Two
As Sarah finally breaks free of her shambles, the ones clasped around her ankles for as long as she could remember everything clicks into place. Memories flash through her brain and begin to add elements that were not there before. The pieces missing were now all becoming clear and falling into place without any resistance as they had before. It all makes sense now.
Sarah was 15 and believed she knew everything she would possibly ever need to know. She was a Cameron after all: headstrong and determined.
She was wrapped tight in the bubble wrap that covered Figure 8 at this point. A straight-A student, with loving parents, overbearing but endearing siblings, and friends that would do anything for her. ( Or so had thought so at the time.)
So when freshman year rolled around she knew things would snap into place easier than a Lego piece did. She found her role and place during school. Knew where she fit into her family. Had perfected her people skills for the country club dinners with her dad’s important friends.
It was all great and dainty. Unchanging. She’d throw a few parties with the help of Rafe and invite girls over to spend the night every once in a while. She'd meet her family every Sunday at the club to eat brunch and socialize with all the people she had grown up seeing during those early mornings when the sun was starting to rise from its slumber and the smell of freshly cut green grass drifting through the air into the dining hall.
Then her world stopped on its axis. A girl came stumbling into her first period, she looked lost and didn't seem like she was from around Figure 8. It was easy to tell she was squirming in her skin. Just itching to burst out of her body and run out of that door.
Her skirt was a tad too short, it was easy to notice because she had been grabbing at it from the moment she arrived in the classroom. Sarah wasn’t able to catch her eyes because they were firmly glued to the clement flooring of the newly washed science classroom.
“Class.” Her teacher, Mr. Davis starts effectively pulling Sarah out of her trance. “This is Kiara. She’ll be joining us.”
Nobody makes a move to greet or welcome her. It’s awkward and Sarah wants to get up and offer her a seat at her table. But her feet are stuck on the ground, letting her insecurities control her she stays stuck in her ways, the bubble wrap digging its claws further into her skin. By the time she looks up at Kiara her chance has passed.
Her eyes follow Mr. Davis as he gestures for Kiara to take the empty seat at the last lab desk. The chair next to her was empty. The class fills with quiet chatter. Her friend Hailey leans over and chances a look in Kiara’s direction.
“Wonder who she is.” She takes a once-over and has decided to make assumptions without a second thought. “Probably some poor charity case from The Cut.”
Sarah doesn’t say anything. She’d never liked when her friends did this. It had become even worse since the beginning of the year.
The class resumes and it’s like Kiara is old news as people turn back to the front of the class. Sarah tries to forget the new girl too. But her curiosity gets the best of her and without her permission, her eyes leave the front board to wander to the back of the room.
Kiara’s got her eyes on her converse. Sarah smiles to herself, she wishes she had the bravery to wear her favorite pair of black chucks to school. Though Sarah knows she’ll never be.
Kiara’s black hair sits on her shoulders with ease. Her arms are covered with bracelets. Sarah already knows Kiara will never fit in here. She’s too unique and something about that thought intrigues her.
Kiara’s heart is in her stomach. It’s about to plummet into the floor of the classroom. It was only her second week of school at this shit hole and five minutes before first period had started that morning a paper had been taped to her locker.
Due To An Overwhelming Amount Of Students Enrolled This Year, We Are Sorry To Inform You That You Have Received A Schedule Change.
“Shit.” She frowns her brow. Her whole schedule had changed. She would have to relive the hell that was her first week at Kook Academy all over again. The dirty looks. Hushed voices. Laughs. And muttered snarks.
She knew Kooks could be harsh, they had been her whole life. But now that she’s stuck in a building with them with nowhere to run and her three bodyguards not around to protect her. Kiara was so lost.
Kiara was ready to give up and let everyone bring her down. Tear her to pieces, because that is how it usually goes for people like her. Kook’s on top dragging Pogue’s down into an abyss so deep no one was ever able to find an escape exit.
