Chapter 5: III. Sally's-2

"No," I forced myself to say, though I'm certain I could hear my ovaries screaming in protest. "I've got plans, sorry." Shea looked truly shocked, as though a girl had never said no to him before. Though, with his face, I doubt they would say no. In that split second of imagining him propositioning other girls, I felt such an overwhelming sense of anger and sickness. Jealousy. I needed to get away from him. What was he doing to me? "Plans," Shea repeated. "You don't want to spend time with me?" he asked in disbelief. Wow, was he really that cocky? "I've got plans," I repeated my lie. "Um, okay." Shea scratched his head, but in doing so, tensed his large bicep. I wonder what it would feel like to have him … Nope, I need to go. "Okay, well, bye. Thanks for your help with the job." Quicker than anything, I jumped into my Jeep and started the engine, pulling out onto the street while Shea still stood there dumbfounded. When I pulled into my driveway, my mom's car wasn't there. I didn't know what time she would be working to. But if it was anything like the hospital back in Bedford, she could be really late. I shut off my engine and carried my things inside the house. Dumping my book bag and keys on the kitchen counter, I went over the events of the day. School had been good. I wasn't overwhelmed in my classes. The content seemed easy enough to catch up on. Señora Gomez had been my only teacher to try to get me to introduce myself in front of the class. I had made a friend. Cece seemed really nice, and she had been kind enough to include me at her table of friends at lunch. I had a job, even though Sally was coerced, or charmed by Shea, into giving me a shot. Everything had gone pretty well. With one exception. I was completely and utterly lusting after a guy I knew nothing about. Well, I knew a couple of things. He was Cece's brother, which was weird in itself. I'm not sure how Cece would feel if she knew I had a thing for her brother. Secondly, he had a weird amount of influence for an eighteen-year-old in this town. At school, it was one thing. He was popular, people followed him. But in town? For Sally to just do what he said? I don't know. Something about it was odd. I needed a distraction. I threw some popcorn in the microwave and then fetched my laptop from my room. As I got set up to start my English essay, I found myself on Facebook. I had a few notifications from people back home wishing me a good first day. I stuffed some popcorn in my mouth as I replied to them quickly, before I clicked onto the search bar. My fingers had a mind of their own as they typed Shea Braverman. His profile was the first one that came up in the results and I couldn't help myself. I clicked on it and saw this his profile picture was a glorious image of him shirtless, standing on a rock on the beach. My heart literally skipped a beat for the second time today. Why was I so unbelievably attracted to him? Why me? What was going on inside me to create this almost magnetic pull I felt towards him? I scrolled down his profile and noticed that it was not set to private. Shea seemed to have quite the social life … and quite the collection of girlfriends. There seemed to be a different girl in every picture, and he seemed to have his arm around an awful lot of them. One girl that appeared quite often was Zoey Eckhart. She was tagged in the images she was in. Zoey and Shea looked quite close, which explained the animosity she was directing towards me at school today. But I didn't feel badly for Zoey. Instead I felt awkward and angry, and absolutely jealous of each one of these girls that Shea had been photographed with. It was like I felt a sense of entitlement over Shea which was just nuts. I wasn't entitled to him and he certainly wasn't entitled to me. "Stop it, Sara," I hissed at myself. As I made my way to close the window, I accidently clicked on the touch pad of my laptop. When I saw what I had clicked on, I just about wanted to die. I had gone and liked his profile picture from 2015. I screamed with embarrassment as I rushed to unlike the photo. But would that remove the notification? Would he know that I was Facebook stalking him? But it was too late. My laptop chimed with a new Messenger request. It was Shea. I half covered my eyes as I opened the message. I always liked that picture too :) I cried out again and leapt away from my laptop, in doing so I spilled my popcorn all over the floor. Shame and humiliation filled me. I could feel my blush all over my body. I could not go to school tomorrow. I needed to go back to New York. If I got in my car now, I could be in – My laptop chimed again. Did you see anything you like? I gagged. I could practically hear him teasing me through the computer. Just as I had just about made the decision to leave my mom a note to let her know I was leaving the state, he messaged again. You're probably freaking out. You seem the type. It's okay. I was checking you out, too. And just like that, a notification popped up. Shea had liked my very first profile picture from when I joined Facebook. Why was that picture still up on the internet? You look cute in braces. Not everyone can pull them off. I huffed and settled into typing. I started to type something sassy in reply, but I deleted it. Shea was trying to make me feel better for doing something embarrassing. In and amongst the girlfriends and the teasing, he seemed