Sarah didn’t know the answer. She also didn’t know why Tyler hadn’t even mentioned that there was going to be a party at Harper’s that weekend. It wasn’t like him. Sarah felt the pang of their relationship acutely when she thought of how left out of Harper’s life she was.
Harper walked into class and paused to look around. Her gaze met Sarah’s, and her heart stopped for a second before kicking back into action. Harper looked next at Julie, then turned her head up and walked to the back of the class. Sarah resisted the urge to follow her with her stare.
“Oh, shit, sorry,” Julie said. “I totally didn’t realize you and Harper would want to sit together since she’s dating your brother.” She made to get up.
“No!” Sarah said too loudly, but it was enough for Julie to resume her seat. “Don’t worry about it.” She swallowed. “Are you going to the party?”
“Yeah, I can’t believe Tyler invited us. He’s so awesome.”
Could she have gushed any more? People were becoming sycophantic around her brother since his relationship status went public. On his own, Tyler was a cool, athletic, good-looking guy, but with Harper at his side, he’d become king of their class.
Mr Epners started his lesson, and Sarah was thankful for the reprieve. Finally, people wanted to talk to her, but all they wanted to talk about was her brother. Was she really that invisible? She smirked mirthlessly. How could she have been so stupid? No one was interested in getting to know her. No one wanted anything to do with her. No one ever had.
* * *
The rest of the week crawled by, and Julie took the seat next to her in biology every day. No one had said anything menacing to her since she’d gotten back to school after being sick. Not since Harper had invited her to the park party. Not since Tyler had started dating the most popular girl in their grade.
“So, are you going to Harper’s party tonight?” Julie asked her again. Was it Friday already?
“I’m not sure.” The truth was that she’d never received an invitation. She’d waited all week for Tyler to at least say something to her about it, but for all the times he brought up his girlfriend, he’d yet to mention the house party once.
“You have to come,” Julie said. “You guys should meet up with us before. I’m going with Nikki and Heather. We can meet up and walk there together. I’ll give you my number.” Sarah kept her shock to herself as Julie pulled out her phone and waited for her. “Get out your cell, so I can give it to you,” she said when Sarah didn’t reciprocate the action.
“Oh, I don’t have one.” Sarah said. “I’ll just write it down.” As Julie dictated her number, Sarah realized that this was literally the first time anyone had given her a phone number. It felt good.
On their walk home that afternoon, Sarah decided she wasn’t going to wait a second longer to find out what was going on from Tyler.
“Are you going to Harper’s party tonight?”
Tyler hiked his bag up on his shoulders. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged and hiked his bag up again. “I didn’t think you’d want to come.”
“I thought you wanted us to go to the same parties and have the same friends. Isn’t that what you said before the park party?” When he didn’t answer, she narrowed her eyes and made a decision. Avoiding Harper had been more exhausting than she’d anticipated, but that had been her choice, and she wasn’t going to be kept from seeing her by her own brother. “Well, I’m going too, with Julie.”
He nodded his head but didn’t answer. Something was definitely up with him. He was never quiet, and despite his natural popularity and her inherent reclusiveness, he’d never deliberately excluded her from things before.
Sarah rushed in to call Julie and take her up on her offer to go to the party together. Julie had asked her to meet up because she wanted to arrive with Tyler more than with her, but she would just have to do. Sarah dialed the number and waited for someone to pick up.
“Julie’s hotline, how can I help you?”
“Uh, Julie, it’s Sarah. From biology.”
“Hey, you called.”
Sarah smiled at the warm greeting. “Yeah, where are you guys meeting before the party?”
“At Nikki’s. She lives just a few blocks from the Isabelles. You guys should come by and then we’ll go.”
“Well, Tyler won’t be with me. He’s going to help Harper set up,” she said, and instantly felt guilty. She’d never lied much before, and she didn’t like the taste it left in her mouth.
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. We’ll see you here around eight then?”
