But I was pissed off. And I didn’t get pissed off. I was the good daughter, the peacemaker, the girl people pointed to and said, “What a great girl you have there, Grayson,” and I would bask in it.
But I wasn’t that girl anymore. I could feel a change in myself. Had it started with Lucas, or was totally inappropriate Lucas a by-product of it?
We drove in silence for a while, each digesting our own thoughts after Jane’s semi-confession. Finally, as we neared campus, Stick asked the same question he asked of me earlier. “Just who the fuck are you, Jane Winters?”
Jane had once again rested her head on the headrest, and she turned her head toward Stick, studying him. He met her eyes and it seemed like both of their guards dropped for just a second. Then Jane turned her head forward again, and closed her eyes.
“Nobody,” she said. Then she whispered, “God, I’m dying to be fucking nobody.”
Chapter11
We spentSunday in our room, me only going out to the convenience store that sat on the edge of campus to buy supplies for the day—ice pack for Jane’s head, saltines and ginger ale, stuff like that. We ordered a pizza later in the day after Jane felt like eating.
“You don’t have to babysit me, Lily,” she said throughout the day. “I can’t get up to any illegal hijinks in this shape. You can have the day off.”
“I’m good,” I said. And I was. I didn’t want to go anywhere in case…yes, in case Lucas called. Not that I wouldn’t get his call no matter where I was, but I wanted to be where he knew I lived in case he wanted to get together on short notice. So, other than the quick run to the 7-Eleven, I was staying in the room with Jane all day.
Yes, I knew it was pathetic, but I wasn’t quite so desperate to see him that I called him. I at least left that up to him. Last night he’d said he very much wanted to call me today. But as the day dwindled, I got edgier and edgier. I made a pretense of wanting to be in the room to study.
Syd came over for most of the day. Once seeing Jane’s condition, she left for an hour, then come back bearing some crazy concoction that she swore was good for hangovers. Jane looked at it skeptically, but drank it, and it seemed to do the trick. We lay on our beds, Syd camped out on mine, and did postmortems of the previous night.
With both Jane and me AWOL, Syd had gone to another party that our friend Jeff had told her about. I suppose hoping that Jeff’s older brother would be there, though she didn’t add that part.
“Hook up with anybody?” Jane asked her.
Syd shook her head, her gorgeous black hair rippling. Every girl practically, except Jane, had long hair. Most of us wore ours up on days like this, in ponytails or buns, just casual. But Syd always wore her straight black hair down, loose and straightened, even on a lazy, casual day like this. In so many ways she tried to copy all the other girls, but not in this.
“Italkedwith this guy for a while, but…”
“How much did youtalk?” Jane asked, not afraid to push, when I probably would have left it at that.
“Talking” and “hooking up” were done in varying degrees, and it could be anything from actual talking to full-blown sex on the hood of a car in the middle of a crowded parking lot.
“Just some kissing,” Syd said. “Maybe a little more.”
Jane’s eyes lit up, and she propped her head up with her hand, elbow bent, lying on her side. “You ho bag. Tell us everything.”
Syd flopped down beside me on the bed. “Nothing to tell. Like I said, a little more than kissing.”
“Details,” Jane yelled, tossing a throw pillow at Syd. Syd ducked, of course, and the pillow hit me instead.
“Oh, you know,” Syd said casually. “Nothing the two of you weren’t probably doing. A little fumbling below clothes is all. I started to give him a hand job, but he wanted a blowie and I just wasn’t into him enough to make the effort.”
Jane nodded as if agreeing, then rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Damn, I was so close to bagging Montrose. I would have totally givenhima blowie.”
I felt Syd stiffen next to me. She knew Jane’s story, and must have realized what a colossal fuck-up Jane blowing her prof would be. Especially if people were around and saw them leave together.
The kids our age at Bribury were too young to know who Jane was, or know her story. But those people at that club last night were probably old enough to put it together. Hell, it’s a wonder Montrose didn’t know who she was.
Maybe he did.
“Jane, just how much time did you spend with Montrose last night?”
“Clearly not enough,” Jane said, pouting.
“Yeah, but before we got there? Were you, like,withhim? With the group he was with?”
“Who was he there with?” Syd asked, asking a question I didn’t care about. I wanted to know what Jane had done.
