Samantha's Birthday Party. 11.15 pm.

Sarah walked towards Amelia who was chatting with a couple of girls from Samantha's college. Sarah wondered how she knew all of these people and who had invited her in the first place. And why would she come after what had happened all those years ago at Vanessa's house?

Hannah and Rachel had left a couple of minutes ago and Sarah was in a pissy mood after Hannah had cancelled the sleepover and made Rachel leave early too. Hannah and her stupid problems. Her strict parents. Her annoying little brat of a brother who still needed to be babysat. Sarah was on the brink of exploding. She wanted to punch something hard, break a wall, smash a bottle, pull her hair. She had had enough of Hannah of the last 4 years.

"Hey, Amelia," Sarah approached the small crowd of four.

"Hey." Amelia barely glanced at her.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Amelia sighed, excused herself and moved away from the college girls, "What?" Her tone was snappy.

"Who invited you?"

"I have contacts."

Sarah nodded, "Look, I just wanted to apologize."

Amelia said nothing but kept looking straight into Sarah's eyes, challenging her.

"For what I did, for how I treated you and Vanessa. I don't know what got into me. I know I was wrong for being so over possessive of you but you were the only friend I had. I'm sorry."

Amelia rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her chest, "Fuck off, Sarah."

She was about to turn around and leave when Sarah held her arm, "Amelia, please."

Amelia jerked her arm out of Sarah's grip, "Don't you dare touch me, you manipulative little cunt."

"Please don't say that, Amelia," Sarah forced some tears in her eyes but Amelia didn't seem to notice them.

"Look, I and Vanessa have been very happy to stay the hell away from you all these years. You basically just don't exist for us anymore. And now you have the audacity to come here and ask for forgiveness out of nowhere? After five fucking years?"

Sarah looked at her feet and waited for Amelia to storm off but instead Amelia narrowed her eyes at her.

"Wait a sec, you need something from me, don't you?"

Sarah slowly lifted her head, "It's just a little favor. It isn't even for me, it's for my friend Hannah."

"And why would I be doing you favors?"

"I'll get out of your hair, I promise. Just this one favor and I won't ever bother you or Vanessa again. If you don't wanna do it, I understand but then I will keep asking you to forgive me until you do. Day after day. You have no idea how guilty I feel, Amelia." Sarah's puppy face was working. She knew that Amelia was no more the naive little 10 year old girl but her now tough exterior was giving away to her soft core.

"What is it?" Amelia sighed.

Bingo! Sarah thought.

"Umm, you know Hannah, right? Well, she's had this, you know, huge crush on Sal since freshman year and I know that Sal's single so could you like, hook them up? Play matchmaker maybe?"

Of all the things that Amelia had expected, this was by far the most absurd. The first thing that she had thought was that Sarah would ask her for drugs as most of the people came to Amelia for that. But this? Matchmaking? What the hell!

Amelia scoffed that resembled close to a laugh.

"Sure," she said thinking that Sal really needed a girlfriend. With her dating Aaron and the occasional flirting between Vanessa and Kyle, Sal did feel left out at times when they used to hang out. "And you never speak to me again, is that clear?"

"I promise. And one more thing, Hannah should never know that I told you about her crush."

"This whole conversation never happened, bitch."

****

Sarah lied on her bed that night, thinking of what would happen next. She knew Sal had the hots for Rachel, she had caught him staring at her several times. In the cafeteria, in between the classes they shared. But no one else knew about Sal's little crush. Sarah knew because she noticed everything and everyone.

She hoped that Sal would see Hannah as a link between him and Rachel. He would try to get close to Rachel and this would lead to a crack between Rachel and Hannah's friendship.

What she hadn't expected was to Hannah drift away completely from them. That was like a bonus! Hannah got so involved in Amelia's clique and their drama that she almost forgot that Sarah and Rachel existed. Sarah couldn't be happier. She finally had Rachel all to herself.

****

As the days passed by, Sarah saw Hannah obsess over Amelia. When the three were together, all Hannah could talk about was Amelia and Sal and the other minions from Amelia's stupid wannabe clique. Sarah was enjoying it all- Hannah's banter, Rachel's annoyance which was clearly visible on her face but which she chose to suppress for Hannah's sake, Hannah's falling grades due to constant partying, all of it.

Slowly, the distance between Sarah and Rachel, and Hannah grew wider. She stopped hanging with them. Hannah had once texted both of them on their chat group asking if they could all meet up at her house after school. The text had arrived in between the Spanish class which Sarah shared with Rachel. Sarah knew that Rachel kept her phone in her bag and not in her pocket during an ongoing class. Sarah knew Rachel's lock screen pattern and had managed to delete the text from her phone after class when they were in the washroom. Disaster averted!

Sarah also blocked Hannah's number in Rachel's phone so that Hannah could never call her. It's not as if Rachel did a regular check of her contacts to make sure if she had blocked anyone.

After not getting a reply from either of them, Hannah got the idea that they didn't want her anymore. Sarah was on cloud nine.