If Julie was fazed that Tyler wasn’t coming with her, she didn’t show it, and Sarah was happy she’d called her. “Should I bring anything?”
“Just ten bucks. That’s what Bronte and Harper are charging for the keg.”
“They got a keg?” Sarah didn’t quite keep the surprise from her voice. How did a teenager get a keg of beer?
“Yeah.” Julie laughed. “Apparently, their parents are out of town and Bronte spent their grocery money on a keg. How awesome is that?”
“Awesome,” Sarah said. How were they going to eat while their parents were away? “I’ll see you at eight.”
“Cool, let me give you the address.”
Sarah jotted it down then hurried to get off the phone. It was already getting late, and she actually wanted to take the time to put an outfit together. This would be the night she met someone. This would be the night she started having feelings for someone appropriate. If Harper and Bronte were throwing a party, there were bound to be a lot of guys there, and she just might find one who didn’t think she belonged in social Siberia, and who didn’t expect too much from a girl at a party.
She settled on one of her tighter pairs of jeans, black boots, and a black V-neck T-shirt that rode just above her midriff. She pulled her blonde hair back into a ponytail, letting some pieces with purple at the tips hang loose in the front. She applied her black eyeliner and mascara, but didn’t cake it on as thick as she usually would have, and finished off the smoky look with graphite grey eye shadow. She didn’t put on her black lipstick. Ever since she’d kissed the charcoal drawing of Harper, it only reminded her of the embarrassment of that moment. She chose a warm purple lip gloss instead. Next, she put on her long, black trench coat inside her room. That way, her parents wouldn’t see her tummy peeking out from under her T-shirt. After all, she was breaking their cover-your-midriff rule for the first time.
By the time she got downstairs, Tyler was already gone. Her parents had retired to the family room, and she wasn’t sure what to tell them about where she was going. She’d imagined leaving with Tyler somehow. What excuse had he given to go to the party?
“Hi, Mom, Dad.” She entered the family room hesitantly. “Did Tyler leave already?”
“About an hour ago.” Her father put his newspaper down and looked at her over his reading glasses. “Where are you going?”
“I’m meeting up with Tyler. He didn’t tell you?”
“You’re going to watch his ball hockey game?”
“Yeah,” she said nervously. Again, the lie didn’t feel good. She hated lying but the desire to get to the party was overpowering.
“Well, that’s nice,” her mother said. “Are you going to grab pizza with them after too?”
“Uh-huh, so, I gotta go.” She left the family room as quickly as she could.
Once outside, she took a deep breath. Nervous didn’t even begin to explain how she felt. She was going to a party. With friends. It was as if someone had pulled her out of her life and dropped her into someone else’s.
When she reached Nikki’s house, she paused. Hadn’t she seen this before? What teenage movie didn’t have the loser show up at a party, only to be humiliated? How many times had she watched, willing the character not to walk inside? How stupid had she been to come out here without Tyler to protect her? She turned around. She should go
home.
“Sarah?” Julie called out, and she turned back slowly. “It’s in here.” Julie was motioning her inside.
Squeezing her nails into her palms in her pockets, she walked toward the house, but her legs felt wobbly.
“Come on,” Julie encouraged. She hopped from one leg to the other in the cold October evening.
Out of sheer manners, she hurried up the steps and into the house. Inside, there was talking and laughter coming from an adjoining room to the foyer.
“It’s fine, leave your boots on. Nikki’s parents don’t care.” Julie pulled her by the coat sleeve into the kitchen.
“Sarah!” Nikki said, as if they were old friends. What the hell was happening? “Get Sarah a drink,” their hostess said to Julie, who quickly poured a pink drink from a sloppy, ribbed pitcher.
“Daiquiris,” Julie explained.
She should tell them she didn’t really drink, but the way they looked at her, as if she was one of them, she couldn’t do it. Instead, she lifted the glass to her lips. It was sweet and sticky, and warmed her to her core when she swallowed.
