If You Told Me To

A third clap of thunder rumbled across the farmlands, shaking the entire barn so hard that Sarah worried the wooden rafters would splinter and crumble on top of her dirty blonde head. She bit her lip lightly, glancing up just for a second, and saw that they were just as sturdy as ever. Stop letting your imagination run away with you, she scolded herself silently before glancing over at Harry.

Looking at the horror on his face, she realized that she didn’t have much time to worry about her own fears. His eyes were panicked, and she could hear his rapid breaths from fifteen feet away.

She should have said something comforting, sweet. Something that would have won over his affections once and for all so the passing insulting comments would have stopped. But instead, she blurted, “Should I run into the house and get you a paper bag?”

He glared at her, communicating that her statement just got her into a lot of trouble, and shook his head. “No. I just…I’m not a huge fan of thunderstorms. And don’t you guys get tornadoes down here?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, deciding that lying wasn’t the most beneficial. “But we’ve never had any damage here, so you’re alright.”

Harry’s shoulders relaxed slightly, but he was still visibly nervous. Sarah wanted more than anything to go over and wrap an arm around him, maybe rub his back, to help him calm down, but she had a feeling that she’d do nothing but make things worse.

But she couldn’t just do nothing. So she made her way over and sat next to him, tucking her knees up to her small chest and sighing. Normally, storms didn’t bother her, but when they were right over her head, the ones where the thunder and lightning happened simultaneously and she wondered if the barn was going to go up in dramatic flames, she couldn’t help but get a little unnerved.

“Why don’t we go into your house?” Harry questioned, glancing over at Sarah briefly.

She bit her lip and blushed violently when she remembered the surprising reaction her father had toward the news that Harry had been in the house when he wasn’t home. He’d told her that Harry was not allowed inside their house, under any circumstances, even if they were “just friends”. He’d claimed that he remembered being a teenager, and to Sarah’s complete mortification, he’d added that he had no intention of raising a pregnant teen daughter.

“It’s really humid in there today,” she lied, shifting her position and forcing herself from hiding her face inside the collar of her shirt. “We’re better off out here.”

“Better off out here,” Harry repeated blandly, turning to face her head-on, “where we could very possibly get struck by lightning? How is that better?”

“We just can’t go in the house,” Sarah repeated, her voice getting a little stronger. “And that’s all there is to it. Okay?”

“Whatever.” Harry lied back and stared at the ceiling, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he stared up at the rafters.

“Please don’t be angry at me.”

Sarah’s plead came out before she realized she was saying anything, and the blush that overtook her face when the statement was finished was the most violent she’d ever experienced. Harry propped himself up on his elbows and looked at her quizzically.

“I’m not angry at you,” he assured her slowly. “But can I be honest for a second?”

“If you want.” Her heart started to pound in her chest as she backed up to lean against a cube of hay, ignoring where the pieces stabbed through the fabric of her t-shirt and poked her sensitive skin.

“You confuse the hell out of me. I’ve been treating you like shit since I first got here, and you’ve been nothing but nice. Is that just a southern thing or what?”

Sarah decided immediately to make things up instead of admitting the truth, and she ran with the first thing that popped into her head. “It is a little southern hospitality, I guess. But mostly, I can just tell that underneath all your awful, there was a decent person underneath. I just wanted to find him.”

He stared at her for a second before cracking a grin that made her heart hiccup. “That is deeply inspirational, Sarah. How could I be so lucky as to meet a girl as sound-minded as you?”

Before Sarah could answer or throw something hard at his head (she hadn’t decided which), another rumble of thunder shook the earth beneath their bodies and made both teenagers scream.

After the surprise subsided, they both realized how childish they’d acted and started to laugh. “God, you sounded like a girl,” Sarah giggled, extending her leg so she could nudge her foot against Harry’s knee.

“So did you,” he retorted with a twisted face. Sarah wished it didn’t make her so excited that Harry was teasing her, but she couldn’t deny her feelings.

“At least I am a girl!” Sarah couldn’t stop laughing, and she wondered only briefly if she seemed ridiculous and childish. But when she realized that Harry couldn’t control his chuckles, either, she felt much better about the situation.

“You know,” Sarah started just before another boom of thunder echoed through the sky, though she stopped at the noise so her voice wouldn’t get overpowered, “we could go to your aunt’s house if you’re really that bothered by the storm. And I’m sure she has a basement, you know, in case of a tornado.”

“Nice idea, but I couldn’t possibly.” Sarah cocked an eyebrow at the boy, so he ran a hand through his curls and sighed loudly enough for her to hear. “I love Aunt Tony, really. But she’s just stifling me while I’m there. She’s always asking me if I’ll help her cook or if I’ll run the vacuum over the living room. And when she isn’t asking me to do chores, she’s interrogating me about why I’m not spending time with the ‘cute girl next door.’”

Sarah almost forgot to respond because Harry had just called her cute. She didn’t care if he was simply quoting his aunt. He hadn’t just addressed her directly, and she wanted to believe that actually meant something.

“I can see how that would be irritating.” Her voice was choked and forced, but at least she’d manage to come up with a response through those hazy, rapid-fire thoughts that were fighting to the surface of her mind.

For a split second, she thought about saying, ‘So you think I’m cute?’ just to be flirty like she’d seen in movies and television, but she quickly decided against it. She’d just won over Harry’s favor somewhat, and she didn’t want to screw it up just then.

“Maybe you’re not so bad,” Harry stated plainly after a short pause. “I think I judged you too harshly when you spied on me when I got here a week ago.”

She felt an electric shock pulse through her whole body, and she grinned widely and goofily, despite her emphatic orders to control herself. “Thanks,” she replied. “I’m glad to say that I think my first impression was pretty right.”

Sarah couldn’t express it without sounding insane, but she could have sworn she felt the tension and anxiety melt out of the air with the declarations. She could guess from then that there wouldn’t be so much hesitation on his part, so much hostility toward his situation, and it made her feel good that she was able to make him more comfortable with his new environment.

“Yeah, you’re definitely not a redneck, no matter how much your accent wants to say you are.”

Sarah chuckled lightheartedly and shrugged. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, Harry.”

“I won’t. It’s not like I’m much good at it, am I?”

“No. I’d say you suck.”

The thunder rumbled again, but it was far more distant as the storm receded. The rain was starting to pick up a little bit, and Sarah wasn’t too realistic to ignore the symbolic significance of the change in weather.

And neither was Harry, she guessed when he snorted unattractively when he looked out at the backyard through the empty doorway.

“Looks like fate wanted us to get along,” she joked, going out on a limb.

“I don’t believe in fate,” Harry replied as he got to his feet, shaking out his hair before wiping off his butt to get rid of the lingering strands of hay. “But I do believe in coincidences. This is just an awfully funny one.”