I couldn’t get kicked out at curfew if they didn’t even realize I was there. Plus, it was fun to bend the rules a bit.
Sarah was sitting on her bed, watching something on her laptop with earbuds in one evening when I came tapping on her window.
She looked up and smiled when our gazes met through the glass. Then she crawled across the mattress to grasp the window and heave it up.
“I’m not going to make it through this school year,” I complained, even before I started to climb inside. “I’m just not.”
Sarah merely rolled her eyes as she returned to the head of the bed to sit upright against the pillows and pull the laptop back onto her legs. “Who is it today? Aspen or Noel?”
I scowled at her.
Okay, so maybe I’d been complaining a bit much lately about having my sister-in-law working at school as my English teacher and my brother there as my new football coach, but gah...it was freaking embarrassing.
“Noel,” I railed anyway, despite her disinterest. “I mean, he’s only worked there a week, the season’s almost over, and do you know how many fucking suicide drills he had us do today in practice?”
“You know what I can’t believe?” Sarah asked, her attention on the computer and not me. “That you came over here to see me while you’re drunk.”
I blinked, utterly stumped. “What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t been drinking.”
“Oh, really?” She finally glanced up as she arched a challenging eyebrow. “Then why is it, all I’m hearing is wine, wine, whine?”
“Wow.” I shook my head and narrowed my eyes before letting out a reluctant smile and plopping down next to her against the headboard of the bed. “Low blow, smart-ass. Thanks a lot. But fine. I’ll stop whining.”
Honestly, I loved her smart-ass ways. She was always so different when we were alone. At school, she usually retreated into her shell, all introverted. Sometimes it was even hard to get her to talk to me in public. But as soon as she knew no one else was around, she shed the shyness and was my Sarah once again.
A part of me was pleased she was this way. No one else knew how fun and smart and sarcastic she really was, so I could hog her all to myself. I didn’t have to share her with anyone. Then again, I also worried about her because I couldn’t always be around, and her timid, withdraw
n behavior made her a bigger target for bullies. The idea of people picking on her unnerved me.
I wanted to kick the ass of anyone who even looked at her wrong.
Glancing at the computer screen that was still stealing her attention away from me, I frowned at what looked to be a YouTube recording of a live comedy show. “What’re you watching, anyway?”
“My new hero,” she answered, her gaze intent on the woman who sat on a stool on a stage and talked into a microphone.
“Really?” I wrinkled my brow. “A comedian?”
“An Arab-American female comedian.” Sarah glanced at me before she added, “With cerebral palsy.”
My eyes widened. Curious about the woman capturing my best friend’s attention, I popped one of Sarah’s earbuds from her ear to plug it into my own. Together we listened to Maysoon Zayid talk about being thirty-three and single.
After a couple seconds, I laughed. She was pretty funny. But that didn’t explain why Sarah was quite this utterly fascinated with her, other than the fact they both had CP.
I tipped her a sideways glance. “You want to be a comedian?”
She blurted out a shocked laugh and then bumped her arm against mine. “God, no.”
“Then why is one your hero?” I was confused.
“Because she’s a freaking inspiration.” She motioned to the screen. “I can’t stand going out into public. I feel so paranoid about what people think, I just want to soak into the shadows so no one will see me, but she actually likes to be in the spotlight. And she’s so good at it. She takes everything anyone could ever discriminate against her and she makes it all a funny non-issue. She’s just...she’s so brave. I wish I could be that brave. I wish I didn’t care what anyone thought of me.”
I stared at her, stunned and a little hurt to hear she felt this way...and I hadn’t known.
“Do you really worry what other people think about you that much?” I’d known she was shy, but I thought that was just because she was...shy. Not worried or insecure.
“Um...yeah. Wouldn’t you worry if you did this all the time?” She lifted her arm, and when it immediately twisted at a funky angle and her wrist curled in, I sighed through a frown, caught her arm and lowered it back to her side.
Honestly, I barely noticed the shaking these days. I actually got a little unnerved by being near people who were too still. But that wasn’t the issue. The issue was—