Who Said Glasses Were Good (BxB 18+)

Ch.8 Anger

Zach stares at his phone and a smile sweeps across his face. He types sure as a response. Unsurprisingly, it's Sage who is messaging him, just right after the last period before lunch. Sage sends him a link to a coffee store he is looking forward to going on the weekend. Yes, it will be their first date.

Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Zach makes his way to the lockers and drops off his things. He meets up with Jason further down the hall who flashes him an easy-going smile. On the way down the stairs, Jason asks him whether he has time this weekend.

"I have plans," Zach says apologetically. The thought of a date makes him smile.

Jason notices his joy. "Oh, something exciting?" A sudden idea clicks in his mind and he nudges Zach with his elbow. "Is this the girl you were talking about last week?"

"No," Zach responds in a crisp, direct tone. He convinces himself it's not technically lying. There is no girl in the equation.

"By no do you mean yes?"

"By no I mean no."

They exit the school building towards the dining hall. It is a humid, bright day, the sun beating down, rays piercing the leaves of trees. Under the quiet path, Jason says seriously:

"You can tell me anything. Aren't we friends?"

Zach almost scoffs. "Last time I told you I was asking for a friend, you pretty much shouted in the cafeteria that I have a girlfriend."

"That was just a joke, and everyone got that."

"Yeah, but..." Zach moves his gaze away. He wasn't ready to tell Jason anything yet.

Jason feels the hesitation and puts his arms behind his head. "It's all fine man. Tell me when you're ready."

They reach the doors of the cafeteria.

"But before that," Jason smirks, and rushes through, "GUYS ZACH HAS A GIRL!" He yells, mainly to his friends in the basketball team. Still, head's turn.

"JASON!"

Zach glances around the tables and sees Sage, eating and flipping through a book. He desperately wants to catch Sage's eyes, but he keeps his gaze fixed down.

"Seriously, Jason stop that. I don't," Zach tugs the back of Jason's tee-shirt. "I really don't."

"Yeah, of course, you don't have," he laughs and rolls his eyes overdramatically.

Zach groans and lets go. "Just...please stop." He glances at the other side of the cafeteria once more and Sage has disappeared.

A sudden pang of anxiety bubbles through Zach's veins. "I-I suddenly have something I need to do," he says, not caring if it sounds like a lie.

Before Jason could react, Zach bolts out the door. A wave of heat crashes through him. He can't breathe and he can't tell if it's the humidity or himself. He glances left, then right, trying to spot where Sage's gone.

The main building? The library?

Sweat begins to trickle down his neck and he decides to run to the school building first.

-

Sage wanders aimlessly across campus. His strides are long and urgent, though without a destination. Soon, he finds himself at the corner of the campus, out of breath.

The sun beats down furiously like a hammer. Sage, however, feels cold. He tucks his book under his arm and his hands together, feeling the warmth of his palms. There is a knot in the back of his mind that he can't seem to get rid of, that grows like fungi in the underside of a log. Habitual detachment is how he thought he would live his life. He doesn't have hopes and thus rarely any real disappointment. But with Zach it is, was, different.

Sage thought it would be freeing, it would be a person who understood him and loved him, not because of status or potential, not because of sex. 

Will he leave me too? He thinks first. And second: Why would that matter to me? Why why why--

A sudden chill overrides him, he can almost see what will happen next and he has seen it too many times. Zach will be sick of him soon--they all were some time or later. Sage was just too foolish to believe, believe that something would be different, something would change.

In the end, what did it give him?

He held his trembling hands against his forehead, trying his best to steady them. He wasn't going to let Zach go, the only one he wouldn't let go. If Zach stopped loving him, Sage would make him until he did. And Sage always got what he wanted didn't he?