"And so that's..." I tuned out the teacher's voice, not caring enough to listen anymore. I honestly didn't even remember her name. To me, she was as good as nonexistent.

It was Wednesday, and it was safe to say that the last few days had been a mess. Well, that maybe an understatement. Nothing happened yesterday that pertained to me and Sam - other than the increasing visibility of both of our bruises. Primarily mine.

I had never experienced quite so many mixed reactions before, and because I adore complaining about things, the following are the two most important stories of other's reactions toward my new and improved neck.

My parents.

When Sam drove me home on Monday, we arrived there only moments after my parents did. I wasn't too scared of being late, since they probably just assumed that I was at Millie's house beforehand. They still always sent a few texts when I was late to make sure that I wasn't dead.

Their reactions were polar opposites. Now, my mom on one hand, almost had a heart attack. I entered the house, and my dad asked if I went to football practice, I said no. He didn't turn around though, focused on some football-related thing on the television. When I entered the kitchen, my mother was making dinner.

As usual, I pretended to be hungry - even though I was very nervous, and would have probably puked if I actually ate - she started snapping at me. Despite my best efforts to stay out of her vision, she managed to catch sight of me anyway. When she did, there was no stopping her. She was screaming and yelling, demanding to know who did that to her son. My dad, on the other hand, was thrilled out of his mind. He was saying things like, he's finally becoming a man, and I thought you'd never get into a fight.

Somehow, I found his reaction more alarming than anything. I mean, he was exuding pride because he thought his son got into a fight. That was kind of fucked up, but I was willing to ignore it because he convinced Mom to let it go.

That didn't mean that he wasn't trying to get the details out of me, but I was pretty good at evading him thus far.

No here was the second story.

Millie.

I let her pick me up yesterday morning, simply because I wanted to show her that I still loved and missed her. That didn't mean that she didn't scowl while doing so. Knowing that she still came to my house to pick me up made me hopeful. It clearly meant that she didn't entirely hate me, which I didn't think she did anyway. I knew that allowing her that small thing meant a lot to her, even if she refused to show it.

As I entered the car, I saw her expression try to decide on what exactly to feel. She was smug at first, definitely enjoying the idea of me needing a ride from her. Then, she was shocked the moment her eyes took in the colors on my neck. After, they were confused, trying to understand what it meant.

What was the emotion she settled on, you might ask? Oh, well, let me tell you.

Rage.

Deep-seeded rage.

She was livid! It was because she had enough evidence to comfortably jump to conclusions. It wasn't very comfortable for me, though. Millie was hellbent on believing that Sam had done that to me. No matter what I said, she was confident and mad. Very mad.

Did I mention that she was upset?

I kindly explained to her - in between her rants - that it wasn't Sam who did that to me. I told her that we ran into some trouble on the way to his house. It took a lot of reassuring to get her to fully believe me, and I still didn't think that she did.

Of course, she really wanted to know what kind of trouble. Which was understandable, but I simply said that it had to do with Sam's situation. It wasn't my place to talk about Sam's problems - even though they were now partially mine - regardless of who I was talking to.

Millie would simply have to get over her fear and try to let it go.

Easier said than done.

However, even after all of the things that she said that she would threaten Sam with, all of it dissipated when she saw what happened to him. She wouldn't admit it even if it would save her life, but I knew that she was a bit scared.

And if Millie was scared, then I was shitting myself.

So there you have it, my sad mother, my proud father, and my angry best friend. Like I said, it was very diverse.

And also somehow predictable.

Now, here comes the things that I was hearing at school. That was where shit got weird.

Some people went the simple route, they tie together Sam's bruises and my bruises, and the fact that we got into a car together, and just assume that we got into a fight. That was the plausible theory.

Then there were some about how one of us fucked the other's friend/love interest. One that Sam got too handsy with Millie. One that we were secretly in love - which we weren't, but there was the kiss. Some said that Sam's father was actually abusive, and he didn't like that he was hanging out with me. Which were all ridiculous.

Although, I never met his parents, so God only knew what they were like.

Some people also brought up his friends. Things about how they didn't like the idea of the rivalry ending, or that they actually called the shots and decided who Sam was allowed to hang out with.

All of it was blown way out of proportion. Which seemed a little hard to do, when the proportion size was some drug dealer shit.

