My face darkening, I took a step over to Sawyer and pulled her into me. Sawyer tried to step back, but I held her tight. "Are you okay," I whispered as I looked down at her, momentarily ignoring Brittany and her laughing group of friends. Sawyer bit her lip and nodded that she was, but her eyes watered drastically.
A hand reached out and pushed my shoulder. My head snapped back to Brittany, right as she stepped up to me, practically in my face. Brittany didn't like being ignored. "I was talking to you druggy...or are you just too high to notice?"
I resisted the urge to smack the smug look from her face. Knowing Brittany, she'd probably like that. "What did you say to her?" I said through clenched teeth, trying desperately to hold in my ever shifting emotions.
"Your white trash?" She shrugged, like she really couldn't care less about the argument they'd been having. "We were just going over your extracurricular activities." She glanced at Sawyer and her grin turned outrageously cocky. She was loving this.
I closed my eyes, wanting to walk away, wanting to pull Sawyer out of this school and away from these people. "What are you talking about?" I muttered instead.
She leaned in close to me, her lips practically on my ear. I cringed away from her unintentionally when she spoke in a husky voice. "I only apologized that her boyfriend was a no good man whore." Her eyes flicked down my body seductively and contemptuously. "But what can you expect from a drugged out alcoholic?"
Sawyer beside me went bright red and her mouth opened in clear protest. "He is not a-"
Only thinking about getting away from Brittany, and her odd mixed signals, I cut Sawyer off...and said something really, really stupid. "I'm not her boyfriend, Brittany. Leave her alone."
With those words, I grabbed a suddenly pale looking Sawyer's hand and dragged her away from the group. From behind me, I heard Brittany loudly exclaim, "Oh god, he's f**king her but he doesn't even want her!" Then even louder I heard her yell, "Sorry, white trash! I guess I had nothing to apologize for!"
I exhaled slowly and clenched Sawyer's hand in mine. I cursed under my breath at saying something so stupid to Brittany. True, there was nothing false about the statement, but, of all the things Brittany had said, that was the worst one for me to object to. By picking that statement to deny, I'd just given Brittany an arsenal of torture to spout at Sawyer. In one sentence, I'd pretty much confirmed everything else she'd said about me and downplayed the importance of Sawyer in my life.
God, I'm an idiot.
"I'm sorry," I muttered, as Sawyer hurried beside me to keep up with my fast pace. I glanced over at her and saw that her eyes weren't as watery, but still seemed sad. The rest of her face had returned to her normal composure and I was sure that no one but me would even notice the faint unhappiness in her eyes. I slowed my pace and she looked over at me. "Sawyer...I'm sorry about what I-"
She shook her head and cut me off. "You didn't say anything that isn't true."
I stopped walking and she stopped with me, searching my eyes, like she was looking for some clue about how I really felt about her. I wished I could explain it, wished I could tell her that she was the one that made me light up in a way that made my mom smile, that she was the one that I painted in every art class, that she was home to me. I couldn't say any of that though, not without confusing her even more.
"I shouldn't have said it like that...especially to someone like Brittany. It came off like I don't care about you at all and that's not true." I sighed heavily and shook my head. "I feel like I just made things worse for you."
Her hand came up to brush my cheek and she swallowed. "It's fine, Lucas. They just..." She sighed and looked away, dropping her hand.
"They what, Sawyer?"
She turned back and her eyes stared at my shoes. "She's teased me with the whole 'white trash' thing since the first day, when I ran into her in the parking lot." She sighed and looked up to my eyes. "I was hiding out in the bathroom that day, because she hounded me all the way to the building about my hand-me-down clothes and cheap-ass book bag. She thought it was hilarious that I didn't have a jacket when it was pouring and..." she looked out over the campus to where we'd left Brittany and her wannabes, "when she saw me wearing your jacket later that day...she just...picked up her teasing a touch more."
I opened my mouth, surprised at her revelation and looked back with Sawyer. I had the sudden desire to run back there and tell that bitch that I never cared about her and never would, so she was the one that should just get over it...whatever the hell it was to her. Sawyer's words brought me back to her though.
"It doesn't matter, Luc. It may bother me sometimes, the teasing and putdowns, but," she sniffed and straightened her shoulders, "I know my family struggles with money and stuff. They do the best they can for me." She shook her head, and a wisdom seldom seen in a person her age crept into her voice. "I know what's important...and what's not, and Brittany and her cronies...aren't." Her face hardened into that serious mask that she could sometimes slip into. "I won't let someone like that destroy my life." She glanced around the school grounds with only her eyes. "All of this...it's only temporary, Luc." She looked at me pointedly. "Remember that."
I nodded and then shook my head at her, disbelieving. Most kids, even me sometimes, couldn't get past how high school could seem like the be-all and end-all of our young existence. "How old are you?" I muttered.
She giggled, like the schoolgirl she really was, and started walking towards the main building again. "I'm seventeen, Lucas...eighteen in January," she added with a grin.
