❛ MY BOY ❜ ʙɪʟʟʏ ʜᴀʀɢʀᴏᴠᴇ

SIX ! school is different now

꧁ ❛ MY BOY ❜  ꧂
 ᵇᶦˡˡʸ ʰᵃʳᵍʳᵒᵛᵉ

CHAPTER SIX
SCHOOL IS DIFFERENT NOW

"SARA? ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION?"

Sara was sat in her English class, staring out of the window, as she always did, whilst her teacher went on about subjects she didn't care about.
Her ears perked when she heard her name.

"Sorry, I was--"

"Not listening, as per usual. You can tell me your excuse in detention after school." The teacher said, continuing the lesson.

          Sara rolled her eyes, earning a quiet chuckle from the seat behind her, which coincidentally was Billy. He had also not been paying attention, as he thought he'd much rather spend the hour watching Sara stare out of the window. During that hour, he established that he liked the shape of her nose; it was cute and small, pointy but not too much, faint freckles dusted over the bridge and onto her cheekbones. Her lips were a light shade of cherry, smooth and shiny with lip gloss.
          Billy also noticed the four freckles on her neck, two of which were just under her jawline.

"Do I have to give you a detention too, Mr. Hargrove?" The teacher groaned, making Billy roll his eyes too.
"I'll take that as a yes."

          Billy sighed, throwing his head back and letting his brain wonder. He thought back to the weekend, when Sara had sat beside him, her eyes wet with tears, and the way he felt. After she left, he tried to shake the feeling, eventually deciding that it would be gone in the morning. However, it wasn't. He still wanted to hold her, and he wanted her to need him.

          Sara doodled in her book, flipping to the back page and sketching out a face. She didn't intentionally mean to draw Billy's curly mullet, but a sensation inside her chest sort of did. She didn't know what she was doing. Everything about Billy was a giant red flag, and it was such a shame that they looked exactly like what she wanted.
          Billy was like fire; he was hot and wild. He did what he wanted and smelled of smoke. He crackled and sometimes got out of hand, but he always died down and knew how to be quiet when it was needed. But Sara knew that children who play with fire, get their fingers burned.

"Class dismissed!" The teacher yelled, packing her binder with a variety of colored paper and plastic folders.

          Sara picked up her books, ripping out the back page with the sketch on, and left quickly, not wanting to be caught in the crush at the door. It was lunch and she hadn't made up her mind who she was going to sit with. A part of her wanted to sit with her brother and Nancy, among their friends, but then a different part of her wanted to follow Billy behind the school and talk to him while he smoked his cigarettes.
          She walked into the cafeteria, avoiding the lunch line, as she always did, and searched for her brother. She then spotted his hair, and headed to his table.

"Hey." She said, sitting down opposite Steve and Nancy, their arms intertwined and smiles on their faces. She didn't like how they didn't hold a shred of sadness in the way they talked. She didn't like how Nancy never spoke about Barb anymore.

"Hey Sara," Nancy sent her a grin, "no lunch today?" She asked. Steve stared at his sister, guilt and worry riddling through his veins. He regretted shouting at her, upsetting her to the point where she ran away from him. But he appreciated that she had sat with him during dinner when she eventually came home.

"I'm not hungry." She looked around, trying to find the familiar, dirty blond head of hair. Steve noticed and looked in the direction she was searching in.
"I got a detention today. I'll be home late."

"What? Why? What did you do?" He asked, putting his carton of orange juice on the table.

"I wasn't paying attention." She mumbled, still looking around. Her fingers were laced together, hoping that she would see him and have an excuse to leave.

"Do you want me to pick you up?" He asked.

"I'll let you know." She told him, finally seeing him. He was leaving the cafeteria, a bottle of water gripped in his hands. She stood.
"I'm going to the bathroom." She announced, following Billy.

        Billy pushed open the doors, holding onto the bottle tighter with every step he took. He had found out that a boy named Adam Joss had began a rumor that he wasn't very fond of. He was going to find him and make him wish he had never opened his mouth.
          When he found the guy, he was stood against a red car, multiple people around him.

"Joss!" Billy shouted, increasing his pace, his face growing red with anger.

          Sara's fast walk turned into a jog, trying to catch up with Billy, but he had already stormed out of the door. She watched him and how the bottle of water looked ready to burst. She soon realised that he wasn't going to have a cigarette. He was angry. His shoulders were tensed and his eyebrows were furrowed.

"Hargrove, I heard you were looking for me." Sara heard the other guy say, pushing himself off the car he was next to.

          What Sara saw, was not expected. Instead of stopping and replying to the guy, Billy continued to storm forward, raise his fist and throw it at the guy's face without a word. Sara gasped, stopping in her tracks and covering her mouth. But he didn't end it there, he kept punching. And punching and punching. Blood covered his knuckles and the guy's face. It trickled onto the floor.
          Sara felt teachers barge by and students push against her shoulders, sprinting to the scene. The screams of the girls surrounding Billy's victim echoed throughout Sara's ears. A hand grabbed her. It was Steve. He pulled her away.
          She watched the teachers rip at Billy's clothes, throwing his denim jacket across the ground and hauling him away from the bloodied body. It was a haunting image.
          Billy's face wasn't what she was used to. It was scrunched up, boiling with fury. His cheeks were puffed out, his muscles twitching. His head smacked against the concrete ground as his arms were held behind his back. Billy saw Sara in the distance, her knees pressed together and a disappointed Steve stood beside her. He had made a mistake, but it was all for her.

"I'm sorry--" he said to her, hoping that she'd hear him somehow.

"Shut it, Hargrove!" The vice principal spat in his face.

"This is what I warned you about," Steve whispered in Sara's ear, "he's dangerous and I can't let that be you the next time it happens." He pointed at Adam Joss, his palm under his nose whilst the blood poured rapidly down his lips.

Billy Hargrove was a volcano, the same as Sara, yet very different. He was angry. She was sad.

What a catastrophic tragedy the pair of them were.