The uniform was scratchy and hugged her in all the wrong ways. Just like the school had been to her. The eyes seemed to burn into her skin like a cigarette. It stung and left a mark invisible to the naked eye but nevertheless still did.
When all the kids' eyes in her first period finally left her she sank back into the chair she was sitting in. It was cold and the metal made her shiver. Her feet soon became more important than anything else in the room.
Though as she burns holes with how hard she is staring at her sneakers she gets a familiar inch on her skin. One she had to come accustomed to as soon as she walked through the doors of this school. But there’s something different about these eyes watching her.
Her suspicions are proven true when she dares to lift her head back up and is met with soft somber hazel eyes. They're friendly, almost inviting really.
When the girl realizes she's been caught staring, her cheeks turn bright red. The girl has blonde hair, it’s bright and is pulled into a half up half down ponytail. She ducks her head down slightly but flashes her a sweet smile.
And for the rest of the period that is all that Kiara can think about.
Kiara studies Sarah’s features. It’s been so long since she’s been this close to her to be able to do so. She still remembers her tells. The ones she has when she’s grasping for more but isn’t sure how to.
Her brows always frown and the corners of her lips curl downward. A small part of her wonders if John B had caught onto them too. He probably had.
“Sarah you don’t mean that,” Kiara whispers, they’re so close now she can feel the blonde’s breath against her face.
Sarah shakes her head. For the first time, Kiara sees Sarah. Not the Sarah everyone had grown up knowing or the one she had become with Topper or even John B. It came from her eyes. Usually, there would be this glint, a layer protecting Sarah’s emotions but now. They’re so open in a way that felt so intimate and vulnerable that it almost scared her.
“You’ve always known me Kie. More than anyone has.” She admits. “And it scared me so fucking much when I realized that so-” She stutters. “I fucked it all up and hurt you. I know how much I did.” Her voice is small, it tugs at something within Kiara that Kiara herself hadn't known was possible. “And god I spend the rest of freshman year punishing myself for it. But that doesn’t excuse what I did. Let happen after my birthday.”
“Yeah, it kind of hurt like a bitch.” Kiara tries to joke and laugh’s a little.
Sarah sighs. “It was the biggest mistake of my life. Nothing was the same after that.”
“Yeah, it really wasn’t.”
Sarah continues. “I think I was scared of how I felt.”
Kiara gulps and lets the words seep in. She tries to not let it show on her face though. Because she didn't want to scare Sarah back into hiding. Not again.
“The things I felt with you I had never felt for anyone else and I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around it.” Now that Sarah is saying it aloud it doesn’t seem as scary as she had chalked up in her mind it being. Her confession was much easier than she had imagined it to be inside her head.
With Sarah’s cards being slowly shown in the light Kiara finally felt confident to speak on her heart's wants.
“You wanna know why I’ve never had a boyfriend?” Kiara asks though she knew Sarah knew the answer to the question.
She’s thankful when Sarah asks. “No, why?” Playing along, buying into her words.
“Because it never felt right with guys. I wanted it to. Needed it too for my own sake I guess. But then I met you and everything was just solidified.”
It felt foreign letting truths out that had been suppressed for years upon years. Looking into Sarah’s eyes, she wanted what she saw to be true. The gaze Kiara had seen Sarah only give John B for almost a year.
Had dreamed about long after Sarah had left her scrambling to pick up the pieces of a broken girl. It was too good to be true.
“What about John B?” Kiara finds herself asking, it was the mature thing to do. Though it didn’t make it burn any less. Make her ache less of the potential of Sarah closing herself off again and ruining everything they had built tonight. After years of hiding and hurting each other because they didn't know what to do with their feelings.
She was ready for Sarah to snap out of whatever trance she was in and return to reality. Where she was very much with John B and not her.
“About that.”
Sarah had been watching Kiara for weeks. It had always been from afar; stealing glances in the hall during passing periods, finding her in class without much of a second thought, and if Sarah could be completely honest. She had changed the path she took to classes so she could pass by Kiara when she wouldn’t have before; if she would have taken her usual route.
