SENIOR YEAR
By: Sarah Wartman
PART TWENTY-SIX
I panicked as I saw Joey walk towards our table.
I looked at Nicki. “What do I do?” I whispered.
“Don’t panic. Just act cool, okay?”
“Hey, guys,” Joey said, walking up to the table and pulling out a chair and sitting down. He threw me a smile and I looked away. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Justin answered and looked at me to see how I was doing. I threw him a look that said, ‘Get me out of here, now.’ Obviously, he didn’t catch it.
Joey just sat there for a while, talking to the guys and throwing me a glance every once in a while. I looked over at Nicki.
“Please go to the restroom with me,” I told her.
“Man, you really like in there,” she teased.
“Please,” I begged her and she smiled and nodded. We stood up and all three guys stood up too.
I quickly walked into the restroom with Nicki close behind. I went to the end wall and put my head against it. I started taking deep breaths and Nicki laughed at me. I threw her a look that made her stop, quickly.
“I can’t do this, Nicki. I can’t go back out there.”
“Sure you can. It’s easy. You put one foot in front of the other, see, like this,” she said. I looked down to see her slowing taking baby steps to the door and I had to smile.
“Funny. But, Nicki, seriously, why does he have this affect on me?” I asked her.
“Because you love him.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” I said, turning around to face her.
“Can you really keep on going like this, Sarah?”
“Of course not! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to apologize!” I told her. “It’s killing me that I’m Justin’s date instead of his! Don’t get me wrong, Justin’s a doll, but Joey….”
Nicki leaned over and hugged me. “It’ll all be okay, Sarah, I promise. I know you’re hurting now, but I think he is too. He didn’t bring a date with him, that must mean something.”
I sighed. “I know, I just don’t know what I’m going to do…” I told her.
She smiled at me. “Let’s go back out there and tell JC and Justin we’re ready to go.”
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all night,” I said as I walked past Nicki, towards the door.
“Hey, guys,” Nicki said, returning to the table. All the guys stood up. “I think Sarah and I are ready to get out of here,” Nicki said, looking at Joey.
“Okay,” Justin said, grabbing his jacket.
“Wait, Sarah, can I speak to you for a second?” Joey asked me.
PART TWENTY-SEVEN
I sighed and nodded.
“We’ll be right here when you’re done,” Justin said and kissed me on the cheek. ‘God, I’m glad he’s here.’ I told myself.
Joey held out his arm, and I took it. He led me to some sliding doors and outside to a balcony. It was a beautiful night. I just walked over to the ledge and put my arms on it. The wind was a little chilly and I rubbed my arms. Joey noticed, took off his coat and put it over my shoulders.
“Thanks,” I told him, looking at him. “What did you want to talk about?”
“I just wanted to be alone with you, again, like it used to be. You seemed pretty upset in there and I just wanted to talk to you.”
“I seemed pretty upset, huh? Wonder why….” I said in a sarcastic tone.
“Sarah, whatever I did, I’m sorry,” he said.
“Whatever you did?” I asked, becoming irriate and letting the alcohol from earlier kick in. “Whatever you did? You made me feel like a complete idiot, that’s what you did! Someone you supposedly loved!”
“You’re the one who dumped me,” he fired.
“Damn straight I dumped you,” I threw back. I saw him pull something out of his pocket. I gasped when I saw what it was. My locket.
He saw me starring at it and handed it to me. I played with it in my hands for a while and opened it. The tears started rolling when I looked at our pictures. “Why do you have this?”
“I always carry it with me,” he whispered.
There was a long silence between us. God, how I wanted to kiss him and hug him and tell him I loved him. I was pretty close to doing it too, until he opened his mouth.
“You and Justin look pretty close in there,” he said.
I looked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Whatever you want it to mean,” he said, turning away from my gaze.
“How dare you accuse me of something! Justin is one out of two of my friends at the moment, thanks to you guys! And to accuse me of being with him! I didn’t even want to come tonight, knowing you’d be here.” I screamed at him. I couldn’t hide back the tears any longer and I didn’t want to. He had a hurt look on his face, but I didn’t care. “But Justin wanted me to come, so I did! I did it for him, geez, Joey! How inconsiderate can you be? I’ve obviously cried all night, and now you’re firing accusations at me? I don’t need this,” I yelled and threw the locket at him.
I walked towards the sliding glass doors and remembered I had his jacket on. I threw it on the ground before storming over to my table. Justin looked up and saw me crying and immediately stood up.
“You okay?” he asked me, hugging me.
“Just take me home,” I said, between sobs.
PART TWENTY-EIGHT
It was a week before graduation. I couldn’t wait to graduate and get out of this town. I had decided to go to school up North, with my best friend from Kansas, Shawna. The days until I left couldn’t go any faster for me.
I had made a few friends at school and even dated a little bit. None of the guys even compared to Joey and what was sad, was that I did compare them to him. I couldn’t help it, that boy was in my thoughts 24/7.
I was very thankful for Nicki and Justin. If I didn’t have them, I probably would have had a massive heartache and died. I mean, really, those two were my support system and I’ll be forever thankful for all the listening and the advice they gave me.
It was a Friday night, a week and two days before graduation. My mom had an out of town meeting, so I was home alone this weekend. Both Nicki and Justin offered to come over and keep me company.
“You sure you don’t want me to come over?” Nicki had asked.
“No, do something with JC, I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow. We’ll do something then,” she had said.
*****
I was looking at all our movies, trying to decide on what to watch. We had lots of comedies, but I wasn’t in the mood to laugh. I was in the mood to cry, big shocker there. I came across ‘Billy Madison’ and I felt the tears starting to swell already.
“Nice, Sarah,” I said outloud, to myself. “You haven’t even chosen a movie, and you’re already crying.”
