I know they exist because I have become one.
I guess there were some advantages to having never had a serious boyfriend. I’ve never had to go through this misery, the misery I used to mock in others. I’ve known pain in my life—that’s nothing new. That pain was always thrust upon me, circumstances beyond my control. This is different. This is of my own making.
I can see my family worrying about me, so I smile bigger, pull on those acting skills I’ve honed so well over the years. I’m not sure they’re fooled.
⊕⊗⊕
“Hi.”
I hear the voice and look up from the lunch table where I sit hunched over my chemistry book, which I’m pretending to study, to see where the voice is coming from, though I know it isn’t for me—I’m pretty much a pariah now. As I look up I see a blonde girl looking directly at me. I glance behind me to see who she’s talking to, but no one is behind me. She’s looking at me and not someone else.
“Are you talking to me?”
She smiles and laughs a little, coming closer and setting her lunch tray across from my untouched one. She’s small—both in height and width. She has blue eyes fringed with dark blonde lashes. Her features are small also, her face heart shaped, a slight cleft in her chin. Her smile reveals even, white teeth and dimples at the corners of her mouth. She kinda looks like what an angel might—if the angel were a teenage girl.
“Yeah, I am.” She smiles.
I indicate my book, hoping she’ll take the hint that she’s interrupting me and go away.
“Studying?” she asks.
“Obviously,” I say, sounding as unfriendly as I can.
“Does it help? Reading the book upside down, I mean.”
I glance down and see that she’s right. Embarrassed I slam the book closed, and she laughs. I know I should be offended that she’s laughing at me, but somehow I’m not.
“I’m Jane.” Her voice is lilting, and her hand thrusts out toward me. Hesitantly, I grab her hand and in spite of her petite size, her grip is strong and sure.
“Jen,” I say. “I haven’t seen you before.”
“Yeah, I’m new here.”
Ah, that explains it, I think.
“Explains what?” she asks, frowning, which does nothing to detract from her utter cuteness.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” When she continues to watch me, waiting, I hear myself explaining. “I’m not probably someone you want to be seen with.”
“Oh yeah?” She cocks her head, studying me as if the answer is to be found stamped across my face.
“Why are you talking to me, anyway?”
She slides into the chair across from me, utterly graceful.
“Why not?” she asks curiously as she spreads her napkin across her lap, picks up her fork, and then stares distastefully at her lump of spaghetti.
“Shouldn’t you be over there?” I ask, jerking my chin toward the table where all the cute, perky cheerleaders are sitting. She follows my glance, then grimaces at me.
“Please don’t tell me you think I belong with them,” she mutters, gamely stabbing her noodles and placing a cut-off bite in her mouth. “Besides,” she says around her mouthful of pasta, “you look way more interesting than them.”
I narrow my eyes at her, then start gathering my books together, letting my annoyance show.
“What did I say?” she asks after swallowing the lump of pasta with only a small shudder.
“I know your type,” I mutter angrily.
“Oh yeah? Enlighten me,” Jane challenges.
I lean toward her.
“You’re a do-gooder,” I throw at her.
“A do-whatter?” She laughs, twirling another lump of spaghetti on her fork—no easy task—and shoving it in her mouth.
“A do-gooder,” I repeat. “You see me sitting here, all alone, and you think ‘Oh, poor girl, so sad looking with no friends.’ Right?”
She’s staring at me as if I’ve sprouted horns.
“No,” she says, finally finding her voice.
“I’m right. I know it. I mean, seriously, who else would sit and force that crap down their throats when it’s so obviously disgusting?”
To my surprise, she laughs.
“It is disgusting, isn’t it? I usually bring lunch from home. My mom is a fabulous cook, so I thought maybe I was being unfair to the . . .” She trails off as she stabs at the pasta again. This time when she picks up the fork, the whole glob comes along. She meets my eyes over the mess, and we both burst out laughing. I quickly swallow the nowadays-unfamiliar laughter, remembering that I’m mad at her for making me her charity case.
“Actually, Jen, I took one look at you and thought, now there’s a girl who lives life a little left of center. You don’t look like those girls over there,” she thumbs toward the table I had pointed her to earlier, “and you don’t look like anyone else either. I just thought you looked . . .”
“Interesting?” I ask facetiously.
She smiles. “Exactly.”
“Well, I’m not. And I’m not who you want to be seen with if you want to have any kind of social life at this school.”
“See, I knew you were interesting. Definitely a story there.”
“No story, just—I used to be an outsider-type, I guess.” My face flushes at the lame explanation. “I mean, well, I was, but then I started dating someone . . .” I trail off, shrugging. I decide I better tell her the truth, since she’ll hear it soon enough anyway.
“See those guys over there?” I ask, pointing to where Ella, Beth, and the others sit. She follows my finger and nods. “I was one of them. Then I decided to make it a game to get one of the school’s . . . geeks . . .” I wince at how bad the word sounds now, speaking of Trevor who is so much more than that. “I made a bet to try to turn him bad. It didn’t work, since he’s too good. So good, he rubbed off on me. He wasn’t very happy when he found out. Neither was anyone else, since most people really like him.”
