Conflicted Eyes, Confusing Feelings | Complete

f o r t y - e i g h t

I decided to put you all out of your cliffhanger misery :3

Caution: Heavy, heavy chapter up ahead 😥

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A lot of parents will do everything for their kids except let them be themselves

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Unable to sit and be still, Sage hopped from his bed and paced his room, gnawing at his nails. With accelerated breathing and an abnormal tightness in his chest, time itself seemed to be on slow motion, the hand taking forever to strike four-thirty, the hour Cecilia usually came home.

Except, that evening Sage wanted anything but that. The feeling of impending dread doubled every time he thought of her coming home and hearing the news. Seconds away from breaking out in a panicked frenzy, he closed his eyes and forced himself to take deep breaths.

The calm only served as a medium for his brain to track back, to about two hours ago.

Getting caught in Xander's room by Anna. Whether they were just chilling on the bed or caught all over each other like they were, that fact was that Sage shouldn't have even been in Xander's room in the first place — hell, he shouldn't have even been in their house in the first place.

Sure, both Anna and Sage's mother were friends, but the point remained that Xander was rude to Anna and Xavier, and Cecilia wasn't Xander's favorite person either.

The catalyst of Sage's anxiety wasn't the mortifying ordeal of getting caught in and of itself, nor due to how calm Anna was about the entire situation, but the fact that Anna promised to tell Cecilia everything she'd witnessed.

But tell her when? It didn't have to be immediately, right? It could be the day after, next week or even next month, right?

C-calm down.

He felt as if he would combust from his nerves, and it wasn't a good feeling at all. Both he and Xander were going to get in trouble. Big, big, trouble. Maybe not so much Xander, but Sage?

Maybe if he'd told Cecilia much earlier that he liked boys, it wouldn't be as intense? What if he was caught in such a compromising position with another guy (one she approved of), or a girl, even? Would it be any different?

Those questions were left unanswered, falling in the dark recess of Sage's mind in the instance he heard a car pull to a spot in the driveway. His heart lurched and became stuck in his chest as he darted for the window, fingers crossed that it was anyone besides his mother.

Sure enough, a blond woman emerged from the car, slamming the door shut. She struggled with carrying four grocery bags to the front door, and even though Sage wanted to help her as he always did, he knew that he couldn't bear her looking at him then without breaking down.

Not even a minute later, there was a knock at the door. Sage's room door.

He was pretty sure his heart stopped breathing completely, as his fingertips turned to ice; numb and cold. A horrid case of nausea and dizziness tag-team grappled him all of a sudden, but yet his body still managed to uproot him from that spot and float over to the door like a specter. Cold sweat trickled down his back as his wet hands hovered over the doorknob for what felt like forever.

He adjusted the hood of his hoodie again to conceal the crimson bruise Xander left on his neck. With one last deep breath, he made to open the door, but an abrupt bang made him jump five feet high instead, a shriek jolting from him spontaneously.