If You Told Me To

“If I ask you something kind of personal, will you still answer it? Or will you get so offended that you’ll never talk to me again?”

Sarah hesitated, blinking at him. “That is not a very positive way to start a conversation.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

Sarah laughed softly before leaning back on her hands, feeling the roughness of the floor under her palms, and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Don’t you have any friends?” Sarah raised an eyebrow, trying to communicate subtly that he hadn’t exactly phrased his question delicately, so he quickly elaborated. “I mean, you’re just hanging out with me all the time, either talking or drawing. You don’t have a phone, and you’re never on a computer or anything. Don’t you have any friends at school that you want to stay in contact with?”

Sarah shrugged. “I don’t have any really good friends. There are a few girls at school that are in my classes that I like to talk to while we’re there, but we don’t spend any time together outside of that building. I’ve never been to a sleepover or anything like that.”

“That’s…that’s actually really sad. Do you feel like you missed a childhood?”

“Harry, you have to understand something.” Sarah gathered all of her hair and made it spill over one of her shoulders, trying to give the back of her neck some air. “My school was really small, since we obviously don’t have a ton of people living here. There were no girls I really wanted to be serious friends with; while some of them were sweet enough, we had nothing really in common. I never worried about it because I knew that my high school would have four different counties in it, and I’ll almost definitely find some friends there. Unless my luck is really awful, anyway.”

“So instead of pretending to like some girls that you really didn’t, you just decided to be on your own instead? Spending all your nights with your dad, at home? Didn’t that get lonely?”

“Sometimes,” Sarah admitted, shifting uncomfortably. “I would be lying if I said that it never got a little tough, seeing kids getting along well with their friends. But it helped that there were others like me, who just went through the motions until high school saved us, and I was better off than some of them. At least I had people to sit with at lunch and talk about algebra and literature books with. A couple kids in my grade chose to be completely isolated from the rest of us, choosing those weird tables in the corners of the cafeteria to read their history books.”

“Your school sounds incredibly shitty,” Harry joked, laughing lightly. “So everyone just went around miserable, waiting for high school to roll around?”

“Yup. But high school’s almost here for me, in under a month and a half, so I’m about to enter the high life.”

“No wonder you’d never kissed a boy,” he joked, nudging her foot with his own to let her know he was teasing. “There were no boys for you to kiss!”

Sarah reciprocated the teasing movement by connecting a solid kick with his thigh, her denim shorts scraping loudly against the floor as she slid toward him, and sticking her tongue out at him. “I shouldn’t have told you anything. Now you think we’re even more hick than you did before.”

He let out a loud laugh, his cheeks flushing pink, and shook his head. “Nah. I don’t think you’re hick. Maybe the other kids at your school are, but you’re not.”

“Thanks, Harry.” The second the words left her mouth, she realized that he was still being a little insulting, but it was too late to take the words back. So she just let it go.

Not that he was paying much attention anymore, anyway; he’d taken out his laptop again and was typing away, probably a blog about how small-town Sarah’s schooling situation was. It was always strange and slightly depressing to think about how dramatically different their upbringings were, so Sarah quickly shoved the idea out of her mind and picked up her sketchbook, doodling a picture of one of her cats. She wasn’t particularly fond of them, with her only responsibility to let the animals outside and inside when they scratched and meowed, no cuddling required, but they made good subject for a fast drawing.

“Are rodeos, like, a really big deal here?”

Sarah put down her pencil, taking a breath, and connected her dark eyes with his green ones. “I’ve never seen a rodeo, so I don’t think so.”

He nodded understandingly before typing again, his fingers slamming against the keys and echoing through Sarah’s head. Trying to block out the irritating, constant tapping, she tried to immerse herself back to her drawing, which turned to be easier than she figured.

But just as she figured she was done with Harry’s questions, he started up again: “Why have I never heard you say y’all?”

Sarah let out a rough sigh, turning to face him as the pencil in her hands connected against her sketchpad solidly. “Harry, how many times have you heard me speaking to more than one person at once?”

He hesitated. “Good point. Do you say y’all, though? I know Aunt Tony does, but…”

“Yes, I do. Is there any particular reason that you’re interrogating me?”

“Kind of.” Harry put his laptop down and scratched his forearm, looking almost bashful. “Just…hearing about your school makes me realize that I know absolutely nothing about what goes on down here. I think I kind of took it for granted that it was just like everything I was used to, but that’s not true. I probably should have figured that out when you and Aunt Tony were still gracious and welcoming to me, even when I had a douchey attitude, but it’s kind of just hitting me.”

Sarah felt the tension relax out of her shoulders as she put down her sketchpad, deciding that getting testy with Harry’s questions wasn’t going to help anyone. If he wanted to know anything about the South, which did sometimes seem like a different country than the North, then she should be willing to educate him. “Alright, fine. What else did you want to know?”

“What are grits?”

Sarah let out a light laugh and started to explain, “It’s kind of like oatmeal, but it’s made from corn instead of regular grains. And we eat it at breakfast like oatmeal, too.”

Harry made a twisted face. “I hate oatmeal.”

“Then you probably wouldn’t like grits, either. Maybe. I don’t know; I don’t eat them that much because Daddy doesn’t like it.”

He nodded and opened his mouth, maybe to ask another question, but Sarah interjected quickly. “Well, if you get to grill me on what the South is like, then shouldn’t I be able to do the same with you about the North?”

“That seems fair, I guess.”

“How long does it take you to get to your nearest grocery store?”

Harry laughed shortly and watched her reaction as he answered, “The closest one? Two minutes. But there are four in a ten-minute radius.”

Sarah’s mouth dropped open. “That’s just unfair. So it only takes you a few minutes to shop, while it’s, like, a major deal when we go grocery shopping here.”

“Well, in defense of your lovely rural living, that farmer’s market that Aunt Tony loves has way better vegetables than the stores back home could ever dream of. They’re just so much fresher, and the taste is unbelievable.”

She nodded, jokingly puffing out her chest with pride. “That’s what I’m talking about!” After sinking back down, she cocked her head to the side and asked, “So you don’t have farmer’s markets in New York?”

“I’m sure there are some, but I don’t know where in the world they’d be,” Harry admitted. “Plus, the grocery stores are faster and more convenient.”

Sarah hummed in understanding before firing her next question: “How many kids are in your class in school?”

“You mean my year?” Sarah nodded. “Um…three hundred fifty, maybe? I’m not positive about the exact number.”

“And that’s just one town?!” She couldn’t imagine living in a town with that many people in it. As it was, her school had the entire county in one middle school, and her eighth grade graduating class had less than a hundred students in it.

Harry chuckled at her shock before getting up and plopping himself down right next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Your shock is cute, you know.”

Sarah turned bright red as he planted a kiss against her temple, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear on the other side. “Is it going to feel weird going back North after being here for almost three months?”

“Probably. But I’ll readjust. The weirdest thing is going to be not hanging out with you.”

Sarah’s blush intensified, but she still mustered up the courage to say, “Yeah, I feel the same way.”