I decided on ‘Titanic’. It was a guaranteed crier, I knew that one would keep me up all night, balling.
I was in the kitchen getting something to drink before I started the movie and the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hey girl, what’s up?”
“Nothing, Justin, just getting ready to watch a movie.”
“Oh, really, whatcha watching?”
“Titanic,” I told him.
“Sarah….”
“Justin, don’t start,” I said. “I’m going to have myself a good cry and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Want me to come over?”
“Nope,” I told him.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yes, now I’m gonna go now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I told him before hanging up.
*****
The doorbell rang in the middle of the movie, right at the part where Jack’s being handcuffed for stealing the necklace.
‘Good thing I haven’t started crying yet,’ I told myself as I got up. I went to the door and opened it, expecting to see Justin, but I saw no one. I looked around, trying to see who rang the doorbell and saw a package sitting on the front step.
PART TWENTY-NINE
“Hmmm….” I said as I picked up the package. I looked around one more time, trying to see who delivered it, before shutting the door. I walked into the living room and opened it. Inside was a video cassette, with no writing on it.
“Weird,” I said, as I ejected ‘Titanic’ and put in the mysterious tape. Suddenly, the song “I Drive Myself Crazy” came on. Then all these pictures came up. They were all footage of back when I was friends with the guys. Since Joey carried his video camera everywhere, there were lots of shots from DisneyWorld, clubbing, jet skiing, shopping and just hanging out at the guy’s houses. It brought tears to my eyes, and I just started balling. I listened to the words of the song as the footage kept rolling. The video had lots of memories of things I did with the guys.
After the song was over, the screen went black. I got up to eject it when something else came up. There was Chris, JC, Justin and Lance, all sitting in Joey’s house. ‘Wonder where Joey is,’ I thought to myself, as I sat back down. Just as that thought crossed my head, he came from behind the camera and sat down with the rest of them. “He must have turned the camera on,” I said out loud to myself.
“You’re not crying, are you Sarah?” Chris said and I smiled. He knew me too well. “Here,” he said, handing the camera a Kleenex and I laughed.
“Anyway,” Lance said. “We hope you’re doing okay Sarah. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t think about you and miss you.”
“Yeah,” JC said. “We realize we were complete dicks about this whole thing, and we’re very sorry. We know we should have apologized a lot sooner.”
“And if you can’t forgive us, we’ll understand,” Justin said. “We hope you can, we pray you can, but if you can’t, it’s totally understandable.”
“Look in the box the tape came in.” Joey said. I picked it up and there was a note inside. They paused, giving me time to read it. I took it out and read it and screamed.
“That’s right,” Joey said. “Our graduation present from us, if you accept it, is to come on tour with us this summer. Nicki got one too. We okayed it with your mom and everything.”
“That’s right. We really hope you come,” Justin said. “Cause we love ya and we miss you, our little sunshine.” The guys all nodded and smiled and the tape went black. I was balling pretty hard. I got up to call Justin when the doorbell rang, again.
“Wonder who it is this time,” I said out loud, as I attempted to wipe my tears away. But for some reason, I didn’t care. It was probably Justin anyway.
I opened the door and stood in shock.
There stood Joey holding a handful of daisies and a smile.
PART THIRTY
I smiled at him as he handed me the daisies. They were my absolute favorite. I moved so he could step inside and I closed the door. He started to say something and I turned around and hugged him. I never wanted to let go, I just held on to him for dear life. He finally pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” we both said at the same time and laughed.
“Me first,” he said as our laughter stopped. “Sarah, I don’t have any idea why you’d take me back, but I feel like I have to try. I love you so much, and I’m so sorry I hurt you. And if I have to, I’ll try my hardest, every day of my life, to make it up to you. I’ll do anything,” he said.
I put my finger to his lips as the tears flowed down my eyes. I took his hand and led him into the living room and we sat down.
“I have to apologize too,” I said.
“No you don’t. You have nothing to apologize about,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” I started. But he shook his head and put his finger up to my lips. I grabbed his hand and kissed his finger. He smiled and closed his eyes. I leaned over and kissed him while his eyes were still closed.
I pulled away and smiled at him. “How I’ve missed you,” I whispered. He pulled me towards him and we held each other for a long time. I looked at him to see tears rolling down his face and I pulled away.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“I’m just so happy to have you back. I was so terrified that I’d lost you forever…” he said. I watched him dig something out of his pocket and I smiled. “You want this back?” he asked me, holding up the locket.
“Yes,” I said, taking it from him and started putting it on.
“No, let me,” he said, taking the necklace from me and reaching behind my neck. He finished putting it on and just stayed there, inches away from my face.
I smiled and pushed his cheeks together and laughed. ‘He’s so darn cute,’ I thought as he leaned in and kissed me. After pulling away, he smashed my cheeks together, just like I had done to him and we laughed. “My little sunshine,” he whispered before kissing me again.
He pulled away and dug in his pocket again and I fiddled with my locket that was around my neck. This time, he produced a ring box and my eyes lit up.
“What are you doing, Joseph?” I asked him with a smile.
“Sarah, would you do me the honor”
“Joey, I’m too young to get married,” I told him.
“Okay, then, let’s call it a promise ring. Something, anything, just promise me you’ll wear it?” he begged me.
I smiled. “Of course I will,” I said as he took the ring out of the box and slipped it on my finger.
I turned around and kissed Joey.
“Whatcha thinking about?” he asked me, pulling me closer to him. I looked down as he played with the ring on my finger.
I looked up and smiled at him. “Not much,” I said, as he leaned in, his face just inches away from mine.
“My little sunshine,” he whispered, before leaning in to kiss me. You know what people say about your senior year being the most exciting time of your life? They weren’t joking….it really is….
THE END!