Sarah and Castiel met the next time on Monday. As much as Sarah had wanted to spend the Sunday with Castiel, she had need to focus on school work, because she felt like she was falling behind on German class. The difficulty had suddenly spiked during the past few weeks, and she was struggling to keep up. Castiel had offered to help but since he didn’t know German, Sarah had declined. The boy’s presence would’ve most likely been more of a distraction than help in the end. Castiel decided to be productive as well, and had focused on polishing the song Leon and he would play in the band contest. There were only seven days until the contest, so everything would have to be perfect. Castiel wanted to win.

A smile blossomed on Sarah’s face when she noticed Castiel waiting for her at the end of the street. There was newfound spring in her step when she hurried to him. Castiel smiled and pulled her into a hug, and Sarah kissed his cheek. Castiel responded with kissing her lips which pulled out a giggle from Sarah.

“You’re in a good mood today,” she hummed, “even though we’re going to school.”

“I may have started to get bored at home,” Castiel said when they started walking hand in hand.

“Can you say that again? I need a record of it.”

“Oh, shut up,” Castiel said and poked Sara’s side, making her squirm.

Sarah laughed and danced an arm’s reach away from Castiel, still holding on to his hand.

Castiel shook his head and pulled Sarah back to his side. He kind of wanted to skip school now. They wouldn’t be bored together for sure. But he knew Sarah would never agree to it. And perhaps it was better to visit the school sometimes, so the teachers wouldn’t get any funny ideas about making him repeat a year.

They arrived at the school only a little after Leon and Amanda and managed to catch them going up the stairs. Leon and Castiel performed the bro hug, while Amanda and Sarah greeted each other normally with smiles and ‘good mornings’.

“Good to see you in school again,” Leon said when the four of them climbed up the stairs.

“I thought I should show my face here again, so people don’t forget me,” Castiel grinned.

“The teachers definitely missed you. Everyone always remembers to ask where you are,” Amanda smiled.

“I’m sure Mrs Styrne will be so happy to see you again,” Sarah added. “She missed you the most, as you probably guessed from the amount of homework.”

“I’m sorry to say the feeling isn’t mutual,” Castiel sighed dramatically, “but don’t tell her. It might break her heart.”

“I’m sure she’d be devastated.”

“The world is cruel. But she’s too old for me, and I only have my eyes on a certain person.”

“Oh? And who might that be?” Sarah asked with a teasing smile.

“Someone who’s very nice, incredibly good-looking, and doesn’t get tired of dealing with me daily.”

“Oh, honey. I love you too,” Leon said and took Castiel’s hands in his.

Castiel squeezed Leon’s hands and looked his friend in the eyes.

“Leon, I say this with all the love from the bottom of my heart. Fuck off.”

Amanda and Sarah burst out laughing. The other students nearby threw confused glances at their direction. Leon feigned being hurt, moving one hand on his heart, but he started laughing too.

Castiel crossed his arms but a smile tugged the corners of his mouth as well. He wrapped an arm around Sarah’s shoulders and pulled her close.

Sarah smiled and leaned slightly against his shoulder.

“Incredibly good-looking, huh?” she asked quietly.

“Yes. I never lie.”

“Never?”

“Almost never. But never when it’s about you.”

“You’re such a softie,” Sarah muttered when Castiel pressed a kiss on the top of her head.

“Get a room, you two,” Leon grinned and covered his eyes.

“Oh, you be quiet. I’ve watched you two canoodle for way too long. It’s my turn now. And I was being chaste compared to you guys.”

Both Amanda and Leon blushed.

“You never said it bothered you…”

“Who am I to ruin your fun?” Castiel said and nudged Leon’s shoulder.

Leon laughed softly and relaxed. For a moment he had been worried, that he had annoyed Castiel for this long. He should’ve realized that Castiel wouldn’t have waited this long to say something about it if it had bothered him.

Mrs Johnson’s arrival paused their banter, as the teacher ushered the students in the classroom. Another boring day of school would start.

