23

After my Monday morning periods, Karen and I go to the cafeteria, where we usually meet Sarah and Suzy. But, as we enter the room, we only see Suzy staring at her food.

"Hey, Suzy." I greet her. As I sit down in front of her, I ask. "Where's Sarah?"

Suzy looks up from her plate and looks at me with sad eyes. I immediately understand that something isn't right.

"Suzy, what's wrong?" I ask again, as Karen sat down next to me.

"I don't know where Sarah is," Suzy admits.

"What? What do you mean?" I ask, a little bit of worry starting to run through my veins.

"Well, she-she hasn't been answering my calls or text all weekend. I thought I had done something to her, and I figured I could talk to her at school. But today she didn't even show up." I could see that her eyes were about to tear up. "I really think something is wrong with her. I think – I think she's in trouble."

"Suzy, I promise that we'll help you get in touch with her, okay? We'll find out what happened. I'm sure it's nothing." I say, but I'm only trying to console her. It's unlike Sarah to not answer her phone and avoid people for multiple days.

"Did she go somewhere during the weekend? Maybe she forgot her phone there and couldn't contact you." Karen suggests, which I think is a good theory.

"Not that she told me about," Suzy answers, which kills the hope I had. "But she did go out with Liam on Saturday."

"Liam? Who's Liam?" I ask. I've never heard about this Liam before.

"Wait, you don't mean Liam Albert, do you?" Karen asks, shocked.

Suzy nods, which causes Karen to gasp. "Oh my god, he's so freaking hot." she says. "How did she get a date with him?"

Suzy cracks a smile. "Sarah has been talking non-stop about it. Last Wednesday he approached her and asked her out. Just out of the blue. But Sarah liked him, so she agreed immediately." Suzy explains. "Now that I think about it, she did start avoiding me on Sunday."

"Something happened with Liam, probably." I say. "Most likely."

"I saw Liam this morning." Karen says while she starts eating her sandwich.

"Really? Because if he's here we can go ask him if he knows where Sarah is." Suzy says.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's here at school. I can go talk to him if you want." Karen answers.

"I can come with you," I offer.

"Thanks, guys, I really appreciate it." Suzy says. She still looks a little sad, but I don't know what to do to cheer her up. Fortunately, Karen has an idea. Unfortunately, it involves in two people who I know really well.

"Guess who's dating Tom Polson?" Karen asks, and I cover my face with my hands.

"Wait, Tom Polson? As in, the guy you have to tutor?" Suzy asks me. I just nod and wait for Karen to break the news. "Who's dating him?"

"This bitch." Karen points her finger towards me, and I look at Suzy's expression. She goes from shock to surprise, to happiness.

"Oh my gosh! Congratulations!" she cheers. "Since when?"

"Saturday, actually." I say. "And please don't congratulate me like that. I haven't won the Olympics or anything. It's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal," Karen objects. "Your first boyfriend. How cute."

"Shut up," I say in a friendly way. "Let's talk about something else, please."

At that moment, Suzy's eyes drift to the cafeteria door and smiles evilly. "Look who's here."

Karen turns around. So do I, and my eyes light up in joy. It's incredible how when he walks into a room, I forget everything and dedicate all my attention to him.

"Hey, Nerd." he says sweetly. I regret to say that that nickname is actually sounding familiar now. Other guys call their girlfriend 'babe' or 'princess' or 'sweetie', but I honestly prefer 'nerd'. It defines me much better than 'cupcake', for example.

"Hey, Tommy." I say back. He leans in and gives me a peck on the lips. Then he seems to realize that there are other people around.

"Oh, sorry." he says. "I'm Tom."

"We know." Suzy says, which makes Karen giggle and Tom and I blush. "Emma has told us a lot about you."

"You have?" Tom asks me.

"Maybe." I answer vaguely. "Would you like to sit?"

"Oh, no thanks. Sorry, but I promised my friends that I would go to eat with them. I hope that's okay." he says. I think he meant it as a confirmation, but it sounded more of a question.

"Yes, of course." I answer. "You don't have to ask permission to go eat with your friends, you know. You don't need to ask me, especially."

"I know, but I just wanted to make sure." Just then, someone yells Tom's name across the room. "Got to go." he gives me another soft kiss on the lips. "Bye."

"Bye."

He walks away, and I look at him until he vanishes behind the door. When I turn back around, both my friends are staring at me. "What?"

"You two are absolutely adorable." Suzy comments. "I thought I was going to die because of your cuteness."

"I have to agree with Suzy." Karen says. "Well, not the dying part, but… you two make a sweet couple."

"Thanks," I say. "I just hope it will last. I haven't been this happy in forever."

My friends just smile.

"You talk, okay?" I ask Karen. "I'm not good with new people. Or people in general."

"Don't worry about it. I got this." she says confidently. She walks up to the group of boys and says directly at Liam. "Hi. Sorry, can I talk to you in private for a second?"

Liam glances at his friends with a grin. God, do these guys think of anything besides sex? He nods and follows us to a little bench on the side of the courtyard.

"What do you want?" he asks annoyed.

"We heard you went out with Sarah this weekend." Karen says. "We haven't heard from her since. Do you know where she could be?"

"No," he says sternly, but I could see his muscles tense.

"Something happened." I say. "Tell us."

Liam turns his attention to me. "So, we have a little inspector here, huh?" he asks but answers my demand. "We went to a bar and started talking normally. Everything was going great when she got a call on her phone. She answered and excuses herself. When she came back, she was… distracted. She wasn't as happy as before and didn't seem interested anymore. After lunch, we went in different directions. That's all I know."

The news isn't good: at least when we thought that something had happened with Liam we had something to do. We knew where to start our search. But now that we found out that the cause of Sarah's absence is a phone call? How do we solve that?

"Okay, thanks anyway," Karen says, before leaving. I follow her to our next lesson, but in the meantime, we discuss what we found out.

"What do we do now?" I say. "If Sarah got a phone call, we have no way to find out what happened. It's a dead end."

"What if we just go to Sarah's house?" Karen proposes. "If she's there, great! If she isn't, we'll ask the neighbors."

I think about it, and it's actually not a bad idea. "That could work."

"We should probably choose when to do it with Suzy, though." Karen says. "But first… we have to survive two hours of Physics."