To Hell And Back: (On-Hold) by Chloe Knox (books for 9th graders TXT) 📖

feel better. If I told her the truth she’d confront my father about his drunken, verbally abusive, state and attempt at fixing him. That would only anger him and make things worse. Sarah always wanted to help, help, help, never really thinking through things.

“Well that’s good! What about his work, how’s that coming?”

I looked down the hall of the upstairs, to my shaking hands, and then back to the still cracked door. My whole body was radiating heat, my heart was skipping multiple beats—which I’m sure is unhealthy—and my breaths were escaping my lips quickly and unsteady.

I was confused.

Sarah? I’ve known her ever since I can remember. We had met when we were both really little, around seven? Maybe eight? She was walking through the forest as lost as could be, and we had been best friends ever since. She was always like the little sibling I’d never had. I could tell her everything, confide in and trust her. I teased and scared her non-stop, knowing that no matter what she’d still come back to that very spot in the forest where we’d meet every now and then. I showed her how to fight for self-defense, and she taught me to read and write.

Never, EVER, had I felt this way. Never, EVER, had I even thought about her in this way, till only a year ago.

She was no longer the little girl I could trick into believing trolls lived in the trunks of trees. Yes, I can still tease her, but the point is she’s no longer a little kid. She’s a woman! A smart, funny, kind-hearted, and amazingly attractive woman!

She used to barely be able to push me over. Now, she’s a bundle of non-stop surprises. She can make me smile with a single bat of her eyes, and can make my skin grow hot and my insides melt with a single touch of her fingers. She affected me in a way no other girl or woman ever had or could.

I took a quick step toward the door, eyeing her from head to toe. I took in every detail of her; the way the rays of the light shone on her pale skin through the bedroom window, the elegant curves of her waist and hips, the ever-so-slight arch of her back, the smooth length of her long legs, “Yeah, it’s…its going good.”

“Well that’s…Ulrich? Ulrich! What are you doing?” Sarah squealed, and only then did I realize I had actually swung the door completely open, my only camouflage completely gone. She had seen me watching her.

“Oh! Oh, um! I…I-I was just—“

“Ulrich! Get out! Go!” She yelped running a hand through her hair before grabbing at her wet dress to hold it in front of her completely exposed body.

“Right! Sorry!” I mumbled before storming out of the bedroom.

She slammed the bedroom door shut behind me, but this time locked it. And even as my heart leapt in my chest, knowing that what I did was wrong and that I should feel bad, I didn’t. Infact, I couldn’t stop smiling.


~2~

Sarah's P.O.V.

I stood for a good minute or two, arms crossed over my chest glaring at him before he even apprehended my presence.

“Oh! Hi!”

“Hi,” I mumbled slowly, keeping my eyes narrowed making sure not to waver or even move a muscle.

Ulrich watched me for the longest time before squinting with confusion and then shrugging, as if whipping away his puzzlement. He just picked up another small log from the pile of wood next to his house. He set it in the dead center of the tree stump in front of him. Picking up the axe, which was also leaning up against the tree stump, he swung downward so quickly and with so much force the log of wood split before I was even given a chance to even blink. Beads of sweat drenched his forehead and cheeks. His white shirt was soaked through, sticking to his chest.

“How long have you liked me?” The words slipped out of my mouth, before I was even able to fully comprehend what it was I was asking. When I spoke, it was with defiance and confidence. Now I was completely unsure and just wanted to run in the opposite direction, I felt so idiotic. I wasn’t even sure if what I had asked was even true. It had just been a somewhat educated guess, a hypothesis that may and may NOT be true.

Ulrich shrugged again, then sighed as he threw the two halves of wood onto a separate pile a few feet away. With a grunt, he again swung the axe, piercing the blade into the flesh of the tree stump. “Awhile,” he answered before whipping his sweaty hands on his pants and turning toward me.

I gulped, utterly shocked, “Uh-awhile?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t know what to say or do. I knew Ulrich, better then myself. I knew when he was lying, with a simple look into his eyes I could tell what he was thinking. I knew his likes and his dis-likes. I knew how he’d react to things and what he’d do in certain situations…but now? I was too overwhelmed by my own revelation to think clearly let alone see if he was even telling the truth, or if I even felt the same way.

