Clare

  “Moon goddess! Why does everyone keep staring?!” I said with my head bowed and my hands clenched to my side as I walked beside Lissa to my locker.

  “Are you kidding? You don’t know why people are staring? You’re dating Sawyer Hawkins! And he proved that by driving you to school this morning and doing that whole gentlemanly thing where he opened the door to the car and then led you to your first class in front of everyone in school while holding your backpack!” The more she spoke, the louder Lissa’s voice got.

  Worse yet, she was speaking like a fan girl who was at a concert and her favorite artist had thrown his shirt to the crowd and that shirt had landed in the hands of her best friend right beside her, me.

  “It’s not a big deal, right? I mean, Sawyer has dated other girls, right?” I said, reaching into my locker to exchange my bulky Biology textbook with my History textbook.

  “It is so a big deal!” Lissa said.

  I hissed, “Lower your voice!”

  Lissa finally looked around to find several people covertly and overtly staring at us and listening to us. “Sorry.”

  She didn’t start speaking until we left the locker area and started making our way to the next class, which we shared together—History Class.

  “Sawyer dated other girls before, yes, but driving them to school, opening the door for them and escorting them to their classes has never ever happened before.” Lissa said in a much lower voice.

  “Maybe it’s happening to me because I don’t have a car?” I tried to explain as I sat in my usual seat, which was situated around the middle area of the classroom.

  Before Lissa could respond, however, the blonde girl whom I’d introduced myself to on the first day of school without receiving any response other than a disdainful glance, turned to answer for Lissa.

  “Stop fooling yourself. He is Sawyer Hawkins. He has never really done anything like this for any girl. He has always been chivalrous, yes. While opening the door for a girl when he comes across her is a common happenstance, he has never ever smiled while doing it. Neither have I ever seen him carry any girl’s backpack or drop a kiss on any girl’s forehead. You sure you’re not going to share what you did to charm him so much?” The blonde girl literally had envy shooting out of her eyes like greedy cartoon characters sometimes had dollar signs for eyes.

  I didn’t know what to say in response to her words but thankfully, I didn’t have to because our History teacher walked into the class and had us turning our textbook pages.

  So, the blonde girl with neat wavy girl had to turn back to the front to face the teacher and Lissa elbowed me twice with a red face as if she was trying to hold in her laughter.

  ***

  To avoid any more attention, I bowed out of having lunch with Sawyer and Koda, opting instead to eat on the grassy plains behind the cafeteria while staring sadly at the spot where Queen, who was now a home-bound cat, used to eat and play with Sawyer.

  After eating lunch, Lissa and I had different classes, so we separated.

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  I was heading to my locker to pick up a textbook for my next class when a hand stretched out of nowhere and pulled me into a locker room.

  “Wh—What? He—” Before I could do anything, I was pulled into a warm muscular arm and a hand covered my mouth.

  I tried to break free, but the man was way stronger than me.

  I started to panic immediately. The man’s hand wasn’t blocking my nose or my airways, but I started to hyperventilate. I lost the ability to break with my nose, struggling harder as my breathing became more and more rapid.

  The man holding me seemed shocked by my reaction and released me, asking in a fairly familiar voice, “Are you okay? What’s wrong with you?”

  Thankfully, before I could descend into the depths of my panic attack, light flooded the dark janitor’s closet, and I finally saw my ambusher—Elijah.

  I was too far gone to confront him for his stupid ambush, though. Instead, I had to allow him to help me find a spot to sit out my dizziness and immense nausea.

  I was still fairly weak when I finally confronted. “What the hell are you doing?”

  If I could yell at him, I would have, but I didn’t really want anyone finding us cooped up in a Janitor’s closet together.

  Regardless, I really wanted to bludgeon him over the head with something heavy and murderous. I had successfully avoided having panic attacks for quite a while and he just had to stupidly pull me into a dark room and trigger me.

  “I’m sorry. I truly didn’t know you would react like that.” He apologized.

  I felt lightheaded and super nauseous in a way that made me want to haul my entire lunch of an apple and some water in his face. I definitely wasn’t ready to forgive him right now.

  So I settled for asking, “What do you want?”

  I leaned my head on the back of the paper walls of the Janitor’s Closet, trying to hold down my nausea while waiting for a response from him.

  “I’m really sorry, Clare. I—”

  “What. Do. You. Want?” I asked again, finally fixing my gaze on him.

  He fidgeted nervously, as if he didn’t know what to say, and then finally met my gaze. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to ask you about…well, you and Sawyer.”

  He looked away nervously as he asked, “Are you truly with Sawyer? Does that mean…you’re over me? Just because I’m bi?”

  I gave him a bewildered look. “What the hell are you even talking about? Just because you’re bi? What does that have to do with me dating Sawyer? Okay, okay, if that’s your question, I’ll answer it. Yes, I’m dating Sawyer now. Yes, I’m completely over whatever feelings of infatuation I developed toward you when we first met, and no, it has nothing to do with your sexuality. In fact, it has everything to do with this. Everything you do makes me realize how far you are from what I actually thought you were..”

  He was quiet for a while.

  I was about to ask if he had nothing else to say so I could leave when he asked, “How far has your relationship with Sawyer gone?”

  I stared at him with a perplexed look. “Why…How does that even concern you?”

  “Just answer my question.” He asked tersely.

  I scowled at him. “Not that it’s any of your business, but he asked me to be his girlfriend and I agreed.”

  His brows furrowed. “Then…if I talk to him and ask for his…permission to date you, would you go on a date with me?”

  I stared at him. “Have you lost your marbles? What do you think I am? A ping ball that you throw to the other person when you don’t want her and then retrieve when you do?”

  He gave me an earnest look. “No. I’m sorry. I was in denial. I didn’t want to admit the connection between us and I wanted to drive you away so I made sure you caught me in that alleyway hoping to get you to lose your affections but since you did, I can’t help feeling like I’ve lost everything. I just want another chance. Can you give another chance?”

  Something about the way he was staring at me and practically begging made my heart ache but then I remembered Sawyer and the relationship that had slowly grown between us and I knew that I could ignore the heart ache and the connection between me and Elijah without losing sleep for Sawyer.

  “No…I’m sorry, but I really like Sawyer. I like being with him, and I’m not sacrificing my relationship with him for anything.”

  “Even if I speak to him and persuade him?” he asked.

  I glared at him. “Even then. I like Sawyer very much and I’m not ditching him for you, so just stay away from me from now on.“

  Without waiting for him to respond, I strode out of the Janitor’s closet, heading straight to the toilet to wash my face while trying to figure out an excuse for sneaking into my class that was already underway.