Neighbors at Night

3. Rafael

"She's always alone," I absentmindedly stated as I noticed Sage sit at a table not too far from our own.

It was lunch now and Malachi, Theo, Kaden, and I had already gotten our food and taken our seats at our usual table when I saw Sage walk into the cafeteria. I didn't normally see her outside of class, presumably because our lockers were no where near each other and we always missed each other during lunch, so it was safe to say that this was a bit unusual.

Theo groaned annoyedly at my words. "Well why don't you just go talk to her if you think she's that lonely dude?"

I turned to him with a glare, "You know how I feel about that dude." Theo was the youngest of us all, only sixteen and a grade below us; I'll admit that the rest of us probably took advantage of that as he was usually at the brunt of our teasing.

But he knew that we weren't serious, and we knew not to take it too far. Especially after what had happened between him and Ben a while back; that was a disaster.

I returned my attention to Sage, letting my eyes linger on her form as she pulled her hair into a pony tail. I couldn't even imagine how annoying having that long of hair would be, but it looked nice so I guess it evened out (sort of).

"She deserves better," I said, because it was true.

While I didn't necessarily think I was a bad person, my reputation wasn't exactly the greatest either and I didn't want her being dragged down with me.

"You mean like him," Malachi suddenly voiced just as my gaze narrowed in on the guy currently walking towards the otherwise empty table she was sitting at. I'd never seen him around before, at least from what I could remember.

It made me uneasy.

I watched as he said something to her, and those mesmerizing eyes of hers unexpectedly flickered past him to look at our table. I hurriedly grabbed my fork, stabbing the first thing on my tray and realizing too late that it was literally nothing. I grimaced, "Mierda."

That was totally not embarrassing at all.

I glanced back over with a sigh to see Sage raising a hand and pointing at herself disbelievingly, as if to say, "Me?"

He spoke again, laughing and gesturing with his hands to emphasize whatever he was talking about and making her smile. "¡Oye!" I tapped Theo on the shoulder, once, twice, and three times before he finally turned towards me.

"¿Qué?¿Qué quieres?" His voice was loud but I didn't even care because now the guy was sitting down and Sage was looking a bit confused.

"What do you think they're talking about?"

I felt something hit the side of my head and instinctively faced the offender, who was currently staring at me with a deadpan expression. "Does it even matter?" Kaden folded his arms, raising his eyebrows when I stayed silent. "If it matters that much to you then you could just - oh I don't know - ask her."

Kaden and I had known each other since elementary school (although we didn't actually become friends until eighth grade) so he knew pretty much everything.

He was there when I started dating my first girlfriend, and he was still there when the disastrous breakup ensued after she found out the valentine's gift I'd given her was actually just a Christmas present I never used.

(I was eleven; sue me.)

We were in the same class when I started questioning my sexuality, and he even met my boyfriend only a few days before we became official. If being official could even be considered a thing in middle school.