All The Plans We Made | Jenna Ortega

And always will until the end

TWO WEEKS LATER

TW: a little bit of bullying and self doubt.

Y/N's POV:

Sam integrated into our group pretty fast ever since Jenna's taken her under her wing. The five of us sit together every lunch at our table in the cafeteria.

I don't know, for some reason I really don't like Sam. She seems almost too nice.

"Sheila, do you have any 10's," Aubrey asks.

"No, go fish." Sheila groans, drawing yet another card from the deck.

"Aubrey, do you have any tens?" I smile slyly. It's an easy trick, but it works every time.

Aubrey frowns and hands me three tens. I slap my pile of four cards down onto the table.

"I win!" 

"Great job, Y/N. Good game," Jenna reaches out to shake my hand.

"Ew, you have gorilla arms," Sam exclaims in disgust, "don't you know how to shave?" Jenna quickly throws on a jacket, sitting in silence until the bell rings.

I can't believe she said that I think to myself, I mean, Jenna's been nothing but nice to her.

The second lunch is over, Jenna splits apart from the group. Says she's meeting up with a teacher.

"Sam, you can't say that to Jenna. That's super mean."

"Say what?" She looks at me confused.

"You called her gorilla arms you dummy," I remind her.

"Ohhhh my gooood, why do you caaare?" She sighs. I roll my eyes at her.

"Listen," I say, grabbing her arm, "I've known Jenna longer than you ever will and so I know that its a shitty thing to insult her arm hair. You should know that anyway though." 

"Jeez, I'm sorry. Now get your hands off of me," she complains. I let go and walk away. I knew there was more to her than met the eye.

Jenna's POV:

I feel nauseous. I can't get those words out of my head.

Eww you have gorilla arms? I can hear the disgust dripping from her tone of voice. Why hasn't anyone pointed it out before? I mean I noticed. 

Wait, does everyone else know? Does everyone else think of me as the girl with gorilla arms.

I slump down against the wall of the supply closet and hug my knees to my head. I can already feel hot tears rolling down my face.

Gorilla arms

Gorilla arms

Gorilla arms,

No other thoughts allowed themselves into my mind. Just Sam's cruel disapproving words. All I want to do is run home and shave all of the hair off.

I don't know how long I've sat there swimming in my own doubts, but eventually I hear footsteps, and an envelope slips under my door. I slowly grab it and open it.

Hey Jenna. I know if you're hiding in this closet that you probably want to be alone, but I remembered the other day that you didn't have headphones for your iPod shuffle so I got you some earbuds!

-Y/N

PS: sorry bout Sam :/

Y/N's so sweet. I take out the earbuds and plug them into my iPod shuffle. The earbuds are white, it looks like Apple made them.

The only songs on here are my sisters old songs like Replay. They're better than nothing though.

I wear my jacket for the rest of the day even though we're in a heat wave. The teacher looks at me curiously, but I'd rather have one curious look than have people see my gorilla arms.

Y/N's POV:

Jenna's been wearing long sleeves this whole heatwave. I can practically feel how overheated she is when we sit together at lunch, but no one brings it up. Instead, we spend our lunches dishing out meaningless gossip that we could all care less about. I don't want to hear if Brandon asked out Jessica G. Or if Jessica B is graffitiing the bathroom stall. I want to know if my best friend is ok.

Lunch isn't the same anymore.

I know she's in pain, but I don't know how to talk to her about it. I mean, I had to literally loom up in the dictionary what a word for not feeling good about yourself could be. Here's what I found: Insecure. Adj. (of a person) not confident or assured; uncertain and anxious. I'd heard it before, now that I think if it, but no one talks about this stuff.

The other day, in class, we were talking about the stigmas around racism. I think it applies to more than just that though, although the stigma around racism is still real, I think to myself, I think there's a stigma around discussing how we feel in our bodies.

As the two of us walk to our last class of the day I finally have an inkling of an idea as to what I can even say to her about it.

"Jenna, what Sam said..." I start.

"Don't try to tell me it's not true, I know it is," she snaps.

"Okay... maybe it is," I don't fully know where to go from here, "but it doesn't wake you any less of a good person. So many people have hairy arms. It's normal. You think Selena Gomez's arms are naturally hairless? Or literally any model in the world?"

I can't tell if I'm getting through to her or not, "nothing is wrong with you Jenna."

She pulls me in for a hug, "you're such a great friend, Y/N." 

"You're a great friend too, Jenna. I hope you know you can talk to me about this stuff."

The next day, Sam stops sitting with us. And so we were back to four.