightness in her chest about seeing Darren. It wasn't fair to him, but in the same way, it wasn't fair to her. She wished he told her about ask that happened.

She started towards the tuition block, hoping that she wouldn't have to face him yet. She was not ready, she wouldn't never be. In the back of her head it was obvious he would chase her and apologise to her tremendously and explain how he did what he did for love, how he never told her to protect her, so seeing him, sat in a gazebo, making small talk with another girl, making her giggle and blush all over her face was like a stab in an unheard wound.

She felt like her feet was cut from her body and she couldn't move so she had to stop. Her eyes didn't leave him. She felt the sting in her eyes, and even more so, when he coincidentally turned and looked at her. Now was his time, to run to her and lift her from the ground in a warm squeeze-or so she thought. But he didn't. He turned right back to the girl and carried on, like the sight of her standing there, stranded, gripping her water bottle, her eyes filled with disappointment was nothing.

She wasn't able to do this. Look at him, do with another girl as he did with her and won her over, so she turned, back to her car, acknowledged that she expected too much, that maybe he wasn't as blinded and obsessed as she thought he was. She got back in the deep dark hole of trying convince herself that she never really like him that much-deep down she did, but she always had the last laugh. And this case wasn't going to be any different.

After her little pep talk, which was just a thick string of lies, she stepped out of her car once again, but this time, that fear was replaced with nothing but but confidence propelled with lies and spite. She walked to the tuition block, her chin up, her face straight. She radiated a 'top of the pyramid' aura with her confidence. This build up her wall around her. The same wall that took Darren months to bring down, she had it back up in minutes.

******
It was the end of the day and Razaiah walked to the car park, on the phone with her mum telling her that she and Sage had to go grocery shopping for her. It was a really tough week for their mother, with tight schedules, and her help having chosen that to be their day off. She walked to Sage's jeep and knocked on her window.

"Mama wants us to go grocery shopping." She spoke once Sage had rolled her window down.

"What, why?" She was confused by the unusual occurrence.

"I don't know, she's been running around like a chicken with her head cut off."

"What do you mean grocery shopping..." she groaned not really for the idea.

Darren approached the two cousins looking nervous, somehow knowing that Sage wouldn't even give him the light of day.

"Hey y'all," he said, managing a slight smile on his face.

"Razaiah, meet me at sam's club, don't be too long." Sage said, completely ignoring Darren, then reversed out of her parking spot.

Razaiah and Darren watched her speed out of the school in her wrangler, that they both silently thought matched her personality.

"I do not know what to do." He sighed.

"Do you really like her?" She countered.

"Yes, I love her... I wouldn't be here otherwise."

"Get to her through my dad." She simply stated, knowing that it was a bad idea but it would work.

"How about I just talk to her like a normal person" he said, not wanting a repeat of events.