When I Was Younger

By Sharon Therien

It’s taken Sara thirty-eight years to even begin thinking of herself as a person with something to offer the world, but all it takes to reduce her to an insecure mess is the thought of attending her twenty-year high school reunion. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t have a relationship, kids, or a fancy job to brag about. But her two best friends from those days are planning to attend, and they team up to ensure she puts in an appearance.
Sara has regretted not taking chances in the past, and now she gets a chance to try again. She gains acceptance with the popular crowd that she had always dreamed of being a part of. But will her new friendships risk her old ones? Will she end up with the popular guy she always had her eye on or will she realize that someone she had never considered is the one for her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Jun 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781094411538

Sharon Therien

N/A

Book preview

Sara stood outside the rented hall where her high school reunion had already started. She paced back and forth in a shadowy area to avoid the groups of people still trickling into the building. What am I doing here? It’s like I voluntarily went back to high school! She felt the anxiety flowing through her body.

She had a horrid vision of herself back in 1999, her senior year, the last time she’d seen many of the people that would be here tonight. She pictured her high school self wearing layers of ill-fitting clothing covered by an ugly windbreaker, her shoulders hunched forward, her boring brown hair pulled back, and her too pale skin free of makeup. Few people had been able to get to know her, and only a couple had seen that there was something there worth knowing.

That was twenty years ago! How could I have gotten so much older so fast?! And still single. Just like I was in high school. That’ll be fun to explain to all these people that are probably married with kids and fantastic careers. Why couldn’t I be married and have a fantastic career? Or at least have one of them. What’s wrong with me? Sara thought she’d gotten long past that person who’d been closed off and insecure, but evidently not, since she was standing outside this building now, afraid to go in. She wanted tonight to be a turning point in her life. She wanted a chance to do things differently than she had in the past. She just had to get through those doors first.

After high school, most of her classmates had gone away to college, or had at least attended a local community college. But Sara didn’t have much ambition or ideas for where she wanted her life to go, and her parents didn’t encourage her much one way or the other or help her figure out how to pay for school. So she’d simply gotten a job as a server in a local restaurant. She made new friends, the tips were good, and she built a simple life for herself. Not much had changed since then, except for the restaurants where she’d worked and the new wrinkles and sags she’d notice popping up in the mirror from time to time. And every so often, one of her old classmates would visit home and—damned Fate!—she’d end up as their server, even though there were a million tables and a million servers.

The most recent time this had happened it had been star athlete Craig Thomas, who’d been one of the most popular guys in her class. Her legs had started to shake as soon as she’d spotted him among a group of diners just entering the restaurant, as she felt herself falling right back into the social hierarchy of high school, despite the years that had passed. That meant she was unequal to him, unworthy of him… which fit her current role of serving his every feeding and drinking whim if necessary. Her whispered prayers of Please-please-not-me, went unanswered, however, as he was seated in her section. She’d even tried begging another server to switch tables with her, but everyone was too busy for her drama. Even she was too busy for her drama: She had people waving her down left and right to fill this water glass and fetch some butter and bring the check.

Flustered, she’d remembered how he’d been during his high school glory days; his dark skin in the sunshine as he outpaced everyone else on the track, or how his thigh muscles bulged as he made another unerring jump shot from the top of the free-throw lane.

He probably doesn’t even remember me. It’s not like I was on his radar in high school. Maybe I can get away with it. She’d walked up to his table, and just as she did with every other customer, introduced herself and asked what everyone would like to drink.

Craig’s companions had been a gorgeous brunette woman his