The air in her bedroom seemed somehow thicker, heavier, and it was hard to breathe. She took a few steps away from Sarah to sit on her bed, then tapped the covers for Sarah to join her. Sarah did so hesitantly, sitting on its edge.
“Sarah, what you said downstairs…” She hesitated. How could she explain things without giving herself away? “That day when I called, I was calling for you.”
“You were? Why?”
Harper looked into her endless blue eyes. “I wanted to hear your voice,” she said, then turned her head shyly.
“Oh,” Sarah said softly, and Harper wasn’t sure what the sound meant. “That day that you came over, I had a really good time, even though I was sick and gross.” Sarah chuckled self-deprecatingly.
“I didn’t think you were gross. You should have seen me when I got sick. I had a Kleenex hanging out of my nose for three days.”
“No, you didn’t.” Sarah laughed.
“I did. Don’t tell anybody. I have a reputation and all.” Harper gave a conspiratorial giggle. “You looked adorable though.”
Sarah’s face flushed at her words.
“Are you blushing?” she asked, emboldened by alcohol and the hope that she was right.
“No.” Sarah looked down quickly.
“Oh…cause if I make you blush, that’s okay,” Harper said, wondering why she was suddenly feeling so brave. When Sarah didn’t answer, Harper put a hand to her cheek and turned her face toward her. “I need to tell you something.” She swallowed and closed her eyes before opening them again, preparing herself for the worst. “I really shouldn’t tell you this, but I like you.” There. She said it. Out loud. To the last person she promised herself she ever would. The world didn’t stop turning, but her heart dropped to the floor when Sarah just looked at her wide-eyed and said nothing.
“What do you mean?” Sarah finally responded, and it looked like the blood had drained from her face.
Harper lost her resolve. She was lucky that Sarah hadn’t picked up on her true meaning. “I mean that I think we should be friends. You know, hang out.”
“Suddenly everybody wants to be my friend.”
“What do you mean?” That wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. “I noticed you came in with Julie Cavanaugh and Nikki Sanders. Is something going on between you and Julie? You’re always sitting with her in biology now.” Harper asked the question that had been plaguing her since Sarah first arrived.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, I guess you’re friends now?”
“I guess.” Sarah shrugged.
“Do you think she’s pretty?” Had she lost her mind? Why was she asking her that?
Sarah didn’t say anything, but the almost imperceptible nod of her head told Harper everything she needed to know. “And Nikki Sanders?” Why couldn’t she just shut up?
“I guess, yeah.”
Jealousy burned in her chest again. Funny, she never felt this way when she saw Tyler talking to other girls. She was happy he had a distraction. “Do you think I’m pretty?” She asked what she’d really wanted to know.
Sarah looked down. “You…You know I do.”
Her chest warmed with a different sensation. She wanted Sarah to say more, so she pushed her. “Do you think they’re prettier than I am?”
Sarah’s breath hitched before she answered. “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”
Harper grinned wildly at her words, but it was short-lived.
“I bet Tyler loves your dress.”
Her heart fell. “I didn’t wear it for Tyler.”
“Wh-who did you wear it for?” Sarah bit her lip, and Harper’s focus followed the motion.
Don’t do it. Don’t kiss her! It was all she could think about as she stared at Sarah’s lips, especially the pouty lower one. How would it feel in her mouth? Somewhere deep down, her muscles and nerves tightened. She had never been wild about kissing, but when she looked at Sarah, it was the only thing she could think about. It was crazy and stupid and reckless, but the only thing she could see were those lips. With great effort, she dragged her gaze away, and rested it on her neck. Sarah’s heart beat rapidly, pulsing in her vein.
“Harper, what are we doing up here?” Sarah’s voice was throatier than usual.
“Have you ever had a hickey before?” she asked, her voice matching the huskiness of Sarah’s.
“Why are you asking?”