Her interest in Kiara may have felt unusual but Sarah didn’t see it that way. Or at least at the time, she didn’t. Surrounded by her friends she was walking in sync with them down the hall. She wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation at hand between the girls around her. Recently she hadn’t cared much for what was being said by the people in her inner circle.
Then right on cue, she spots her. Her hair’s up in a bun, her skirt is still too short, and a different pair of converse on her feet. They’re baby blue. She’s got a new array of bracelets occupying both her forearms.
The words leave her mouth before she could think them through entirely. “I forgot something in Mathews.”
“You sure we can wait if you want?” Hailey offers.
“No you’re good I’ll catch up with you guys.” Sarah makes sure to smile, masking the lie she decided to create.
“Alright,” Hailey shrugs her shoulders and motions for everyone to keep walking.
Sarah watches as her friends round the corner before she’s headed in Kiara’s direction.
Kiara hated lunch. The Kooks had made it clear she wasn’t welcomed at any of their tables in the cafeteria right off the bat. Truthfully she was a little more hopeful during the first few weeks of school, that maybe, just maybe someone would cut her some slack and let her fill one of the empty spots at their table.
Oh, was she wrong.
So now she had resorted to the abandoned hallway that only the loners and outcasts dared to seek out. Outdated lockers and old paint lined the walls. The lights above flickered every so often which only added to the eerie feeling of that area of the school. Kiara felt so little and alone during these forty-five minutes. It was as if time slowed only for these chunks of time during the school day.
All she could think about was her table back at Kildare High. John B sitting on her left and JJ on her right. Pope's on the other side of the lunch table, always a book by his side or some type of homework no one but him at that table could understand set in front of him.
Back when lunch never seemed to last long enough. Hushed jokes no one else would understand and laughs that lasted so long it hurt their stomachs; we're all now just a memory to Kiara. The mere thought of it made her day even more gloomy every time it crossed her mind.
“Hey,” A voice calls out to her. Kiara refuses to believe it was meant for her so she continues to munch on the sandwich her mom packed for her that morning. “Kiara right?”
Her head snaps up at that. “Yeah.” She utters. “What’s it to you?”
The girl standing in front of her is the same one who’d looked at her in Bio all those weeks ago. The same girl she couldn’t shake out of her head. Her hazel eyes inviting, her smile so small and genuine; and her laugh so contagious it was unforgettable. Sarah. Sarah Cameron was her name.
Kiara had learned her name almost immediately. It seemed like everyone around Figure 8 knew her. Cameron was an important last name among not only the country clubgoers; boys sporting flat-ironed polos and khakis, and girls wearing tight skirts and snug-fitting tops, but was also important to the people who worked at those clubs; the boys with cargo shorts on usually accompanied by a graphic-t loosely fitted against their chests and the girls with blue jean shorts and crop tops.
She watches as the girl twirls a strand of hair around her fingers. “Uh, I was just wondering if you wanted to maybe go to the beach after school and save some baby sea turtles with me or something?”
Her offer seems legitimate even with Sarah’s small acts of kindness, she’s still a bit skeptical. Could you blame her? Kook's reputation had only been made worse in Kiara's eyes as the days dragged on at her new snobby rich charter school. “Why?”
“I saw a save-the-turtles handout on your desk in History the other day,” Sarah quips.
Kiara wondered why something so normal as noticing an interest of hers brought her so much joy. She had finally come to the conclusion, after a few moments of sitting on it, that it was nothing more than the excitement of finally meeting someone at the Kook Academy willing to give her a chance. See her for more than that weird chick, rather as they would put it ‘some pathetic Pogue Charity Case.’
She ignores the change in her heartbeat pattern. Even when it starts to beat so fast she begins to think Sarah would notice something's off.
“Oh right.” She smiles, pushing down all the alerts ringing in her head. Burying them down where the dirt was so thick and hard to dig up and undercover. Ultimately making it not worth even trying to start a search. “That sounds cool.”
“Mind if I sit?”