Castiel seated himself next to Sarah again. It had turned into a habit, although he did sit next to Leon sometimes as well, so that his friend would feel too lonely, and so that he’d sometimes share his homework and notes with Castiel. Luckily, they had moved on from Russian literature, which was the bane of Castiel’s existence. He wasn’t huge reader to begin with but the books they had talked about were mind-numbingly boring and so incredibly long. But now they were drafting essays which was hardly better. Mrs Johnson had promised that this essay would be the last assignment for the year. Next week they would watch film adaptations of books they had read and discuss their differences. It gave everyone bit more energy and motivation.

Castiel looked at Sarah’s notebook where she listed her ideas in bullet points and drew arrows between the topics that would be presented together. She crossed some sentences when she decided they weren’t needed instead of bothering to erase them. Sometimes she glanced at the instruction sheet or opened a page from their text book for extra information. She had scribbled a whole page’s worth of ideas in under twenty minutes. Meanwhile Castiel had made a circle for the first bullet point.

Sarah felt Castiel’s eyes on her and turned to look.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just being jealous about how much you’ve already managed to write down. Are you a robot or something?”

Sarah chuckled and shook her head.

“I just had a good idea for one of the prompts.”

“You picked the one that’s about a culture’s literary works?”

“Yeah. We’ve talked about Russian literature for weeks, so it was an easy decision. Do you have any ideas yet?”

“Not really. I can’t even pick a topic.”

“Did you read Pride and Prejudice?” Sarah asked after glancing the list of topics again.

“What do you think?”

Castiel’s voice had a sarcastic tone, but when Sarah looked at him again, he was focused on spinning the pencil between his fingers.

“You did.”

“….No.”

“I’m 100% sure you did. You’re not looking at me, so you did. You don’t need to be embarrassed–”

“I’m not embarrassed.”

“–you are a little bit. You don’t need to tell me if you liked it or not. But you could use it for this topic. ‘Discuss the theme of prejudice and its causes and effects using a piece of literature that you’ve read.’”

“I suppose. Since I don’t see any other good ones,” Castiel muttered and glared at the paper. Prejudice was in the name of the book so there would be a lot of it for sure. And probably tons of analysis online he could use for inspiration.

Sarah smiled and nudged his arm with hers.

“I have the book at home so I can borrow it to you, so you don’t need to go to the library.”

“How kind of you.”

“I know. I try my best.”

“You sure do. But I don’t remember anything about the book, so how am I supposed to make plans?”

“You could start listing your own thoughts. What do you think prejudice is and what it causes? That way you have some ideas in your mind when you start reading the book again.”

“I hate it that you always have good ideas,” Castiel muttered and started to jot down words on paper.

Sarah smiled again and turned to her own notes. She was excited about the fact that she could read Pride and Prejudice with Castiel. It’d surely be an experience.

When they were getting ready to leave the class, the principal’s voice crackled in the intercoms.

“All third year students to their homeroom’s for next lesson. There will be important information concerning the spring semester.”

Nervousness swirled in Sarah’s stomach. She could already guess what they’d talk about: college applications. She hadn’t made any progress after the college fair few weeks back. In fact, she had forgotten about it with everything else that had been going on. Now panic started to raise its head again.

“Why can they never announce these things well beforehand?” Castiel muttered as they walked out of the classroom. “It’s almost like they remember they have organized something fifteen minutes before it’s supposed to happen.”

Sarah listened Castiel’s and Leon’s chat about their band practice plans with half an ear while sitting on the bench in front of their homeroom. Her leg bounced restlessly, and her fingers drummed against her thigh. Amanda returned from the bathroom and sat down next to her.

“Is everything alright?” she asked.

The bouncing leg stopped.

“Yeah. I’m just nervous. I haven’t thought about college stuff basically at all, and I’m sure we’re here to talk about it. I don’t have any ideas, so it’s just gonna stress me out more.”

“You didn’t like the place that offered graphic design?”

“It seemed nice. But I’m not sure. It’s so hard to pick anything. I don’t know if I want to do graphic design.”

