Tyler’s footsteps were loud on the stairs, hitting Sarah twice as they thundered through the phone and the house. This was her opportunity to talk to Harper without her brother listening, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. This was so not how she would have wanted their phone call to go. Now, because she’d gotten Harper sick, Tyler was heading over to her house to see her while Sarah had to stay home in bed. Would Tyler go and sit at her bedside like Harper had with her? Would Harper tell him about her parents’ divorce, and would he hold her like she had? Would he kiss her again?
“My mom says it’s fine, but she’s going to drive me.” Tyler’s voice boomed back on the line, startling her.
She’d forgotten she had the phone to her ear. Harper hadn’t said a word, so maybe she really had called for Tyler, and her mother had just gotten confused since Harper had been there earlier that week to see her. Tyler wasn’t supposed to be dating, after all.
“Great,” Harper said.
All three of them were silent.
“Sarah, can you get off the phone? I want to talk to Harper.” The words were a slap in the face. Her jaw dropped open but she had no argument. She was sicker than ever as she pulled the portable phone away from her ear and hit the power button.
A few minutes later, Tyler and her mother left. She was so angry that she threw one of her pillows across the room, where it landed with a melancholic thud and looked back at her accusingly. “Shut up,” she said to it, and buried her head under her other pillow.
CHAPTER 9
“Hey.” Harper opened the door for Tyler. “Thanks for coming.” She was sick and looked like shit despite doing her hair and putting on some makeup basics. It wasn’t about looking good for Tyler, but not looking bad in front of anyone from school, as Bronte had taught her.
“No problem.” He stepped inside. “My mom’s going to put some gas in the car, so we have a few minutes.”
“Okay, come in.” She set the law assignment on the front entry table, and led him to the family room. Everyone else was upstairs, but there was no way she was bringing Tyler up to her room. First, it probably wasn’t allowed, and second, she didn’t want him there.
“Your house is huge.” Tyler looked around, his eyes growing bigger as he took in the enormity that was their first floor.
“Yeah.” Harper shrugged. It was rude, but she didn’t really want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk about anything with Tyler. How long would it take for his mother to get gas? She lived in the posh part of Lawrence Park, a ten-minute drive from school, and there was a gas station in between. That meant she had to entertain him for what, twenty minutes? In that moment, it felt like a lifetime. Resigned to her sentence, she took a seat on the couch. Tyler waited for her to sit down, then sat on the couch right next to her. She wished she’d opted for the lounge chair, but he might have tried to squeeze into that too, which would have been infinitely worse.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Stuffed up and feverish.”
Tyler checked her temperature with the back of his hand, like she’d done to Sarah, but nothing transferred between them as it had with his sister. “You’re hot.” He flashed a grin. “And I don’t mean your temperature.” Tyler laughed at his own joke, and Harper suppressed a groan. When was this going to end? He looked at her expectantly, and she managed to feign a smile. Did Tyler notice that her smiles never reached her eyes?
Something was expected of her here. Tyler had kissed her and given her his phone number, and it hadn’t been in the hopes that she’d use it to call his sister. She had wrestled with that decision all day. Home alone, she had nothing to do but think, and her thoughts hardly strayed from that afternoon in Sarah’s bedroom. She’d driven herself crazy with the memories until she’d finally given in and used the number. The excuse of their team project was lame, but it was a good enough reason to make the call. She just wished Tyler hadn’t picked up and ruined it. She felt guilty for her thoughts as he sat there next to her, a boyish grin on his face. He was, after all, just a boy, and she was a girl. Why shouldn’t he be excited to see her? The softening of her features must have given him the wrong impression though, because when he leaned in, she jerked back quickly.
“What?” he said, almost pouting at her rejection.
“I don’t want to get you sick,” she said with what she hoped was an apologetic smile.
“It’s worth it.” He leaned back into her. Already pressed up against the back of the couch, there was nowhere left for her to go, so she let him kiss her. His lips weren’t as sloppy this time as they’d been when he was drunk, but his kiss was cold, and once again his tongue tried to slide through the defences of her lips.
“Ow.” He pulled back abruptly. “You bit my thongue.” He stuck it out and touched it with his fingers, assessing the damage.
Serves you right for trying to shove it in my mouth. “Sorry, my brain’s not really working properly.”
“Ith’s okay.” He pulled his tongue back into his mouth. “You must be pretty sick if you have what Sarah has.”
Just the mention of her name caused a stirring in Harper’s stomach. “How is she feeling? Will she be back at school soon?” She hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.
“I don’t think so. She’s in pretty bad shape.” He paused. “Can I ask you something? When you called earlier…” He took a break to swallow, and Harper’s mind raced with only one thought. Please, don’t ask me if I was calling for you or Sarah. Her heart was beating faster as she prayed for someone to walk down the stairs at that moment, which of course, no one did. “When I told you that I wanted to talk to you about something when I got here, it’s cause…well…I wanted to know if you’d be my girlfriend?”