“And…And…And you never told me?” I yelped the first thing that came to mind.

Ulrich shoved his thumbs into the waist band of his pants, rolling his shoulder to stretch his sore limbs, “You never asked.”

“So…So…So what now?” I muttered unsure of what to ask, or even how to approach him. It was obvious, by the genuine look in his brown eyes that he was indeed telling the truth...but he was being so truthful. He was being so blunt and out there, yet it was like he wasn’t showing any emotion at all. It was confusing.

Ulrich said nothing, only shrugged as he licked his lips.

We stood there for a moment, silent and motionless. I watched and waited, hoping he’d say something, anything, to end the awkward silence.

And eventually he did, he spoke, but it didn’t end the sudden tension I felt between us. It only made it worse.

Ulrich took the few steps forward it took to close the space between us, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“How do you feel…about me?”

“I...I…I’m not—“

“Ulrich? Ulrich? Where are you son?” I heard Charles, Ulrich’s father yell from inside their house.

Quickly Ulrich and I looked around, before deciding I should behind the pile of logs next to the house.


Ulrich's P.O.V.

“I’m out here, dad!” I called just as my father walked out of the house in his dirty ash covered apron. With another filthy cloth he was whipping the soot of his callused hands.

“What’ve you been up to? More work?”

“Yeah. I’m just chopping up some more firewood for tonight.”

My father nodded, scratching at his whisker covered face, “Alright, well…we’ve both been working all day. It’s been awhile since we’ve, I don’t know…enjoyed each other’s company. What do you say; we make some rabbit stew and just chat? Catch up on things?”

I sighed, “I do, dad. I really would like to, but I can’t. I already have plans.”

My father’s graying eyebrow cocked at that, “Oh yeah? With who?”

“Sarah.”

“Sarah? The girl from the woods?”

“Yes.”

“Hasn’t she been ditching you for the past few years?”

“She didn’t ditch me, dad. She doesn’t live in town! Usually she’d come here every summer with her family, but the past few years her family hasn’t come. This year, they have.”

“So what? You’re just going to wait in the middle of the forest for some girl that may, or may not, show up?”

I said nothing, only nodded, despite the fact that Sarah was actually hiding nearby, probably eavesdropping on mine and my father’s conversation. Maybe she’d get the hint and head to the woods.

My father glared at me for a moment, eyes filled with skepticism, but my father trusted me and didn’t argue, “Fine…when am I going to meet this Sarah girl anyway. You’ve been seeing her for…well, ever!”

“I don’t know, maybe soon.”

That earned me another skeptic glare, “Do you have a thing for her—”

“Dad!”

“—what? The girl must be pretty special to you if you’re willing to sit out there, in the middle of nowhere and just wait for her.”

I stole a quick glimpse at the pile of lumber, wondering if she had taken my hint and ran to our meeting spot in the forest, if she’d stayed to listen. If she did, she didn’t make herself known. There was no sign of her being there, not so much as a sound.

“Yeah, she’s pretty special to me.”

Father nodded, “Then marry her already.”

“I can’t just marry the girl,” I mumbled with a huff of surprise, not at my father’s request but at how my heart slammed against my chest in anticipation at the thought of being married to Sarah.

“Why not? Now-a-days you’re lucky if you’re able to know what a person looks like before marriage, let alone actually know them. If you like this girl, take her, before someone else does.”

~3~

Sarah's P.O.V.

“So are you going to answer me, or are you going to avoid my question from earlier?” Ulrich suddenly asked, looking up at me propping his head off the ground with his elbows.

I shrugged, doing my best to play dumb, but just like I knew Ulrich, Ulrich knew me. The moment I said the words, he knew I was trying to, like he said, avoid his question. “What question?”

He didn’t bother accuse me of lying, though. Guess he figured there would be no point, and he’d be right. Instead he just sat up, to look at me in the eyes, “When I asked you how you felt about me.”

I sighed