Safer This Way

Chapter 3

Kind of a boring chapter, but Sang/Shaw meets a few of the boys so I hope you like it! Happy reading :) 

*Sang*

Puberty is awful, it really is. Hair grows in strange new places, body parts get bigger, voices get deeper, pimples happen, and blood comes from a place that it really shouldn't. Generally speaking, it's a truly horrendous time in any person's life, as if growing up isn't hard enough already. Then couple that with the fact that I've been forced to personify a gender not my own, and you've got one week a month where life looks even more bleak than usual.

I run my hands through my short hair roughly as I realize my period has started, right before we were set to leave for registration at our new school, Ashley Waters. Sighing, I get myself situated before starting the long process of getting ready, hopefully we'll be in and out of the school shortly and I can go be miserable by myself in the trees for a little while. I dread wrapping my chest today, as the area is extra sensitive this time of the month and the wrap makes it ache constantly.

I'm just finishing my hair when a banging sounds on the bathroom door, followed soon after by Marie's angry shouting. "Shaw, quit hogging the bathroom!" I know if I ignore her she'll just go get the monster and having my period will no longer be the worst part of my day, so I gather my things and open the door.

"Sorry," I try to say, only it comes out as a harsh rasp after the monster's last punishment.

Marie's watery brown eyes, so eerily similar to her mother's I almost shrink back, narrow at me in hatred before she shoves me out of the way, slamming the door hard enough that the sound is still echoing in my head by the time I reach my room.

Since I'm finished getting ready, and I've hidden feminine supplies within a secret layer of the wallet I'd made myself, I grab one of my favorite novels and settle into the chair by the window. Before I can lose myself to Cyrano de Bergerac, the sound of several engines starting up draw my attention once more to the house across the street, to those men.

I'm ashamed to admit that I've hardly taken my eyes from this window since that first day, just watching them whenever they appear, even sometimes when they're not outside I sit there waiting, hoping they'll come back. It's not even the fact that they're unfairly handsome, which they are, but something about them makes me feel, they break through my constant state of numbness I find myself in. Their smiles and laughter heal something inside of me I was unaware could even be made whole again, making me want to join them. I've also come to the realization that it was likely one of them who had heard me in the forest, as I have yet to see any other guys my age in this neighborhood.

I watch as one the older men, likely only a few years my senior, straightens his suit tie, says something to the seven younger guys who are more my age that makes them frown. A few of them open their mouths to protest, Mr. Dark and Angry looks ready to argue quite loudly before Perfection in a Suit holds up a hand to silence him, and I assume he says something as his face is turned away because their shoulders all simultaneously relax. He then slides into a beautiful dark gray BMW with the other older one, Mr. Flirty Smile, and they drive off.

Five minutes later, they all split off into groups, loading into the remaking vehicles. Dark and Angry glances over towards my house, and I almost gasp when I see how sad his face looks as he seems to search for something and comes up empty. He appears to give up, shoulders slumping before driving off in an older black Jeep that looks well taken care of.

"Shaw, let's go, I don't have all day!" My father's irritated shout interrupts my musings of what about my house could make such a formidable looking human so sad. Sighing, I gather my wallet and registration packet before glancing back at where the nine had just disappeared from view.