falling

~chapter 6~

She'd never realized just how much of her heart John B owned until he was gone. The color brown reminded her of his eyes, breakfast reminded her of his favorite diner, everything that made the world turn reminded her of John B. They saw each other next to little, pretended they had never rocked the other to sleep, kissed each other's forehead, moaned the others name. At first, she tried to erase all of him that was left in her, to make it easier to forget. But it was hard when every time Topper hugged her she wished it was John B. And when Topper told her he loved her, she choked up. Because she did not love Topper, at least not the way he loved her. But she didn't want to let him go because he was the only boy her dad approved of and the only one distracting her from John B. So she said it anyways, she told him she loved him. But she pretended she was talking to John B when she did.

She grew bitter over the months without him, made up this image of him in her head that was nothing but selfish. How could he have left her? How could he pretend she didn't exist? It fueled her and then when she saw him at keggers or on the beach, she had a feeling of intense anger. Her love for him was so strong, it helped create the anger she held for him. 

She heard through Kiara that John B began dating a girl from Chapel Hill six months after they had kissed each other goodbye. Her name was Margot Clency and she had brown hair and green eyes and she was everything Sarah was not. Her stomach dropped at the news.

Then a month and a half later she also learned through Kiara that John B and Margot had broken up.

"He said your name during sex." She told her as if it meant next to nothing.

"What?"

"John B moaned your name instead of Margot's. So she dumped him."

Sarah couldn't muster up a single formulative thought. She had thought he had forgotten her, that somehow he was successful in doing what she was incapable of: forgetting the connection they shared and that he was madly in love with a new girl while she was left in the dust.

"She was a bitch anyways." Kiara finished off her thought, "I'm glad they're over with."

"He moaned my name?"

"Mhm." Her hands glided over the surface of the bracelet she was weaving, "Margot has always been insecure about you, accusing him of still being into you."

"Is he?"

"Still into you?"

"What do you think?"

It kept her up at night later that night. She had always been the type of fall asleep the minute she touched the bed, but the information she had learned that day plagued her mind. Because John B said her name and she could practically hear his deep voice groaning her name into her ear if she tried hard enough to remember. She had convinced herself that he had fallen out of love with her. But why else would he have said her name?

x

Topper tried to drown him at a party. All because JJ offered her a drink because he was feeling bitter towards her. Sarah knew he was mad at her. Partly because JJ was loyal to John B and if John B was hurting over Sarah then JJ would grow to hate her.

She locked eyes with the brown haired boy when he was pulling JJ away from Topper and she wanted to slap Topper when he told them they were Pogue trash. She couldn't though because John B has already lunged at him. And for some reason, Sarah couldn't find it in her to be worried about Topper. Her heart ached for John B. So when Topper tried to drown him and no one seemed to be doing anything to stop him, she ran into the water with them.

"I'm gonna drown you like your old man." Something inside her snapped when Topper said that. So she grabbed him by the hair and yanked him away from John B, pushing him onto the shore.