“It makes sense. But you don’t need to decide right away,” Amanda said and placed her hand on Sarah’s arm. “It’s alright to not know what you want to do.”

“Hmm, I guess. It just feels like I’m disappointing myself and other people if I don’t know.”

“You’re not disappointing anyone. Just because some people know what they want to do, doesn’t mean you’re worse because you don’t know. Sometimes it just takes time to find your passion. Sometimes you don’t find it but that’s okay too.”

Sarah managed to smile but it waned soon. Before she had time to reply anything else, Mr Beasley strided down the hallway in casual manner. The history teacher was one of Sarah’s favourites, and they had lucked out on getting him as their homeroom teacher. He was informative and told stories from his travels around the world. It felt almost odd that an interesting person like him was a teacher in high school. It didn’t hurt that he was rather handsome as well. He had wavy dark hair and neatly trimmed beard. He was more muscular than one would expect a history teacher to be, and he dressed stylishly as well. Many of the girls whispered about Mr Beasley, wondering why most boys couldn’t be as funny and mature and handsome as him.

“Good morning. Nice to see so many excited faces,” Mr Beasley greeted them. Almost no one looked excited.

The students followed him in the classroom and took their seats, many picking their history class seat out of habit. Their teacher shuffled some papers while waiting for the last students to come in.

When everyone was seated and the bell rang as the sign of their break ending, Mr Beasley stood up and cleared his throat. He greeted the students again.

“Today’s meeting is a brief reminder that college and university applications start in mid-January and continue all the way until March. I hope most of you already know where you are going to apply and have figured out what your school will require of you to send them. I also recommend keeping an eye on the entrance exam book requirements. They will disappear from the bookstores and libraries extremely fast so it’s good to be prepared. We will talk about entrance exams more in the spring, but I just want to remind you of them. A good preparation to your final exams usually provides a great foundation for the entrance exam studying. If you feel like you need help with deciding what to do, you can always talk to me of the career counsellors. You can contact either through email.”

Sarah listened to Mr Beasley with growing stress in her chest. She had no idea of any of this. Maybe she should go to a career counsellor. It could clear up her thoughts. She glanced around the room and there were some other panicked faces in the crowd, but most seemed rather calm or uninterested. It might’ve been too early for them to digest this information. She noticed Leon listening to the teacher with eyebrows pinched together. She wondered if he too was still struggling to decide what to do after high school.

Finally, Mr Beasley ended his speech and let the students head to their lessons. Sarah was heading to her next class, but Castiel stopped her by taking her hand.

“See you at lunch?” he asked.

“Of course.”

A quick kiss on the lips and they parted ways. Sarah didn’t even notice the looks some of the students threw her way. A simple kiss made her happy enough to not pay attention to her surroundings. She was oblivious enough that she nearly bumped to Mercedes who was standing at the stair landing.

Sarah took a hasty step back and grabbed the railing to keep her balance. Her eyes flicked quickly to Mercedes who stared at her without saying a word. The moment of tension passed when Sarah hurried onward. Her heart beat slightly faster in her chest, but she was relieved Mercedes hadn’t said anything. They hadn’t talked ever since the incident. Mercedes and her friends had received a long sentence of detention, and they had paid the repainting of Sarah’s locker. Most important of all, they respected Sarah’s demand to leave her alone. It didn’t stop Mercedes from looking at her like she was a dead fish but at least she didn’t say anything.

Few hours passed and finally it was time for lunch. Sarah headed downstairs to the cafeteria and noticed Leon sitting at a table alone. He waved at her, and she waved back before heading to the serving line. She took her spot at the end of the queue and eyed at the lunch options. Mexican rice and beans with a salad or chicken soup. The school budget still hadn’t recovered from the baby dolls it seemed, since they still had rice and beans on the menu. At least it was seasoned differently this time. Sarah thrummed her fingers against her arm while waiting. She scooped some rice and beans on her plate and walk to the table Leon was sitting.

“Hi,” Leon greeted her when she sat across him at the table.

“Hi. The others aren’t here yet?”

