Sarah Jordan

The first time I saw Sarah Jordan, she was weaving through crowds of people in between classes, looking like she had important business to attend to. She was taller than the other girls and her neck was long. For weeks, I had been hearing her name.

Sarah Jordan
Sarah Jordan
Sarah Jordan

And wondering about her name. And wondering why nobody just called her "Sarah."

 A girl from orchestra was nice enough to invite me to her party one day and I sat quietly watching everybody talking and laughing, I noticed that Sarah Jordan's laugh stood out among every other laugh. Full of breath and pitch. I wondered if she noticed me. She looked like the kind of girl who would never notice me. Who would never invite me along to go see a movie.

She complimented my sunglasses and grabbed them out of my hand. She looked at them like she had actually fallen in love with them, then put them on and showed them off. Everybody looked at her as she made movie star poses and I suddenly felt shy with my cheap tank top and long, unruly hair. I wanted to be like her but it seemed impossible.

At the end of that semester freshman year of high school, Sarah Jordan had a big party in the middle of the afternoon. We decided to race razor scooters. I started turning towards the right to go up the hill, but Sarah Jordan quickly turned to the left and began rolling downhill. I knew it was a bad idea.. racing scooters down a hill... but she seemed so confident and I quickly switched directions. We rolled faster and faster. I could feel the tiny wheels underneath me becoming more and more unsure of themselves but  it was too late to stop. I heard a gasp and suddenly saw Sarah Jordan fly off her scooter. I screamed and slammed the brake down, causing me to fly off my scooter too. I looked over at Sarah Jordan and back at myself. We had bits of gravel stuck to our bloody legs and we just stayed there lying on the street for a moment. We finally pulled ourselves up and hobbled back up to the house. Though the yard, into the house, and up the stairs we marched as our friends stared at us. Sarah Jordan's mother instructed her to get into the bathtub so she could wash off the blood and gravel. I sat on the seat of the toilet holding a cloth up to my chin.

"I am so sorry" I whimpered.

Sarah Jordan looked up at me from the bathtub, "This is all my fault." Her voice cracked and her eyes began to fill with tears.

We started crying as we sat slouched over and holding washcloths to our wounds.

This girl I thought was so beautiful and confident and everything I wanted to be had transformed into a bleeding, crying human being. And I was just the same.

I looked at her with her messy hair, dirty clothes, and bloody legs just sitting there in the bathtub. I decided then and there that I loved her.

She's not as popular as she seems, and doesn't even shop at Abercrombie any more. She drinks too much milk and sometimes uses her friends' toothbrushes. She never walks in straight lines, but instead winds around and looks in all directions and always finds something interesting to look at and then finds the perfect words to describe it. Men think she's hot but she's actually just beautiful. Sarah Jordan is my best friend and I'm proud of the scars she's caused me. I would follow her down any hill, any time.