“Fascinating,” she says, leaning forward, chin on her fist. “And interesting, definitely.” She grins. “So do you plan on trying to make me bad?”
I look at her angelic face and almost laugh at the thought—except that laughter is no longer something I participate in except as part of the acting gig, convincing others of my faux happiness.
“No, definitely not.”
“You have this same lunch every day?” Her sudden change of topic leaves me spinning.
“Second, tomorrow.” Second lunch, the same as Trevor, where I have to try avoiding him, try to get through the thirty minutes without falling apart.
“Me too,” she sounds pleased. “Mind if I sit with you again? You’re the first person I’ve really met, and I would like to hear more about how un-interesting you are.”
I know I should tell her no, save her while I can. Honestly, I could use the distraction, even if for just one day. I figure it won’t take much longer than that for her to have a crowd of her own friends with her sunny smile.
“Your funeral, I guess. I’ll meet you by the door of the lunchroom.”
“Awesome, I’ll see you then. Thanks!” she calls as she walks away. Corny to thank someone for being willing to sit with you at lunch, but somehow, from her it just sounds right.
⊕⊗⊕
As it turns out, I don’t need to meet Jane for lunch—we have chemistry together right before lunch. Jane is excited about sharing a class. I’ll never admit it, but I’m also kinda glad because it’s at least one person who hasn’t learned to hate me—yet. We grab our lunches, this time Jane smartly choosing the salad. Since they’re still moving in, her mom can’t make her lunches yet. Jane leads the way to a table in the center of the cafeteria. The center. Argh.
“I moved here from Texas,” Jane offers when the silence stretches.
“Hot there?” I ask inanely.
“Yeah, and humid too.”
“Hmmm,” is all I can think of to say. Silence reigns again.
“You don’t have an accent,” I tell her, probably something she already knows.
“We only lived there a couple of years. We were in Arizona before that.”
“Oh.” I think I can hear crickets chirping in the deafening silence.
“So, what did you mean I probably don’t want to be friends with you?” she asks just about the time the quiet promises to become irretrievably awkward.
“Well, you know, the whole bet thing I told you about.”
“That’s why people aren’t friends with you?” She looks around the lunchroom contemptuously—well, as contemptuously as one can look when one looks like an angel. “People here are really shallow.”
I shrug. I hadn’t given it that much consideration.
“I didn’t exactly endear myself to any of them before I did that.”
“But what about your other friends? Those ones?” She nods to where Ella and Seth sit, heads bent together.
“Yeah, they weren’t really all that happy with me when it became clear I preferred Trevor and his friends over them.”
“Wait—Trevor? That guy over there?” She points in Trevor’s direction. My eyes go right to Trevor. I’m always aware of where he is. He doesn’t notice since he’s absorbed by his companion. He sits with the usual crowd, only now he always sits right next to Mary Ellen. She’s beyond pleased at this change if the glow on her face these days is any indication. I cringe with jealousy and press Jane’s hand back to the table.
“Yes. Him.”
“I met him earlier. He seemed pretty nice, not the kind to hold a grudge.” She’s mostly right, but Trevor’s never had anyone do something so horrible to him before, so for him it’s a new thing. “Isn’t he the Senior President, or something?”
“Student Body President,” I correct automatically.
“How did a jerk like that get voted in?”
“He’s not a jerk.” My defense of Trevor is unyielding. Jane’s blue eyes come to my taut face, and she smiles.
“You love him.”
I cringe again.
“Crap. Am I that obvious?”
“I could tell yesterday when you were talking about him, although I didn’t know who you were talking about at the time. The question is, why?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ll come over tonight and you can tell me then.”
I groan at her utter cheerfulness. She isn’t helping me with the melancholy, which I’ve maintained without any effort.
“I’ll give you the short version,” I tell her, hoping she’ll drop it. “He’s worth it.”
She laughs at me, but again I’m not offended. It’s hard to be offended when an angel is spilling her sunshine all over you.
“Not good enough. I want details. I need a friend, and I like you.”
“You shouldn’t. Listen, Jane, you’re new here and it’s not going to be long until you have plenty of friends what with all your happiness and joy.” She laughs again at my cynical tone. “So don’t waste your time with me. By tomorrow you won’t need me.”
“I don’t need you now,” she pronounces. “I like you. Even with all your doom and gloom,” she adds. I decide to ignore her last comment.
“Besides that, don’t you think it would be ridiculous for us to be friends?”
That stops her. She looks at me, a fringe of hurt in her eyes.
“I mean, seriously, Jane and Jen? That’s so stupid.”
Her eyes clear, and she grins as she punches me lightly in the arm. Right then I decide that I’m going to take advantage of her naiveté and be friends with her as long as I can. I smile at her—my first real smile since . . .
That train of thought sends my gaze back to Trevor, only to find him watching me, an unreadable expression on his face. I look away first, oddly ashamed of my smile that is now gone. I know I only imagined it, but I swear that there was a hint of a smile on his own face as he watched me.
26. Of Nightmares and Hope
I stand under the tree where Trevor found me once before, and though the rain pours, none of it touches me. Where before darkness prevailed, soft light, with an indiscernible source, now tempers its harshness. I don’t really care to discover the source because it’s illuminating Trevor, walking toward me.