“Amanda went to the bathroom. I don’t know where Castiel is. He should be coming soon. I was sent to reserve seats.”

“Smart move, all good seats always go so fast.” Especially if people wanted to sit as a group. On some days, being ten minutes late would mean either waiting for spots to open or splitting the group.

Leon hummed in agreement and took a bite from his bread. For a few moments they ate in silence. Sarah glanced towards the door to see if Castiel and Amanda were coming. The queue slithered out of the cafeteria now, so she assumed they had got stuck somewhere in there.

Just as Sarah finished the thought, her phone screen flashed with a message icon. She swiped to unlock the screen and opened the message from Castiel.

Are you in the cafeteria already?

Yeah. With Leon

Me and amanda are stuck in this dumb queue. But we should get there soon. I can see the door already.

Good luck. We’ll be waiting.

Sarah looked at the door again and was fairly sure she saw a hint of Castiel’s auburn hair in the mass of students.

“Castiel said they’re coming soon. They’re stuck in the queue.”

“At least the food is nothing special. If it was pizza day, Castiel would be upset.”

Sarah chuckled. Being in the last lunch group on pizza day always sucked because no matter what, people always tried to take more slices than was allowed, and there was barely enough left for the last ones. They had had to make one lunch lady to stand on guard next to the pizza

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” Sarah said after pushing beans around on her plate.

“Go ahead.”

“I heard from Amanda that you’re not sure where you’d like to apply for school. I’m struggling to figure out what to do as well. I was wondering if you have found out anything that has helped.”

“Hmm, yeah. I’m still not sure what I want to do. I’m probably applying to the same college as Castiel. But it’s not something I’m passionate about. But I guess learning more about composition and lyric writing would be interesting.”

“Have you thought about what you do if you don’t get in?”

“A bit. My brother has a business so I might end up working there. Or if Amanda gets in any of the schools she applies to, I’ll probably move with her and see what happens.”

“Sounds nice,” Sarah sighed. Leon said he didn’t have plans but to Sarah that all sounded like several solid and well thought ideas. Then she heard approaching footsteps and a tray appeared next to her. She looked up and saw Castiel sitting down next to her and Amanda taking her spot next to Leon.

“You made it,” Leon smiled.

“Fucking finally,” Castiel groaned. “I don’t understand why it takes so long for some people to get food on their plate. I love to eat in a hurry because some idiots can’t decide if they want soup or not.” The volume of his voice rose slightly when a couple of students walked past them.

“Do you know what took them so long? Surely it couldn’t have just been indecisiveness?” Sarah asked.

“Apparently they ran out rice and beans. And then everyone decided to wait for the new patch.”

“Ran out of rice and beans. That’s something I never expected to hear.”

The rest of the lunch passed with casual chatter and after finishing, they moved on to their next classes. Sarah was surprised how comfortable and relaxed she felt spending time with Leon and Amanda. She had held a conversation with Leon by herself when just a few weeks ago she had felt awkward being included in the group, like she was a fourth wheel. Now she talked and laughed with them and while she still felt embarrassed sometimes, it happened a lot less. Sarah smiled at the thought. She glanced at Leon, Amanda who sat on the bench next to Castiel and her. Castiel’s arms were wrapped around her since he had pulled her to sit on his lap. She leaned against his chest. It was so nice to have friends.

After the school ended, Sarah and Castiel walked home together. Rest of the day had been uneventful, but all around people had talked about their future plans and what they wanted to do after high school. Sarah had gnawed on her bottom lip while listening and thinking. So many amazing plans: work, university, college, studying abroad, becoming doctors or teachers or lawyers, working towards starting a business…

She was still lost in though when they were walking down the street. She didn’t notice Castiel stopping and bumped into him.

“Oh, sorry,” she muttered.

“Are you alright? You are quiet.”

“I’m just thinking.”

“About what?”

“About what Mr Beasley said. I don’t have ideas and it’s stressful. Everyone else seems to know what to do. Even Leon has a plan even though he’s not sure what he wants to do.”

