The Benefits of Sexting

Chapter 2

I had tried to keep the mysterious text message out of my mind but it seemed utterly impossible. The text, or sext, or whatever you want to call it, made me turn red even thinking about it. All day I'd carried my phone around like it was a dirty piece of underwear. I'd been so distracted by my thoughts of Sawyer and the text that I ran right into Jack leaving school. Ty and Porter had quickly helped me gather my stuff while I stood there like an idiot, my mouth open and eyes wide. Jack had graciously apologized, though it was his polite reaction that irritated me most. He had the audacity to treat me like I was some stranger he ran into at school. I was not a stranger to him. I thought that maybe a few months apart would show him that, but his indifference toward me and the unwavering silence between us showed otherwise.

Thankfully, it only took the car ride to Porter's house before Ty managed to cheer me up. He was a pro at distracting me from thoughts of Jack. "Did you see the look on Porter's mom's face when I pulled into the driveway?" Ty asked as we trudged up the steps to the old, rickety deck connected to the back of my house.

In trying to cheer me up, Ty had dangerously driven like a maniac through Porter's neighborhood, breaching the speed of fifty five and swerving like a madman. He'd only done it to get a reaction out of Porter, a reaction he knew would make me feel better. But honestly, the look on Mrs. Monroe's face as Ty almost took out their mailbox while pulling into the driveway was even more amusing than the sound of Porter screaming. 

"You know she might make him start taking the bus again," I pointed out, trying to banish the image of her devil like glare. 

The woman truly scared me.

"I thought she was going to pull me out of the car for a second," Ty admitted.

I nodded my head in agreement. "She probably thought about it before realizing how many germs could be on your car," I said. As usual, the door was unlocked and I pulled it open with ease before stepping into the house.

The aroma of freshly made chicken parmesan instantly met my nose, and both Ty and I let out a little sigh of happiness. "And this is why I come here after school," he said happily, following the smell to the kitchen.

Leah, my sixteen year old sister, was bobbing her head as she danced around the kitchen, an oven mitt in one hand and a bag of parmesan cheese in the other. Paramore, her favorite band, was playing softly in the background. She turned around as she heard Ty approach, her lips curving up to form a genuine smile. "It's almost ready," she beamed, not even looking back in my direction.

The day I brought Ty home was the day my little sister became an obsessed, love struck middle schooler. To a certain point I understood her infatuation with him. He was a cute, high school athlete with one of those crooked, dimpled smiles that made most middle schoolers swoon. And you couldn't ignore his headful of thick, dark brown hair, mostly because he was always drawing attention to it by running his hand through the top. 

A few weeks after Leah broke the news to our mom that she was pregnant, she started to teach herself how to cook. Leah was taking the year off of school and had all the time in the world to cook. Plus, her pregnancy cravings seemed to never end. What started as a way to cure her food cravings had quickly morphed into her trying to impress Ty with yummy meals. 

It had been a strange process finding out my little sister was pregnant. Sure, it happened to one of the girls at our school every few years, but I never imagined it being Leah. She was always on top of her studies and had what I thought was, at the time, a good group of friends. I'd never even seen her talk to a boy before, so when she showed up in my room one morning with the test in her hand and tears streaming down her face I'd been utterly shocked.