“I want to give you one.” Harper swallowed. “Friends do it all the time.” It wasn’t really true, but she had to be close to Sarah in some way, and this seemed less insane than trying to kiss her.
Bronte had told her that some of the girls on the hockey team had given each other hickeys at a party one night the year before, and although the story had been repeated with some distaste, Harper didn’t care.
“It’ll be our secret,” she promised.
Sarah didn’t say anything, and Harper was sure she’d made a huge fool of herself, but then Sarah turned her head up to expose more of her neck. Harper seized the moment, her stomach quivering violently as she leaned forward. With her fingers, she slowly moved the lining of Sarah’s shirt to the side, exposing the skin between her neck and shoulder. She pressed her lips to the surface of Sarah’s skin. She was warm, and had that same salty taste Harper remembered. She added a little pressure, and began to lightly suck the skin. A little piece rose into her mouth. A soft vibration, a moan, caught in Sarah’s throat, and it reverberated all the way through Harper. Incensed by the sound, she swept her tongue over Sarah’s neck before she slowly released it with regret. She didn’t want to overstay her welcome in Sarah’s space.
Already, the spot was an angry red oval where the blood vessels had burst. The mark would have to stay hidden, but it would be there just beneath the surface. Although Sarah’s brother claimed her in public, that mark clandestinely claimed Sarah for her own. The thought sent an odd sensation through her.
When she pulled back, there were questions in Sarah’s eyes. She looked confused, but there was something else there as well. Her pupils had dilated, and for a moment Harper allowed herself to imagine Sarah might be feeling something akin to what she felt, both of them breathing hard, their faces still just inches apart.
A sound startled them, and they pulled apart abruptly. It was male laughter coming from the hallway, and Harper was terrified for a second before the door next to her room opened and closed, followed by the sound of his stream.
“The washroom.” She exhaled in relief.
“We should probably go back downstairs,” Sarah said.
Did the flush of her face match the shade of Sarah’s? She wanted to argue, but Sarah was right. They’d been gone long enough already.
“Remember, this is our secret,” she said, and Sarah nodded. Harper slipped from the room, her lips still on fire where they’d been scorched by Sarah’s skin.
CHAPTER 12
What the hell just happened? Sarah took a few minutes to breathe, to compose herself. Harper said it was just something that friends did. Without having had any friends before, she really couldn’t confirm or deny that, but she doubted that anything between two friends should feel the way Harper had just made her feel.
When Harper’s lips found her skin, her entire body came alive at her touch. She was on fire from head to toe.
She moved trembling fingers through her hair, letting it loose and pulling it forward over her shoulders. She adjusted the neck of her shirt, remembering with a jolt every place where Harper’s lips had touched her. She closed her eyes and imagined Harper’s mouth on her skin, and it was as if she could feel it all over again. Her body was still on fire, and when she pictured Harper’s lips on her, there was a responding tug low down in her abdomen.
She’d never met anyone like Harper before. So confident. So beautiful. Where a lot of girls their age were just coming into their bodies, Harper already looked like a woman. She had curves and breasts and her skin was tight and flawless from her h
ead to her toes, a lot of which was visible in that alluring dress. She was attracted—very attracted—to Harper, and it terrified her.
The music downstairs changed to something loud and obnoxious, reminding Sarah that she needed to return to the party. When she was finally able to calm her breathing, she picked up her beer and left the room, her legs shaking.
She found Harper in the kitchen, doing shots of something dark with her friends. Tyler was with her, but his arm wasn’t around her. Sarah didn’t dare approach her with Bronte, Alexis, and the rest of the popular crowd flanking her. Instead, she made her way over to Julie.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Julie asked, and Sarah was surprised she’d even noticed she’d left.
“I was just looking around.”
“Yeah, it’s a great place, eh?” She downed the rest of her beer. “Refill?”
