Janie's Eternal Freedom
it's always janie janie janie
Rigg Sony is so stupid that it blows my mind.
“So the variable x stands for 3?” He says to me in Study Hall. He’s playing me 5 dollars just so I can help him with his math homework.
I groan again. “No, Rigg. No. The variable x can stand for anything. Do you get it now?” I pop open my Mountain Dew bottle and gulp half of it down my throat. My head is hurting from all the explaining that I have to do to Rigg. I have a feeling that Rigg is only doing this to annoy me, but then I look at his face and see the concerned expression accompanied by his scrunched eyebrows. Now I feel really guilty that I’m so hard on him.
“Um… so x can stand for anything? So 4x could be the alphabet and I wouldn’t even know it?” Rigg says, pushing the sleeves of his button down shirt up to his elbows. I try not to sigh, but it just comes out, and when I look at Rigg, he’s looking at the ground looking like he’s failed at something completely. He suddenly picks up his book and shoves it in his backpack, and before he gets up to go, I grab his arm and pull him down.
He looks surprised and sits back down, looking at me like he’s sorry. “I know I’m stupid OK? I know it, Jane.”
“It’s Janie.”
“See?” He exclaims, dropping his head down on the table. I lift his head back up and smile at him. I hand Rigg my Mountain Dew and watch him gulp the whole entire thing down. He hands the bottle back to me. “Sorry.”
I shrug and throw it in the trashcan. “It’s OK. It’s just a bottle of soda.”
He laughs and looks at me. “No, I meant about forgetting your name.”
I shrug again. Rigg is still looking at me, so I feel like I should say something. “Well, it’s not your fault. We’re just in different school circles.”
He groans and buries his hands in his hair. Rigg’s hair is long and blond, complementing his light brown eyes. It makes a bunch of girls go gaga over him, considering I’ve been getting a bunch of looks when I grabbed his arm for him to sit back down.
“Well, it’s just I always hear your name all the time. Torrin always talks about you.” Rigg says.
The last sentence shocks me. Torrin talks about me? About me? Janie Kooly? Who is so socially inane that she is on the bottom of the Jackson Visitation pyramid? No, he must be confusing me with someone else.
“Torrin talks about me?” I almost yell. Rigg subtly nods. “Ya. Sometimes even when Libby is around.”
I want to know more, so I slightly push his textbook all the way to the end of the table, but Rigg doesn’t seem to notice. “WH-what does he say?”
He shrugs. “Like, ‘Did you see Janie today? Her hair looked different.’ Or ‘I wonder where Janie’s going to college. Probably Harvard or something.’ Or ‘I wonder if Janie snowboards. I should ask her and maybe show her sometime.’ Or ‘Did you see that girl? She looks like Janie.’ It’s always Janie, Janie, Janie. I didn’t even tell him about us meeting because I thought he might go crazy.”
I don’t know what to do. I don’t smile, I don’t sigh, and I don’t do anything. I’m just so extremely numb that I can’t move.
“You know, you really need to ease up. Come to my party on Saturday. You can bring Marcus if you like.”
“Torrin talks about me?” I interrupt, saying it again.
Rigg nods and looks questioningly at the other end of the table. “Hey, how did my textbook get all the way over there?”
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Marcus hops into my car after school ends.
I start it quickly, checking the rear view mirror and extend my neck to look even further. But then Marcus unexpectedly kisses it, making me jerk back into the seat.
He wraps his arm around my waist and kisses me down my jaw. “Not here, Marcus. Please not here.” He ignores me and moves in closer, giving me small hickeys on my neck.
Suddenly my car door opens unexpectedly, making us both jump. I forgot to lock it once we came inside the car. Curse my carelessness.
Standing right next to me, with a shocked expression on his face is Torrin, looking at me weirdly. “Um…” Torrin says, staring at Marcus. He waves at him subtly, and in return, Marcus does one of those upward nod things that guys do. It looks ridiculous when Marcus does it, but I don’t want to tell him in front of Torrin.
“Uh, yes?” I ask, gripping the steering wheel. This could not get anymore awkward.
“Yeah, um, what was the science homework again? I…I kind of dozed off when Mr. Robinson was talking.” He says, scratching the top of his head.
I gulp and smile at him. “It’s just to read chapter 6 and 7 in your textbook.” I say, glancing over at Marcus. He seems fine just twiddling his thumbs.
Torrin nervously smiles and looks behind his shoulder. “I’d better get going. Uh, thanks Janie. Bye Marcus.” He says, tightening his hold on my car door handle. Marcus does the upwards nod again, and I swear, if Torrin weren’t inches away from me, I would’ve died laughing.
