“Heyyyyy, girl!!!”
Janae didn’t need to see the two women standing by her car to know exactly who was calling her, and that the greeting was directed at Janae.
“It’s eight in the morning,” Janae groaned as she walked closer to where her two best friends were standing. “Don’t y’all have jobs to do or something?”
“That’s the beauty of owning our own businesses,” Vanessa said.
“Yeah,” Cree replied. “It means we can come bother you whenever we want.”
Janae couldn’t help but laugh. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done the same thing to each of them in the past.
“What are y’all doing here?”
Cree stepped to Janae’s side, looping an arm through Janae’s as she smiled down at her. “You have been missing one too many Savvy, Sexy, and Single Club meetings. Vanessa and I decided to ambush you when you got off work and take you to breakfast as a way of rectifying that.”
Janae rolled her eyes, feigning displeasure when she absolutely loved everything about her friends showing up to gather her when she needed it. This was what their group was about, giving one another what they needed even when sometimes it wasn’t so obvious to the individual themselves.
“Fine, but y’all are paying.”
In a town as small and quaint as Monroe Hills, there was nevertraffic. Within fifteen minutes, they were on Main Street, at their favorite coffee shop, sitting under a canopy in their designated sidewalk seating. Even though they’d had a few crisp days this fall, for the most part, a light jacket was all you needed to be comfortable outside.
Once they were seated and their orders placed, Cree started in on her.
“What’s been going on and why haven’t we seen you?”
Janae started to deflect Cree’s question, but when she looked at the tall, brown-skinned woman with deep brown eyes who could work a dark Caesar haircut like nobody’s business, she realized she didn’t want to lie.
“I’ve just been feeling a little out of sorts. So many things are changing, and I’m just not sure how to appropriately adapt.”
Cree and Vanessa looked at each other before fixing their mutual knowing gazes on her. Cree leaned in with a smile. “Does that mean that fine-ass brother Adam is getting under your skin?”
“Really, girl,” Vanessa chimed in. “What is your issue with that man. Did he do something to you back in the day? I know Cree told me y’all bickered like an old married couple back then. Is that still the case?”
The server came with their orders, which gave Janae just enough time to try to figure out how to answer Vanessa’s question.
“Cree is overstating things a bit. Adam and I didn’t have a whole lot of interaction in high school. Considering our graduating class only had about fifty kids in it, that took some effort on his part. I don’t think Adam ever really cared for me back in school. I was an opinionated, outspoken plus-size girl, and he was a shallow jock. A smart shallow jock,” she clarified. “But a shallow jock nonetheless.” We couldn’t have been more opposite. We mostly stayed out of each other’s way except for in our AP classes.”
Vanessa’s expressive face with its lines crinkling across her forehead showed she was more puzzled than before.
“What happened in your AP classes?”
Janae sighed, remembering how frustrating those shared classes with Adam used to be. Her AP classes were her sanctuary, the one place she could focus on school and not have to deal with all the social nonsense high school brought.
“Adam and I were the top two students in our class. I guess that created a natural competitive friction between the two of us. Outside of class, Adam didn’t have a word to spare for me. In class was another story altogether. He had a counter for everything I said, and those debates often got energetic.”
Cree let out a howl of laughter. “She means she’d have to figure out academic ways to curse him out every time he pissed her off in class, which was often.”
Janae cut her eyes at Cree as if to silently ask, “Who’s telling this story? You or me?” Cree got the message and quieted her laughter, waving a hand to let Janae continue.
“I just didn’t get it. I was invisible to this guy in the halls for four years. But the moment we were in an AP class together, it was as if his challenges were always directed at me personally, as if I’d done something to him.” Janae held up a hand when she saw Vanessa’s mouth open to ask another question.
“It’s not that Adam’s points were wrong. They weren’t. As I said, we were number one and two in our senior class. But it always sort of rubbed me the wrong way and made me think he was just being dickish because he was the most popular guy at school, and he knew I didn’t have any respect for him, his jock buddies, or them skinny heifers that seemed to plaster themselves to him every free moment they had.”
Vanessa raised her perfectly waxed eyebrow into an arch. “Are you saying Adam bullied you?”
“Who?” Cree interjected. “Janae? Kids might not have liked her, but they knew damn well not to cross her. Our girl has always been queen of ‘don’t play in my face.’ Adam just wanted Janae’s attention, and she would never give it to him. He just figured out whatmade her tick and stayed in her face hoping she’d eventually see him. But it never worked. Janae only saw him as a competitor and an annoyance, nothing more.”
“Because that’s all he was.” Janae’s words didn’t come out as matter of fact as she’d hoped. Instead, the softness of her tone revealed the regret she always felt where Adam was concerned. Janae had wanted more than to be Adam’s intellectual sparring buddy. The truth was, though, he’d never seen her as more. And there was one thing about Janae Sanders, even back then: She never stayed where she wasn’t wanted, and she didn’t beg anyone to care for her. As much as she might’ve wanted more, her high school self wasn’t about to beg any boy, most popular guy in school or not, to see her worth.
