The Cow Ate My Homework

18. My Friend Who Is a Girl, Part II

I don't pedal back to my house. Instead, I make a small detour.

I speed down the driveway of Sarah's house, oblivious to how late at night it is at the moment and how that should maybe deter me from trying to carry out this mission right now. This doesn't occur to me, because I'm too busy thinking about how all my protestations that I totally don't have romantic feelings for Sarah were actually just me in denial, me not knowing what I really wanted, me being afraid to pursue something that could end in pain. But, as I see now, it also very well could end in happiness for both of us.

Damn, that sheep was right.

There are no lights on in Sarah's family's big farmless-farmhouse. Not surprising, since it's near midnight. Unless her parents happened to be up with their newest baby, I wouldn't really expect anyone to be awake. Even Sarah doesn't usually stay up this late for studying or for fun, maybe because of the years of having a best friend who has to be up at the crack of dawn for farm work. But I have a feeling she won't mind being woken up right now, given the circumstances.

I lean my bike against the mailbox and turn on my phone light to seek out a good-sized pebble, feeling like this is some real Romeo and Juliet level shit right here.

I find the perfect rock, frown as I remember that Romeo and Juliet both die in the end, and trot over to her window. Maybe not Romeo and Juliet. Just your standard country song type of romance. Yeah, that's a better thought. She will love it.

I toss the pebble up gently and it makes the perfect volume of ping. I wait. No response. How anticlimactic, I should have expected.

I search for another pebble, try again. Same.

Then once more, with my expectations much lower. Sarah tells me she's usually a pretty light sleeper, so this doesn't add up. Maybe she's not here, but I'm not sure where else she would be...

Her window suddenly opens, and I see the face of her little brother. He squints to see me. "Caleb?"

"Johnny, what're you doing? Where's Sarah?"

"I heard a noise and came to see. She's not here." He motions to the presumably empty bed back behind him. "It's just Anna and Mary asleep here."

One of them says behind him, "We're not asleep. We were just too scared to look out the window at the noise. We thought someone was gonna break in, and there aren't any guns in this room." Well that's comforting to know, at least.

Now they're all three at the window, loudly knocking a few things over for good measure on their way there. I really did not think this through.

Johnny asks the girls, "Do you know where Sarah is?"

The littler one answers, "She said she was sneaking out somewhere, but I'm not supposed to tell." And then claps a hand over her mouth as if she just realized what had slipped out. Sarah might need to pick her confidants with a little more discretion.

"Where was she going?" I think I might know the answer, and I feel my stomach filling with dread at the thought.

The little sis glances at Johnny, as if he should be wise enough to figure out whether or not she should tell. He gives her a nod, and she says, "A party?"

This is not good. "Okay, thanks," I tell them, already on the way back to my bike.

I hear them shut the window behind me, and I can imagine the three of them hashing out what just went down. It's probably by far the most excitement they've ever had in the middle of the night.

I peddle back to the street, and I weigh my current options. They do not look promising. If she went to the party, it must mean that she heard I went there with Missy.

I can just see it now. She hears I asked Missy and starts low-key freaking out about it (and who could blame her?). She sees her two possible courses of action: take it lying down and stay home to cry, or fight fire with fire against her best friend. And best friend or no, Sarah McIntyre is not a take-it-lying-down type of girl.

Fighting fire with fire isn't gonna be pretty, but she is not about to pull punches just because it's Caleb. No indeed. If he's going to dare to ask out her worst enemy in the world a.k.a. in all of Dermont, then she will go ahead and do something very similar. Can she get a date with Rodney? Eek, that revenge would be too much of a punishment for herself. But there might be another less horrible option that could give Caleb a taste of his own backstabbing medicine. Yes, Dax. The perfect revenge solution. He even comes with his own car!

The two of them could have arrived at the party just about the time that Missy and I left the main area to find some "privacy."

Dax's little electric nerd car pulls in beside the huge trucks. He gets out of the driver's door, looking like he might crap himself out of anxiety at this cool-kid social situation he's entering. And Sarah gets out of the passenger side, striding forward with determination. She goes straight into the party center. No one pays her any mind, and for a moment her confidence waivers as the noise of the crowd threatens to overwhelm her. But she powers through it and marches forward. Climbs up on top of a keg for a better look. But doesn't see what she's looking for.

So she calls out to anyone who'll listen, "Where's Caleb? Where's Missy?"

And some of the party people, the ones I clocked noticing Missy and me leave the area, answer her, "They left." "Wanted some privacy." "Boy's gonna get lucky..."

It's a punch to Sarah's gut. She knows me. She thought she did. And even if I were weak enough to go with Missy to a party, she certainly didn't think I would ever go this far.

She wordlessly climbs down off the keg and walks away. Dax turns to follow after her, but she wants none of him. She feels terrible in so many ways. She waves him away, saying, "Sorry, I can't be here with you. I can't stoop to his level."

Dax frowns and says, "Oh come on. I just wanted a girlfriend. I don't care if you're using me!" Sarah ignores him and power-walks away to go home herself, while behind her Dax kicks the tire of his car in frustration and then crumples in pain like a weenie when his foot connects.

Sarah doesn't go straight home. She goes off somewhere alone to think, maybe to the empty hay loft in her parents' defunct farm where she used to play as a kid before her dad sold their cows and became a feed salesman. She always liked the view out into their fields from the little hay-bale door at the front. It may be dark, but there's a decent moon tonight—enough visibility for reflecting and thinking through terrible choices in friends, and for simmering in feelings of betrayal. Enough light for her to see that she needs to take charge of her future, without the dude who doesn't have enough backbone to choose the good thing that's right in front of him.

Yeah if that went down at all like that, I am in big trouble.