Torrin smiles again and closes the door with hesitation before shutting it closed completely. I take a deep breath
“Why would Torrin Kennedy ask you?” Marcus says, like I’m chewed gum at the bottom of a McDonald’s table. Surprisingly, I feel offended and try to look at him meanly, but I probably just look stupid. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Marcus laughs and moves in closer towards me. I move out farther, and he straightens up. “Don’t get all upset. I just meant that you guys don’t usually hang out together.” I nod and look at Marcus.
We’re not really boyfriend/girlfriend. It’s hard to say what we are. We’re more like friends with benefits. We make out and stuff and we occasionally have sex. But we aren’t limited to each other. If we want to be with someone else, I guess that we would just break it off and forget the whole thing ever happened. I mean, that’s what it looks like from my perspective. I don’t know about Marcus. We haven’t exactly discussed it yet.
“I’m sorry I’m so sensitive.” I say, whispering in his ear. He turns towards me and kisses me on the lips fully, but only for a few seconds. “Come on. Crank up the car. Where do you want to go? My house or your house? Oh wait, let’s go to my house. My parents are at work until 7:00 tonight.” He exclaims, pulling out a bag of chips and chomping them down in a few bites.
I pull out of the parking lot, and in the corner of my eye, I see Libby flipping her red hair with a big smile on her face, running up to Torrin and kissing him on the mouth. I look away for a second, but then I look back again, and Libby is pulling on Torrin’s hand, leading towards her other ultra-perky, ultra-cliquey friends.
And I swear, that just for a second, I see Torrin’s eyes flicker over to mine for just a moment. In that instant, he looks like an abandoned boy without his mother. Like he’s lost somehow.
But then again, I could just be hallucinating.
“Hey, are you going to Rigg Sony’s party this weekend?” Marcus asks, looking at me curiously.
I turn towards him when I stop at a red light. “Um, I don’t know. Did he invite me?” I say. Then I remember. He did invite me. He asked me to come when I was tutoring him.
Marcus looks at me funny. “Some girl told me that he invited you when you were tutoring him or something. He invited me too, and I was thinking of going.”
I scoff. “The only thing to do at one of Rigg Sony’s parties is have drunken sex.”
Marcus turns to me with a naughty smile playing on his face and kisses me on the cheek quickly. “Exactly.”
“So the variable x stands for 3?” He says to me in Study Hall. He’s playing me 5 dollars just so I can help him with his math homework.
I groan again. “No, Rigg. No. The variable x can stand for anything. Do you get it now?” I pop open my Mountain Dew bottle and gulp half of it down my throat. My head is hurting from all the explaining that I have to do to Rigg. I have a feeling that Rigg is only doing this to annoy me, but then I look at his face and see the concerned expression accompanied by his scrunched eyebrows. Now I feel really guilty that I’m so hard on him.
“Um… so x can stand for anything? So 4x could be the alphabet and I wouldn’t even know it?” Rigg says, pushing the sleeves of his button down shirt up to his elbows. I try not to sigh, but it just comes out, and when I look at Rigg, he’s looking at the ground looking like he’s failed at something completely. He suddenly picks up his book and shoves it in his backpack, and before he gets up to go, I grab his arm and pull him down.
He looks surprised and sits back down, looking at me like he’s sorry. “I know I’m stupid OK? I know it, Jane.”
“It’s Janie.”
“See?” He exclaims, dropping his head down on the table. I lift his head back up and smile at him. I hand Rigg my Mountain Dew and watch him gulp the whole entire thing down. He hands the bottle back to me. “Sorry.”
I shrug and throw it in the trashcan. “It’s OK. It’s just a bottle of soda.”
He laughs and looks at me. “No, I meant about forgetting your name.”
I shrug again. Rigg is still looking at me, so I feel like I should say something. “Well, it’s not your fault. We’re just in different school circles.”
He groans and buries his hands in his hair. Rigg’s hair is long and blond, complementing his light brown eyes. It makes a bunch of girls go gaga over him, considering I’ve been getting a bunch of looks when I grabbed his arm for him to sit back down.
“Well, it’s just I always hear your name all the time. Torrin always talks about you.” Rigg says.
The last sentence shocks me. Torrin talks about me? About me? Janie Kooly? Who is so socially inane that she is on the bottom of the Jackson Visitation pyramid? No, he must be confusing me with someone else.
“Torrin talks about me?” I almost yell. Rigg subtly nods. “Ya. Sometimes even when Libby is around.”