“Be my guest,” Kiara pats the ground next to her.
Sarah’s over and next to Kiara moments later, sitting crisscross applesauce, and something in the hallway seems a little less dreary. It’s almost like a heavy weight had been lifted off of Kiara just by Sarah’s presence.
Sarah radiates this type of happiness Kiara just couldn’t put together with words.
“I’m Sarah by the way.”
Kiara finds that Sarah's bubbly exterior and her laugh are even more contagious up close. “Oh yeah, I know.” She admits.
Sarah laughs. “Is it because I’m a Cameron?”
Kiara tilts her head to the side slightly and nods. “Yeah." She giggles. "A Cameron isn’t hard to miss around here.”
Everything had been building up. The weight of trying to support the bridge holding all of Sarah’s thoughts she’d been keeping to herself had grown tired ages ago and is now on the verge of breaking apart. Realizing everything she’d worked hard to harbor away from not only the people in her life but herself too was slowly losing its grip between her fingers sent a feeling of uncertainty through her veins.
Sarah had never in her entire life strayed so far away from her fortress of protection; from all of the consequences that came with being so open with other human beings. It was terrifying. There was no turning back now. No escape door for her to disappear through. Yet at the same time, it felt so freeing. In ways, she knew she would never be cable of achieving with anyone else in her life.
Kiara’s ability to have that effect on her had scared her from the very moment she’d first encountered her. “John B. He was the first person I’d ever come this close to feeling comfortable opening up with.” Her eyes change like the tide changes in the sea. "Besides you."
Kiara didn’t miss the way her voice was seeping with admiration when John B’s name slipped through her lips. It’s all so confusing because anything is so jumbled inside her head. Parts of her ache knowing that her heart’s laying just like John B’s across a train track. All for Sarah. And the train could be barreling toward it at any moment. That everything he and Sarah had gone through might be shattered because of her. Kiara's selfish wants are on the brink of ruining so much. Ripping apart something that was perfectly fine otherwise.
But the other part was longing for the one thing in her life that had been merely unattainable up until this point. Sarah had been her first everything when it came to the equivalent of what falling in love was for her. Her first real friend who wasn’t a boy. First best friend. First crush. First heartbreak. First hatred.
The list could go on until the pencil writing it had filled up the last piece of paper on earth.
“I thought he was the love of my life, Kie. I still have so much love for him.” It’s all said so earnestly. “But what I had with him was exactly what I had with all the other guys I’ve dated.” She pauses and finds her breath before continuing. “And at first I couldn’t see that. Not with what everything was riding on.”
John B loved Sarah in all the right ways and had done everything right. Alas, as she grew closer and closer to him something within her began to inch further and further away. A magnet was pulling her back while he was trying to pry her from the grip of the force. Unfortunately, the more he tried to pull and the tighter his hands became around her wrists; the stronger the electric current became.
There had to be a reason she never allowed herself to completely be open with the guys she had been with. Why intimacy felt like a chain wrapped around her neck instead of a safe haven to find comfort in. Running had always come so much easier than anything else for Sarah.
She had struggled to find the answers. Ever since she’d discovered this dilemma all those years ago. Tried to find it in the boys who’d she call her boyfriends. In the shallow friendships at school. Even with the people at the club.
Then Kiara came full force towards her orbit and the answers began to surface into the world faster than her mind could comprehend. The idea, in theory, should have been a relief, and pleasurable but when actually achieved it was so overwhelming. It was far too much too fast.
“Are you in love with him?” Kiara asks a question that should be so cut and dry. Should be able to be answered without even a hint of hesitation. Since Sarah was. Kiara knew she had to be. Had seen it every moment they had shared with each other. John B had so much love to give, but he always seemed to push it upon people too strongly and almost came off too eager. Yet Sarah didn’t seem to see it that way. She’d buy into it and embrace all of what John B was giving her.
