Geek Girl (24 page)

“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 the 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—”

“I’m that bad?” I interrupt her.

She shrugs. “No biggie. You love him. Someday I hope that I love someone so much that I drive all my friends crazy with talking about him like that. But I still think that superficial or not, not even the great Trevor is going to notice you walking around looking like a bag lady.”

“I don’t look—”

She cuts me off. “Come on, let’s go get started on you.”

“You act like there’s a long way to go,” I complain as she laughs, pulling me down the hallway into her bedroom. “You know, I thought you were an angel the first time I met you.”

She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “I
thought
you were delusional when you kept telling me how perfect Trevor is, but now I
know
you’re delusional.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that anymore,” I grumble as she pushes me down in front of her vanity and begins gently pulling a brush through my matted hair. She laughs her angel laugh and negates my words just like that.

I stand, staring at myself in the mirror. Jane has been in my room many times, and she has seen my collage of photos (which I masochistically keep up even though they are only a reminder of what I have lost), and so she has seen the way I used to look compared to the way I have looked since she met me.

Somehow, she has managed to find that middle ground that I myself could never quite perfect, and she has transformed me.

I
thought
I had found that middle ground, a happy-medium, but I was wrong. I had become a pale shade of the old me with plain brown hair without much shape to it, and conservative clothes. Now, after a trip to her hairdresser and a shopping trip funded with filched money from my college account, I can see
me
again.

My hair is still dark brown—not quite black but almost—but with the lighter highlights it makes my eyes stand out. It’s shorter than I’ve had it, well, probably ever. The shoulder-length A-line cut softens the highlights, wispy bangs pulled down to the side completing the look, making the dark hair feminine. Jane did my makeup, and it looks edgy and soft all at the same time.

Jeans with small holes shredded here and there, a long-sleeved black shirt with white cuffs and collar covered by one of my old red plaid vests, and black short boots with enough of a heel to be a little sexy but not too much completes Jane’s makeover of me.

I feel good about this new look. The old me mixed with the new me. I smile at my image. I look good. I just might be able to make Trevor notice me once again.

⊕⊗⊕

When I walk into school, I can feel the change. I’ve been a ghost for the last few months, but not anymore. People are seeing me now. I smile.

Jane hurries over to me when she sees me, followed by her fan club

“You look great,” she exclaims sincerely, a sentiment echoed by her gaggle of geese.

“Patting yourself on the back?” I smirk.

“How is that patting myself on the back?”

“Because you made me. I am your creation, Dr. Frankenstein.”

“He wasn’t a doctor, you know. Not in the book, anyway.”

“Yeah, but he was in the movie that we watched, and that’s what matters.”

“Whatever, Igor,” she laughs.

“Igor was the assistant, not the experiment.
I
am the experiment.”

“Igor also wasn’t in the book.” This is a new voice, one I didn’t expect to hear. My heart skips a beat as I turn to see Brian stepping toward me.

I swallow guiltily. I’ve pretty much ignored Brian and all of Trevor’s other geek friends since hooking up with Jane. I can’t even try to claim that it’s because they didn’t want me around, not when they’ve gone out of their way to remain my friends in spite of what I’ve done to Trevor. Selfishly, it’s because hanging out with them only keeps in the front of my mind what I now have to live without.

“He was in the movie though,” I say thickly.

“Not if you’re talking the 1931 version, where he was called Fritz,” he argues lightly. I smile thinly, aware that everyone is staring at us as if we’re talking Chinese—except for my new sci-fi pal Jane. She is looking at Brian with interest.

“You don’t talk to me anymore,” he accuses mildly.

“We’ll see you later,” Jane interjects when his statement draws the attention of all the geese. She gives me a hug, then hurries away, followed by the rest of the group. Brian waits expectantly.

“I know. I’m sorry. It just seems easier this way.”

“Easier for who?” I’d almost forgotten just how honestly straightforward the geeks could be.

“Me,” I admit. Brian’s eyes widen at my own frank answer. He nods in acknowledgment.

“What you did to Trevor was . . . well, it wasn’t very nice.” I grunt at his mild assessment. “But it wasn’t the worst thing you could have done. I mean, I think you really did like him, right?”

Like
him? That doesn’t even begin to cover it. It turns the thing that meant the world to me into something . . . I don’t know . . . so middle school. But that’s not a discussion I want to get into in the school hallway with Brian. So I simply nod.

“And I guess I thought maybe you really liked the rest of us also, or at least
most
of us.” We’re both thinking of Mary Ellen. “You weren’t, like,
using
us, were you?” He seems genuinely hurt by the idea.

“Of course not. I mean, let’s be honest. At first, we were like oil and water. But I truly did come to think of you as friends.”

He swings a hand vaguely in the direction that Jane has gone. “But now you don’t need us because you have new friends?”

I shrug, looking away. “It’s too hard, Brian. You’re too close to him. There’re too many memories of him associated with you. And I’m a coward.”

“You still like him, huh?”

“I guess I always will.”

“That’s good. I wouldn’t give up hope too quickly, Jen.” My heart thuds at his words. Does he know something? “But then, no one’s ever done anything like that to me, so I can’t say for sure how long he might stay mad.” And my heart drops. “But still, I wish you would at least talk to us a little.”

I take a deep breath.

“You’re right. I’m being selfish. So maybe on the days that . . . you know, that
he’s
not at lunch I could still sit with you? Me and Jane?”

“You think she would sit at our table?” His eyes hold a little more than passing interest.

I shrug, messing with Brian, feeling lighter at this feeble link to Trevor being offered. “I don’t know. I can try.”

“Okay.” He sounds slightly despondent. “It’ll be good to talk to you again, anyway. See you around, Jen.”

He walks off, and I can only stare after him. What an odd conversation. I have to admit, though, that I feel a little better now that he’s said he still wants to be friends. I feel a
whole lot
better that he thinks Trevor might forgive me someday.

If there’s one thing life has taught me, though, it’s that hope can be a slippery slope.

⊕⊗⊕

I see Trevor for the first time since Jane’s makeover of me later that day. He’s walking with the mouse, of all people. I almost turn and head a different direction, losing courage, but he looks up and sees me before I can make the move. He stops when he sees me, and Mary Ellen, who’d been in the middle of jabbering something inane (I’m sure) stops also, consternation knitting her brow. She follows his gaze and sees me there. Her eyes clear, and anger tightens her mouth.

I ignore her because Trevor’s
looking
at me. I’m reminded of the stunned expression he had the first time I turned my unexpected charms on him. This gives me confidence, and I offer him a half smile, lifting my hand a few inches in a small wave. Trevor’s mouth begins to curve upward in response, but then he also seems to recall our first meeting, or maybe just the recent revelation made to him about me, and something in his expression changes. His mouth hardens and his eyes darken coldly.

She
notices the change in him, and she grins triumphantly. She pushes her arm through his and turns him away from me. It’s my nightmare, come true. I’m frozen in place, numb with hurt, and suddenly I feel foolish for having even tried. My clothes, my hair, my whole new look—ridiculous.

Tears blur my vision, and for the first time since I’ve known Trevor, I leave school, ditching my classes, not even caring about the consequences.

⊕⊗⊕

“You can’t give up!”

Jane bounces on the edge of my bed while I lay curled in a ball, trying to resolutely ignore her. This is not an easy task.

“You probably misconstrued his expression, anyway. You have the lowest self-esteem I’ve ever seen in a person,” Jane says, pushing against my stiff back.

I sigh. She’s not going to let me ignore her, apparently. Though most times she’s as sweet as any true angel could be, she can also be as stubborn and persistent as any demon. I roll toward her and sit up.