If You Told Me To

For the next few days, Sarah stayed far away from the newcomer that lived next door, keeping mostly to herself, staying in the barn and drawing, watching television, or sitting outside the chicken pen and watching the hens waddle around and eat the feed. Harry made no attempts to communicate with her, which didn’t surprise her in the least. After the dinner at Antonia’s, it would have taken someone with incredibly bad people skills not to realize that he thought she was a primitive and immature country freak.

One particularly scalding day, Sarah was set up inside the barn with the silent pact to leave the shade only to get a glass of water or go to the bathroom if it was an incredible emergency. She had originally gone there to draw, but only a few minutes after she started, her imagination was sucked dry by the heat, and she ended up lying on her back, staring up at the wooden rafters, spread out like a starfish to minimize sweating.

She was hovering in the state of consciousness right before falling asleep when she heard a high-pitched, girly kind of scream. She sat up like a shot, her eyes wide and her heart racing, before running over to the fence to see if Antonia was okay.

Sarah hurriedly put her feet on the bottom foothold and hoisted herself up, using her arms to give her a little extra leverage so she could see over the top of the long, wooden fence posts.

Instead of finding the sixty-year-old woman being attacked or in any kind of danger, she found Harry curled up against the side of the house, watching something with wide, horrified eyes.

“Um,” Sarah started, swallowing to keep herself from laughing at the sight, “Harry? Are you okay?”

He didn’t even look over at her. “There’s a fucking snake. Over there, in the grass.” He pointed a shaky finger about ten feet away into the dead-looking yard.

Sarah’s eyes followed the gesture, and surely enough, there was a little garter snake slithering through the greenery. It was totally harmless, of course, but how would Harry ever know that?

Instead of helping him right away, she looked back at him condescendingly. “Oh, how frightening. You want me to shoot it?”

He glared at her, which made Sarah smile, though she tried to hide it. “Um, no. You’re not bringing a gun anywhere near me. You’d probably screw up and shoot me in the face.”

Sarah’s jaw clenched, but she decided not to brag that she was an excellent shot. Her father had taken her into the woods beyond their backyard almost every weekend when she was a kid and taught her how to shoot soda cans from all different distances. Maybe she’d have to show Harry her skills when he least expected it.

She swallowed shortly before saying, “Then what do you want me to do? Go over, grab it by its tail, and toss it back into the woods?”

“Won’t it bite you?”

“Maybe.” She really didn’t think the garter snake would even flinch, but she guessed there was always a possibility that it could be diseased and particularly vicious. “Or, if you want, you could just come over here. I don’t think we have any snakes.”

He narrowed his green eyes at her. “And what makes you think that I’d want to spend time with you?”

Sarah shrugged, trying not to get offended. “Considering I’m the only person for miles around that’s around your age, I figure that you might want to make friends with me, no matter how hick you think I am. Unless, of course, you’re okay spending all your time with your aunt.” Then, for good measure, she added, “And we have internet.”

He let out a breath, sending his shoulders slumping in surrender. “Fine. I’ll be right over.”

“Excellent!” Sarah exclaimed before hopping down from the fence. A jolt shot up her legs when she landed, but she didn’t have any time to worry about the pain. Finally, the new, mysterious boy was going to give her a chance. Even if it was kind of against his will.

About five minutes later, he started walking down the small strip of yard between the fence and Sarah’s house, his face kind of drawn and annoyed. “God, is it always so hot here?”

“Only in the summer,” Sarah replied, which wasn’t encouraging at all, judging from Harry’s emphatic, irritated sigh.

“I swear to God, I’m going to sweat to death.” He reached up and wiped off his shiny forehead with the bottom of his loose-fitting tank top, but the moisture quickly regrouped and started dripping down his nose.

Sarah gestured toward the barn with a smile. “We can go sit in there. It’s kind of cool.”

“Kind of cool?” Harry repeated, clearly prompting for more information, but Sarah didn’t offer any.

The two of them walked over to the area and plopped down on the ground, Sarah falling right back into her previous position and closing her eyes.

“You’re right. It is cooler in here,” Harry informed, though he sounded reluctant to admit it. “It’s not exactly cool, though.”

“Well, we don’t have air conditioning, so this is the best we get.”

Harry choked on his surprise, and when he spoke, his voice sounded scratchy. “Why does no one have air conditioning when it gets up to a hundred degrees down here?”

“It gets higher than a hundred,” Sarah responded, realizing after Harry whimpered like a dog at the statement that she probably shouldn’t have said it. “And because we’re more used to the heat.”

He heaved a giant sigh and shook his head. “Whatever. This place is insane.”

“If you mean insanely awesome, then maybe.” Sarah immediately bit her lip to scold herself from saying something so lame and childish, but Harry didn’t even comment on it.

Instead, he put his laptop computer down on a little pile of hay and lied down next to her, spreading out his limbs just like she was. She felt a little bubble of pride welling up in her stomach when she thought about how he was actually taking cues from her, but she had too much respect for his pride to point it out.

For about fifteen minutes, the two teenagers sat there, staring at the ceiling, barely breathing as they settled into a state of total and complete relaxation. It was only once Harry yawned and shifted his position that Sarah snapped back to reality.

“Hey,” she started, nudging him with her shoulder before considering if the movement was a breach of his personal space, “do you want some lemonade?”

He turned to her and blinked lazily, as if she had just woken him up from a pretty deep sleep. “Um, sure.”

Sarah climbed to her feet, dusting off the back of her shorts as she walked, while Harry clomped behind her with some of the clumsiest steps she’d ever heard. But, again, she refrained from making a funny joke and focused on getting into the house.

The interior was sauna-like, hot and stuffy, which was the very reason she spent most of her time in the barn on hot days. Harry didn’t hesitate gasping for breath when he shut the back door behind him. “Oh my God. Haven’t you ever heard of central air?”

“We have outside,” she replied without attitude as she headed toward the fridge. “Do you want slices of lemon in your lemonade? It makes it a little sourer.”

He shrugged and sat down on one of the stools at the granite counter, the one Sarah usually favored. She tried not to get excited over the coincidence and turned back to the fridge to get the drinks ready.

After she dropped the slices of lemon into the glasses, she slid one over to Harry, who took a small, tentative sip, as if tasting for poison. “Oh, wow,” he exclaimed with shock so potent that Sarah took a little bit of offense. “This is actually really good.”

“Thanks,” she responded, taking a sip of her own. It was sweet, sour, and refreshing, which was exactly what she liked.

“You made this?”

Sarah nodded, her eyes instinctively narrowing a little.

“I never would have guessed that.”

She didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, so she just took another sip of her drink and suggested the two of them journey back outside before Harry drowned in his own sweat.