Okay, that was way worse than the other question. She didn’t know how to answer. Saying yes would be the perfect way for no one to find out about her feelings for Sarah, which were very real, and maybe being his girlfriend would even help her have the feelings that she was supposed to have for him instead, but could she do that to him? Could she use him like that? Tyler was actually a nice guy. He must like her a lot if he was asking her to be his girlfriend after only two pretty lame kisses. If she said yes, she would have an excuse to be around him, which would mean she’d see Sarah more often, but wouldn’t that be a kind of torture for her? There were so many questions, and her head hurt just trying to go over all of them. The smile was beginning to slip off his face.
“Tyler, I…” Unsure of how she was going to finish that sentence even as it was coming out of her mouth, she was eternally thankful when the doorbell rang. “That’s your mom!” She sprang up and ran to the door. “Hi, Mrs Jamieson.”
“Hi, Harper. I’m sorry to hear you’re sick as well. Ready to go, Tyler?” She looked over Harper’s shoulder to her son.
“Don’t forget this.” Harper put the law assignment in his hands as he followed his mother out.
“Thanks.” He gave her a big grin, and Harper chose not to think about how he might have discerned their conversation to have ended.
Once Tyler left, Harper resumed her seat on the couch, where Tyler had just kissed her. When Tyler came near her, she felt a constriction, squeezing her chest and suffocating her. That was not how it was supposed to be. There was no way that’s how Bronte felt when she was with Todd, and Alexis certainly wasn’t trying to get Tyler for herself so that she could feel that way when he kissed her.
She thought back to the boys she’d been with over the summer. To Andrew and Doug, and the few guys she’d met at parties. This aversion wasn’t new. It had been slowly growing, developing kiss by kiss as she went through guys. With every kiss, she’d become more closed off, like every touch was an invasion. Why hadn’t she realized this before? But she had, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she known that something was missing? That something was wrong?
If you know something is wrong, then it’s wrong. Sarah’s words echoed in her head. Sarah hadn’t been referring to H
arper’s antipathy for Tyler at the time, but Harper couldn’t help but recognize their poignancy. It didn’t feel good being with Tyler. It didn’t feel right. Wasn’t it supposed to?
Harper pulled out her phone and opened up Twitter. This time, instead of searching for Sarah’s name, she hashtagged it in the search bar. The results made her gasp. The page was filled with horrific comments. Kill yourself. Dog. Freak. There were pictures of her, photoshopped to humiliate her. When Harper’s vision blurred, she closed the screen and threw the phone to the other side of the couch, not wanting it anywhere near her. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and wiped the tears that squeezed out of the corners of her eyes. How could people be so cruel?
Despite the way that she dressed, Sarah carried a light inside of her, and Harper felt it kindle something inside her whenever she was near. How could people be so mean to someone so radiant? It wasn’t fair. They didn’t know her. They were judging her based solely off the way she dressed, the way she carried herself, and the way she spoke. Are you any better?
How many times had she dismissed someone based on those exact same merits? Was she really any better than the kids who were posting about Sarah online? The ones who bullied losers in the halls or on social media? She’d done practically the same thing before. She’d teased other kids, made them feel small all so that she could feel big. She had name-called, spread rumours, even intimidated and harassed other kids over the last few years, all because it got a rise out of her friends.
Bronte did the same thing. She was always saying snide remarks in earshot of her victims, throwing people out of parties if she didn’t think they were cool enough, ripping their self-esteem to shreds with her words, all because she could. What happened to those kids after they left the party? What was it like for them when they went home? She’d never thought of them as having real lives, of having more meaning beyond being a target of fun for her and her friends, and she’d watched people be humiliated over and over just for a laugh. Her stomach lurched. How could she have been so cruel all this time?
When Sarah had taken her in her arms at her house after her confession about her parents, she had felt so safe. She’d told Sarah something that she hadn’t even talked to Bronte about yet, and Sarah had given her comfort when she needed it. She’d been surprised at first, but quickly fell into her warmth, and Harper had breathed her in deeply when their bodies came together. She’d hugged plenty of people before, but no hug had ever made her feel that way. She felt protected. Cared for. Had any of her so-called-friends ever made her feel that way? What did she have in common with her friends other than leading the pack?
Alexis would take the first opportunity to go for her jugular the second she messed up, and would have before now if Bronte hadn’t been there to protect her. So, that’s who she was? Some brainless bully who only cared about popularity and looking cool? She was nothing more than a she-wolf with claws and fangs, waiting to sink them into someone before the same could be done to her. Popularity was a kill or be killed sport, and for the first time, she was tired of the game.
What was it like for Sarah to read those comments about herself? She imagined the pain that would tear through her. No wonder she didn’t have a social media account. Even without one, she was being cyber bullied. Maybe she doesn’t even know about it. Maybe she never had to.
Harper grabbed her phone from the end of the couch and opened the page again. She spent the next hour sending messages and complaints to Twitter staff, and flagging each and every comment for removal. Her blood ran hot when she read Alexis’ name on the page.
Fucktard. That’s what she’d written beneath a meme of Sarah in class, with the caption “T-t-t-t-today Junior!” from that old Adam Sandler movie. Her heart pounded and echoed in her ears as she read it over and over. Fire kindled in her chest when she imagined Sarah reading it. She closed her Twitter app and opened her favourites list in her phonebook. She pushed Alexis’ name, and tried to steady her breathing.