For the next half hour they talked and drank, although Sarah was more holding her cup than drinking from it. It was amazing how people didn’t try to leave whenever she arrived now. Instead, people were actually including her in conversations. So, this is what it felt like to belong. This was what it was like for Tyler when he walked into a room. No fear. No shame.
She tried to ease up and laugh at the jokes people around her told, even when they weren’t all that clever, but she kept her attention on Harper and Tyler. Sarah had barely finished her second drink, but Tyler had at least five, which was probably more than she’d seen him drink before. She’d entirely lost count with Harper. Tyler should slow down if they were going to make their eleven o’clock curfew without their parents killing them, and if he was too drunk to remember that, she should tell him.
Before she could pull Tyler aside as she’d planned, he slipped farther into the group in the kitchen, and returned with a new bottle of some kind of clear liquor. When had he started drinking this much? Is this what he was always like at the parties she’d never been invited to? He poured generous helpings from the bottle into both his and Harper’s red beer cups. They were across the kitchen from her now, and she couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other. She pushed through the crowd, and realized too late that she had walked in on an argument.
“I don’t want to drink anymore. I feel sick.” Harper turned her head abruptly from the cup.
“Just chug it,” he said. “It’ll be gone in two seconds.”
“Yeah, chug it, Harp,” Alexis encouraged from the other side of her.
Why were Harper’s friends encouraging her to get piss drunk when she’d clearly had more than enough already? Was she the only one who wasn’t completely hammered at this party?
Harper looked into the glass, and Sarah’s throat constricted.
“Don’t drink it.” She heard herself say, above Harper’s friends’ encouragement. Harper paused and looked at her through one eye. The other one was squinted shut.
Alexis gave her a loathing look before setting her sight back on Harper. “Harper, Harper, Harper,” she began to chant. Tyler and Melissa joined in. She noticed that Bronte, though standing right there, didn’t try to stop her. Harper’s friend Jen was there too, neither aiding nor preventing Harper from doing anything.
With a smile at hearing her name being chanted, Harper finally slung the drink back. Some of it leaked down the side of her mouth and down her chin. Her triumphant grin lasted only about five seconds before her face dropped. “I’m going to be sick.” She rushed from the room. Her friends and Tyler laughed behind her.
Sarah went around the other way, dodging several party-goers, and reached the washroom just as the door closed in front of her. When she tried the handle, it was locked. After a few moments, she heard the unmistakable sound of someone retching her guts out. Sarah couldn’t help her disgusted scowl as she listened to the splashing inside the toilet, audible even from outside the door and over the loud music. The toilet flushed and the sink ran for a minute before the door opened again.
“Oh, hey.” Harper looked surprised to see her. Her hair had been redone and she smelled of mint now.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. You need the washroom?”
“No, I came to see if you were okay.”
Harper’s gaze met hers. Both of her eyes were open again, but there was a hollowness in them that made Sarah’s stomach drop. “Are you okay?”
“Why do you care?” Harper sounded angry. Accusatory. It wasn’t like her.
“I j-just wanted to make sure you were okay. You’ve had a lot to drink.”
Harper looked off in the direction of the party. “Where’s Tyler?”
Sarah’s heart sank. “Still in the kitchen, I think.” She wanted to stay quiet, to take Harper’s words for what they were, an admission that she wanted to be with Tyler and not her, but she couldn’t stop herself as her emotions took over. “Why do you have friends like that? Who don’t care about you? When you got sick, they laughed.”
Harper shrugged. “That’s what people do at parties.”
“But none of these people care about your well-being. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“What do you want me to say, Sarah? This is my life. This…” She gestured around her, as if to include the entire party. “This is what’s expected of me.”
“And Tyler? What does he expect from you? He’s trying to get you drunk.”
For a moment, she didn’t think that Harper would answer. She had definitely crossed a line, but to her surprise, Harper leaned against the bathroom doorjamb and lowered her voice. “I don’t know, but I don’t want to do anything. Not tonight.”