“Good, eh?” Nikki asked.
Sarah nodded and took another sip.
“That’s so cool that your brother’s dating Harper.”
Again, Sarah’s response was to keep drinking.
“Does Tyler have any hot friends you can hook me up with?”
“You’re such a slut,” Julie teased her, and Nikki laughed. “Don’t mind Nikki. She’s just lonely cause her boyfriend goes to boarding school.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Sarah asked.
“You can never have too many boyfriends.” Nikki winked at her, and Sarah’s face flushed. Nikki was an attractive girl. Her strawberry blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders, and when she smiled, dimples creased her cheeks. When had she started noticing things like that about other girls?
“Are you seeing anybody?” Julie asked. After a moment, Sarah realized the question had been directed at her.
“N-no,” she stuttered. She bit her lip, hoping the other girls hadn’t caught it.
“No?” Julie tilted her head to the side. “You’re pretty enough.”
Pretty. That’s what Harper had called her. The memory came with the pull in her stomach that she was still not accustomed to, no matter how many times it happened when she thought of her brother’s girlfriend.
“Well, maybe you’ll meet someone tonight,” Nikki said, echoing Sarah’s mantra for the evening.
“Shit, we gotta go.” Julie checked her watch and downed her drink.
All the girls whirled around Sarah like chickens in a henhouse, running from the hallway to the mirrors, to their bags, reapplying lip gloss and fixing their hair. Once all the feathers landed, they were marched out the door by Nikki, and Sarah wondered for the first time where her parents were. Had they been home while they’d been drinking in their kitchen?
“It’s just a few blocks this way.” Nikki shoved her hands into her pockets. Sarah breathed deeply, and her breath came out like smoke in the chilly, autumn night.
Maybe Nikki was right. Maybe there would be a guy there who would turn her head and make her forget all about Harper Isabelle and the feelings she wasn’t supposed to have. Tonight was going to change everything. She climbed the steps of Harper’s massive house, and all her good intentions flew out the front door the moment she saw Harper again.
CHAPTER 11
The front door closed, and both Harper and Bronte turned to see who had come in. Tyler looked annoyed, and Harper looked at him curiously before returning her attention to the door. It was Sarah. A smile swept over her face.
Sarah pulled her jacket off and tossed it onto the armchair where there was already a stack of coats. At the sight of her outfit, Harper’s mouth went dry. Her gaze swept over Sarah’s body, and something stirred deep in her core. That was until Tyler put his arm around her and doused the flame inside Harper like a bucket of ice water. She shirked out of his grasp and started toward her guests.
“Hey, come in!” She made sure to give each person a hug, saving Sarah for last so that she could talk to her. When she turned to Sarah, it was like she was looking at a different person. Harper had always found her pretty, but tonight she looked…amazing. She was smiling with a confidence that Harper hadn’t seen in her before. When she put her arms around Sarah, the embrace was short, but she left her arm around Sarah’s waist for an extra moment, just to feel her body against her. “Let’s get a drink,” she said in her ear.
Sarah didn’t say anything, but followed her to the keg. When she went to hand Harper her ten dollars, Harper waved it away, making it clear that she wouldn’t be paying for the beer like everyone else had to.
“I didn’t think you were coming.” Harper filled a cup from the keg and held it out to her.
“Why do you say that?” Sarah accepted the red cup of extra foamy domestic lager.
“Every time I asked Tyler if you were coming, he said he didn’t think so.”
“Every time? I only found out about the party from Julie.” Sarah gestured in Julie’s direction with her cup.
Harper glanced at Julie and Nikki. They hadn’t just arrived at the same time. They’d come together. Was Sarah friends with Julie now? She’d seen them sitting together often enough in biology. In fact, every time she hurried to class to be Sarah’s partner, Julie beat her to it. They were always working together on assignments too. Was this something she should be worried about? For a moment, she thought of pretending to herself that she didn’t know what she was thinking, but what was the point? She was jealous.
