Sarah's Trust

Five months after the accident, Sarah's mother went back to working full time at her job which left Sarah home alone throughout the whole week. When Embry found out about her being home alone it was actually a good thing for him because since the bonfire he hadn't been able to get Sarah out of the house again which meant that he could only spend a small amount of time with her, something that he found that he didn't like at all.

So on the first Monday that Sarah was home alone, Embry knocked at her house only to wait a dragging five minutes until Sarah managed to shuffle to the door and open it with the chain still on. "Hello?" she mumbled, sleep evident in her voice. For a moment Embry just stared at her, admiring how she looked having just woken up.

"Did I wake you?" he asked after Sarah repeated her 'hello' again, this time sounded slightly irritated.

For a moment she looked puzzled, almost as if she were trying to recognise his voice. Just as he was about to tell her his name, she put a name to his voice. "Oh, Embry, it's you. No, no, I was awake," she assured him, lying only so that she didn't have to dwell on why she'd only just woken up.

"Up for a visit today?"

"Where to?" she asked anxiously. Embry knew why and almost told her that it didn't matter and that they could spend the day in the house rather than having to go out. He didn't because he knew it was best for her to go out, and because he wanted to get her more introduced to his friends, especially as it had been several months now since he'd met her.

"Remember Sam who you met at the bonfire?" She nodded slightly, vaguely remembering the only person she was introduced to at the bonfire before Embry had made her sit down, being extremely sensitive to her feelings in regards to being out in the open. "His fiancée really wants to meet you."

She paused for a moment, taking in his words before stepping back, taking the chain off and letting him into the house. After she'd closed and locked the door, she turned around to face him and began to move further into the room. "Why would his fiancée want to meet me? Have you been talking about me?"

Embry could hear an accusation in her tone and jumped to sooth it out. "Nothing bad, Sarah. You can ask them yourself – that is, if you agree to coming," he added as a last thought, remembering that she hadn't agreed to leave the house yet.

Sarah wasn't too sure about what Embry had said, but nevertheless, she reluctantly agreed to go out with him, only if he promised her that if she didn't like being at this Sam person's house then he would bring her back home straight away. So once he had promised her that, she made her way upstairs and took a little over twenty minutes to get changed, owing to the fact that she found that her other shoe was missing and she had to feel around her room until she found it behind her door. She descended the stairs quicker than it took her to climb them and found Embry waiting for her at the bottom.

"Ready?" he asked, and all she did was nod.

They left the house straight away, climbing into his truck before setting off towards Sam's house. Sarah felt extremely nervous about this all and found a part of herself wishing that she had never met Embry on that day because then she wouldn't be on her way to this person's house right now. She had come to realise that since she'd met Embry on the short journey down her road, she'd been out more times than she would have been should she have never met him. It wasn't like she would have willingly left the house without him, except of course for her appointments with the eye doctor. She didn't mind those because all it consisted of was travelling from the house to the car and then from the car to the hospital before travelling from the car to the house at the end of it. It wasn't like she was out in the open too much during that time, something that she didn't mind because her father was usually with her as well, something which heightened her sense of security.

It didn't take too long before they were pulling up outside Sam's house and Embry was cutting the engine and opening his door. All Sarah had time for was a deep breath before her door was opened and Embry was helping her out of the truck. "Uh...there looks like there's more than just the two. Are you still okay with this?" Embry asked reluctantly, not wanting her to become overwhelmed and demand to go back home.

She nodded but didn't say anything, allowing him to lead her towards the house. It felt a bit better once they were in the house, but it was only because she was no longer completely vulnerable; there were now walls surrounding her, boxing her in and providing shelter. It almost made the fact that she was in a house full of strangers not matter.

Embry lead her into the house. Emily was standing in the kitchen like usual, baking what smelled to be muffins. She looked up when she heard them come in and offered them a smile. "Hey Embry, they're all in the next room if you want to join them," she told him, pointing to the lounge room. "And I guess this must be Sarah?"

"Oh, um, yeah, that's me," Sarah confirmed warily.

Emily moved from behind the counter and walked around to where Embry and Sarah had stopped. "Embry's talked about you so much but yet he'd never bring you over. For a moment I thought he'd imagined you," she laughed lightly.

Sarah, however, wasn't quite sure how to react to that, and when she was just about to answer Embry jumped in. "But it was all good stuff, Sarah," he promised, to which Emily gave a short laugh.

"Of course, I doubt Embry would ever speak a bad word about you."

Even though Emily hadn't spoken a bad word since they'd entered, Embry couldn't help but think that Sarah must be regretting allowing him to take her out. She didn't seem too happy right now, and judging from her facial expression, she appeared to be disgruntled.

No one spoke for a moment, the two friends exchanging looks as if to try and communicate with the other about the situation and Sarah just standing next to Embry. It was broken when the door to the room that Emily had pointed at opened and Sam left the room, closing the door behind him when he noticed the two new arrivals in the kitchen. "You made it, Embry," he said, glancing towards Sarah who just stood clutching at Embry's arm. "We're just about to have a meeting." His words had a double meaning and both Embry and Emily picked up on it, leaving Sarah the only one in the dark about the situation. Before Sarah could speak, Emily swooped in to help the guys out.

"Let's talk, Sarah," she suggested, stepping forward and prying the girl's fingers from Embry's arm, holding them tightly and leading her towards the counter. Sarah looked positively frightened which made Embry just want to snatch her back from Emily and not let her go. But he had to, so with a few words that were meant to be comforting, he left Sarah with Emily while he headed into the lounge room with Sam.

With it just being the two of them left in the kitchen, Emily sat Sarah down at the counter and sat next to her. "So, Sarah, how did you and Embry meet?" she asked, trying to take the girl's mind off of the fact that he'd just left by being friendly towards her.

Stuttering for a moment, Sarah answered, "Um...we just kinda bumped into each other...I guess."

"It tends to be sweeter when he describes it. You know that boy's really infatuated with you."

She frowned. "Why? We're just friends. He helps me about when he's with me but that's only because he wants me to trust him."

Emily looked at Sarah for a few seconds more before getting up and going to the cooker, grabbing the oven gloves and drawing out the muffins from the shelf. "What does he help you with?" she questioned as she began moving the muffins from the tray over to the plate.

"Getting around."

"Why do you need–"

Sarah cut across. "I'm blind," she said simply, as if she were talking about a mundane subject such as the weather.

For a moment Emily stopped where she was, gazing over at the girl who was sat at the counter. The girl who looked so normal that she would have never imagined that she were blind. Then again, she knew plenty of people who looked normal but were far from it. Regaining her composure, she put the last of the muffins on the plate before putting the tray in the sink, turning back to Sarah once she'd done it. "And do you trust Embry?" she asked.

The girl sighed. "I think I do...but honestly I have no idea," she confessed the truth. Even if she would spend time with Embry in her own house, sometimes she trusted him quite a bit but other times she doubted herself with trusting him. She just didn't know which part of her was right.