I ignored them, but I might find them later and talk to them about minding their own fucking business.
“Sara! Please, wait!”
She didn’t stop when I called out to her, as if she couldn’t hear me. I picked up my speed and moved around until I stood in front of her, so she wouldn’t ignore me, but she kept her head down. When she tried to go past me, I moved in her way, hands raised up.
“Would you please wait,” I pleaded quietly. “I really need to talk to you, Sara. Don’t just walk out like this.”
For a long moment, she didn’t speak or look up at me. I held my breath and waited, until I couldn’t hold it anymore. I breathed in to speak again, but she spoke at last.
“Can you please leave me alone?” She murmured, her voice quiet. “I just really want to be alone right now, Noah.”
My chest ached in pain for her. This must have all been a shock for her, even worse than it was for me. Dad never mentioned Tina having a daughter, and I wondered if she’d known. Then, to have Alicia and Caroline show up, it must have all been too much for her. She sounded defeated and really upset to the point it really worried me.
“Sara, I’m sorry,” I murmured. “About those girls. Something happened at the school, and they found out, I swear I didn’t tell them. But that’s not the problem right now.”
The most important thing was to tell her about my dad’s plan with her mom. I didn’t feel good about it, but if I told Sara, she could go right then and warn her mother. Then, Tina would probably divorce him, and the whole stepsibling issue would be dealt with.
I didn’t know what she would think about me since it would be my dad that had screwed with her mom like that, but it was better than doing nothing.
Just as I was about to tell her, she looked up and met my gaze, and the words froze in my throat. That look on her face pierced me right in the chest because while she had been shocked before, she now looked so sad. Her eyes were wet, and I wondered if she would cry.
“Sara, I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I am so sorry. But this really is something important. Can't you just listen to me?”
She huffed, mouth tilting up on one side, but I couldn’t call it a smile as her expression crumpled. She covered her eyes for a second, rubbed them subtly before her hand fell away and she frowned at me.
“I’m sorry, too, Noah,” she said, her voice getting stronger. “Really sorry, but I don’t want to hear it right now, whatever you have to say I don’t want to know. I’m afraid that if I hear any more news today, I’m going to break down and humiliate myself in public, so please just stop and let me pass?”
I hesitated. The devastation on her expression told me she wasn’t kidding. One more thing would break her at that moment, and the news I had for her wasn’t exactly great on top of everything else.
“Do you know, I had no idea?” She continued, when I didn’t speak or move out of the way. Sara gave a laugh, but it was such a shattered sound that it felt painful to hear it. “That she was even seeing anyone. She called me up yesterday, yay, a surprise visit! But then I get here, and she’s introducing me to her husband. And of all people, did he have to be your dad, Noah?”
“Wait, that was his Dad? I thought he was someone your mom was seeing since you said it was just the two of you in your family, but this is even more hilarious.”
My body stiffened, and Sara just sighed as she closed her eyes, expression pained, shoulders hunched. She shook her head as a warning, but the two girls refused to be ignored. Alicia and Caroline had caught up with us, and by the expression on their faces, they were clearly not done causing trouble.
“Would the two of you please leave us alone?” I said through gritted teeth. “Don’t you know anything about privacy?”
Alicia pretended to look around, and Caroline joined in.
“Uh, you’re in a public place, you know? If you want to have private conversations, then do it in private, okay? I know that, so doesn’t that mean that I know more than you?”
“Anyone could be walking through this lobby,” Caroline added. “And you guys are standing right in the middle of it. You don’t even realize that there are other people around, do you? Or you would have known we were right behind you. We weren’t exactly trying to hide it.”
I glanced around, cursing silently. There were more than a few people around. Neither of our parents were there, but curious eyes were staring right at us. Because Sara was right in front of me, I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings.