Chapter 12 Of Where Her Story Met Mine-The Conclusion

 I slept in until eleven the next morning, needing that long for the adrenaline to finally fade. When I checked my phone, a text from Sierra was already waiting: Had a great time! Hope we can do it again 😀

“Me 2 😀,”  I shot back.

Right then, I decided to throw caution to the wind. It was time to spill my heart out to her. Now, I just had to find the perfect moment.

That moment presented itself the following Tuesday.

“Hey, wanna hang out with me at the park across from my place?” Sierra asked as we navigated the crowded hallway between classes. “I go there to sketch sometimes. It’s a quiet place to just sit, talk, and admire this gorgeous weather.”

My heart did a sudden, violent flip against my ribs. This was it.

“Sure,” I replied, trying to sound completely casual. “Nothing else going on, and I don’t have any homework.”

I raced home, threw on a clean shirt, and flew back down the stairs. I nearly leveled my mom as she walked through the front door, fresh off a shift at work.

“See you later Mom, going to the park with Sierra!” I yelled over my shoulder.

I glanced back just in time to catch the look on her face. Wise. Knowing. Yeah, she definitely knew what was on my mind.

My hands were suddenly sweaty, and the casual cool I’d practiced for the past few days evaporated as I got on my bike and headed out.

When I got to the park, Sierra was already there, transferring to the bench, her wheelchair off to the side but close by. She pulled her sketchbook out, beginning to do a drawing of people passing by in the park.

          “Have a seat,” Sierra said while patting the bench seat.

I sat down, trying to steady my breathing.

“I’ve got something to show you,” she said, flipping past a few pages of charcoal landscapes until she hit a vibrant, colored-pencil piece. “I call it ‘wishful thinking’.”

I stared at the page, and the air completely left my lungs.

It was a drawing of us from the dance. Only this time, there was no wheelchair. It was just the two of us, on our feet, spinning beneath the canopy of lights. I looked from the paper to Sierra's face, my heart melting into a puddle in my chest.

We both started to talk at the same time.

“You go first,” Sierra smiled.

I took a deep breath, watching the world shrink down to just the two of us. “Sierra, these past few months have been the best times of my life. You are one of the strongest, most incredible people I’ve ever known. I really, really like you—maybe even love you. So... will you be my girlfriend? I just—I don't want to lose what we have, but I want it to be more."

Sierra got a massive grin on her face and reached out, squeezing my hand.

“What took you so long? I’ve been waiting for a month," she laughed, though her eyes suddenly grew serious. She gripped my fingers a little tighter. "But I need you to know something. Back in Miami, before the accident, I had a boyfriend. As soon as he found out I’d never walk again, he bailed. Called me 'damaged goods.' So listen to me: if I ever find out you’re asking me out of pity, I will drag your reputation so deep into the mud you’ll never dig it out.”

The fierceness in her voice caught me off guard. I looked at her, the playfulness draining from my face. Her heart had been broken by some jerk before, but that would not be repeated by me.

 "Sierra, I swear to you, pity has nothing to do with this. I'm here because of you, because of the way you make me feel when I’m around you.." I softened, giving her a small, mock salute to break the tension. "But understood, loud and clear." 

“Close your eyes, and I’ll give you your answer,” she said softly.

I closed my eyes, felt her hand cup my chin, and she pressed her lips to mine in a kiss that made fireworks go off behind my eyelids.

When she pulled back, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "So... I'm guessing that's a yes?"

"Smart guy," she teased, resting her head against my shoulder as we looked out over the park.

We spent the rest of our time just talking about what came next. We were most definitely going to schedule that dinner with our parents that we talked about a while back,  and I promised her that I’d ask my dad to build a ramp to our porch, widen some doorways, and put in some rails so that our visits would not be limited to her place, school, or outdoors.

“Sierra Duncan, you have just made me one happy guy.”

“Jimmy Patterson, you’ve made me one happy girl.”

The rest of the afternoon passed us by, and when it was time to go home, I escorted her down the path to her house, instead of letting her travel by herself.

When we got to her front door, I leaned down and kissed her again.

“I love you,” I said, running my hands through her hair.

“I love you too,” she said while taking my hand in hers and gently rubbing it.

And with that, the best day (so far) of our lives came to a close.

They say that high school romance never lasts.

I say never say never

Check back in in a few years.

Chapter 11 Of Where Her Story Met Mine

 Chapter 11

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next two weeks went on as usual: school, friends, home. I prepared for the dance,  planning about what I could do to make it the night of Sierra’s life, and maybe after the music died down, I’d tell her how I felt about her.

The dance was on a Friday night. That day, during lunch, I asked if she was ready.

“I’m ready to roll, literally and figuratively. I’ve got a surprise for you I think you might like,” she winked.

“OK, thanks for the heads up. I can’t wait to see how things go.”

Homecoming started at 8:00 PM, and I got there a bit early, anxious to see what would happen at the dance.  I was chatting with Tom and his date Tara when Sierra wheeled into the gym. I saw what her surprise was.

 I was used to seeing her in jeans and a t-shirt, but for tonight,  she had on a very  attractive light  blue  dress, and her hair was tied back with a matching hair tie. 

The gym’s colored party lights caught the fabric of her dress, and suddenly the whole room faded away and it was just Sierra in the spotlight.   I had to make myself breathe again, and my throat went so dry, it took me a minute to speak.

“Sierra, you look great,” I said, smiling.

“Thanks, you clean up pretty good yourself,” she said, gesturing to my best dress shirt and pants.

“Thanks. I only break them out for special occasions.”

We stayed on the sidelines, then I had an idea.

“Hey, let’s dance…sort of.”

“OK, what’s the plan?”

When the next slow dance music came up,  I took the handles of her wheelchair, and pushed her in a slow circle. Sierra smiled,  Seeing her smile like that made the nerves completely vanish. For those few minutes, we were just two people sharing a slow dance; it was as if the wheelchair didn’t exist.

After that, we headed to the snack bar to get something to munch on.

“Thanks for that,” she said. “I didn’t think that I’d ever be involved in any form of dancing again.” The look of sheer happiness on her face made my heart speed up again.

“You’re welcome. It’s not fun being left out of things. Everyone deserves to have some fun.”

The rest of the evening went by like a flash, I don’t think either of us wanted it to end. 

I wanted it to be the beginning.

Chapter 10 Of Where Her Story Met Mine

  I could hardly contain my excitement as Saturday neared.  My feet were barely touching the ground as the countdown to 7:30 on Saturday night began. 

From Wednesday to Saturday afternoon, I was a nervous wreck. I practiced what I was going to say, went through four outfits before finding one that looked right for the occasion, and generally prepared for anything that could possibly happen or go wrong.

           That evening, I arrived at Carl’s maybe 10 minutes early and waited for Sierra to get there before getting a seat.  Right on cue, she wheeled in, and I asked if she wanted a table or booth and she said booth. We picked a booth toward the back where it was a little quieter, away from the main crowd.  Once we settled in,  Sierra angled her wheelchair at the booth, and effortlessly used her arms to transfer to the seat.

“Wow, that’s awesome,” I said, genuinely impressed. “Your coordination is out of this world. I don’t think I could have done it without falling.”

“Thanks, that was one of the first things I was taught in rehab. My arms were worked out so much, I could probably beat anyone in arm wrestling,” she laughed.

The sudden urge to kiss her right then and there flashed through my mind. Patience took over, and that would have to wait for another moment.

Our pizza came, a large with everything, and a pitcher of Coke. We settled in and took our time eating.

“To success on our project,” Sierra said, clinking her glass against mine.

“To success,” I toasted back. “Hopefully to the beginning of many more.”

“What do you have planned for the weekend?”  I asked.

“My sister Jackie  is coming in from Miami for a couple of days. She works as a paralegal in a law office there. She hasn’t been able to get time off from work to visit since we moved here, so it’ll be nice to see her,” she answered. “How about you?”

“Well, not much. I have a little bit of homework to do, but I just want to relax and recharge.That project just about wore me out, but we did it.”

“Another toast-to teamwork,” She clinked my glass again.

After saying hi to Sierra’s mom when she came to pick her up, I made my own way home, totally and completely fallen for Sierra.   It was tough thinking about anything else that weekend.

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Chapter 9 Of Where Her Story Met Mine

 

The next afternoon, I biked over to Sierra’s to start work on our project.  Any reason to see her was a good reason. My heart was racing, and not just because of pedaling my bike. 

With Sierra’s mom providing us with our usual tray of snacks and cans of Coke, we got down to working on our project, a report on The Hound of The Baskervilles. Sierra’s drawings of how she thought Sherlock Holmes, Watson, and the rest of the characters looked just blew my mind.

“Amazing work, Sierra,” I commended her. “These depictions look like they came right from the time the book was written.”

“Thanks,”  Sierra grinned. “With your analysis of  the book, we’ve got an A here.”

“Let’s hope so,” I replied. I set my notebook down, the room suddenly feeling a little quieter, except for the racing of my heart.

And then I did it again.

I reached across and took her hand, this time letting it last longer.

And once again, Sierra didn’t protest, just smiled, her blue eyes gleaming.

That evening, after I got home and wound down, I called Tom and told him about my afternoon with Sierra.

“It’s getting closer, Tommy, I can feel it. That look she gave me tells me that she’s thinking the same thing I am, so the only question is do I spill my heart out, tell her how I feel and ask her to be my girlfriend before or after the dance?  Things might go south if I ask before and she says no. Two weeks won’t kill me, so maybe I should just play it cool until then.”

“You definitely want to be sure that you’re both on the same wavelength,” Tom agreed. “I’ve got your back, if you need anyone to advocate to her on how much of a great guy you are.”

I kept those words in mind over the next couple of days. Before I knew it, Thursday arrived, and Sierra and I were standing in front of our English class presenting our project. As expected, we got an A. 

“A small celebration is in order.” I told Sierra as we congratulated each other on the success of our hard work.

“What do you have in mind?” she asked.

“How about pizza at Carl’s again, just us this time. How about Saturday?”

“So our pre-date date?” she laughed. “Deal. I’m going shopping with Mom that afternoon, but the evening should be free. How does 7:30 sound?”

“I’ll be there, just bring your appetite.”

Chapter 8 Of Where Her Story Met Mine

  My big chance came a week later.  I had totally forgotten that the Homecoming Dance was coming up, and I decided to ask Sierra to be my date.  I had two weeks to come up with a way to ask her, and my nerves went into panic mode. Every evening, I’d stand in front of my mirror, practicing how I’d try to sell my offer. Of course, I also went to Tom for advice.

“See, I told you, man, you got it bad for her. The best thing to do is just go and ask her. She can either say yes, and you have the time of your life, or she says no and you get on with life.”

          “You’re right, Tommy,” I admitted. “She might not want to go, seeing that she’s not able to dance. But on the other hand, she’s been up to hanging with me and the gang, so you never know. Like you said, the worst that can happen is she says no, and I can live with that,  but if I’m going down, I’m going down swinging.Ithink we’ve made an awesome connection, and if this works out, it could be more.”

“That’s the spirit, dude,” Tom said while patting my shoulder. “Speak from the heart, you can’t go wrong with that.”

And that is what I decided to do. After  two days of practice, Sierra and I had our usual lunch meetup. 

We discussed how things on the websites were going, and decided to partner on an upcoming project for English class.  We would meet up at her place tomorrow evening to begin work on it.

With sweat starting to pour, I took a deep breath while she was looking at a book and decided to go for broke. 

“Sierra, can I ask you something?” I said, steadying my nerves.

“Sure, what’s on your mind?”

“Ummm…the homecoming  dance is in a couple of weeks, and I’m asking if you’d be interested in going as my date.” 

I felt my nerves do a slow meltdown. This was the first moment of truth.

“Sure, I’d love to go,” She smiled. “Though obviously dancing would be out of the question.”  Sierra patted the armrest of her wheelchair.

“That’s OK, I’m not much of a dancer anyway,” I laughed. “It’ll just be a  fun time where we can hang out.”

“Sounds like a plan, it’s a date,” Sierra answered.

A date. I smiled inwardly.  Dude, you did it.

Chapter 7 Of Where Her Story Met Mine

 Monday came, and it was back to school. Sierra rolled into school between fifth  and  sixth periods. “How’d the doctor’s appointment go?” I asked, concerned.

“New doctor wanted to see if my spine was still stable, so I had to go get x-rays. Things are good, but man I got to look at them, and man, Jimmy, I didn’t fully realize how bad the accident left me.” She cringed slightly at the memory. “They had to put so much hardware in my back, if I had to get on a plane, every metal detector in the airport would go crazy.”

She laughed, but I could see that Sierra was shook up about seeing just what her injuries entailed. The lenses of her glasses began to fog up with the beginnings of tears. Her trying to keep strong and calm was starting to take a toll on her.

I wanted to tell her it was okay to let it all out, to just pull her into a hug, but the wave of students rushing to sixth  period kept pushing us forward. 

She was one tough girl. No wonder I was so attracted to her.

        "Anyway, on to better things," Sierra said, blinking back the tears. "The site is blowing up. I'm already getting commission offers for my art, and the forum is full of people sharing their own stories. I mean it, Jimmy—I never could have done this without your coding magic." 

“Anytime. I’m just glad the site is blowing up—and seriously, glad the appointment went well, even if those X-rays were a lot to take in.” 

“Seeing the damage is just a part of coming to terms with what I have to live with,” she said while maneuvering her wheelchair through the hall to our next classroom. “It could have been worse, the accident could have killed me.” 

My God, where do you get all this strength? I thought. 

“You’re incredible, Sierra. Seriously. Life threw up a massive roadblock, and you’re already figuring out how to roll right past it.” 

“Like I said, I come from a long line of stubborn women,” she winked.

“You won’t get any argument from me about that,” I said while walking to my next class. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I went home after school with one thought in my mind: I was falling really hard for Sierra, and how could I tell her that without making an idiot of myself?