“Hey, what’s up?” Alexis answered on the third ring.
Harper didn’t bother returning the greeting. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
There was a brief pause. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah, excuse you is right. What the fuck, Alexis?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Harper took a deep breath. “Why would you post a picture of Sarah Jamieson and write fucktard on it?”
Another pause, then laughter. “Cause it’s funny. Did Tyler say something to you about it or something? It has over a hundred likes,” she said proudly.
The tightening in her chest worsened. “Take it down.”
“Why are you so pissed? It’s just a joke.”
Harper squeezed her eyes shut, willing her voice to steady. “Do you think Sarah thinks it’s a joke when she sees stuff like that? Do you think she thinks it’s funny?”
“I don’t know. What the hell? Why are you asking me that? What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? You’re acting like a POS. Take that fucking post down right now.” There was acid in her words, and she pressed on. “I can make your life hell if I want to. Don’t make me.”
There was a short silence before Alexis answered, her voice forcibly calm. “I’ll take it down.”
“Good. From now on, Sarah is off limits. Do you understand?”
“Got it.”
Harper could almost see her sucking her cheeks in hard, like she did when she didn’t get her way. “Good.”
Harper ended the call and held the phone to her forehead. She let out a long breath as her heart began to slow. She’d gotten rid of one message, but what about all the others? Twitter wouldn’t actually take the page down, and if they did, people would just put another one up. How selfish and insensitive had she been never to think about this before? Is that what Bronte had taught her? Was this the person she wanted to be? I don’t really know who I am. The words she’d spoken to Sarah in the woods returned to her. If she wasn’t the person everyone thought she was, then who the hell was she?
CHAPTER 10
It was hard for Sarah to see Harper. Having the extra days without seeing her should’ve helped. She’d had time to digest what Tyler had told her, but still, whenever she saw her, her heart did that funny flip-flop thing. The night that Tyler had come home from Harper’s, he’d checked on Sarah before going to bed and apologized for yelling at her about his room. She’d asked what had him in such a good mood, and felt a sharp pain in her chest when he announced that Harper Isabelle was his girlfriend.
“Or maybe Harper Jamieson someday, who knows!” he’d said excitedly. “Wouldn’t it be great if you met someone that made you feel the way Harper makes me feel?”
I already have, she thought, a deep, crushing pain in her chest. Whether or not she wanted to admit what it all meant, she couldn’t deny it. She felt some kind of tie to Harper, a pull to her that she couldn’t explain, and whatever it was tightened whenever she remembered that Harper was Tyler’s girlfriend.
By the time Sarah had returned to school the following week, it seemed like the entire student body was talking about Tyler and Harper. They’d received unanimous approval as the hottest couple in their grade, but thankfully, their names were too similar to come up with a conjoined super couple name. Typer and Harler had been immediately dismissed. Rumours were also flying about how far they’d gone in baseball analogies. When she’d reluctantly confronted him about it, Tyler told her that they’d only kissed a few times, but he added that he was sure it wouldn’t be long until they “got to the good stuff.”
The upside to Harper dating her brother was it allowed for Sarah to become less of a social pariah, and a few people actually started to smile and wave at her in the hall. Her first day back at school, she’d been asked by a girl in her math class why she never ate lunch with them. The girl was on the periphery of coolness; not quite one of Harper’s close friends, but someone who hung around her circle from time-to-
time, and frequented the same parties.
It was nice not to feel like such an outcast, but she didn’t want their attention, she wanted Harper’s. She wanted to stop thinking about her. She told her heart to stop jumping around whenever she saw her. She tried to breathe when she was around her, but none of it mattered. It was as if her body parts were on invisible strings, and Harper was pulling all the cords.
At home, all Tyler wanted to talk about was his relationship with Harper. After a couple of days, she started avoiding him. She still loved the sound of Harper’s name, but the subject was becoming painful. If these feelings were adamant on staying, then she needed to start avoiding Harper as well. Whatever was going on inside of her wasn’t right, and if she could just keep to the other end of the room in their classes, she would be fine.
Thankfully, Tyler hadn’t brought her back over to the house since the day she’d been there to see her. So much had changed since then, and she realized how trivial she was to Harper. It wasn’t as if Harper was spending her spare time thinking about Sarah, so why was she spending so much of hers thinking about Harper?
She got to biology early, and sat at the front. Harper preferred to sit in the back, she’d noticed. Next, she buried her head in her textbook, trying to look even more unapproachable than she already was. It seemed to be working fine, until to her complete astonishment, Julie from middle school sat down beside her.
“So, are you going Friday?” she asked Sarah, as if they were picking up a conversation they’d left off earlier that day, when in truth, they’d never spoken to each other before in their lives.
“Going where?”
“Harper’s party this weekend, obvi,” she said as though Sarah were thick. “I heard Bronte and Harper are throwing it together, so there’s going to be lots of hot older guys there. Just stay away from Todd Harrison. He’s Bronte’s boyfriend, and I heard she’s like psycho jealous. Harper’s probably the same way over Tyler though, right?”
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