The Humdrum Life of a Hero

Chapter 31

So maybe 'run' isn't the most accurate term to describe my hasty exit.

I have to shove my way, quite forcefully, through the bodies upon bodies of people smushed together in this ballroom before I get to the stairs. I shirk the heels and scoop them up as I ascend the stairs. It's on the stairs when everyone, including Jay, Tony, and Miranda, realizes I've vanished.

But it's not until I'm safely up the stairs and the doors are closing behind me do I hear my name being called out.

I don't stop until I'm outside in the freezing cold clutches of nature. I practically run down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to put my shoes back on. When I stop, I think about my next move in this plan made up literally seconds ago.

Step 1 was accomplished easily. Getting out of the ballroom was the easy part.

But now, as I stand out here in the darkening, below-freezing December evening, I realize I have no step 2 or step 3.

I have no car, no phone, no coat, no purse, and no luck. I could walk home, but I'm a good four miles from home. Hitchhiking is always an option, albeit not the smartest or safest. I glance around the parking lot filled with idle limos and assorted vehicles, but every limo is the same color and style as ours was, so there goes that fleeting hope.

There goes that fleeting hope along with the hope that Jay and I actually had something. I should've known he was just using me. How could've I been so stupid to think he would want me? To love me?

Every instinct I've ever had has told me we're not meant to be together, but every time I had that feeling, I pushed it down. Maybe I should've listened. Listening would've saved me a lot of wasted time of me pretending he loved me.

"Sarah! Sarah! What the hell are you doing?" the boy who I thought loved me calls from behind me. I glance over my shoulder at him as he navigates the slushy stairs, clutching the rail as he descends them.

I don't answer him as I stand on the curb, blatantly ignoring him. I can hear him as he sloshes through the melting ice and snow behind me. When he's finally close enough to me to reach out and touch me, I take an exaggerated step to the right and cross my arms over my chest in an attempt to look like I'm not freezing and to look tough at the same time. My chattering teeth are not helping my case though.

I feel him staring at me, those blue eyes of his as pale as ever. He's pissed.

I couldn't care less.

"Sarah," he says my name with frustration, trying to get me to look at him. I don't budge. Instead I continue to stare out over the parking lot, looking for any excuse not to look his way. I see tiny, cracker-jack box houses on the other side of the street and wonder if that's how Jay sees our house. I wonder if that's how he sees our way of life, devoid of all the glitz and glamor and luxuries of his life.

Let me rephrase that, I know for a fact that that's how he sees our way of life. He wouldn't have shined a spotlight on it if we lived in the same neighborhood as he does.

God, I wish he would just walk away.

"Please talk to me," he's pleading now, "I need to know what's going on in that beautiful head of yours."

Arms crossed, I actually turn my head to the left where Jay's standing in order to scoff at him properly. He's disheveled; the shoes I picked out for him the other day covered in salt and muck. Oh well, I think. He can just go buy some more.

He throws his hands up in frustration; a scowl like his father's forms across his face. I narrow my eyes at him wordlessly. We stand there in the freezing cold, absolutely oozing annoyance and exasperation for each other, and after a minute of the stand-off, Jay drops the facade and starts to shrug off his suit jacket.