Brett is a total movie geek. He has a thing for silent black and white movies and even has a silent movie club at school—it only has 4 members, including himself. Sometimes I'll catch him with his iPhone just filming the stuff around him. He's been doing it for about two years now and I've often wonder what the hell he's doing with all the footage, especially when I catch him filming Sadie and I. He just smiles and says, "Working on the next great black and white movie."
So when I asked him to bring some entertainment for the night, I should have guessed I'd have old movies on the wall of my basement game room. "Romantic," he said as he set up the projector. "Will get everyone into the mood."
"What mood?" I asked.
"You know, the kind of mood that will inspire your mystery kisser to confess her undying love for you." Brett looked at me strangely. He was teasing me and suddenly a thought hit me. Did he know who it was? I returned his strange look.
"Wait, do you know who it is?" I asked, and the look that washed over Brett's face gave me a feeling that he knew more than he was letting on. "Is it your sister?" I asked him.
Brett smiled at me again. "It's soooo not her. Trust me. Honestly, she's not exactly your biggest fan."
"Why?" This was news to me.
"You're a blonde, pretty boy.... Her words. She's into those dark, twisted poetry spewing guys that piss my mother and father off. You know...the kind of guys I want to hit over the head with something hard... kind of like what I want to do to you sometimes."
Brett was still smiling at me and it was making me very suspicious.
"I swear you know more than you're letting on." I walked over and squared off in front of him.
He shook his head again, but there was something in the way he was looking at me...
"Oh My God. You know! You know who it is! Don't you?" I pointed a finger at him.
He shrugged teasingly. "Maybe you just need to open your eyes a little wider."
"What the hell does that even mean?" I grabbed him by the shoulders. " If you know who it is, you have to tell me."
"Not a chance in hell."
"Fuck, man, tell me. Please. I need to know." My heart started beating faster. Did he really know who it was?
"Nope."
"Why are you being such an asshole? If I were in your position I would tell you! What the hell?′
"Hey. Chill. I seriously don't know who it is. I just said you need to open your eyes..." Brett trailed off like he had just seen a beautiful ingénue from one of his silent films—he taught me that word. I couldn't help but turn to see what he was looking at, and then I saw her.
"Sadie," Brett said as he strode past me and went to hug her. "You look smokin tonight! Give us a spin around," Brett said taking her hand and making her walk around in a circle.
Sadie smiled and I realised, she looked very different tonight. I did a double take. Why did she look so different, I couldn't figure it out. But she looked...? I was struggling to find the words. She looked....?
"Did you dress like this for me?" Brett asked but Sadie stopped smiling. She was looking straight at me and suddenly she looked really self-conscious. She slipped on an old brown cardigan she was carrying and buttoned it to the top. But even with that old, familiar cardigan on, she still looked different?
"You wish!" she said, turning her attention away from me and back to Brett, giving him a playful whack on the arm, and that's when I noticed him.
"You guys remember Jarrod, right?" Sadie said, gesturing to him.
"Hey." Jarrod gave a half-hearted nod and a very self-satisfied smile. I didn't like it.
Why was he smiling like the cat that got the cream the butter and all the other dairy products from the fridge. No, I didn't like it, not one bit. And I really didn't like it when he took a step closer to Sadie and put an arm around her. Were they... ?
"Well, we're gonna go inside," Sadie said, barely making eye contact with me before walking off with Jarrod.
Brett turned to me and whispered. "Did you know about that?"
"What?" I asked.
"That she and Jarrod were dating again?"
"Them? No. They're not, dating! She's my best friend, she would have told me, I mean, no, they can't be, she would have-"
"Wow, someone's getting touchy," Brett cut me off with a massive smile smeared across his face.
"I'm not touchy," I spat.
"You clearly are, and the question is why? It's not like you care about who Sadie is dating."
"She's not dating," I corrected quickly. "And definitely not him. Not Jarrod."
"It's a free world, she can date whoever she wants to."
"Has she said anything to you about him?" I asked.
"Why do you care so much who she dates?" Brett said, still wearing that stupid grin across his face.
