Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Sarah anxiously sat in front of her phone. Several times, she started typing a message before deleting it. She really wasn’t sure what to say to O after years of not talking.

She finally settled for something simple. 

Hey, you wanna hang out at some point?

After not immediately receiving a response, she threw her phone face-down on the bed. Staring at the screen waiting was only going to make her anxious. Of course, she was anxious anyway, but still.

She decided to go see what was going on downstairs. In the kitchen she found her mom stood in front of a pot, stirring something.

“Hey, honey,” her mom said. “I’m making chicken soup for dinner. Hope that’s okay.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Sarah said. “Uh, is there anything I can do to help?”

Her mom thought for a moment. “Uh, if you just want to watch it to make sure it doesn’t boil over and stir it occasionally, that would be great. I can go work on laundry. Are the clothes you brought dirty or clean?”

Sarah shrugged. “I dunno. They’re kinda mixed together.”

Her mom sighed. “Alright, I guess I’ll just wash all of them. Anyway, thanks for offering to help. God knows your father never does.”

“My STEPfather,” Sarah said sharply.

“Yes, yes,” her mom said. “You know what I meant.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Sarah asked. “I mean, not that I really want to see him.”

Her mom shrugged. “Who knows? It’s not like he tells me anything. Probably out driving in his convertible somewhere or at the library or at some restaurant. I never see him since he retired. He goes to bed at one or two and gets up at noon.”

“Well, no great loss,” Sarah.

“Please at least try to not antagonize him,” her mom said. “You know how unpleasant he can be if someone is rude to him.”

“Yeah, ‘unpleasant’ is a nice word for it,” Sarah said. “I’d be partial to ‘asshole’ myself.”

“That’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want you saying to him. Especially because then he’ll probably go off on me about how I raised my daughter wrong and how young people these days have no respect.”

Sarah sighed. “Fine, Mom. I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask,” her mom said. “Oh, and if Sam gets home when you’re down here, can you let him know there’s some leftover pasta in the fridge that he can eat?”

“Okay, Mom,” Sarah said. “Is he still doing the whole vegetarian thing?”

“He has been for almost three years now,” Sarah’s mom said. “He seems pretty committed to it. I think his girlfriend is also one. Or maybe she’s a vegan? It was one of those two.”

“He has a girlfriend?” Sarah asked, surprised. In her mind her brother was still a little kid. It was hard to believe he was most of the way through high school.

“Oh, yes,” her mom said. “I wish I’d actually gotten a chance to talk to her, but she seems to make Sam happy. Anyway, you’ll be okay watching the soup?”

“Yes, Mom,” Sarah said. “I’m not completely useless.”

“Of course you’re not useless!” her mom said. “I… I just want to make sure you’re okay. I want you to let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you feel better.”

“It’s fine, Mom,” Sarah said. “Go do laundry. I can help you fold later. Maybe we can watch something while folding.”

“That sounds fun!” her mom said. “I checked out Mamma Mia from the library. Okay, I’ll be upstairs if you need anything. Just let me know.”

“Go, Mom,” Sarah said, seeing her mom linger at the foot of the stairs. “Jeez. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, sorry,” her mom said. “Heading upstairs now.”

The kitchen was now blessedly quiet except for the quiet bubbling of soup. Sarah liked it. She really hadn’t felt much like talking to people for the last, well, several months. 

But after standing there for a few minutes, she started to get really bored. She ended up picking up the newspaper lying on the kitchen table and started filling out the crossword.

A few minutes later, she heard a hissing sound as the soup boiled over slightly and some liquid fell onto the burner. She dashed over and turned the heat down to medium-low and then gave the soup a stir. It smelled great. Chicken soup was an undeniable Mom classic. She still didn’t understand why Sam thought food like this was giving up for abstract ethical reasons, but he’d always been more, like, political or principled or whatever compared to her.

She returned to the kitchen table and finished filling out the crossword. She didn’t know what the fuck “oleo” was but it seemed to fit based on the across clues. She decided to make a quick trip upstairs to get her phone so she could google it and make sure it was a real word. That was the reason she wanted her phone. Sure, she’d also be able to see if O… Olivia had responded, but that was merely a side effect of her burning crossword-related curiosity.

…Olivia had not replied.

Sarah sighed. Well, she couldn’t really blame the girl, considering their history.

***

“This sucks, actually,” O said.

Sarah looked around the dimly lit cafeteria decorated with limp colorful streamers. A few teenagers vaguely swayed back and forth in the middle of the room. A middle-aged volunteer DJ blasted The Black Eyed Peas.

“Yeah…” she agreed. “You wanna get out of here? Even just hanging out outside would be less lame.”

“Sure,” O said. He tugged at the tie he was wearing. “This thing is fucking uncomfortable. I’m never gonna get an office job when I grow up so I don’t have to wear them.”

“At least that’s one uncomfortable thing girls aren’t expected to wear,” Sarah said. “I don’t know why my mom made me wear this stupid dress.”

O scuffed at the floor with the toe of his brown dress shoe. “I think it looks nice,” he muttered.

“You can wear it then,” Sarah said. 

“I, uh…” O stammered.

She hadn’t expected him to be so flustered in response. She decided to keep poking at this promising new avenue for ribbing him.

“You want a nice dress, huh, O?” Sarah asked. “I mean, you are girlier than me.”

O stared at the ground for a moment, face turning red, before muttering something.

“What?” Sarah said. “You gotta speak up, dude.”

“I said fuck off,” O said. “Shut up. I don’t want to wear a dress. I shouldn’t have come to this stupid dance with you, if you’re going to be an asshole like everyone else at school.”