In his eyes, I can read forgiveness. He’s smiling, and my heart soars. I hurry to him with urgency and relief as he holds his arms out to me, the way he used to.
I can’t reach him. He still walks toward me but comes no closer. I strain with the effort of trying to touch him, my breath heaving. I know it’s the most important thing in my life that I reach him before . . . before what?
Then I see her, the mouse Mary Ellen, as she steps up to him, leaning up to whisper something in his ear. Her face morphs into that of Beth.
Helplessly I watch his brows pull together, and his eyes fill with confusion as he looks at me. I want to scream a denial but my lips are sealed.
Beth morphs back into the mouse, giving me a knowing smirk as she tucks her arm through Trevor’s and turns him away from me. He looks down at her, tenderness and love in his eyes as he smiles at her, his dimples becoming hers instead of mine. He looks back just once, and in that look I grasp the magnitude of his hatred, disgust, and disappointment that I have always known I deserve.
⊕⊗⊕
“Jen? Jen!”
I open my eyes and see a watery Jane leaning over me in the pre-dawn light. My chest is heaving as if I’ve been running, and my cheeks are wet with tears. For one second I’m confused, but then quickly I realize what’s happening and sit up.
“Are you okay?” Jane’s voice is laden with concern.
“I’m okay,” I say, wiping my hands across my cheeks, embarrassed.
Jane has become my best friend. I was correct in my assumption of how quickly she would fill her life up with friends, but wrong that she would just as quickly drop me. I’ve never had a friend quite like her before, where I don’t have to be a specific way to impress her or to retain her friendship. She has never wavered in her loyalty to me, no matter how misplaced. And she watches sci-fi movies with me, both the bad and the good.
Lunch has become an odd thing. I sit at a table filled with people, girls and boys who I never could have imagined as my friends. I guess they really aren’t friends in the true sense of the word. They sort of defer to me in a manner because I am Jane’s best friend. I’m okay with this because I no longer walk the halls in lonely misery. There’s always someone there who’s willing to walk with me, talking and keeping my mind occupied, which is a good thing.
It’s a strange thing, this half-empty feeling I now have. I drag it around all day, every day. If I keep busy and keep my mind occupied, I can keep it at a distance. It’s when my world is quiet that the burden feels heavy. Nighttime is the worst, when I always have the same nightmare or some variation of it.
Jane gives me a hug, then struggles out of her sleeping bag. Whenever we sleep over at her house, we always “camp” in the living room. This is mainly because she shares a room with her nosy younger sister who doesn’t know how to keep any of our conversations to herself. And since she’s friends with a couple of Trevor’s friends’ sisters . . .
“Think you might ever stop moping about him?” she asks offhandedly as she stands up.
Jane knows all about Trevor. I told her everything, from my horrible bet and the reasons behind it—no matter how selfish those reasons sound now—to how much I had fallen in love with him.
“I mope?” I whine the question.
“You mope,” she confirms. “I know he was a great guy, love of your life, yada-yada.” She holds out her hands, and when I grab them, she pulls me forcefully to my feet. She’s pretty strong for such a little thing. “But seriously, I see him around school. He doesn’t look like he’s moping. He’s always with the mouse.”
Usually when sweet Jane refers to Mary Ellen as the mouse, it lifts my spirits. Her words are too true, though, and reopen th
e dark, gaping hole where my heart used to be. I collapse back to the floor, stupid tears pooling in my eyes. Jane sinks back down in front of me.
“I’m sorry, Jen. I shouldn’t have said that. I know how much he means to you.”
I shrug and wave vaguely in her direction to forgive her.
“I think if you’re this miserable without him, you should do something about it.”
“Yeah, like what?” I moan.
“Fight for him. Make him want you again.”
Her words freeze me. There was a time when I hadn’t doubted for one second my ability to be able to make him want me without even having to work too hard. That was before, when there wasn’t so much at stake. Now, the thought of fighting for him lodges in my head, in my chest.
“Fight for him how?” I hear the hope in my voice. So does Jane. She smiles.
“What is it that Superman said? Something like, ‘Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.’”
“I don’t think that was Superman. I think it was Christopher Reeve himself who said that.”
“Yeah, well, Christopher Reeve is Superman.”
Sometimes I regret turning her onto my geek addiction because she’s a much quicker learner than I am, and she’s stubborn in her opinions about what she has picked up. She could even give Brian and Jim a run for their money in one of their great sci-fi debates.
Remembering those debates makes me lonely. I forever tried to escape them; now I’d give almost anything to be subjected to one again.
“I have some ideas,” she says, “and they start with getting you looking decent again.”
“I look decent,” I argue defensively, though she’s right. The longer time goes on without him, the less I care how I look to the point that I mostly go to school now within five minutes of rolling out of bed. “Besides that, Trevor isn’t about things as superficial as looks.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve extolled his virtues to me until I have them all perfectly memorized.” She stands and pulls me up again. “He’s deep and honest and funny and caring and kind and plays the piano like a virtuoso and sings like an angel and—”