Sara ran her hand through her bangs again. She just couldn’t keep them out of her eyes. She eventually gave up and walked away from the mirror in the bathroom. She didn’t even know why she suddenly felt like primping. It was just a stupid party with a bunch of stupid rich kids. She didn’t like those people, so why should she care what they think? Nonetheless she found herself in a cropped tank instead of her usual baggy one and jeans that weren’t quite so loose as the ones she’d worn to school.

On her way out the door, she waved goodbye to her grandmother and said “I’ll be back by ten.” The whole town was rather small and close-knit, so she could easily walk to Kurt’s house. In fact, the rest of the guests could probably walk there too, if they didn’t feel the need to show off their new cars.

When she arrived, Crissy was standing on the large wooden porch in a pink sleeveless dress. Her hair was hanging down around her shoulders instead of in pony tails, which was a change. Crissy waved excitedly to Sara and met her halfway on the steps. She took hold of Sara’s hand and pulled her inside. “There’s a really neat balcony upstairs!” Crissy told her.

Sara regretted coming as soon as she reached the living room, where the music was so loud that she could barely hear anything Crissy was saying as she pulled her through, and all of the guests were those she purposely avoided at school. She was grateful that Crissy was pulling her along so fast that those guests didn’t have time to notice her. She really couldn’t take more rumors circulating around school about her and Christoph.

She was finally able to breath when they reached the upstairs patio, which lead to a very fancy balcony. Strangely, this area of the house was completely empty, as if the guests were restricted to the first floor. Sara reasoned that she just wasn’t used to the way parties worked.

Crissy smiled as she sat down in a metal porch chair. “Isn’t it nice up here?”

“Yeah, it’s beautiful.” Sara said, looking out over the railing and seeing a nice view of the neighborhood with the full moon hanging lazily above the rooftops. “Do you always come up here when Kurt and Christoph are having parties?”

“Of course. I hate big crowds; they make me nervous. Kurt won’t let anyone up on the second floor. Christoph says Kurt has a lot of bad secrets up here, but I haven’t been able to find anything bad at all.”

“Kurt is a very sneaky person. You should watch out for him.” Sara told her.

“Oh, he wouldn’t do a thing to hurt me. Christoph would kill him.”

“Would he?”

Crissy blinked. “Not really. I just mean that Christoph would get very mad.”

Sara sighed and looked back out at the sky. “Shouldn’t you wait for your friend Zac? He may get lost in the crowd.”

“I can watch the street from here, so I’ll know when he gets here. Then we have to go downstairs because Kurt would die if he knew I had anyone up here, especially another guy.”

“Oh, there’s Zac.” Sara said, pointing down at the yard.

Crissy stood up and looked down. Sure enough, there he was, clad in black and grinning as oddly as he always did. Crissy started to walk back into the house when Sara stopped her. “Crissy, is it ok if I stay here for a while? I don’t feel like going back down yet, and no one knows I’m up here, do they?”

“No, no one knows. I’ll be back up later, after I introduce Zac to a few decent people and know that he’ll be ok.”

Sara nodded and leaned over the railing to watch the street again. She heard Crissy’s footsteps until she left the balcony. It really was a beautiful night, and Sara couldn’t ask for a better view of it. She hadn’t been on a balcony in a small neighborhood before. She’d been on one at a resort in Florida once, and it was magnificent. The view of the ocean was so vast and huge. It was larger than life. But here, in this tiny little town, she saw something just as beautiful. She couldn’t quite explain it, but watching the moon over the shingled roofs in the crisp, cool summer night air was somehow more magnificent than the ocean.

If she hadn’t been so drawn in by the view, she would have noticed the other presence on the balcony way before it had the chance to speak. “Like it?”

She turned her head lazily. “Oh, it’s you, Christoph.”

Christoph smiled. “Were you expecting me?”

“Actually, yes. I knew you’d turn up sooner or later to taunt me.” She answered, turning completely around and leaning her back against the rail. “I wanted to talk to you though, away from Crissy.”

“Well here I am.” He said, motioning toward himself.

“I want you to stay away from me. I don’t want you to talk to me, and most definitely not touch me. I want to make this clear. Do you understand?” Sara frowned when she heard Christoph’s laugh. “That wasn’t meant to be funny.”

Christoph stopped laughing long enough to look her in the eye. “Why don’t you want me to be around you?”

“Because you have to have some reason, some plan. I don’t like being made a fool of.”

“And how are you so sure? What makes you think that I don’t just plainly and simply like you?” he asked.

“I know… because…” she began, fumbling around with her words, trying to find the right answer.

“You don’t know.” Christoph said bluntly. He stepped closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Let me prove it to you. Let me show you that I really do like you. Just give me a week. If, after a week, you don’t believe that I’m sincere, I’ll leave you alone. If you do believe it, then we start going out steady. Deal?”

Sara searched his eyes, hoping to find a hint of dishonesty, but all she could see were deep blue pools of sweetness. “You’ll never bother me again?”

“If you decide that you don’t believe me.”

Sara was quiet for a moment, weighing out the options. Either way seemed to turn out pretty good. She finally nodded her head silently, much to Christoph’s joy. He put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. “Thank you,” he whispered.