I jumped when the bell rung, trying to pull myself out of my thoughts for at least a little while. It was lunchtime and I was fairly certain that Millie would be by my side today, since she also was yesterday.

I wandered out into the hall and towards my locker. People were talking to friends, seemingly unaware of the life around them. It was nice after being under the spotlight for so long. Of course, the story was still fresh and no one was planning on completely forgetting about it anytime soon. But I couldn't stand all of the weird looks that I had been getting, or the things I heard being whispered about me.

I said this before, and I would say it again - I wasn't a nervous person. I could handle presenting in front of the class, or meeting new people. But when it came to hearing my name being thrown around every four seconds by people that I had never even seen before, it brought something out in me. It didn't help that everything they were saying was extremely untrue.

There was a reason as to why Sam was the popular one, and I was simply the rival that people spoke about in passing.

"Hello stranger." Millie greeted me after I put my books away.

I smiled and joined her on her journey to the cafeteria. "Hello to you, too."

"I've got a question." She said, effectively making me groan. I was really starting to get sick of questions. I got what she was trying to do by asking in small increments, but I wasn' going to cave. Still, I nodded. "How much longer until I can have my Sawyer back?"

I was a bit taken aback by her question. I wasn't sure if she was asking how long until the thing that I was caught up in subsided, or how long until I stopped being a douche. Either one made sense, but I still didn't know which. Sam had mentioned a time limit of some sort, but I didn't even know how long that was. Things were very complicated, and we kept making it worse.

That was when I reminded myself of what happened on Monday. Or at least, what I thought was the most important thing that happened. And I was not talking about any physical pain.

The kiss. Oh God, the kiss. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Not in the way that a schoolgirl fantasizes about her first kiss - which it wasn't, by the way - but in the way that a boy couldn't stop thinking about the fact that the one guy who he was supposed to hate had kissed him, and the boy had kissed him back. Not to mention that they were both supposedly straight, so what did anything even mean anymore?

I had been having a little bit of trouble when it came to sleep the last two nights. For two reasons: I was horrified of those creeps finding their way into my room again, but also because of the kiss.

I always imagined that the most drama I would ever experience would be the rivalry between us.

However, this was somehow worse.

Who was I kidding? Of course, it was worse!

What did this say about me? Did it mean that I was gay? I wasn't gay. I never once in my life looked at another boy and wanted to kiss him. Sure, I found guys attractive, but only in the way someone looks at another person and compares them to yourself, wondering if you could ever be so handsome. And confident too, that would also be nice.

Where was I?

"Sawyer?" Millie spoke, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Oh, yeah." I mumbled, trying to think about my answer. "I'm not really sure, but I don't think that it'll last forever."

She let out a halfhearted chuckle. "Yeah..."

The whole experience of not being able to open up to Millie had been torture. I just wanted to be able to have a childish movie night again, where we watched another John Hughes movie that we had both already seen a few hundred times. Even if it had only been a few days, it already felt like a lifetime.

"Well, I wanted to tell you that my sister is in town right now." Millie beamed.

I smiled widely. "Holy shit, really?"

She nodded, her short hair bobbing as she did so.

"How long is she staying?" I asked her.

"Kiera said about a week, but she'll be back again within the month." Millie said, her face suddenly glowing. Kiera was Millie's older sister who went off to college a few years back. She took us to our first high school party back when we were freshmen, along with a plethora of other things. She was our only other friend in this world.

That first party didn't go well though, since that was also the day when I first met Sam and Dennis.

We had spent most of the night drinking - which was highly illegal and any infants who stumbled upon this, don't underage drink. Anyway, when it started to reach about one or two in the morning, I was already sick of the alcohol.

I never really liked the taste of it all that much, so I didn't get totally shitfaced or anything. However, I could not say the same for Millie. That girl did many questionable things that night that I was sworn under oath to never speak of again.

That was all beside the point.

I remembered sitting on the staircase, just bobbing my head to the music and sloshing around whatever the hell that liquid in my cup was. It was boring to say the least. I felt sick watching morons knock pricey items over and basically have sex at dancers feet simply because all of the private rooms were already occupied.

After not wanting to sit there any longer, I decided to get off of the stairs and try to locate Millie or Keira. Except, when I reached the bottom a foot shot out of no where, sending me sprawling face first into the floor.

