✖ Chapter 23 ✖

9.4K 824 218
                                    

"Could Sawyer Logan and Aurora Martinez please go to Mr. Davies' office?" a voice said from the intercom in the middle of class on Friday morning. I gritted my teeth as my classmates started whistling and giggling. No doubt they thought this was related to the stupid rumors that refused to go away. I dumped my things in my bag and stomped out of the classroom.

By this point I recognized that this was a lost battle and there was no point in engaging. Our attempts to counter the rumors with boring information hadn't worked and my nerves were frayed, and I had to admit I didn't have the best reaction earlier this morning when Lina and I overheard some sophomore kids in the hallway saying how they'd heard I may have got pregnant with Sawyer's kid. I turned to them and asked them where they'd seen the pregnancy test.

No surprise when this backfired. By lunch time people were asking me if I already knew the sex of the baby.

It shouldn't have affected me because I knew these things were far from the truth. But it still did. When this same situation happened to Toni, I'd been high on my horse thinking this would never happen to me, that I wouldn't make such a grand mistake. Now I knew that it didn't matter. I could be on my best behavior all the time, attend church every Sunday, never say a bad word in public and keep away from boys, but it only took one rumor to spread like wildfire and all that hard work was for nothing. Now that it was happening to me, I felt horrible for the way I'd judged Toni. At least she had enjoyed her blunder and she had a boyfriend who stood by her and wanted to be a part of her life. All I'd done wrong was kiss the resident bad boy in public, and I was the one who was condemned. Why weren't people talking about how bad he was for ruining my reputation? Or about how I was probably his current victim in a large succession of girls he had fun with and discarded for the next? And yet...

That also would be unfair. No one knew, but Sawyer had kissed me because for some reason he liked me. And I still couldn't believe that.

None of that was why Mr. Davies was calling both of us to his office. He must have caught wind that Sawyer was back to school today and wanted to talk about that. That topic was going to be even more complicated than if we had to discuss about the ridiculous rumors.

I was thinking about that as I stomped down the empty hallways when a second set of footsteps joined. I glanced over my shoulder and my heart stopped as Sawyer headed my way. His head bowed forward, but I could still see the gnarly colors around his nose and eyes. As if sensing my attention, he lifted his eyes and they locked on mine.

"Rory," as he said this my breath caught. "We need to talk."

"Well, yeah. That's what we're going to do," I said, pointing in the general direction of Mr. Davies' office.

Sawyer glanced around to make sure we were completely alone, but he must have not wanted to take any chances because next thing he grabbed my arm and dragged me into the janitor's storage room. He closed the door behind him and turned on the light, as familiar with the layout as if he worked here. I lifted my eyebrows and he shrugged.

"Make out spot?" I asked, sounding bored even though I really wanted to know the answer.

His lips stretched into a little smile. "Detention, actually. I often end up having to help Smithy."

"Who?"

"The janitor," he said, shaking his head. I felt heat crawl up my neck and cleared my throat. The storage room was made smaller by the shelves packed to the brim with buckets, detergent and boxes, which didn't leave us a lot of room for maneuvering. Sawyer shifted so that the door handle stopped digging into his back and it brought him closer to me. It was impossible to hide the way this hitched my breath. I couldn't help but remember the searing kiss he'd given me last week when he was so close, his eyes veiled in a way that made me think it was probably on his mind too.

The Bad Boy with a Heart of GoldWhere stories live. Discover now