Jelly Janna 8

Janna felt her breath catch in her chest as she approached the Diaz house.

She had left school directly after breakfast, not wanting to waste any time. She had to see Marco.

She wasn't actually sure what she was going to say to him. And she didn't know what she was going to say to Jackie later, either. She was filled with an awful apprehension. In a lot of ways, it felt like her world was crashing down on her. She didn't know if Marco would speak to her, she didn't know if she was going to lose Jackie as a friend. It reminded her of how Hope had described feeling, watching her parents screaming at each other for a divorce. She was so nervous that everything was going to go all wrong and she'd wind up a pariah, watching all her former friends from a distance, except for Hope, who would always be by her side. But she was Janna, dammit. She wasn't going to run away if it was time to face the music.

She discretely unlocked the front door of Marco's house, and drifted in like a shadow. This is what she was good at, sneaking -

"Oh, hi Janna," Angie called from the kitchen.

Janna froze, then groaned and walked into the kitchen. "Uh...hey, Mrs. Diaz. How did you know I was here?"

Angie put down the bowl of brownie mix she was stirring and gave Janna a curious smile. "Oh, I'm just good at noticing things. A lot more things than people give me credit for, probably. I'm usually pretty good at spotting certain young ladies when they sneak into my home, for example."

Janna wondered how many times she thought she had come into the Diaz residence unseen when Angie had actually noticed her.

"I'm also pretty good at noticing when my son has a hangover. And I'm pretty clever, too! I can usually put together who exactly gave him the alcohol."

Janna felt her heart drop into her stomach. Angie was watching her with deep, twinkling eyes and a bemused smile. "I...I can explain..."

"No need! See, I'm so smart, I've already figured out why you did it." Angie licked some brownie mix off the spoon she was using to stir the bowl.

Janna never thought of Mrs. Diaz as threatening - she was a little goofy, even - but Angie's quiet mysteriousness was doing a good job of unsettling her now. "Uh..."

"Why don't you tell me why you did it?" Angie's twinkling eyes seemed to grow, to fill Janna's entire vision.

A thousand lies raced through Janna's head, but something about the way Angie was looking at her made her know that she'd never get away with a lie here. "Uh...."

Angie smiled gently. "It's because you love him, isn't it?"

Janna plopped down into a chair beside the counter as it felt like all the wind rushed out of her. "How did you know?"

Mrs. Diaz shook her head and smiled again as she poured the brownie mix into a pan. "You remind me a lot of myself, when I was younger."

"Are you gonna call the cops on me?!" Janna blurted.

"What? No, no, no." Angie put the brownies in the oven, then came around the counter to sit across from Janna. "But, Janna...if there's anything you want to talk about...well, I know a lot about how terrible love can make you feel. I've been through it all, too. And I'm worried about you. I've watched you grow up, and I can tell when you aren't doing well."

Janna looked down, at Angie's hand resting on hers. And suddenly she found herself spilling out everything. About Marco, about how she had always been so hurt that they had drifted apart, how excited she was when he began recently hanging out with her again, her uncontrollable feelings, her crush on him that had never gone away, kissing him despite knowing that he was Jackie's, worrying now that he'd never speak to her again, worrying that Jackie would never be her friend again, worrying that everything had gone wrong. Angie listened to it all. Really, it felt so good to get it all out, to someone older and wiser, someone who could relate.

"...So I came over here to...I don't know...I don't know, really. I....guess maybe I just wanted to talk to Marco one last time before he stopped hanging out with me again."

"And do you think that's wise?"

"What else can I do?"

Angie's hair drifted down over her eyes as she smiled sadly. "You already know what it's like to just watch from a distance. It didn't make your feelings go away, did it? Do you think going back to that will really help? Especially after what you've been through?"

Janna sat silently.

"It might hurt to hear, but you've gone too far for things to go back to normal now. You know you might lose a friend over this. Do you really want to lose that, and not even bother to take the chance to get what you lost her for?"

Janna shifted unccomfortably. "I gotta say....Mrs. D, this isn't the sort of advice I was expecting."

Angie got up and retrieved the brownies from the oven. "If there's one thing life has taught me," she said quietly, "It's that you can't expect the person you love to eventually just come around. You can't sit there, waiting, and hoping they'll one day feel the same way. You have to take the step. You have to fight for them. And if you get rejected, or it doesn't work out, well, at least you know you had an honest shot."

Janna was quiet, again. And then she felt an energy, a fire rise within her. Mrs. Diaz was right. Janna was tired of hiding things. If she lost a friend, oh well. If Marco didn't accept her, oh well. C'est la vie. It was time to roll the dice and let things fall where they may. She grabbed a brownie. "You're right, Mrs. D. I know exactly what I'm going to say to Marco."

"Keep the door open!" Mrs. Diaz called after her.

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Hope sat alone at the lunch table, idly toying with the three potion bottles she had taken from Glossaryck. Why had she taken all three? She didn't know. So much felt like a tired, awful fog.

Jackie sat down across from her. "Hey, Hope," she said cheerfully. "Janna's out today, too? Did she catch whatever Marco has? He texted me saying he was sick..."

Hope toyed with the apple sauce on her tray, and then she heard herself saying, "Janna kissed Marco."

Jackie froze. Hope froze as well. Why....why had she said that? She hadn't meant to say that, at all. She hadn't even felt an urge to say it. It had just come out.

"What...what?" said Jackie.

"Marco kissed Janna," Hope said again, and winced as some of the twinkle and happiness drained from Jackie's face.

"I...I don't...like, did he kiss back? What happened? Why...why hasn't he told me?"

"They were both really drunk, and it just sort of happened," Hope said, miserably. What had she done? Why had she done this? "I think he was trying to figure out a way to break the news to you."

"I...th-thanks for telling me, Hope," Jackie said. Then tears began to form in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I gotta....go do something." She pushed her tray away from her and stood up from the table, quickly pacing off, a sleeve to her eyes.

Hope sat there, stunned. She couldn't believe what she had just done. She couldn't believe that she had just revealed Janna's secret like that. Why-

"Oh, you know why you did it," said that dark little voice inside her. "Jackie will break up with Marco and will never speak to Janna again. Marco will blame Janna for the breakup. The only person in the whole world she'll have to be by her side...is you."

Hope felt like ice was running through her veins. "I'd never do something like that," she whispered to herself.

"Too late, you just did."

Hope looked down at her hands. Janna, hurt and alone from the collapse of her social life, needing her friend, truly needing her, all the time they'd spend together, alone, with only each other, only the two of them against a cold world - it sounded...like everything Hope could want. But....

"I don't want to hurt her. I'd never hurt her! I wouldn't hurt her just to make her dependent on me. I wouldn't - never."

"You just DID, Hope. That's just how love is. Sometimes you have to hurt the people you love."

"No. No, never, never, I won't ever do that. I'm....I'm going to fix this. I'm not the way you think I am."

"Yes you are. And you'll get used to it, eventually."