Never Met a Girl Like Her | ✔️

(2)

H E A T H

Sarah and I must have fallen asleep on the couch because when I stirred awake the next morning, I was in an immense amount of pain. It felt as if I was a senior citizen as I stretched and groaned. It didn't help that Sarah was curled up beside me with her elbow leaning on my stomach. I was as careful as I could be when I stood up, so that I didn't wake her. She stirred a little but settled once she was rested with her head on a cushion and a blanket over her thin frame.

That was one of the hardest parts about this entire thing. The amount of strength she had lost was devastating. Sarah used to love sports. She was on a bunch of teams including lacrosse, softball and when she was really little, she was on the girls soccer team at school. It turned her into a social butterfly. She had more friends than I could keep up with and because of her personality, she was loved. You couldn't help but love her. But we saw less and less of those friends now. Since Sarah left school to do correspondence, we'd all come to realise that she had less and less visitors. She pretended to be unbothered. But it hurt. Of course it hurt.

After I'd showered and dressed into a pair of chino pants and a white t shirt, I tousled my cropped brown hair so that it dried in its usual unkempt state and then I headed out to the living room. Mom's door was closed and I could hear her snore from the other side as I walked down the short corridor. Sarah's bedroom was off the living room for the simple fact that it was the most accessible if she needed to get out of bed during the night. It was also not as far for her to walk from the couch to bed.

She must have heard me walking across the thin carpet because her exhausted voice came across, muffled from the pillow that she would have been drooling on. "Are you going out?"

"Yeah," I whispered, so as not to wake up Mom. "Going to get some breakfast from Charlie's. Want something?"

"A bagel and an OJ."

"Got it."

Mom wouldn't be far off from waking up. So I scrawled a quick note and left it on the kitchen countertop where I knew she would go as soon as she stumbled out of bed. Her quest for coffee could not be interrupted until she had hot caffeine scalding her throat and seeping into her veins. The door clicked shut behind me and the sun was relentless at ten in the morning. Even the car felt like an oven as soon as I pulled the door open. I wound the windows down on the old black Corolla. It was a gift from Mom when I turned eighteen. She'd bought it cheap from a friend at work so that I had a way to and from College. It was hanging in there and it did the job. So I had no complaints.

Charlie's was a small diner about five minutes from home. We'd been frequents for as long as I could remember. The bell above the door chimed, just as it had since I was a kid. Nothing ever changed but it was up kept and the booth seats were still cushioned. The tables didn't wobble. The burnt orange wallpaper hadn't faded and the staff never stopped smiling. I wandered over to the fridges beside the countertop and grabbed a bottle of OJ before I stood in line. Charlie - ironically the owner - was in his seventies but he still worked hard to maintain the quality of his establishment. He wandered around with his apron hugging his large stomach and his white beard trimmed.

"Morning Heath," he gave me an achingly wide smile and wave as he wiped down a table. "How's Sarah?"

"She's not bad thanks Charlie," he wiped his hand on his apron before he shook mine. The line moved forward and I placed the orange juice on the counter as he moved on to his next table.

"Give her a lemon slice," he pointed at the cashier who scanned the OJ. "On me. She loves those lemon slices."

"Thanks Charlie," I laughed and turned back to the cashier. She was slipping a lemon slice from the cabinet into a paper bag. "Can I have two coffee's as well please. One with milk and sugar. One with just milk. And a bagel."