Characters of Dead Hearts
By Ford Nichols
The Unfortunate
Sage Brooks
Okay, so fair warning here, I'm about to get a little depressing. Sage, and I can't talk about her in the present tense like the others, was amazing. She was sort of a butt for most of it and she didn't really get better but by god was she good at comebacks and she dished out that sass. Man, she was sass. A pretty awesome lesbian too... kinda sucks though because it's actually the lesbian thing that killed her, or more accurately her love not being returned. She didn't deserve what she got. I shouldn't have done that to her. I should have been fair to the introverted, prone to jealousy and sass lesbian. Yeah... should have but wasn't.
Charlotte was bitter, much to Sage’s surprise. With lips as full and as plump as Charlotte had, Sage would have assumed that taste would have gotten old after a second with so much of that lemony bitter taste. That wasn’t the case at all. It was the best thing Sage had ever tasted in her life and she found herself not being able to get enough of it. It was as if Sage was being enveloped by Charlotte ’s taste, like a smoke cloud that folded around her entire being. Little did she know, smoke could kill you if you inhaled enough. It didn’t matter to her then though. She was sucking in as many gasps of that intoxicating bitter taste as she could. She didn’t care if she died or not. It was in the moment. And in the moment? God, she couldn’t get enough.
~ ! ~
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said softly, looking at Sage sympathetically. “I don’t-” She stopped with a sigh. “I don’t love you like that Sage… I just-” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I love Lucas…”
Sage sat there, frozen in time. What had she done? What, oh god, had she done?
She stood up, panicked. “I’m sorry. I am so so sorry, I didn’t mean to-I-I’m sorry.” She started to back away.
Charlotte stood as well, saying something but her words were lost. Sage heard nothing. Nothing at all. The world was ringing, her head was spinning. The world felt like it was crumbling beneath her feet. And her heart was crumbling along with it.
“I’m sorry-I can’t-I’m sorry-I'm so sorry,” Sage mumbled incoherently. Then she turned.
And she ran.
Charlotte reached a hand after her but Sage was gone. Charlotte stood there, defeated. It wasn’t until later she realized how stupid it was that she didn’t chase after Sage. It wasn’t until later that she found her mistake. It wasn’t until later that she realized that it well and truly was her fault.
Because everyone knew smoke could kill.
And Sage had sucked in a damn lungful.