“Jane … Jane.”
I snap out of my daze and look up to see Grayson with a concerned look on his face. “You’re still talking to me?” I say with a smile.
He nods and sits down across the table from me. “I’m still talking to you.” The look of concern returns to his face. “Are you okay?”
Not an easy question. I’m still digesting the fact that Alex is leaving. I’d expected him to dump me, but the leaving has caught me off guard. I figure that I might as well be honest. I’ve got a little bit of a broken heart.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says.
“It was kind of self-inflicted,” I say. “But I’ll be okay.”
We just sit there for a while, not saying much of anything.
“I really want to apologize,” I tell him. “For everything. You’ve been great to me. You’ve helped me so much. And I got you sucked up into the whole mess. I’m really sorry.”
“I don’t think you have anything to be sorry about,” he says. “But if it helps, your apology is accepted.”
“It helps a lot.”
“You should look on the bright side,” he says.
“There’s a bright side?”
“At least you don’t have to tell the SAT fart story the next time someone asks about your most embarrassing moment.”
This makes me laugh.
“I was at both,” he continues. “And believe me, the Fourth of July was much more embarrassing.”
“That’s true,” I say. “You were at both.”
“I must be your ultimate bad-luck charm.”
I think about this for a moment. “I don’t think that s it. I think you’re good luck. We’ve just had bad timing.”
“You know what they say. ‘Timing is everything.’”
I look over and see Crystal headed into the locker room. Our paths are constantly crossing, and I keep trying to avoid her.
“You’re right,” I say. “Timing is everything.”
I get up and go straight to the locker room. That’s where I find her.
“Crystal, can I talk to you for a second?”
She rolls her eyes and gives her friends a look. “I guess so. What is it?”
“It’s private.”
I don’t wither or give in. I just stand there and wait until she signals her friends to move along.
“Fine. We’re private. What’s the big deal?”
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
This catches her completely off guard.
“It may not matter to you. And you may not deserve it. But I am sorry.”
She just gives me a totally glazed-over look and says, “Whatever.” Then she starts to walk away. It gets under my skin, and suddenly I feel like addressing three years’ worth of unfinished business.
I walk around and get right in her face. “What is your problem?”
“I don’t have any problems.”
“I think you do,” I tell her.
“Why is that? Because I’m popular and you’re not? Or because I have boyfriends and you don’t? Or maybe it’s that I don’t hang around with everyone like we were still back in Girl Scouts?”
It’s all coming out.
“You know something? Those things do hurt. They really do. Especially being friends. We were good friends—all four of us—and you just dumped us. That hurt me. It hurt Becca. And it hurt Melanie. But I understand that. I understand that you had a chance to be something that I didn’t and you made a choice to be that way. Believe me. I’ve gotten over it.”
“Then what’s your problem?”
She looks at me, and I can’t read her. But it doesn’t matter. This is the plus side of Bikini Jane—confidence. I’m going to tell her off.
“You’re my problem. Think about all of those times that we had sleepovers at Melanie’s house. All the times that Mrs. White stayed up with us and drove us to movies and took us to the beach. Think about all of those times that she treated us like we were all her daughters. And you didn’t even have the decency to show up at her funeral.
“That’s when I decided to hate you, Crystal. That s the moment I decided that you really are a bitch!”
I just stand there. I have finally gotten it off of my chest and I am ready for whatever she sends back at me. But when I look at her, I’m amazed by what I see. She is actually crying. Not just little drops, but a steady stream of tears rolling down her face.
She tries to say something, but she can’t. Her mouth and nose are all clogged up. Finally, she clears her throat.
“I was there. I was at the funeral and the cemetery.”
“That’s funny, because I didn’t see you. And neither did Melanie.”
“I didn’t want you to see me. I stood far away so that you wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“I was embarrassed. I knew you all hated me. And I thought you wouldn’t want to see me. I thought avoiding you was the least I could do.”
It hits me that she’s being sincere. “Maybe you should try to do a little more than that sometimes.”
“How?”
“You could talk to Melanie. As far as she’s concerned, there are only three people her age who will ever know what her mom was like—Becca, me, and you.”
She continues crying, and for once, I actually believe they’re real tears. Even though it’s against my will, I hug her, and she buries her face in my shoulder.
While she’s crying, I look in the locker room mirror and see what I’ve become.
I’m not Plain Jane.
I’m not Bikini Jane.