Loving The Boy Next Seat

CHAPTER TWO: IT ALL STARTS AGAIN

Angel watches her parent’s dispute on a Saturday morning, waterworks are in her mother’s eyes as she holds a flask in her hands. Her father’s hair is in disarray, he is also crying. They are whispering something to each other and they are in so much agony, it is evident on their morning faces. Although she has just turned eleven, Angel can sense the misery on their faces as they stand close to each other.

This has been going on in her home for months now. The parents who used to play and smile with her are not the ones she witnesses—young Angel alleges. They are different. “Even the house is poles apart.” The house help has been fired, the surrounding is in chaos too. Every window and door is shut closed, home lines have been disconnected.

The last decent nutrition Angel had was a tomato soup and toast made by her nanny before her parents fired her. Months after the unusual behavior of her parents, Angel becomes accustomed to the tang of can food, the industrious aroma made her nausea, sickening sometimes, but they never took her for a checkup.

Angel stopped going to school too; slowly, her parents were cutting off ties with people, and they continued this with the disclosure.

Sometimes Angel will stay at a distance, watching them from wherever she was, speculating if she was the reason. And sometimes she would just hope that everything would be okay very soon for her family.

Hoping.

Hoping they will see her and pretend like they aren’t crying. What hurt eleven year old Angel is the fact that they couldn’t keep their eyes dry even when she’s present. They would argue intensely. They don’t even try to keep her out of it, and in time she got to know it involved some money.

Sometimes, her father would disconnect the house phone in anger. At times, when she is out with her mom on a normal day, all of a sudden, her mother would tell her to hide that she doesn’t want some people to take notice of them. Angel must have been young, but she was able to eyewitness that there was something terribly wrong with her parents.

And it continued like that.

There was a point where she thought it was over, she saw them argue and cry less, she was relieved.

That relief was too short, for the last thing she remembers of her parents is a white cloth over their heads and herself sinking into coma for another six months.

IT ALL STARTS AGAIN.

2:48PM

Crestville High school.

Tess Middleman steps out of class after an English test she didn’t prepare for; she walks to her locker and heaves her books into it. She hides her face into it and screams inaudibly for about a minute. Why didn’t she study for it? Tess groans.

Once her scores come out, her mom would definitely kill her! She would talk about college, and ask her what exactly she wanted to do with her life. It is such a tough question because Tess herself didn’t have an idea.

She doesn’t know what she wants and the hardest thing is someone asking her what she wants. Tess strews her hair as she breaks down for a while; her flaxen hair gets ruffled by the frustration. After getting tired of thinking about her life, Tess straightens her hair as she stares into the mirror and scowls.

From the mirror, she can see Angel stepping out of the class room and behind, she sees Sawyer. The all gorgeous Sawyer Morgan in his blue jersey, flashing his white teeth as he walks out and catches everyone’s attention. Ever since she heard Sawyer was changing classes to theirs, she didn’t know how to act anymore.

Tess got to class early today to watch him step into class. She isn’t the only one ecstatic and elated about having Sawyer Morgan in class A—every girl in class has their eyes on him. He is everything to her; a fairy tale would describe him as prince charming, but in modern day world.

Tess immediately searches for her lipstick; she roams her hand into a purse and applies more gloss to her lips before replacing that deep scowl on her face to her bestselling smile.

Slowly, she closes her locker as she stares at him when he passes her.

He is walking behind Angela who is headed towards the vending machine, Angela bends after tossing some coins into the machine. Tess watches as Sawyer stands behind Angel, Tess is unsure of his motive, but she sure hopes that he isn’t about to talk to her.

Angel hits the machine with her foot when her can of pineapple juice gets jammed. Sawyer steps in from behind her, towering over petite Angela who is utterly shocked by his presence. He hits the machine with one leg, gets on his knee and picks the can.

He rises on his feet and hands it over to her.

Angela collects it.

“Thank you.” She murmurs.

Tess stands back when she watches the scene unfold. She cannot believe her eyes; this is Sawyer Morgan, the one she has been crushing on ever since ninth grade. Time after time, she has been crushing on him behind closed doors, yes, she is confident, but not when Sawyer was involved.

And just as she thought today would be the day she gets to say ‘hi’ then this happens. And of all girls in Crestville why does it have to be Angel Gray?

She and Angel may been friends from ninth grade, but it has ended a long time ago.

Just a moment ago, Tess was eager and over joyed that Sawyer has been transferred to her class. It meant she could stare at him every day and perhaps get the chance to tell him how she truly feels.

It is no news that half of the girls in school were in love with Sawyer, the only girls he spoke to where the ones in squadron. That is peter’s girlfriend Demi, and the rest of girls belonging to the aristocrat circle. And all of a sudden, she is watching him with Angel, of all girls in Crestville?

This has got to be a nightmare!

“I’m new to the class.” Sawyer says.

“Oh.” Angel replies staring at the drink in her hands.

Welcome? She says and Sawyer smiles, licking his lips unconsciously.

“We sat beside each other today, would you care if we kept that position again? He asks.”

There is shock or is it awe on Angel’s face towards his gesture and request.

She raises her head and meets his grey eyes; the words she would like to use to answer his simple question are nowhere to be found.

‘Sure. ‘

She settles with that.

You are? Sawyer asks before she can leave.

I’m Angel.

After saying her name, Angel walks away, she notices that Tess is gazing right at her but she doesn’t stop walking. Her chest is hot. How in the universe did Sawyer Morgan talk to her? What was he trying to do? Why did he talk to a nobody? She is nowhere near his class or squadron, what did she have that made him express such gesture.

It baffles both Tess and Angel.

Tess heads back to her locker; she violently wipes her lipstick off as her anger boils. She picks up her phone and starts texting in the group chat she created for her underlings—also known as minions. These are the same girls she used to replace Angel after the end of the friendship.

She also used them to pick on her after the end of the friendship, sometimes they still do, in little ways. Like an intentional bump on the shoulder when the hall is crowded—they would call it a mistake. There is more, sometimes they would team up and ‘accidentally’ pour water on her notes during recess, lock the door of the girl’s bathroom knowing truly well that she is still there.

They would literally come up with stuffs just to make Angel miserable.

Tess is obviously bitter. None of the underlings have an idea to why she is constantly after Angel, they couldn’t care less either. They see an opportunity to bully the unsuspecting and they will use it irrespective of what the reasons were.

They are always looking for ways to break her.

And every time they insinuated an attack, Angel would still be resolute. She will clean up whatever mess they make and return to whatever she’s doing.

Tess jams her locker when she realizes that her underlings are lagging behind during their senior year. After texting her plan over the phone, Tess smiles sheepishly.