"So they are dating then? She has said something?" I felt flustered. Or anxious. Or something I didn't really understand.
"If they were it's all good. He's a cool guy."
"No he's not. Sadie's way too good for him."
"Really." Brett's smile was gone now and he looked serious. "So tell me, who should she date then?"
For some reason, the question caught me off guard. "I don't know, but she deserves more than Jarrod."
Brett took a step forward and squeezed my shoulder—hard. Shit, that must have taken all his strength.
"She does deserve better Connor. She really does." He stared at me pointedly, but before I could ask what he meant, someone called to me.
"Hey, Connor." Brenna greeted me and gave me a tentative hug while Brett shot her a disapproving look—I know...strictly off limits. She turned to her friends and started introducing them.
"This is Claire, Mich and KC."
"Hey," they all said in unison as they gave me slight waves.
"Welcome, ladies," Brett said, with a formal bow, as if my house was an old mansion, and he was my butler.
Brett's grandiosity lightened me up and I laughed and headed inside where my mom attacked me with a giant snack platter.
"I thought you guys might get hungry." She placed the platter in my hands with an enthusiastic smile, winked at me and then disappeared just as quickly.
She'd been acting weird all day. Maybe this was going to be her new thing: Guilty, overcompensating snack-platter mom. My dad wasn't here tonight. The thought made my stomach twist, and I felt a sudden stab of panic wondering where he was and what he was doing? Was he ever coming home again?
I tried to push the thought from my mind and walked back downstairs to the game room. A room that my dad and I had spent a lot of time in over the years. Brenna's friends were waiting for me, and they all seemed to talk to me at once. As I nodded at other arriving guests, I talked to the girls, wondering if one of them might by my mystery girl, but I didn't really get that vibe. Honestly, I was distracted.
As they talked, I found myself looking around the room at the couch, the beanbag, and the pool table, all the things I had picked out with my dad when we'd set the place up a few years before. He was everywhere. I had to stop thinking about it.
I looked around for Sadie, but she wasn't there either. Jarrod was, though. He seemed to have made a beeline for the video games.. I excused myself and walked back upstairs calling for Sadie, but there was no answer—Where the hell was she? I walked upstairs to my bedroom just in case she'd decided to bail on me and hide in my closet, but she wasn't there either. Then I looked out the window.
She was standing in the garden under the tree that separated my house from hers. I watched her for a moment or two and wondered what was going on in her head. She looked deep in thought.
"Sadie," I called as I climbed out my window, walked across the roof and then climbed down the tree that was growing against the house. I had mastered this move over the years. She turned and looked at me. Something about the way she looked tonight stopped me dead in my tracks. It looked like her, but something was very different.
"What's up?" I asked, walking up to her.
"Nothing. Just don't feel that well."
I eyed her up and down. She didn't look sick. On the contrary, she looked better than I'd ever seen her look before. "What's wrong?" I pressed.
She shrugged, "Headache. I think I'm gonna go home."
"No. You can't. I need my wing girl."
"Connor..." She shook her head and looked down—Shit. I was being selfish.
"No. You're right. Go home and rest. I'll call you later to check up on you."
"Sadie?" We both turned to see Jarrod walking towards us. "I didn't realize the party had moved outside." He flashed me a look that was vaguely combative. Like he was tying to make it clear that Sadie was his property now. I didn't like this guy.
"Sadie's not feeling well. Headache," I said with a deliberate sour edge to my voice. I hoped he wasn't as thick as he looked and was able to pick up on hints. Clearly he was, because he shot me another macho-ass look and slid an arm around Sadie's shoulder. I really, really didn't like that.
"Do you want to go?" Jarrod asked Sadie. I rolled my eyes. I knew there was no way that Sadie was going to just leave with him like that—
But she nodded.
What the fuck? She nodded and then turned, barely saying goodbye to me and walked off across the grass with Jarrod. I felt a strange mix of anger and abandonment. I couldn't believe she was just leaving—with him.
And then a thought hit me that made me feel worse: had she just made up that headache thing so she could leave the party and have some 'alone-time' with Jarrod?
And then another thought hit me... and if she did, why did it bother me so much?