Page 196 of Something Rad
The realization sends a wave of confusion and irritation crashing over me. I just don’t understand. But maybe I don’t need to. Maybe there’s no point in even trying. Maybe, after all of this, Cooper’s made some valid points.
She’s gone on and on about what she wants and about the person shethoughtI was. And she’s right. I’m not that guy. I’ve never beenthatguy. What would make me think that I suddenly could be? That a couple months with a girl like her could make a guy like me someone worth believing in? I never cared about being believed in before. Frankly, I fought against it. I’ve never answered to anyone. Not at this school
How could I be expected to start now?
Maybe Cooper’s right. Maybe her and I just aren’t meant to work. Maybe we are both just too set in our ways, too damn stubborn to let the other in. Maybe I’ve known this all along. Maybe we were always doomed.
But maybe…I want to try anyway…
But I guess it doesn’t matter. Because I’m not the only person in this equation. And when I lower my head, planning to find the gaze of the other, she’s already gone.
forty-one
SARA
I slam the front door of my house and am face down on my bed within seconds. My head feels so heavy, my entire body aching like I just ran a marathon. I couldn’t even tell you how the rest of the school day went after lunch.
After…
I don’t even want to say his name. Even if it’s just in my head. It feels like acid on my tongue and a stab to my chest to even think it.
When it was time to head to the library after school, I practically sprinted there. I couldn’t wait. I needed my refuge, my safe haven. The one place in the world where I don’t think about anything else.
Or, at least, that’s what it used to be.
I forced every thought and memory of him away, keeping my head down and flying through book returns and stacks of inventory to reshelve like my life depended on it. I needed my hands working, or my mind would start working, and nothing good would come out of that. If I gave myself access to my mind, my heart was just a hop and a skip south, and something tells me the two of them would have a hard time getting along today. I didn’t want to give my heart the opportunity to be the persuasive, nonsensical little wildflower that she is. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She only cares about what she wants and not what she needs, not what’s best for her. That’s why she needs my mind. My mind protects her. My mind knows she’s been through a lot.
“Sara, was that you?” I hear my mom’s voice call.
I groan into the pillow, barely audible.
“Sara?” she calls out again when I don’t answer.
I love my mother, but she loves to talk. And I simply do not want to talk right now.
Maybe if I just stay quiet, she’ll forget she heard me. Maybe she’ll just think she’s crazy and that she just imagined the front door slamming. That’s a solution that works for me. I just need to stay quiet until she goes to work. And then I don’t have to talk.
I let my eyes fall shut.
Then I hear the sound of our front door banging open and closed. I register the creak of a door hinge near me and feel a whoosh of air at my side. My brows pull together as I slowly peel my face away from my pillow, opening one eye to peek at the source of the commotion.
Alice is standing at my bedside, her hands on her hips. “We need to talk,” she says.
“I don’t want to talk,” I tell her, flopping back down on the pillow.
“Alice? Is that your voice I hear?” my mom says, poking her head in the door. “Oh, Sara. Youarehere. I was calling for you.”
“Sorry, I was busy,” I mumble into my pillow.
“Hi, Miss Sherri,” Alice says, a grin in her voice.
“Hi, hon,” she tells Alice. “Sara, I wanted to see if you had an extra pair of pantyhose I could borrow? My last pair has an awful run–” My mom’s voice suddenly cuts off as our house phone starts ringing. “Oh, dangit. I’ll be right back, girls,” she tells us, the door hinge creaking once again as she leaves my room.
I hear Alice gently close the door behind my mom, then, a few seconds later, the bed dips at my side as she sits down next to me. “Sara…”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Al, really.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t really care,” she snaps.