I threw an arm around her shoulders as I matched her pace. "Wow, I'm hangin' with an older woman." I grinned down at her. "I think I got some of those cool points back."
She laughed genuinely and slung an arm around my waist. I let the tension of our conversation, and the faceoff with Brittany, die as her comfort seeped into me. She sighed happily and looked up at me. "Hey, good job by the way."
Confused, I scrunched my brow and looked down at her. "Huh?"
She smiled as we approached the door to the main building, where the Safe and Sound club met. I pulled open the door for us while she gingerly answered. "Well, you're not bruised or bleeding, so I'm taking it that you did what I asked and left Josh alone." Her face beamed up at me as she stepped through the door.
I frowned as I followed her. "Maybe I just won the fight." I raised an eyebrow at her and she giggled again.
"Well, you weren't carted off the campus, so I'm assuming that you didn't haul off and hit him."
I laughed and then shrugged. "I said I'd stay away...I did." I didn't mention that I'd tried to have an actual conversation with him. It hadn't gone well anyway, so, not much to tell.
She snuggled back into my side as we walked through the empty halls. "I'm glad, Luc." She rested her head against me and I smiled. "I don't want to see you in anymore trouble."
I rested my cheek on her head. "Me either," I muttered.
We came to the classroom door and I pulled it open, preparing to go in with her. She put a hand on my chest and looked at me quizzically. "Don't you have to get to your...thing?"
Confused, I was about to ask her what she was talking about when it suddenly hit me. Oh, damn it...the counselor. With everything that had happened today, I'd completely forgotten about that hell waiting for me. I frowned as I realized that we'd be parting ways now.
She brought her hand up to my cheek, stroking it with the back of her knuckle. "Hey, smile. It won't be so bad." She dropped her hand and shrugged. "Maybe you'll even like it?"
I gave her a 'yeah right' face and sighed, staring longingly at the purity club door. The thought that I was longing to be at a purity club meeting made me chuckle softly, and with a shake of my head, I told her goodbye and gave her a swift hug before she entered the classroom without me. Staring at the closed door, I waited for ten long seconds before turning around and heading for the office...where my new personal hell was waiting for me.
I knocked softly on the closed, opaque door with the word "counselor" in rub-on, black letters across it. This was technically the guidance counselor's office, where she set up shop to help seniors apply to colleges, juniors put together a senior year with the most free periods, and freshman and sophomores find a way to weasel out of gym and typing. The 'grief' counselor that they'd brought in this year full time, courtesy of me, was sharing the office with her. I suppose this arrangement was quite handy for the custodians, since technically, they didn't have to resign the door.
I waited a couple seconds, hoping she hadn't heard me and I could leave, knowing that I'd tried. No such luck. Just as I was turning to dash away, to wait in the hallway for Sawyer, a soft voice answered me.
"Come on in, Lucas."
I cringed; both that she'd heard me, and that she knew it was me out here. With a heavy sigh, I opened the door and stepped inside. I'm sure it was my imagination, but the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees once I passed through the doorframe. I closed the door behind me and felt the echo vibrate morosely throughout the room. Rolling my eyes at my own dramatics, I took a step into the room and looked around at my "home away from home" for the next six weeks.
I'd been to the counselor's office a few times, but that was when the guidance counselor had it to herself. I internally smiled at the school's attempt to casually split a room into two. Their solution to the problem was an obtrusive line of two six foot tall lateral file cabinets in a straight line down the center of the room. The drawers faced out into the guidance counselor's "area", with her desk shoved haphazardly in the corner. She had a chair for visitors and a sturdy case full of thick, hardbound books, and that was about it. I bet she loved having her personal work space halved like that.
The backside of the file cabinets was equally as cramped, but an attempt was being made to create a soothing work space. The grief counselor's desk was specifically made for corners and sculpted nicely into the space it was given. Expecting a chaise lounge or couch in front of it, I was a little surprised to see a standard office chair for the "client's" seat. The rest of the room was filled with an almost spa-like ambiance: candles, soothing pictures of waterfalls and rock gardens, light jazz playing softly. A Japanese-like accordion room separator was folded back in on itself against the file cabinet. I suppose when a "session" was taking place, she'd extend it, giving the poor, depressed soul some false illusion of privacy. Like there was any true privacy in this school, or this town for that matter.
"Come on in, Lucas. Have a seat."
I took a final glance at the empty room, well, empty except for the counselor sitting at her desk, tucked in the oasis of her small office, and sighed. Irritated at having to do this, I grumpily walked over to her, tossing my backpack on the floor before unceremoniously dropping into the chair. She watched me harshly sit down and then a small smile lifted the corners of her lips. She reminded me of a leprechaun. Why? I don't know. She wasn't a tiny pixie wearing buckled shoes and a green top hat. No green on her at all, actually. It was probably the hair - bright red with springy curls and a splattering of matching freckles marking her nose and cheeks, all of it highlighting her incredibly blue eyes. If I hadn't heard her speak already, I'd expect an Irish brogue to pour from her mouth.