-

"Psst! Sarah! Sarah…Sarah! You're! Staring!"

Sarah swiveled to face her friend, Amy, who was rolling her chocolate-brown eyes and mock-whispering through clenched teeth.

"I am…not staring. Now if Brian would only move out of the way so I could see…"

Amy snorted, "Right."

Sarah glanced over at Amy, and grinned, "Can I help it if he's just so…hot?"

"He's not hot."

"Yes he is. He's practically dripping with hotness."

"Whatever you say. So what do you think I should make for Jason's birthday? Oooh…" Amy twisted the cookbook around so Sarah could see the pictures, "Doesn't that look delicious?"

"Yeah…" Sarah trailed off, barely giving the cookbook a second glance, "Absolutely."

"Not Nathan!" Amy hissed, "The cake."

"Oh. Yeah, yeah, it looks good, Jas'll love it."

"He better," Amy grumbled, grabbing her friend's wrist, "Let's get out of here, I'm going to check this book out."

Amy grabbed her and Sarah's book-bags, tugging her friend and all their stuff over to the library circulation desk. Sarah allowed herself to be pulled out of the library and into the hallway, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder at Nathan and his friend, Brian, all the way.

"What's your next class? English?"

"No…AP Statistics…with…"

"Marsden?"

"…Nate."

Amy raised one eyebrow, "But Marsden still teaches the class, right?"

"No…yes…uh, what?"

Amy laughed, "Get with it, hon." And with that, she turned and flounced off to her next class, Spanish.

-

Nathan Thomas ambled down the hall with his stats notebook tucked under one arm, talking over his shoulder to his friend, Brian Whitten. He was walking so fast that he barely noticed when he nearly ran down someone of considerably less bulk than his six-foot, 180-pound frame—most likely someone of the female sex. His head whipped around to scan the immediate vicinity for the victim of his assault, and his eyes landed on a girl—he was right—picking herself gracefully up from the floor. Sarah Johnson picked up her dark blue backpack, brushed off her indigo jeans, and tossed her long, dark hair over one shoulder, before turning her deep brown eyes to meet his. Her surprise at seeing who it was flashed through her eyes, but was quickly masked with what would have been convincing indifference, had he been unable to detect the rising blush across her cheeks.

"Oh, hey, sorry, Sarah," he offered her a sheepish smile.

"Oh, uh, it's alright," she said distractedly, "Don't worry about it."

She offered him a tentative grin, turned, and nearly sprinted down the hallway toward the stats classroom. Nathan rolled his eyes, he knew of Sarah well—she was very pretty and smart, bitingly sarcastic and outspoken, not to mention the daughter of his football coach and PE teacher. Not quite his type of girl. While most guys did like her, quite a bit, he found her sarcasm and the fact that she obviously found him attractive somewhat annoying.

"Nate!" Brian was talking to him, his eyes trailing after Sarah's hasty departure, "Was that Sarah J?"

Nathan glanced at his friend, "Yeah, why?"

"She's hot."

"She's annoying."

"But hot. And she's not that bad."

"She's so…I don't know…aggravating."

"That's just because she never lets you win in any arguments in class, isn't it?"

"She's sarcastic. And cynical. And not very nice."

"She's smart. And she's not nice in the Andra-sense, no," Brian snuck a glance at his friend's face when he mentioned Andra Shay's name, he knew Nathan had some sort of crush on the pretty, sweet blonde. Sure enough, Nathan glowered at him.

"I have class." Nathan said caustically.

"Right, whatever." Brian held up his hands in mock-defense, "Why don't you ask her out?"

"Sarah?!"

"I meant Andra, but you could ask Sarah…I think you guys would make a good couple."

"Yeah, right. Maybe I will ask Andra to homecoming or something," Nathan shrugged and walked in the direction of his class, "Later."

-

Sarah silently thanked the lord play practice was over as she headed to her book locker. Casually flipping her hair over her shoulder, she made a dramatic show of opening her locker, knowing that somebody had to be watching.