“Hey!” Sarah said. “I was just giving you shit. It’s what friends do. Way to blow it out of proportion, dude. You’re the one who made it weird.”

O paused for a moment. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s talk about literally anything else.”

“Fine,” Sarah said. “Uh… Are you gonna take normal or advanced English next year? I heard the advanced teacher kinda sucks.”

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“Oh…” O said. “Yeah, I, uh…”

“Yeah?” Sarah said, suddenly genuinely concerned. She almost never saw O with such a serious or sad expression.

“I’m not going to East. I got into that STEM high school.”

***

Sarah sighed, thinking back at their last few interactions back in middle school. She really shouldn’t have taken it so personally, but she’d just felt betrayed that O would choose to leave her for some stupid nerd school.

And he’d… she’d really been her only real friend for most of middle school. There were a few other people she would talk to during PE, but no one else where she actually hung out with them outside of school.

But she’d said some not great things back then, and she could totally understand if Olivia was having second thoughts about hanging out now.

***

“I thought we were friends!” Sarah shouted.

“It’s not the end of the world!” O shouted back. “We can still hang out outside of school, okay? It’s not like I’m moving to Mars or anything.”

“You’ll probably be too busy with your stupid nerd school,” Sarah said. “Why do you want to go there anyway? You don’t even like school.”

O shrugged. “My parents really wanted me to go there. They think it’ll help me get into a good college and become a doctor or a lawyer or whatever the fuck. It’s not really up to me, honestly.”

“Well, you could have tried harder,” Sarah said, crossing her arms. “Guess what your stupid parents want matters more than me. Some ‘friend’.”

“Jesus, Sar, you’re acting like I stabbed you in the fucking back or something,” O said. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“If you really think that you obviously don’t get it,” Sarah said. “You basically did stab me in the back.”

O sighed. “Look, it’s probably too late, but I can try to talk to my parents, alright? And it’s not like this school year is even over yet, and we have all of summer vacation to hang out.”

“I guess,” Sarah said grudgingly. “You really don’t get it, though, do you?” She picked up a pillow from O’s couch and hugged it to herself.

O looked closer at her face. Her eyes were glistening as if she was just barely holding back years. “Dude, are you okay? Are you gonna cry?” That kind of show of emotion was really out of character for his friend. She hadn’t cried even when she fell during a race in PE and scraped her knee really bad on the asphalt. She still had a kinda gnarly, blotchy shiny scar from it.

Sarah sniffled slightly. “No. I’m not a pussy. Shut up. I’m just mad, okay? I can’t believe you’d just spring this on me.” 

She seemed to re-find her determination, dropping the pillow and aggressively pointing a finger at O. “You better not become lame at your new school, okay? Even if you make new friend you still have to hang out with me.”

“I will, I will,” O said placatingly. “But, like, I doubt that’s gonna happen anyway. You know I’m not a popular kid or whatever. I’m not gonna turn into someone else.”

“Better not,” Sarah said. “I like you how you are now.”

“But do you like like me?” O said, wiggling his eyebrows. He was shocked when instead of responding with something like “Fuck you!”, Sarah just stared down at the couch.

There was a brief moment of incredibly awkward silence.

“W-wait, do you… do you actually…”

“Yes, moron!” Sarah erupted. “Why did you think I wanted to go to the stupid dance with you. I like you, okay? Jesus. Don’t make a big thing out of it. I just… I thought I had more time. To tell you or whatever. Or maybe that if I waited it would go away.”

“I didn’t think you liked boys, honestly,” O said.

Sarah balled her hand up into a fist. “You better not be calling me a lesbo,” she said.

O raised his hands in surrender. “No, no! I just meant… I didn’t think you liked anyone like that.”

“I mean, I didn’t,” Sarah said. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m misinterpreting things. It’s stupid. Forget I even said anything.”

“No!” O said. “I mean… I like you too. Like like you. I just… I didn’t think there was any chance you felt that way about me.”

“Why not?” Sarah asked, genuinely curious. 

“Well…” O said. “I mean, you’re way cooler than me, you know? I mean, like, you’re definitely cooler than all the girls at school. But me? Like, I’m a stupid short weakling and people probably think I’m gay or whatever.”

“Hey!” Sarah said. “I think you’re cooler than pretty much everyone at school. Prep jock types really suck. I mean, you’re right in thinking that I pretty much don’t like any boys. Not as friends and definitely not like like.” She shuddered slightly. “Ew. Except you, for whatever reason. Cuz you’re cool, I guess. Besides, you’re catching up with me in height really fast lately.”

She looked up at O to see that he was blushing. “I guess,” he muttered.

She rotated herself on the couch so she was facing him straight on. He started to lean forward, bringing their faces close together, but stopped before actually reaching her. He looked incredibly nervous.

For some reason, she found that kind of cute.

She leaned the rest of the way forward to close the gap between them.

They were both terrible at kissing but at least they’d get better with practice.

***

Sarah glanced at her phone again…

And saw that Olivia had finally responded.

I’m free tomorrow afternoon/evening! Wanna meet at the AMC?

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in. Somehow, her dumb ass hadn’t messed everything up.

Yeah, sounds great! Lemme check what movies are playing. Hope you don’t want to watch a romcom now :p

She immediately regretted adding the last sentence. Did they still have the kind of relationship where they could tease each other like that? Was her saying that transphobic?

Fortunately, this time, Olivia responded almost immediately.

Lol nah probably wanted to see one of the not-bad animated things or some sci fi

Sarah laughed slightly. She was glad to see her old friend hadn’t really changed.

Sounds good! Lemme check the schedule

Halfway through her looking at movie listings, the soup boiled over again.

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