“Love.” Sarah falters and her features shift. It’s so subtle that it could easily go unnoticed. But Kiara had always had a habit of watching Sarah so closely it bordered unhealthy. So of course she catches the abnormality. “I thought love was so black in white when we started going out. I’ll admit I wanted to love him with the same amount of intensity as he did for me. It was only fair after all.”
Kiara’s eyes held nothing but understanding. Sarah knew she didn’t deserve this type of reaction. Hated how much she’d usually take advantage of this sort of earnest kindness. Had in the past, seen it as a way to let her keep her safety a priority above others.
But she definitely didn't deserve it from the person she’d hurt the most. Taken the most from.
“But me being the narcissistic I am I never could, and I let him treat me like this princess who’d never do wrong,” she admits, “when really I was a girl who thought she was. Who’s love never was as real and genuine as his.”
“So are you Sar?”
“I don’t think so.”
As soon as the words roll off her tongue Sarah realizes she’s a coward. She’s sick to her stomach in an instant. “I’m so fucked up Kie. Just like Rafe and my Dad. I’ve always wanted to believe I was better than them.” She swears her heart is about to break through her chest and run so far out of reach it would never return to start her body up again. “But I’m nothing different.”
Kiara is looking at her bewildered. “What?” She asks. “Why would you ever say that?”
“What do you think Kie? I took advantage of John B’s love and couldn’t even give him anything in return. Not even something as simple as my love.”
Kiara doesn’t look any less puzzled, and Sarah can't decide whether was a good or bad thing. Couldn’t think clearly enough to even begin to try to sort it out internally.
“You’re just trying to figure yourself out, Sar. Just like everyone else in this fucked up world. There's nothing wrong with that.”
Sarah shakes her head, because, to her, what she had realized was so sick and twisted. Stringing someone along knowing you'd never be what they deserved was nothing less than cruel.
“There’s so much wrong with what I’m doing Kiara. Are you hearing yourself?”
“Love is so fluid and ever-changing that to blame someone, especially at our age for not fully understanding it. Or what loving someone right is; just isn’t fair.” Kiara's words feel unfamiliar to Sarah. She didn’t earn any of the gratitude Kiara was so easily giving her, not even a little sliver of it.
“Okay so say you’re right Kie,” Sarah mutters. “Would it be right to let someone you’ve led to believe the love for them was genuine go on with life, knowing that it wasn't?”
Kiara looks conflicted for a moment but it passes so fast it’s almost as if it never even crossed her features. “You can’t think about it that way. You can’t help who you love.”
“Even if it's wrong, right?” It’s said so innocently so authentically that without giving herself a chance to think it through and make a rational choice as to whether are not something so intimate was the right thing to do, her hand instinctively finds itself resting against the blonde's cheek.
She’s a little too late to make a decision, instead, she lets her instincts take favor over her logic. Though when she does, her hand is back by her side so quickly it was almost as if her touch wasn’t just ghosting Sarah’s soft skin, wasn't only moments ago cradling her beautiful face.
For the first time in Sarah’s life, she does something purely for her. Not for the expectations she had engraved inside her mind, not for people she had convinced herself she needed in her life, and especially not for the part of her mind that did things out of impulse.
Which John B had been.
All an impulse.
She had always done things blindly, always hoping to find the answers somewhere along the way. But as more and more questions were left unanswered and only began to encourage more to appear. She's started to worry. Forced herself to search in the dark for something so unknown. So uncertain that she didn’t even know where to start.
The distance traveled felt like an ocean’s length- Then it’s reached. Her hands cup Kiara’s cheeks so solemnly and hold her so carefully almost as if she pressed too hard she’d break. It was nothing like what she’d ever felt with anyone else. The world up until this point had always been slightly out of focus and all the remedies she had created and tried were never able to find any lasting solutions. Until now, as she feels Kiara’s body relax into her touch the lens finally starts to refocus the image it was displaying. Her skin is so delicate, almost silken against her own. Her fingers cautiously wander up her skin, passed her face, and combed through her silky soft hair as she lets her heart be worn across her chest freely for the first time; without a barrier or restrain in sight.