sweet. Everyone has an awkward phase. I wasn't entirely sure I had left mine. And from the looks of Shea's pictures, it didn't seem as though he had ever had one. He was a little more baby faced when he was younger, but always good looking. Do you really have plans this weekend or are you just playing hard to get? I can deal with either. My eyes widened as that message appeared on my screen. Hasn't a girl ever told you no before? I shot back. You didn't answer my question. If you really have plans, that's okay. I just get the sense that I make you nervous. I wasn't about to let him get inside my head so quickly, even though he had hit the nail on the head exactly. I have plans. Okay. I stared at my computer. That was it? Okay? I was disappointed. I expected a bit more of a fight from him. I wanted a bit more of a fight from him. I quickly logged off and opened up a new document to start my English essay. I would try to keep my mind off of him for the rest of the evening. My mom walked in the door with Chinese food just after nine o'clock. I had been diligently writing since I logged off of Facebook and had ignored social media since then. It was actually excellent timing. I was just putting on the finishing touches and I was freaking starving. When I shut my computer, I looked at her properly and saw that she looked wrecked. "Are you okay, Mom?" I asked. She smiled tiredly. "Long day, hon," she replied. "Lots of kiddos." She didn't elaborate, but I knew that was never, ever a good thing. Lots of patients. Lots of sick kids. My mom loved her job, and the wins made it worth it, but the losses cut you. I knew she carried around each and every loss. She came over to me and kissed the top of my head. "You didn't want to eat the popcorn?" she asked, gesturing to the mess I had made on the floor. I had been so focussed that I had forgotten to clean up the popcorn I had spilled. "I'll get the broom." "Don't bother, Sara. Let's eat. I'm starved." She went left the plastic bag of food on the counter and went to the cabinet to get plates and cutlery. As she began dishing up the food, she looked up. "How was your day?" Um. "Good," I replied. "My teachers are nice." Mom smiled. "Yeah? Make any friends?" "One." I nodded. "Her name is Cece. She seems really sweet." "Oh, good, I'm glad." It wasn't odd for me not to dump my crap on my mom. When she was like this, when I could tell she had had a day, she didn't need drama from me. Besides, what was I supposed to tell her? That her seventeen-year-old daughter was crazy hot for a senior boy for some unknown reason … apart from the fact he was built like a freaking demigod. Mom piled sweet and sour chicken, special fried rice and a couple of fortune cookies onto my plate before handing it to me with a fork. "Thanks," I said gratefully, before hungrily tucking in. The batter was nice and sticky, which was my favourite part, and probably the unhealthiest part. It got me thinking about how fit Cece and her friends were. They probably didn't inhale take-out food like I did. We sat in the living room and Mom switched the TV onto some mindless reality show. We watched and ate in silence. I was actually semi into the show when I had finished my dinner. We were about to see who was getting kicked off that week when I opened my fortune cookie. I had to read it twice. Your true love is closer than you think. What did these dumb things know anyway? I would have won the lottery three times now if they were always right. I opened my second cookie. Take heed. Love can be dangerous. What the hell? What sort of fortune cookie was that? They're supposed to be happy and optimistic. Just as I was about to speculate as to whether Shea had somehow managed to play a trick on me, my mom said, "Hey, look. I've got great financial luck on the horizon. I better buy a lottery ticket this week." I shook off my suspicions. Fortune cookies were light entertainment. They didn't mean anything. We packaged back up the leftover Chinese food and put it in the refrigerator. By then it was nearly half past ten, so we both wandered upstairs to get ready for bed. Before letting me go off to my room, my mom hugged me on the landing. I felt as though she needed it more than me. I hugged her tightly. "I'm glad you had a good first day, Sara," she said quietly. "I know this move has been difficult, but this was a big opportunity for me, so I appreciate you being such a trooper about it." My mom had worked hard her whole life to support me. Caring for a baby, working two jobs to pay rent, and somehow graduating medical school was no easy task. I aspired to be as badass as my mom. "It's okay, Mom," I replied in the same tone. "The school is great. There are nice kids. I think there is even a football game on Friday night that I might make an appearance at." Might being the key word. And I was assuming there was a game. The stadium was grand enough for football to be a weekly production. "That's great, hon. I would like you to get out of your comfort zone more often and widen your circle," she urged. Mom smiled at me and wished me goodnight before going into her room. I closed my bedroom door, put all my devices on charge, and put on my pyjamas. When I checked my phone just before I went to sleep, I saw that I had missed a message from Shea. I'm nothing if not persistent. See you tomorrow, Sara, I found myself smiling and looking forward to it. I fell asleep easily.