“I told Tyler we were having a party almost a week ago.”
Why hadn’t he told Sarah about the party? She’d only asked about a dozen times if Sarah would be there. Tyler was watching them, and he seemed irritated. He turned away when he caught her gaze, and joined the group of guys in the kitchen who kept stealing her parents’ liquor. She and Bronte had given up on trying to stop them.
She’d wanted to invite Sarah personally, but if she asked and Sarah said no, she would have been crushed. It was better to have Tyler ask and save herself the embarrassment. Sarah had come though, and she looked incredible. She wanted to tell her how good she looked, but she couldn’t find the words. Her own skin-hugging, teal dress with the halter neck that left the entirety of her back exposed couldn’t even compare to Sarah in jeans and a T-shirt.
“Well, thanks for having me.” Sarah looked around awkwardly. She was trying to fill the silence Harper had created.
“Thanks for coming.” When another silence greeted them, she drained her cup of beer and began to fill another.
“How many of those have you had?” Sarah asked.
“This is only my third.” She didn’t want to get drunk too quickly, but Sarah made her nervous as hell. Plus, if she passed out early enough, she would miss the portion of the night where she was expected to fool around with Tyler. The few kisses that they’d had since he asked her to be his girlfriend had been much like the first two, and continued to fail to elicit any sort of reaction beyond revulsion from Harper.
His mouth was too big, and it often felt like he was trying to swallow her whole face with his wet kisses. She had allowed him to put his hand on her chest over her shirt, and felt dirty when he had squeezed her there. She would never let it happen again, no matter what was expected of her. That had been her only reservation when Bronte had suggested the party. She had to face being with Tyler again. Although it seemed inevitable, she hoped it would be some other time in the future, and that the future would never arrive.
When she’d returned to school and learned that she was Tyler’s girlfriend, she’d been shocked. It made her wish that she’d taken the numerous calls she’d ignored from Alexis after their fight over her Twitter post. Tyler had certainly interpreted their conversation how he’d wanted to, but what was the point in saying anything about it? It would only hurt Tyler’s feelings, and besides, she wanted everyone
to think she liked the boy who liked her, instead of crushing on his sister.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” Sarah said into her cup.
“Have you been avoiding me?”
“What do you mean?”
“At school. Ever since I came to your house to do that assignment, I feel like you haven’t wanted to talk to me.” This was the moment of truth. She’d wondered a few times since that night if Sarah had somehow smoked her out. If she had maybe looked at her too covetously or stayed in that hug longer than she should have.
“Um, I guess that I just kind of felt stupid.”
“About what?”
Sarah looked down into her cup and swirled the remnants of it. “When you called the next day and Tyler went over to your house, I thought that you were calling for me, but you weren’t, and then Tyler came home and said you were his girlfriend, and I just…I don’t know. I guess I thought we were becoming friends, and then realized we weren’t.”
Her heart beat faster in her chest. Did it bother Sarah that she was with Tyler? Calm down. “Can’t we be friends even if I’m Tyler’s girlfriend?” She hated the sounds her mouth was making. She hated being Tyler’s girlfriend when the person her body responded to was right in front of her.
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.” Harper refilled their cups. When had she finished the last one? She was so nervous. She didn’t want Sarah to walk away. “Come on, let me show you around.” She ignored some surprised looks as she took Sarah’s hand in hers.
The warmth of Sarah’s skin felt so good against her own, and the sensation washed over her as they walked together. She slowed her pace as much as she could, wanting the feeling to last as long as possible. It was a large house, and she took her up the far staircase. Anything to prolong this connection. She swore her feet weren’t hitting the floor. Sarah’s hand fit perfectly in hers, and she tugged her down the hallway.
Finally, they reached her room, and she begrudgingly released Sarah’s hand. She’d been too selfish with it already. Why couldn’t her brother’s hand feel that way in hers? Why did everything he did to her feel like an invasion? Once inside her room, she closed the door softly behind them.
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