the diary; nick mara

thirteen

nick walked into the school with his phone in hand. he was curious as to why everyone was acting so strange around him. 

his very best friend, austin, was acting super fidgety in the car, leaving nick suspicious. he was stuttering, refusing to look him in the eye, and he rambled the entire car ride. 

sage wasn't returning his phone calls or texts like she normally did. she seemed to be in a really dull mood and it worried him. 

he'd called her the morning before in hopes to hang out with her, but she quickly told him that she couldn't because of a "girls day" with parker. 

she wasn't lying. she did indeed spend some much needed time with her friend, and nick wasn't mad about it, but he couldn't help but question if he'd done something wrong.

"is it because i told you i love you?" he questioned her over the phone, his voice faltering at the end. 

he was worried that she was ready to leave him. maybe he was just a fun time.

but nick knew sage entirely too well. she was an honest girl, or at least that's what he thought, and so she'd have absolutely no reason to lie about actually having feelings for him. 

but he knew that if she wasn't lying, she was withholding information, but he wanted to let her have that. he wanted to give her privacy. what he didn't know was that she had gone and done the one thing no one would ever expect sage to do.

she kissed another guy. 

there were so many things wrong with that sentence, because not only did she make out with a boy that wasn't the one she was seeing, the boy was edwin; one of nick's best friends.

people were shocked to find out that she kissed a boy in general, and now she'd done it with two boys. 

was it cheating? her and nick weren't official.

but he thought he had her all to himself, and it would shatter him to hear otherwise. 

edwin was also being strange. he hadn't said a word in the groupchat. 

edwin was usually talkative, to the point where it was almost obnoxious, so it was something nick noticed.

he had a bad feeling. why did life feel so weird? so ominous? the boy had no clue.

he made his way to the table he usually sat at in the morning, edwin's back facing him.

at the table sat brandon, zion, and three other guys who normally didn't sit there. what was going on?

as he approached the table, he heard edwin talking. "yeah, bro. she's lucky i was sober." he vaingloriously spoke. nick wondered who he was speaking of, chuckling to himself, figuring it was another one of edwin's wild stories about girls being all over him. 'maybe that's why he wasn't saying much in the groupchat. he was busy.' nick though to himself as edwin started speaking again.

"i mean, she totally would've gone all the way if i didn't stop her." he said, earning a reaction from all off the boys except zion and brandon, because they had seen the dynamic of edwin and sage, and they watched her reject him everyday. they weren't buying his bullshit. "she was just so wasted, i couldn't have done that." he lied straight through his teeth.

the three boys gave responses like, "i can't believe you almost hit that."

and nick thought to himself that this girl must be the hottest person ever, because no one was ever surprised about who edwin hooked up with.

for some reason, the boy could use his smooth words to pull girls way out of his league.

"who was it?" nick asked, making edwin damn near jump out of his skin. the tan boy turned white as his gaze met nick's.