geeky girl story (nice title, i know)

Once upon a time there was a girl. A girl who loved boys. She dreamed of them when sleeping, but moreso when awake. She was perpetually staring out windows--car windows, bus windows, classroom windows--and when the lights were out, she lay staring at ceilings and always, always she was dreaming of boys. She painstakingly set the scene--imagining each detail of the wardrobe and carefully planning a location...then the meeting, then the kiss......and that was it. The stories all ended there. She was a good girl. An innocent girl. She had yet to kiss her first real live boy, but she knew she would. Maybe when the braces came off, or the glasses were traded for contact lenses....Jane would dare to speak to a boy.

She was self-concious to a frighteningly extreme degree. She was aware of every hair on her arm, every crinkle in her toes--and was mortified by the shape of her nose, the shine of her skin. every breath she took seemed too much to ask of the world around her. She was a cowering puddle of insecurities. As she walked into her 9th grade science class she had no idea that her life was about to change. She wouldn't have believed it if she'd been told the class clown, the boy who talked back to the teacher would change her life. He asked her that day, as the bell sent them to lunch, if she knew Grant. Her stomach lurched, and she responded "Yeah, he's my brother." Half brother, much older, but they shared a last name. It was a rather infamous last name for that small town. There were many Widdecombs, some good and hard working, some elbow-deep in the thick black sludge of drugs and law-breaking. Grant was a wild one. Always the life of the party, always making everyone laugh--and a coke addict....she hurried off to the cafeteria, wondering how this 14 year old knew her 25 year old brother and what that said about either of them.

As the days passed, Jane was relieved that Stephen hadn't spoken to her again after his initial inquiry. He was loud, popular, and worst of all--male. She was terrirfied to talk to any boy, as much as she wished she wasn't...she watched girls flirt with boys and was filled with wonder at the ease, the comfort they seemed to possess. How was this possible? Why was she so different? She wished she could talk to a boy--any boy, even an ugly one to practice. She was lost in these thoughts so deeply that Friday afternoon that when a small wad of paper landed on her desk she was so startled that she nearly fell out of her seat. She immediately blushed a deep crimson, imagining that someone had finally decided to pick on her. She was certainly long over due for some peer torture, by her own self-image at least. She knew herself to be too skinny, too smart, too quiet, too poor--and just plain ugly. She was just regaining her composure when another wad of paper landed, and she spun around to see where it had come from. She blinked and turned back to face the front. She had been met with Stephen's smiling face. Oddly, he did not appear to be laughing at her. She swallowed hard and began frantically taking notes on the lecture she'd been ignoring, telling herself he must have been aiming for Josie--one of the popular, pretty girls--who sat in front of her. Stephen erupted in a coughing fit and threw another wad of paper, which hit her squarely in the back of the head. Her eyes blazing, she turned to face her antagonist. He put his finger to his lips, still smiling and pointed to the door. She calmed a bit, but still had no idea what he wanted. He rolled his eyes at her blank look and jotted a quick note, which he then crumpled and threw at her. She missed catching it and felt the heat rise in her cheeks again. She bent to retrieve it and knocked her notebook off her desk. She was so red she was purple at this point. Her heart pounding, she opened the note. "go to the bathroom" was scrawled across the wrinkled paper. She turned around and looked at Stephen, with an obviously puzzled look on her face. He just nodded at her and looked away. She raised her hand, asked and was given the hall pass with hardly a pause in the lecture. She started down the two flights of stairs leading to the basement bathrooms, slowly, wondering what he wanted. Before she had reached the last level, she heard the loud clattering which was Stephen racing down the stairs toward her.

"Hey, kid. Wanna smoke?" He offered her a rumpled pack of Marlboro Reds. Jane looked around, alarmed--hoping no one had seen or heard.

"I-I...I don't smoke," she looked at him hard, wondering if he had her confused with someone else.

"Yeah, I know. But you should. Maybe it would magically transform you into cool." He winked, and stuffed the soft pack back into his pocket. His eyes were green, although she wouldn't realize this until much later.

"I don't want to be cool." She said "cool" as if it were a disease, and started to back away from him.

"Nah, course not....Grant's little sister, huh?" He shook his head in disbelief. "That guy's crazy! Are you going to his party tonight?" He almost looked nervous as he threw that question out.

"No. I don't really hang out with him. He's old." She blushed, as she pushed onward. "Why do you hang out with him?"

He stepped closer to her, and she retreated again, feeling the locker brush against her back. He shrugged, grabbed her glasses and completely avoided her question.

"Kinda pretty under there...." Her heart pounded and she felt some tingling in some unusual places. She opened her mouth to speak, but the echo of a door closing down the hall startled her into action. She snatched her glasses back from him and headed back up the stairs.

As she rode home that afternoon on the bus, she was staring out the window--as usual--but her daily dream was replaced with recalling the events of the day. She ran every moment of that bizarre conversation through her head, like a film projector...over and over and over. Analyzing it for each wrong move she made, trying to imagine a better response to each of his questions. And that was when she realized he had green eyes. He was cute. She had never noticed before, but somehow receiving attention from him enhanced his features...made him more appealing. She forgot to be proud of herself for speaking to him. She forgot his last comment. Instead she focused on how stupid she sounded, looked, felt. By the time she got home she was near tears and was considering faking illness to avoid school the following day. As she trudged up the stairs, she heard the phone ringing. The only person who ever called was her best friend, Anna, so she answered without thinking.

