Neither Here, Nor There

VI

The silence feels heavy and tangible. I stare into Saige's eyes.

"Your... Ex-Girlfriend who is... Dead?" Saige asks curiously.

"It's complicated," is what comes out of my mouth and I wince at the cliche statement.

"I'm sorry, Q," Saige tells me softly, touching my arm gently.

"Oh come on! You're making it hard to hate you!" Max yells loudly. She glares at Saige and then frowns when she sees her looking straight at her.

I blink when the realisation that Saige can now see Max hits me. Shit, this is going to be awkward.

"Hey," Saige says politely to Max.

Max chooses not to answer but storms away through the bookshelves. I watch her disappear and then turn to face Saige.

"I'm not in love with her," I start automatically.

"I know," Saige replies simply. "We have classes now," she tells me, pointing towards the clock on the wall.

I smile and take her hand, leading her out of the library.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So... Lunch?" I offer. The lecture had ended and we were standing in line to collect our assignments we had handed in last class. I glance down at my paper and smile briefly to see an A in the top right corner.

"Um... I'm sorry, I can't." Saige bites her lip apologetically. "I have a rhetorics paper to write and also some calculus homework. This has nothing to do what happened earlier today," she adds, catching my look.

"You sure?" I whisper, taking her hand in mine again. Saige kisses me lightly on the cheek and says, "don't worry about it."

I nod and watch her walk off, her hair swinging lightly with each step she took. After a few minutes, I decide to go to the library. When I arrive, I see Dr. Benson talking to the librarian.

"She was with Quentin Sims," I heard him say. "She wasn't there... But she was there- it was unexplainable!"

The librarian coughs when she sees me and Dr. Benson whips around. "Hello, Quentin," he says curtly. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I just came here to see if I could shelve any books," I reply, holding up my ID badge.

"Yes-" Mrs. Donners said while at the same time Mr. Benson said, "may I speak with you?"