Still ▸ Teen Wolf [Book Two]

sixty seven ; begin again

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SIXTY SEVEN;

BEGIN AGAIN

She sat on the doorstep of the McCall house when he finally came home. His house keys were being tossed from one hand to the other, but that was not what Sage focused on. From the moment that she met Scott McCall, she could see straight through him. Perhaps being his personal babysitter all those years ago engrained her own booklet in how to tell what he was thinking. Maybe it was because, in the time since she had come back to Beacon Hills, he had become her brother. Settling with that gut feeling in her stomach, and trying to deal with her own, Sage was not surprised to see how his grim expression turned into one of surprise when he finally saw her. He tried to pretend that he was okay, turning his grief inward so that only he could see it. It was almost enough to make her scoff, knowing just as well that she had taught him that trick.

"Sage, hey," he said, the keys stilling in his hand. His brows furrowed, glancing from his closed door to her seat on the steps. "What are you doing here?"

Sage looked up at him through her lashes, but didn't say anything. Scott's face dropped immediately at the expression, and he sighed deeply. It seemed that their friendship was a two-way street, and he knew her just as well. She watched his hands tighten on his keys, tight enough to dig into his skin, before he took the few feet in order to sit down next to her on the steps.

Surprisingly, the air around them did not feel suffocating. No, both of them had spent the last week and a half choking on their own pain and figuring out a way to move on. Now, sitting next to someone living through the same pain, all that they felt was calm. Sage glanced at the street ahead of her, wrapping her arms around her knees as she watched the cars drive by. Scott did not say anything either, his shoulders finally freeing themselves of their tension as he reveled in the silence, as well.

Finally, he spoke. "Do you think it'll hurt forever?"

Sage's hands tightened within themselves, but the rest of her body remained relaxed. The only indication of a reaction settled in her throat, burning gently. Somewhere between tears and pain, she found a way to breathe through it all. To her left, Scott took a deep inhale, the peaceful air beginning to sting his nostrils.

"I don't know," she said, honestly. She paused for a moment, her green eyes watching inquisitively as a white car narrowly dodged an oncoming bird. Just like that, it evaded death. "I've spent half of my life trying to figure out how to deal with this...with death."

"And?"

"And I still don't have any answers."

She expected to have a pattern down by now―a way to get through the grief and skip the five steps―but the truth was, she had no idea. She had lost a parent, a sibling, a best friend, a first love in the short amount of six years and every single one of them carried a different weight on her shoulders. Different degrees of pain, and a different section of scars that she was still trying to accept. There was no reason to lie to Scott. Not over something like this. Not when she knew the consequences that came with lying to someone about what they should expect.

Neither one of them spoke again for a while, falling back in the same silence from earlier as they watched the world around them continue to move. Sage, although she never mentioned it, could feel the indistinct pull that tethered her to Scott. Even as they sat there, shoulder to shoulder, she noticed how it grew stronger. It wasn't until everything had happened and they were left to handle the effects that she finally noticed it―her abilities, humming like a small current of electricity in her mind, reminding her of whose life she was bound to. As tragic as it may be, Sage had evolved in some way.