I want to know more, so I slightly push his textbook all the way to the end of the table, but Rigg doesn’t seem to notice. “WH-what does he say?”
He shrugs. “Like, ‘Did you see Janie today? Her hair looked different.’ Or ‘I wonder where Janie’s going to college. Probably Harvard or something.’ Or ‘I wonder if Janie snowboards. I should ask her and maybe show her sometime.’ Or ‘Did you see that girl? She looks like Janie.’ It’s always Janie, Janie, Janie. I didn’t even tell him about us meeting because I thought he might go crazy.”
I don’t know what to do. I don’t smile, I don’t sigh, and I don’t do anything. I’m just so extremely numb that I can’t move.
“You know, you really need to ease up. Come to my party on Saturday. You can bring Marcus if you like.”
“Torrin talks about me?” I interrupt, saying it again.
Rigg nods and looks questioningly at the other end of the table. “Hey, how did my textbook get all the way over there?”
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Marcus hops into my car after school ends.
I start it quickly, checking the rear view mirror and extend my neck to look even further. But then Marcus unexpectedly kisses it, making me jerk back into the seat.
He wraps his arm around my waist and kisses me down my jaw. “Not here, Marcus. Please not here.” He ignores me and moves in closer, giving me small hickeys on my neck.
Suddenly my car door opens unexpectedly, making us both jump. I forgot to lock it once we came inside the car. Curse my carelessness.
Standing right next to me, with a shocked expression on his face is Torrin, looking at me weirdly. “Um…” Torrin says, staring at Marcus. He waves at him subtly, and in return, Marcus does one of those upward nod things that guys do. It looks ridiculous when Marcus does it, but I don’t want to tell him in front of Torrin.
“Uh, yes?” I ask, gripping the steering wheel. This could not get anymore awkward.
“Yeah, um, what was the science homework again? I…I kind of dozed off when Mr. Robinson was talking.” He says, scratching the top of his head.
I gulp and smile at him. “It’s just to read chapter 6 and 7 in your textbook.” I say, glancing over at Marcus. He seems fine just twiddling his thumbs.
Torrin nervously smiles and looks behind his shoulder. “I’d better get going. Uh, thanks Janie. Bye Marcus.” He says, tightening his hold on my car door handle. Marcus does the upwards nod again, and I swear, if Torrin weren’t inches away from me, I would’ve died laughing.
Torrin smiles again and closes the door with hesitation before shutting it closed completely. I take a deep breath
“Why would Torrin Kennedy ask you?” Marcus says, like I’m chewed gum at the bottom of a McDonald’s table. Surprisingly, I feel offended and try to look at him meanly, but I probably just look stupid. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Marcus laughs and moves in closer towards me. I move out farther, and he straightens up. “Don’t get all upset. I just meant that you guys don’t usually hang out together.” I nod and look at Marcus.
We’re not really boyfriend/girlfriend. It’s hard to say what we are. We’re more like friends with benefits. We make out and stuff and we occasionally have sex. But we aren’t limited to each other. If we want to be with someone else, I guess that we would just break it off and forget the whole thing ever happened. I mean, that’s what it looks like from my perspective. I don’t know about Marcus. We haven’t exactly discussed it yet.
“I’m sorry I’m so sensitive.” I say, whispering in his ear. He turns towards me and kisses me on the lips fully, but only for a few seconds. “Come on. Crank up the car. Where do you want to go? My house or your house? Oh wait, let’s go to my house. My parents are at work until 7:00 tonight.” He exclaims, pulling out a bag of chips and chomping them down in a few bites.
I pull out of the parking lot, and in the corner of my eye, I see Libby flipping her red hair with a big smile on her face, running up to Torrin and kissing him on the mouth. I look away for a second, but then I look back again, and Libby is pulling on Torrin’s hand, leading towards her other ultra-perky, ultra-cliquey friends.
And I swear, that just for a second, I see Torrin’s eyes flicker over to mine for just a moment. In that instant, he looks like an abandoned boy without his mother. Like he’s lost somehow.
But then again, I could just be hallucinating.
“Hey, are you going to Rigg Sony’s party this weekend?” Marcus asks, looking at me curiously.
I turn towards him when I stop at a red light. “Um, I don’t know. Did he invite me?” I say. Then I remember. He did invite me. He asked me to come when I was tutoring him.
Marcus looks at me funny. “Some girl told me that he invited you when you were tutoring him or something. He invited me too, and I was thinking of going.”
I scoff. “The only thing to do at one of Rigg Sony’s parties is have drunken sex.”
Marcus turns to me with a naughty smile playing on his face and kisses me on the cheek quickly. “Exactly.”