Castiel sighed softly and wrapped an arm around Sarah.

“Don’t worry about it too much. Things will work out. You can always take a gap year, right?”

“I can but…”

“But what?”

“It’s nothing. I’m just being selfish.”

“No, tell me. I want to know.”

Sarah bit her lip. She looked away from Castiel.

“I don’t want to take a gap year because I’m scared that I’ll be left behind. Amanda and Leon will probably leave. You will most likely too. You’ll move to a new city, start a new school, and get new friends. While I’ll be here, doing nothing. There will be less things common between us. So much distance between us. And you could forget me.”

“I doubt I’d forget you. Long distance relationship would be tough, but it’d be worth it. I love you, and I want to be with you. Meeting a couple of new people wouldn’t change it.”

Castiel pulled Sarah closer and pressed a kiss on her temple.

Sarah smiled but was still hesitant. Worry nested in her chest. She trusted Castiel, but it was easy to say how things would be when everything could still change when the new life started.

“We’ll figure out something. I’ll help you look for schools, okay? If nothing else works, you can just move in with me. And I might not even get in the school I want. It could be that you get in a school and I don’t. It’s not something we need to worry about right now.”

Sarah’s smile grew stronger. Castiel had a point. Mulling over the same things wouldn’t progress anything. She needed to clear her head and do something instead of just thinking and driving herself to anxiety.

“Thank you Castiel,” she said and leaned against his side. It was so nice that she didn’t have to deal with her thoughts alone.

Castiel wrapped his arm around Sarah’s waist and they continued walking. He hoped he had managed to make Sarah feel better. He was also worried. He had a clear plan, but if the plan didn’t work, he was afraid he’d be lost. He had a few schools to apply to, just in case, but he wasn’t even sure if he’d want to go. They were all worse options compared to his top choice. And even if he got in the school he wanted, there’d be many issues to solve. He needed an apartment; he’d probably have to get a job to pay rent. There were a lot of things to consider.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out and picked up the call from his mother.

“Yes?”

“Are you home soon? Ares has the check-up today.”

“Right. I’m almost at home. Maybe ten minutes at most.”

“Okay. I’ll see you soon. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He slipped the phone back to his pocket with a sigh.

“Was it your mother?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah. Ares’s vet appointment is soon so I have to get home.”

“Oh right, I already forgot. I hope it goes well.”

“I’m pretty optimistic. He’s been progressing well. Do you want to come too?”

“I’d be happy to, but I think I’d just be unnecessary distraction. But tell Ares I wish him good luck.”

“I will,” Castiel smiled.

Soon they stopped in front of Castiel’s house. Castiel pulled his arm from Sarah’s waist but kept his attention on her.

“I’ll call you after the vet to let you know how it went,” he said.

“Thanks. Tell your parents I said hi too,”

“I will.”

Sarah leaned closer and pressed a soft kiss on Castiel’s lips. And when she tried to step back, Castiel pulled her in to another kiss, longer and deeper.

After a few moments, their lips parted, and Sarah smiled.

“You always do this, and then I don’t want to leave,” she muttered. A light blush coloured her cheeks. Kissing Castiel was so addicting. It always made butterflies flutter in her stomach.

“Maybe that’s my plan,” Castiel grinned and pressed another kiss on her lips. Quick and light this time.

Sarah chuckled and pushed him an arm’s length away.

“I refuse to fall to your schemes. I’ll be heading home now,” she said with a smile on her face.

Castiel pulled a sad puppy’s look on his face and sighed: “Fine.”

Sarah laughed and shook her head. She grabbed the collar of his coat, pulling him into a final, this time for sure, kiss.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she said after letting him go. She waved her hand and walked away so that she wouldn’t be tempted again. Her heart thumped loud in her chest, and it was hard to contain the happy grin on her face. She hadn’t planned on making a move like that on Castiel.

Castiel looked after Sarah with wonder in his eyes. That girl always managed to surprise him. He shook his head in amusement and headed inside. His fingers brushed over his lips a few times. Sarah’s touch lingering on them still. What a girl.