Still ▸ Teen Wolf [Book Two]

sixty three ; bitter baby

Songs of the chapter:

TAKE IT ALL BACK by JUDAH & the LION

RAPTURE by TOM WALKER

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SIXTY THREE;

BITTER BABY

Sage's head lifted from the small chair she ended up in, shifting around to get comfortable for the fifth time in ten minutes. She'd been keeping her eyes on Stiles for the last two hours as he slept on the couch across from her, making sure that he was never out of her sight. Scott offered multiple times to look after him so she could rest herself, but even when she closed her eyes, she was still awake. Her mind had become her greatest enemy recently, and as she watched the boy on the couch, she found herself confronting certain thoughts that remained in the same box as the ring he gave her.

Sage would have to be there for him. She always knew that she would be, but watching every flinch he gave in his sleep seeped deeper into her skin how different he was going to become. Every time they faced something, he was always the consistency within their lives. Sage, Scott, everyone came to depend on him to get them through the pain by bringing them back to the roots of their friendship. In her heart, she'd already accepted that it wouldn't be like that anymore. All of them had been hit hard this time, Stiles more than any of them, and it was the first time that Sage pulled herself back to the problem that controlled all of her others. She didn't want to win, just like Stiles. Her reasons were more selfish, though.

Winning meant that they were going to have to look at each other at the end of the day and accept all of the pain they caused one another. Sage would have to look at Scott and accept that she was on the opposite side of him when it came to Stiles, then find a way to compromise the opposition. She would have to look at Stiles and accept what happened between them, in all of the faults that come with it. She would have to look at all of her friends and accept that she may have to walk away from them one day, and for that reason alone, she wanted to fight with the Nogitsune until the only thing left of her was broken bones. She would have to look at herself in the mirror every day and accept the person reflecting back at her... and that person was selfish. That person was desperately praying that they could have back what would never return.

All of that selfishness disappeared in those two hours. It was because she was reminded of a boy and a girl who fell in love with one another, and it may have been from the moment they laid eyes on each other or a gradual cycle of longing and pain... but they became light when they were together. They became something when they were together that people could only write about in romance novels; something that could not be explained through words. Only by the way they looked at each other. They became the people that Sage wanted to physically harm because she could not handle the heart that radiated between them. But before she did—hurt them—she loved him. And because she loved him, no matter where they went or who they became, she would always be there for him...and she was only beginning to see clearly how stuck she was by loving him. On the couch. In his life. In Beacon Hills.

She watched him for another thirty minutes, her thoughts thrashing against her skull and pounding in her palms, with a newly-made promise that she would try harder than she had earlier for him. Better yet, for herself. It wasn't healthy for either of them.

They left the police station hours ago with only one lead—Meredith Walker, the same person Sage ran into during her first visit at Eichen House. The same girl who told her that one of 'them' was inside of her. It didn't seem like such a peculiar statement now. Meredith Walker was also the one who happened to tell Stiles something important that hadn't made much sense at the time either. The whole story, and whatever story that may be left in the mind that told her to scream. That story was the closest thing they had to figuring out where Lydia was. That was, at least, what Scott and Stiles had told her once she recollected with them inside of the station.