"You certainly lack no self-confidence," Amy commented from behind her, Amy's boyfriend, Jason standing awkwardly next to them, "Since when can somebody make opening a locker look like a modeling shoot?"

Sarah glared at her, "I can't help it if I'm beautiful and people want to look," she said breezily, "Really, can you blame me?"

Amy snorted, "Yeah, you're not fooling us with the confidence act, Sarah, drop it. Your lover-boy's over there playing guitar, why don't you go talk to him instead of just staring all the time?"

Sarah gazed disdainfully over at where Nathan sat, an acoustic guitar slung carelessly across his lap, grinning and laughing with a bunch of girls, "He's with his groupies. I'm so not the type."

"You might as well be," Amy replied, "Just go talk to him. I'm sure he can't stand the stupidity as much as you, he's a pretty smart guy, huh?"

"Yeah, right. He's pretty smart…but he doesn't like girls like me."

"I thought you were gorgeous and amazing?"

"That's just in my own mind, but even that aside, I think I'm too caustic for him. He wants some little girly-girl to drip all over him and hang on his every word."

Amy sighed, "Honestly, if I were him, I'd take you over one of those girls any day. But…"

"But…?"

"I can sort of see what you mean. Like Andra Shay. Jeez."

"I like Andra."

"Everyone likes Andra. But she's kind of stupid, don't you think?"

"Well, at least she's sincerely stupid. I mean, at least she's not pretending to be a complete ditz when she's actually smart. She just…genuinely doesn't know a lot of stuff. Not to mention she's sweet."

"Saccharinely so."

"Unlike me."

"Sarah, I would date you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Amy, but I think you're starting to scare the boyfriend."

Jason grinned, "No way, by all means, go ahead with the girl-on-girl stuff!"

Amy gave him a disgusted look, "What is it with guys and two girls?"

Jason raised one eyebrow, "Think about what you just said. A guy and two girls."

Amy groaned, "Right, well we've got to catch the bus out of here, so we'll see you later, Sarah!"

"Yeah, I have to ride my bike…through this," she gestured at the dismal-looking sky that threatened to pour forth buckets at any given moment, "See you!"

Amy and Jason left, and Sarah turned back to her locker, slowly putting books into her bag as she watched Nathan and his groupies through her locker mirror. Andra Shay, fresh from the shower—she was, after all, a cheerleader, and had to put up with strenuous practices—walked up to Nathan and wrapped her arms around him from behind, smiling cheerily and giving everyone a friendly greeting. The display of such sincere sweetness was so cute it disgusted her. Sarah wrapped her scarf around her neck twice and stormed through the locker room in a huff.

-

Nathan was sitting on a table, his feet on the bench, with his guitar on his lap. He smiled at Andra as she came up to give him a friendly hug. He heard a locker door slam and his eyes wandered over to where Sarah was currently stomping grumpily out of the school. He wondered, briefly, what was going on in her mind, and continued to watch her until she tossed a glance over her shoulder and met his eyes. They looked at each other for a split second and he swore he could almost feel some sort of electricity. Then through the skylight-ed roof of the locker room, the darkened sky lit up with a brilliant flash of lightning—the crash of thunder enough to startle him out of his reverie. Andra was now sitting on the bench between his legs, gazing up at the sky.

"Wow. Looks like a storm. How are you going to ride home if it rains, Nate?"

He shrugged, "I'll figure it out," and the short moment with Sarah flashed once again through his mind. That was the last time he thought of Sarah Johnson that day.

-

At three am, the rain began to pour. It had been drizzling, even raining beforehand, but thus began the torrential downpour—three am. Sarah tossed in her bed once, and the crackle of lightning temporarily awoke her. Her mind unfogged enough that she pulled the blankets up around her and snuggled into them.

-

At three am, the rain began to pour. It had been drizzling, even raining beforehand, but thus began the torrential downpour—three am. Nathan was still on the brink between consciousnesses, and the sharp spark of lightning was enough to rouse him from his drowsy state long enough to kick one of the stuffed animals out of the bed, turn over, and fall swiftly into slumber.

-