In Sarah's Shadow by Karen McCombie

Megan, what are you doing over here, all by yourself?” Conor asks, setting himself down beside me on the edge of Stage 2. “Angel was worried about you.”
    He has to bend close to speak to me, to be heard above the music belting out of the huge speakers. I feel the heat of his breath on my cheek and instant prickles at the back of my neck.
    It’s been an amazing couple of weeks, I whisper in my mind as my eyes run over Conor’s face, memorising every eyelash, every smile line. So many things have changed – I won’t be the same again. Don’t expect anything more…
    “Just wanted to get away on my own for a bit; take everything in,” I shrug, taking a sip of my drink and trying not to wince at the initial sugary sweetness of it or the bitter alcohol kick behind that.
    “I see,” Conor smiles at me, nodding and looking suddenly shyer than I’ve seen him look. For a second, we both glance away from each other, both staring down into our non-alcoholic vodka cocktails.
    Say something… the voice in my head bullies me. Just ‘cause I said you couldn’t expect anything else, doesn’t mean you should mess things up by going all goofy and silent on Conor.
    Spurred on, I’m just about to force myself to talk –about the Caramel girls and their eye-popping hip-grinding, about the hip-hop guys’ addition to the punch, about anything – when Conor gets in there before me.
    “Can I ask you something?”
    “Of course,” I shrug.
    Will you go out with me?
    Will you run off to Mauritius with me and we’ll get married under a dripping bower of bougainvillea? Or in Las Vegas with a singing Elvis as a witness if you like that idea better?
    Will you have my babies? If we have a boy, we’ll call him Kurt, after Kurt Cobain out of Nirvana; if it’s a girl, Polly, in honour of the mighty rock chanteuse PJ (Polly Jean) Harvey, of course…
    But I’m running ahead of myself, by about ten years, or ten lifetimes. The poor guy probably just wants to know the time…
    Tentatively, Conor moves one hand from the worn corduroy of his jeaned thigh. For a moment, I think he’s aiming to try and gently prise one of my hands away from the cup I’m clenching, and I can hardly breathe. But then his searching fingers stop at my wrist, slowly lifting the silky black material of my borrowed top away from my skin.
    “I noticed the scars before, but I didn’t like to ask…”
    Gulp.
    Where do I start? From the moment I realised that my big sister made me feel like shit? Do we really want to trudge back to my childhood of being made to feel second-best, second-rate, second-class? Or will I just cut to the chase and tell him about the night last summer when I’d had enough?
    “It was Sarah’s birthday,” I lean close into Conor and begin to tell him. I have to be close for this private confession; up till now, only my family know the full story of what happened – everyone else, including Pamela, has an idea that once upon a time I tried to kill myself, but know better than to ask about it.
    I feel him nod imperceptibly, his fair hair very slightly brushing my lips.
    “My mum and dad – they took us out to this fancy restaurant, but I might as well not have bothered to go, they spent so much time talking to Sarah, hardly even noticing I was there. They hadn’t done anything for my birthday a couple of months before that…”
    I’m not touching him (I wish!) but I can feel his whole body tense up as I talk.
    “Anyway, all through the meal, I’m feeling more and more down and my parents don’t seem to notice they’re treating me like I’m Cinderella or something, but why should they? That’s the way it always is. But I knowSarah gets what’s going through my mind, ‘cause every time my parents start praising her or whatever, she waits till they’re looking the other way before she gives me these snidey little glances.”
    That felt like a shiver from Conor – but maybe the cold in the auditorium is seeping into his