"Jane? Um, hey. This is Stephen. Um, I was wondering if you could help me with my science homework?" Her alarm turned to shameful realization. All he was interested in was her brains.

"Uh, sure, I guess..." She wanted to say no, but she couldn't.

"That's why I wanted to know if you'd be at Grant's tonight, ya know...so you could help me..." he cleared his throat and hurried on. "but you're not going, so that's cool. Um..."

"I could meet you at the library tomorrow," she offered, hoping he wouldn't suggest coming to her house.

"Yeah! That would be awesome! Is noon good?" She agreed and they hung up. Her heart was pounding. She wasn't sure what to feel, to think. She was disappointed, relieved, nervous.

*********

The rain beating on her window was the first thing Jane was aware of as she awoke Saturday morning. She listened to the tree branches scratching against the side of the house and mulled over her dreams. Then sat up with a start as she remembered her noon appointment.

"Damnit!" She had hit her head on the bunk bed above her. She lay back down to nurse the bump on her head and to attempt to mentally prepare herself for what lay ahead. She was more nervous than she had been for the spelling bee last year, more nervous than when she had to go door to door selling candy bars and other lame stuff for school fundraisers. She was starting to get herself really worked up about it, when she saved by a knock on her door followed by her mom asking if she wanted some pancakes. She trudged out to the kitchen and sat quietly eating while her mother chatted on about her plans for the day. Jane wasn't really listening, until she heard something that caught her attention.

"...but we should be home by 4 or so. Doesn't that sound fun?"

"Um, sorry, i wasn't listening. What?"

"The company gave your father some free tickets to the new Sea Life Museum down in Boothbay Harbor. They're only good for today, so we're leaving in about an hour." She was so excited, and Jane had been wanting to go to that museum....and mostly she was relieved that she didn't have to see Stephen after all. But that started a new thread of worries--she didn't know his phone number and even if she did, she couldn't bring herself to dial it...to talk to him. So she fretted about it until they all piled in the car for the hour-long drive and then made herself forget, since there was nothing she could do at that point.

As Monday approached, the knot of dread in the pit of her stomache grew and throbbed. What would he say? Would he be angry at her for not showing up? Would he even care--maybe he hadn't shown up either....Her palms were sweaty, her hands shook just a little as she settled into her seat in science class. Their homework was due at the beginning of class, and Stephen wasn't there yet. She felt a lump growing in her throat. Just as the bell rang, a smiling Stephen skidded through the door and tossed some damp looking papers on the pile of homework the teacher had just collected, then took his seat. All without a glance in Jane's direction. She was blushing for a few minutes, as she settled into note-taking mode, then as the minutes passed without any hint of communicatin from Stephen, she began to relax a little. She was so afraid he'd be angry at her, but even more than that she feared he would just stop talking to her. She was realizing that she enjoyed his attention.

The days passed, the weeks, and Stephen didn't talk to Jane again. She finally stopped wondering if he would, stopped hoping...but she did start dreaming about him. She was afraid to steal even the quickest glance, but she had last year's year book--and the page with his picture was now dogged eared and soft from all the times she had gazed wistfully at it. He was her biggest crush, even if she always had several crushes at once, he was the star of her dreams more often than any of the others. He would ride up on a white horse, on a black motorcycle, in a red convertible....and she would be waiting for him--in all her imagined beauty--and they would kiss and live happily ever after.

One day, nearly two months after their first conversation, Jane was bent over the drinking fountain in an empty hall, lost in thought, and noticed someone approaching out of the corner of her eye. The figure came very close and stopped, nearly touching her. She stood up with a start, to see Stephen leaning against the wall, inches from her. Her heart leapt to her throat.

"When are you gonna ditch those glasses?" He said with a smile, as he plucked them from her face again. Jane opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

He cocked his head and dropped the glasses into his shirt pocket. "So if I ask you to help me with my science homework again what are the chances that you'll show up?"

Her face burned, her throat miraculously opened. "I'm so sorry. My parents--"

"Doesn't matter. But we have that big project due next week and I was really hoping you'd work on it with me. I suck at science. Well, I suck at school." He leaned down and took a drink himself.

"So....will you help me?" He was standing so close to her she could smell his cologne.

"Yeah. Sure. I, um..."

"I'll make it easy on you. We both have study hall 6th period. Let's just work on it then." Her spirits sank a bit, feeling it was certain he wanted to avoid actually spending time with her. She smiled, though, and agreed.

As they parted she realized he still had her glasses, and she would need them if she wanted to see the blackboard in the rest of her classes. She turned to catch him, but he was gone. She smiled softly, thinking, well if he thinks i look better without them, then i guess i just won't wear them anymore. When she reached science class later that day, the glasses were sitting on her desk with a note.

"Thought you might need these. Luv S"

Jane blushed 14 shades of red, but stuffed the glasses in her backpack. And all she could think about was her orthodontist appointment in 3 weeks. Her final appointment. The wretched metal would be coming off her teeth. Her heart pounded. Maybe she would find a way to be a little bit pretty after all. Then she reminded herlsef that Stephen was a big flirt and he was just using her to pass science class. But she only mostly believed it...