Sarah took a step closer to her, and reached her hand forward, taking hold of one of Harper’s arms, her body blocking the movement from anyone else who might have been watching. “Harper, you’re drunk, and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, even if you think it’s expected of you.”
Harper used her other hand to briefly squeeze Sarah’s, then she pried Sarah’s fingers off of her and dropped her hand. Without another word, she sidestepped Sarah and went back to the kitchen. She should just leave well enough alone, but she couldn’t. She followed Harper back to the kitchen as well. When she entered, Harper was back with Tyler.
“It’ll only take five minutes,” he said. “I’ll be fast and no one will even know we’re gone. Please,” he groaned. “I’ve been hard all night just looking at you.”
Harper looked as sickened by Tyler’s words as Sarah felt. “I don’t wanna go up with you. I don’t feel well.”
“Come on, you barely have to do anything.” For the first time in her life, she was embarrassed of her brother.
“If you want to shoot, go do it yourself.”
Sarah had never seen Tyler so furious, that was until he turned around and saw her standing there. His eyes turned to cold, blue stones. “Fucking perfect,” he growled at Sarah. “Hope you enjoyed spending the only ten minutes she was sober with her.”
“Ca-alm down.” Her voice shook as she moved herself protectively between him and Harper. She wasn’t thinking about what she was doing or how the action would be interpreted. She only cared that Harper looked upset, and that Tyler was the cause of it. “She said she isn’t feeling well.”
“Stay the fuck out of it, Sarah,” he seethed, but she didn’t move. She had to stand her ground. She used her arm to reach back and tuck Harper protectively behind her.
“You’re drunk, Ty, take a walk,” she said.
Tyler opened his mouth to argue, but when he saw that a small crowd had gathered to watch the altercation, and that Bronte was one of them, he closed it and held up his hands in surrender. “Fine.” He turned away, and walked toward the keg to fill up another beer.
“I think you should take your brother home now,” Bronte said evenly, but Sarah could tell she was pissed off.
“No, I want you to stay,” Harper said from behind her.
A hand came to rest on the small of her back, and heat rushed through her body at the contact. Harper’s just drunk. They w
ere friends, and that meant that she didn’t need to overanalyze why Harper’s touch felt so good. This was what it was like to fit in, to have friends, and she wasn’t going to ruin it by feeling any differently about it all than she should.
“Shhh, it’s okay.” Sarah turned around and whispered close to her ear. “I have to take Ty home. He’s acting like an ass.”
“Will you come back?” Harper tried to whisper as she put an arm around Sarah’s waist, but it was more of a stage whisper that everyone around them could hear.
Alexis Cartwright stood right in front of them, giving her a look that could peel skin from bones. Shaking it off, she turned back to Harper. “I can’t. It’s our curfew soon.” Emboldened by Harper’s behaviour and her new shaky confidence, she leaned in so close to her ear that Harper’s hair tickled her lips, and she whispered, “Thanks for having us. I think that hickey’s going to last awhile.”
Harper grinned. “I know,” she said in the loudest whisper imaginable, which made Sarah laugh, before she painstakingly removed herself from Harper’s grip and went to tell Tyler that, for them, the party was over.
* * *
Sarah had thought of nothing but the party all weekend. Everything that had happened seemed so surreal. Her favourite part, the part she kept on a reel looping in her mind’s eye, was the hickey that Harper had given her. It had only been friendly, she’d convinced herself, so there was nothing wrong with replaying it over and over again in her head, even if it did give her insides a charge every time she thought about it.
She arrived early to school Monday morning, not wanting to miss Harper by their lockers before class. It would be the only time she could see her before English started, and then she would be sitting next to Tyler. Finally, just before nine o’clock, Harper showed. If Sarah thought her stomach had been active on the weekend, it was trying out for the Olympics now. At the sight of her, her knees did that thing where they liked to give out on her, and she put a hand on her locker to steady herself.
The Space Between Page 13