7 | Sage | Sixteen years old.
Sage
Sixteen years old.
“What’s the matter, Sage?” The mocking voice of the blonde girl in front of me reaches my ears as she approaches me. I have been watching her, frozen in place, since she spotted me across the parking lot. I already knew why she was coming toward me. It’s the same thing every damn day.
I tried telling Mother, but she said good girls don’t engage in fights, and that was it. I was never allowed to speak about Chloe and her minions at home ever again.
“Your brother isn’t around to help you, is he?” Chloe, the head cheerleader of our school, pushes me to the ground. Her two friends surround her as she towers over me. My books scatter on the grass, and everyone who’s standing in our school’s parking lot is gathering around us now.
I look around with eyes already filled with tears, trying to find Silas. He is nowhere to be found. He is always near me. I wonder what’s more important than me. His sister, his twin. He knows this happens when they spot me alone. Why would he leave me on my own?
He has been distant lately, as if something bothers him.
He even asked Mother to change rooms. We have slept in the same room for all our lives, but suddenly now he claims he needs privacy.
We are old now. I am too annoying to be in the same room with him all the time.
God wouldn’t approve. He gave Mother many reasons that night. Surprisingly, she agreed.
“Look at her,” another girl says, and I turn my gaze to her.
My eyes find the other girl on the other side of Chloe.
One is missing. There are usually four of them.
The redhead who always hangs around Silas is missing.
Diana isn’t anywhere in the parking lot.
I keep searching with my eyes, but without making a single move, to avoid provoking Chloe more.
I wonder if this is the reason Silas isn’t here.
Her. A weird feeling creeps inside me. A form of jealousy that doesn’t make sense, but as I try to understand it, Chloe decides to take her daily bullying a little further.
Her fingers weave into my hair, forcing me to stand.
She drags me by it all the way to the fountain.
Everyone is making room, allowing her to walk me like a fucking dog across the parking lot.
“Chloe, please. You are hurting me,” I try to reason with her.
“Chloe, please, you are hurting her,” Lauren mocks as she walks next to us, following like a puppy to her master.
Laughter fills the space. Whispers follow our every movement.
I don’t know what to do. Silas isn’t coming to help me; that’s clear enough.
The realization comes crashing in. There is nothing I can actually do.
I am doomed. I have to endure it, as Silas says when Mother has a punishment for any of us.
We endure the pain because that’s the only thing we can do.
I try to control my tears. Enduring the punishments means I have to stay calm. Next, I control my breathing. And in seconds, I go from a crying mess to a ghost. To no one. To a puppet abused by a little girl throwing a tantrum. That’s all Chloe is in this moment.
A rich girl who no one ever refused anything to.
Entitled and under the impression she owns everyone.
She thinks she owns me, too. Maybe she does.
After all, I don’t seem to have any control over the situation.
I do have control over myself, though, and I refuse to give her more satisfaction than I already have.
When we reach the fountain, I have seconds to put my hands in front of me as she pushes me inside.
I fall on my hands and knees, my face almost crashing on the tiles inside the fountain.
Water falls over me. My clothes stick to my body; the white button-up shirt my Mother insisted I wear this morning—the matching one to Silas’s—is almost transparent now.
Everyone is staring. Everyone is laughing.
I want the earth to crack open in two and swallow me whole.
Tears stream down my cheeks again, and this time I can’t do anything to stop them.
I can’t keep myself from sobbing loudly.
Mascara runs down in thick black rivers of tears mixed with the chlorine from the fountain’s water.
The mascara I stole behind Mother’s back months ago and kept using in secret, because I wanted to look pretty like the rest of the girls in our class.
But I am never as pretty as them. I am never as important as them.
I will never be. This. This is all I will ever be to everyone in this town.
Someone to laugh at. Someone to mock. To bully.
“That’s enough, Chloe.” Silas’s voice sounds from afar, and silence falls like a blanket over the parking lot.
Everyone stays still as he passes through the crowd.
They open up for him like they did for Chloe.
They have always feared him. They might say things about him to me when he is not around, but everyone wants his attention when he is.
Why wouldn’t they? If it wasn’t for his freak sister, he would probably be the most popular boy in this school.
He already is popular, just for his looks and athletic talent.
He used to not give a fuck about all of this, though.
Not until this year. I can tell now that he is basking in their attention.
He sucks it in as if it were a life force.
When he reaches me, he offers his hand, and I place mine on his palm.
He pulls me until I am on my feet and out of the fountain.
He straightens my clothes and removes his varsity jacket.
I take it from him and put it on, shielding myself from the crowd as much as I can.
As I do, I notice that his shirt is half unbuttoned.
His hair is roughed up, and in the back, an equally roughed-up-looking Diana is standing. They were together.
“Are you okay?” he asks, almost just above a whisper. I nod, but when he reaches for me, I step back. I don’t want him to touch me. Not when this happened because he was with her. He left me alone to Chloe’s mercy for her.
“Let’s go, Sage,” he says, and I don’t argue.
I walk ahead, and this time everyone steps aside for me to pass.
Diana tries to say something to Silas, but he dismisses her.
Funny how now he chooses to direct his attention to me, but when it counted, he disappeared.
I wipe my tears with the sleeve of his jacket and take a deep breath as we reach his car.
He opens the door for me, and I climb into the passenger seat without speaking a word. The door closes, and he circles the car to get to the driver’s seat, but he stops for a moment. I see him through the mirror speaking to Diana. I can tell from the way they are standing that she is upset.
He is trying to calm her down. He kisses the top of her head and then comes back to the car. Just like that, he starts driving in silence. We never utter a word about this the whole way home. And when we arrive, I just open the door, exit the car, head straight into the house, and go to my room.
And for the first time, I am happy that Silas wanted his own space.
Because now I can hide from him. I can stay here hidden from the world until this dreadful jealousy passes.
The feeling I can’t understand. I don’t know why it’s bothering me.
He is my brother. It shouldn’t matter who he’s with.
It shouldn’t matter if they had sex or are dating, or whatever. Yet... it does.