But then she started noticing a change in Rachel's behavior, she wasn't always chirpy like she used to be when Hannah was around. She kept saying stuff like- how could Hannah ignore them, why hadn't she called or even texted once, what was wrong with Hannah. Rachel was missing Hannah a little too much for Sarah's taste and Sarah was not liking it at all.

What Rachel didn't know was that Hannah had tried calling her but the calls never went through. Hannah had tried to talk to Rachel at school but she was scared of how Rachel might react. Hannah knew she had got a little distracted; the parties, the booze, the popular kid status, the clique drama was all new to her and she had let herself get absorbed in it all. But now she missed her old friends, she realized that she didn't fit with Amelia and her group. Her grades were falling and she knew it was all her own fault, she was the one who wasn't studying and always hanging out at Amelia's house. Amelia didn't give a damn about grades, she had her dad's money to fall back on.

And then that dreaded kiss happened. The kiss with Aaron. AT AMELIA'S PLACE! Hannah was a little drunk but she was aware of what she was doing. She knew it was wrong but Aaron was into it too, he didn't back away or stop her. They had made out for a couple of minutes before Hannah had stopped abruptly and ran away.

She knew she had crossed the line. She still had feelings for Sal but she was also having the hots for Aaron. I mean, just look at his body! She used to think. The next day she got the text from Aaron asking her if she had told Amelia what had happened. That was the last thing Hannah would do. He had  seemed pretty pissed off and Hannah was scared now. Of both Amelia and Aaron.

She decided to talk to Rachel and Sarah and tell them everything. They would understand, they always did. She even approached Rachel after the play two days after the kiss but stupid Aaron had interrupted and asked her for a smoke. By the look on his face, Hannah knew he wanted to talk about their makeout sesh.

Hannah made up her mind that she would go to Rachel's house for the after-party. So what if she wasn't invited, she didn't need an invitation to go to her best friend's house.

****

The after-party at Rachel's house was where Sarah lost it. After years of therapy and keeping a check on her anger, she snapped when she saw Hannah walk in through the front door.

Sarah rushed towards her, wide eyed, "What are you doing over here?" Sarah didn't make any effort to hide her disdain.

"Sarah! I need to talk to you and Rachel," Hannah went in to hug her but Sarah pushed her away.

"You shouldn't be here, Rachel really doesn't want to see you."

"Please, I know you two have a right to be mad at me but I just wanna talk. I want us three back together. I miss you two, Sarah."

Sarah was scared that Rachel might come in the hallway and see Hannah and all her hardwork would go down the drain. She had to get Hannah out of the house but she knew Hannah was one stubborn bitch.

"Let's go upstairs," Sarah said and took her into the room which was part Rachel's mini library and part her dad's office.

"Sit here," Sarah pointed at the office chair and Hannah obliged.

The both of them stared at each other while Sarah searched her brain for what to do next.

"Are you...gonna.. go and get Rachel?" Hannah asked.

"No. Tell me, whatever it is."

"Sarah, I need both of you."

"No, Hannah! No!" Hannah knew Sarah would be mad at her but instead of angry, she seemed more of scared and fidgety. She kept looking at the door behind her as if they were a couple making out who were nervous that someone might walk in on them.

"Are you alright?" Hannah asked.

"I was," Sarah scoffed, "until you decided to show up. You aren't even invited!"

Hannah realized that Sarah was being meaner than she had expected.

"I'm sorry, Sars. Look, I know I shouldn't have ignored you guys. I don't know why or how I got so involved with Amelia but all this time I have really missed you two and you both even started ignoring all my texts and then I got scared to even approach you. But I'm here now," Hannah stood up and raised her hand to touch Sarah's shoulder whose back was towards Hannah.

What Hannah didn't see was that Sarah was pulling her own hair. The moment Hannah's hand touched her shoulder she spun around quickly and shoved Hannah hard. The force made Hannah fall back and she hit her head on the office table.

Sarah grabbed a trophy which Rachel had won in an inter school debate competition and started hitting Hannah on her head. One. Two. Three. She stopped after seeing the blood ooze out of Hannah's forehead. There was some on the trophy too.

"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!"

Sarah ran out of the room with the trophy, went in the washroom and cleaned it with tap water. She kept the trophy back on the shelf. Sarah had to think fast what to do. She was pretty sure no one would come in this room.

A plan popped up in her mind just then. She would wait till everyone left Rachel's house to make sure no one got in here. Then pretend to leave, go out of the house and wait till Rachel and her mom were asleep. She would get back in with the spare key which was under one of the pots on the porch and drag Hannah out. The rest of it, she would figure out once Hannah was in her car. Perfect!

She went downstairs to the party as if nothing had happened at all. She was good at pretending after all. No one went upstairs. Her plan was going perfectly, yet again.

Sarah did everything that she had thought of, waited for all the lights to go out and creeped back inside, up the stairs. She slowly opened the door and her heart skipped a beat. Hannah wasn't lying on the floor. She was gone.

Sarah had thought she was dead! But in all the hurry she had forgotten to check her pulse. Great! Just, great!

The next day, whispers started pouring in that Hannah had gone missing.