Never Give Up On the Good Times

Stephanie Bell

Sarah River walked alone down the street. She turned to head up the stairs to a big white house. She rang the doorbell and was greeted by her best friend, Lauren. She could see her friends running around, hiding all the valuable objects before the party started.

Soon, music was blaring from the stereo in the living room and people had filled the house. Sarah pushed her way through the crowd, wondering if Lauren actually knew most of these people. She flinched as someone brushed against her. She’d always hated crowds.

Finally, she located a free chair by one of her classmates. She took a seat beside him and sighed. She missed her boyfriend, Jordan. He’d gone out of town a few days before and wouldn’t be home until later that night. She imagined the conversation they’d later have.

“Hey,” said the boy next to her, breaking her train of thought.

“Oh, hi,” Sarah replied, snapping back to reality. “How are you, Nick?”

“Oh, I’m okay; yourself?”

“Not too bad. How’s Vanessa?” Vanessa had been Nick’s girlfriend for the last several weeks.

He looked away for a moment. “We broke up a few days ago.”

They were both silent for awhile after that, but she had a sudden desire to at least try to have some fun. Sarah had to break the ice, first. “I can’t believe how much math work Mr. McGreggor gave us. I’m going to be working on it until, like, three o’clock Monday morning!”

“I know,” Nick sighed. “It’s like our teachers don’t want us to have lives. We have to be as miserable as they are.” Sarah’s plan had worked; complaining about teachers could almost always result in a conversation.

They continued chatting in their own secluded corner. She still wished Jordan was there – his comforting presence always cheered her up – but at least Nick was proving himself as a worthy replacement.

Lauren ran over to Sarah, tears filling her big brown eyes. Immediately Sarah stood and hugged her friend.

“What happened?” she asked.

Lauren was shaking. “He-he-he s-s-said he met s-s-someone else,” she stuttered between sobs.

“Oh, honey,” Sarah whispered as she led Lauren to the bathroom. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up. He’s not worth this.” Lauren nodded in response.

Sarah returned to Nick after spending nearly an hour trying to cheer up her friend. There wasn’t much more she could’ve done, and she felt bad about that, but at least the crying had stopped. She couldn’t imagine being betrayed by her own boyfriend like that. It scared her to think about, but Jordan wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. She was sure of that.

“I got you a drink,” Nick said, holding out a paper cup. “I hope strawberry cola is okay. I thought you might want some sugar after that.”

Realizing how dehydrated she felt, Sarah took the drink and gulped it down. “Thanks,” she smiled. “I needed that!”

Nick flashed a half-smile and reclaimed his seat. He looked uncomfortable; more fidgety that he had been before. Sarah could see something must be wrong, but she didn’t want to create an awkward situation by asking him about it. Instead, she picked up the conversation where they’d left off and pretended not to notice his strange behaviour.

Their awkward conversation didn’t last very long. Thoughts began spinning in her head until even she couldn’t make sense of them anymore. Her vision became blurred. She could hardly move.

Sarah was pretty sure Nick had left and someone new had taken his place, but her eyes were too out-of-focus to tell for sure. All she could see was that the person beside her had familiar dark hair.

Without knowing entirely how she had gotten there, Sarah soon found herself lying on top of a fluffy white bed in a dimly lit room. In the background she could hear one of her favourite songs – Never Give up on the Good Times by the Spice Girls. She’d loved that song ever since she was a little kid.

From across the room she could see a dark-haired man locking the door. She would’ve panicked, but there was something almost soothing about his presence. He glided towards her and climbed onto the bed. He set himself on top of her and began unbuttoning her shirt.

“Stop,” she murmured but he didn’t even slow down. “Stop!” she said as loudly as she could manage.

Sarah tried to force him off of her, but she was too weak. He wouldn’t budge. She could vaguely see frustration forming on his blurred face. She kept fighting with the little strength she had left. Then, she couldn’t see anything at all. He’d knocked her unconscious.

Sarah awoke the next morning, half-dressed on top of the white bedspread. Her whole body hurt and she felt weak with fatigue. She forced herself to get up and gather her clothing. She dressed as quickly as she could and went over to the mirror to finger-comb her hair.

Sarah saw on her face a large bruise just above her right temple. She stared at it for a moment, and then quickly pulled her hair over to cover it. She rushed to get ready, anxiously wanting to get out of there. She knew what had happened – or at least she was pretty sure. Part of her was thankful that she couldn’t remember much from the previous night, but the other part was desperate to know exactly what had taken place. She hated not knowing things.

She scanned the room quickly; making sure she hadn’t left anything behind. She didn’t want anyone else to know about this – it was embarrassing. On the floor she could see a grey tube sock. She walked over and picked it up. For some reason, it seemed almost familiar – but it was just a sock, so she didn’t think much of it. The sock was monogrammed, which she thought was kind of strange – she didn’t know many people who care that much about their socks –with the initials J.B.

Sarah shuddered. She only knew one person at her school with those initials; but it couldn’t be him. Jordan Blake would never do that to her – he loved her, after all. It was absolutely absurd. As she thought about this possibility, however, she remembered that if her bruise was on her right temple, it meant that whoever punched her was left-handed. Jordan was left-handed. She could remember the blurry face from the previous night; the familiar dark hair. It was Jordan’s hair.

No, she told herself, it couldn’t be him. She’d probably made the whole thing up. Sarah was very clumsy, so it was perfectly probable that she had just tripped and hit her head on a table or something. The rest was just a dream. Thinking that anything bad had happened – let alone that Jordan had done it – was just stupid. He would never intentionally hurt her...

note: I am aware this is similar to my other story with some changes, but I had to change it because I liked this way better...