Page 23 of Something Rad
There’s no way I can let that go without an explanation.
I turn my back fully to the counter, bracing my hands on it and pushing upwards. I swing my legs over the counter to the side, landing swiftly behind it and taking the few steps necessary to push my way into the office after the girl.
I find her standing behind Ms. Rose’s desk, leaning over and writing in a record book of some sort. She glances up at me when she hears me enter, and I don’t miss the way those gray eyes subtly roll before returning to the book.
“I’m sorry,” I say, crossing my arms. “But do you have a problem with me?”
She rolls her eyes again, much more obviously this time, then pushes her auburn curls out of her face. “What do you want, Robbie?”
“I just want to start my one month of library aid duty so I can get it over with,” I say, holding up my hands. Her brows raise in what looks to be genuine shock and concern, and then it registers that she just called me by my name. “Wait, you know me?” I ask.
Her brows immediately fall, her expression morphing into one that tells me I just said something extremely dumb. I suppose it’s warranted. Of course she knows me.
But then it clicks.
I lean away, looking her up and down. I think I might just know her too.
“Cooper,” I say.
Her eyebrows shoot up once again before she hides her face from me all together, skirting around me, out of the office, and back towards the bookshelves, picking up another stack of books on her way. I trail right after her.
“Sara Beth Cooper,” I say.
She spins around on her heel, stopping me in my tracks. “It’s just Sara,” she says, spinning back around to place a book on the shelf. She quickly moves on, heading for another aisle.
“Just Sara?” I ask. “Are you sure?”
“Fairly.”
“Huh,” I mutter, running my hand through my hair. A wave of memory snippets and flashbacks flood through my brain. “Well damn, Cooper. Long time, no see, I guess. How long has it been? Since, like, the fourth grade?”
She makes her way over to one of the shorter waist-level shelves, and I stand opposite of her on the other side of it.
“Robbie, we've had a class together every year in high school,” she says.
“What?” I question, taken aback. “No way, Sara Beth–”
“It’s just Sara,” she insists, pausing her movements to stare daggers up at me.
“Oh, right. Okay,” I respond, starting to nod, but then shaking my head instead. “But Iswearyou went by Sara Beth.”
“Well, Idid,” she confirms, exasperated. “Because Ms. Delgado mistakenly said my full name when she called attendance on the first day of kindergarten and I was too shy to correct her. But it’s just Sara. My entire home life, and since the sixth grade of my school life, it’s just been Sara.”
“Okay, Sara Be–” I start, then stop myself. “You know what? This is confusing.”
“It’s really not. Just call me Sara–”
“I’m just going to call you Cooper.”
“Well, I suppose I’ve been called worse,” she replies, moving to the next shelf over.
I can tell she doesn’t care to have this conversation. For what reason, I don’t know, but I just can’t wrap my head around what she’s saying. And besides, I’m technically sentenced to the walls of this library for another hour. May as well make small talk to pass the time.
“Cooper, there’s just no way we've had classes together all of high school.”
She slips the last book from her stack onto the shelf in front of her then stands up straight to face me. She holds up her hand, counting off one finger at a time. “Geometry our freshman year, third period with Crocker. Chemistry our sophomore year, sixth period with Pavelski. Spanish last year with Jaramillo–”
“You’reloco, Cooper,” I interject.