I ended up getting the liquid from my cup into my eyes, effectively scaring the hell out of me. It burnt so bad, I was convinced I would go blind.

All the while, I had to listen to some maniac laugh at me for it.

When I successfully stumbled my way to a bathroom and washed my eyes as best as I could, I regained most of my vision. It was still a little blurry, though. That was when I first laid eyes upon the boy.

His blonde hair was much more curly back then, and we were almost the same height. I remembered the smirk dancing around in those hazel eyes of his. He had a face too pretty for such a messy party, but an expression that fit right in.

I got really mad. Rightfully so, I could have been blinded at the age of fourteen.

So, naturally, I started yelling at him, shoving him back a little. He only continued to laugh, before finally running off into the crowd without so much as an explanation.

Funnily enough, I only searched for a few minutes before ending up on the same staircase again. That was when I was nearly pushed off by a stumbling boy attempting to make his way down.

That one had overgrown brown hair and weirdly broad shoulders for being so young. His face had a dusting of blush, which was probably the result of how many drinks he had consumed.

The first thing he did to me was sling his arm around my shoulders as if he knew me, and yelled into my ear. "I just lost my virginity!"

I was very taken aback, already over the whole concept of high school parties. But he just kept smiling, putting all of his weight against me and still somehow managing to sway. Even after all that time, I still didn't think I had ever seen someone quite so drunk. As much as I wanted to shove him down the stairs for coming anywhere near me, I felt a bit bad for him. He almost seemed abandoned, all alone and completely hammered.

Once he had enough of drooling on me, his whole posture lit up as he spotted someone below. Sure enough, it was the blonde. I glared at him profusely.

"Sam!" He giggled, attempting to skip down the stairs but falling a total of four times. "Sammy, Sam, Sam!"

Sam only raised his eyebrows, grabbing his friend before he could fall a fifth time. At the time, Dennis had been taller than him. "Dennis! Denny, Den, Den!"

Dennis held a hand up to his ear, cringing. "You're loud!" He had yelled, making absolutely no sense at all. He was definitely the louder of the two.

"Sure." Sam said quietly. Weaving an arm around his drunk friend and helping him to follow.

"Wait!" Dennis yelled, disheveled. "I want to say bye-bye to my new friend!"

That was when he whipped his head around, a sick look on his face shadowing his features for a brief moment, and then waved madly at me. "Bye-bye, random black-haired dude! I'm glad I told you of my triumph!"

Then he was being dragged off by Sam.

That night was interesting to say the least. When school started up, I found out that Sam and Dennis were not only attending the same high school as me, but also almost had all of the same classes. That was also when I met Brian, who was apparently also at that party, and I just hadn't run into him.

Brian had always been the more tolerable one of the trio, and Caden hadn't shown up until last year. The had been a tetrad of mischief ever since.

I wasn't even sure how I first met him, but I was pretty sure it had to do with that one time that involved a lot of nail polish remover.

I shivered at the thought.

It was around then that Millie and I had finished our lunch, and the bell rung. We each took turns at our lockers, laughing and joking the whole way. For the first time since Friday, things felt oddly normal.

We entered our fifth period class together, and took our usual seats near the center of the room.

It didn't take long for Sam to enter, and instead of the usual glare we gave each other, there wasn't anything at all.

At least, not anything that anyone else would have noticed. However, I on the other hand, very much noticed the way his gaze lingered on mine. Something about it made my skin crawl. It seemed that neither of knew precisely how we were meant to act after what happened between us.

During that period, I felt my phone vibrate from within my pocket.

I wasn't a bad student - morally-wise, not grade-wise - so I usually didn't go on my phone while a teacher was talking. But there was just something about this whole day that made me want to check it out anyway.

So, I took a peek.

Druggie Douche:

I am going to assume that you need a ride.

My heart did something so ridiculous when I read it, that I felt like I deserved to be sacrificed for such a pathetic response to something so simple. Maybe then I would finally repent for all of the stupid things I had done in my life.

I glanced over at Sam, but since he was sat in the front row of the classroom, I couldn't really see his face.

Me:

Then you are assuming correctly.

It didn't take long for an answer. I subtly checked.

Druggie Douche:

Ooh, the bad boy has his phone out in class!

I rolled my eyes and put the phone back into my pocket.

Hold on a second...

How could he text me so easily even though he was sat directly in front of where the teacher was talking?

•O•O•