“….And then I told her that she needed to find somebody else to cry to, because I was so over it all…” I tuned out as Amber’s incessant chatter rambled on. Something about some girl drama on the cheerleading squad or something. Not anything worth my time or attention, anyway.
What WAS on my mind, though, was Jenna. Why couldn’t I get her out of my head? Why did her brilliant smile accompany me every night while I slept? With a fierce shake of my head, I tried erasing her image from my mind.
“You don’t want to go, Landon?”
“Huh? Go where? When?….what?” I asked, turning my attention to Sandler, my best friend. Well, best guy friend, anyway.
“To Doug’s house tonight. He’s having a party,” Sandler said, his facial features twisted in confusion. I’ll admit, I hadn’t really been my usual self lately. Ever since Jenna and I had split up….
Snapping back to the here and now, I focused every ounce of my being that I could towards Sandler. “What time is everyone showing up?”
“Around seven or so. Dude, Landon, what’s wrong? You look like you’re in serious need of dropping a deuce or something…” Sandler replied, his voice trailing off as his eyes gave me a once-over.
“Ah, no,” I said, some sort of noise exploding from my mouth that was a mix between a cough and a snort/laugh. “Definitely good in that department, man. Thanks for caring, though.” A small smirk began spreading over my lips as I gave Sandler a friendly “guy punch” on his upper arm. Then, out of the corner of my eye, something suddenly caught my attention: Jenna and her new boyfriend (or whatever he thought he was), Calvin Something-Or-Another. Gathering the little bit of trash I could from our table’s scarce lunch, I made my way to a trashcan, hoping that the others at the table wouldn’t notice my absence, or what I had actually gotten up for.
“Aww, look at Landon…being all ‘green’ and shit!” I heard Amber erupt into hysteric giggles at James’ sorry attempt at being comedic. James was fairly new to our group, and was trying to find a ‘place’ amongst our clique. I wasn’t entirely sure how or why he hung out with us, and he seemed alright for the most part, I supposed.
Tapping the lunch tray a couple of times to help discard of any resisting trash, I placed the plastic tray on top of the lid, and watched what seemed to be some sort of altercation between Jenna and the new beau. I watched as the Calvin guy said something (rather angrily, it seemed), and then stormed off towards another trashcan, disposing of his own lunch remains. Taking a cautious step forward, I watched as he slammed his hand into one of the cafeteria doors, exiting the lunchroom. Glancing quickly over my shoulder, a small sigh of relief escaped my lips as I realized that not a single person from my table was paying one lick of attention to me, or what I was or was not doing…or about to do.
With a deep breath, I put on my “Landon’s Lady Façade” and made my way over to Jenna. The façade dissipated a little as I realized how upset she had become within a matter of seconds. Did she really have feelings for this Calvin guy? Could she really be over me that quickly? I felt something inside my chest that I wasn’t the least bit familiar with. It felt like I was being stabbed right in my chest by some invisible knife one second, and an instant later, it felt as though my entire chest cavity were about to collapse in on itself. Placing my right palm over my chest, I took a couple deep breaths, hoping and praying that I wasn’t about to encounter what a full blown heart attack was like.
Relief instantly washed over me as both sensations dissipated as quickly as they had arrived. Whew, whatever that was, I was more than positive that I never wanted to experience those pains ever again.
Approaching Jenna’s booth, I stood at the side in nearly the same exact spot that Calvin had moments before. “Uh, Jenna?” My voice was quiet, and unintentionally cracked a little. What the hell was up with me?!
Glancing up just long enough to register who was at her table, I felt the pains beginning to make their way back, and I fought to keep them at bay. Her eyes were red and slightly puffy, her usually perfect makeup slightly smeared, mostly at the outer corners of her eyes. Her hair that I used to love running my fingers through was now entangled around her own fingers in frizzy knots. A few small red patches had already appeared in random spots near her collarbone, which only seemed to happen when she was extremely upset.
‘….Like the night she ran out of your house…’ my subconscious whispered hauntingly. Yes, just like that night, I internally hissed back.
“Landon, right now is really not a good time, okay?” Her voice broke and cracked, as if she was doing her absolute best to keep from bursting out into a fresh batch of tears and sobs.
“I, uh, was throwing trash away…and saw…well, that Calvin guy seemed pretty pissed. And you seemed upset, so I just thought that…I don’t know…that I’d come over and see…..if, you know…if you were….alright, or whatever…” I tripped and stumbled over nearly every fucking word that fell out of my mouth. ‘What the actual fuck, Landon?!,’ I mentally scolded myself.
“You….what?” Jenna looked up, fresh tears brimming at the edges of her eyes, looking as though they were about to spill out onto her cheeks at any given moment. I had this sudden urge to just grab her and hold her. To tell her that everything was going to be alright. That….that I….loved her.
“It just seemed like…I just wanted to make sure…” I paused, trying to regain my composure as quickly and as unnoticeably as possible. “I just wanted to check and make sure that you were okay,” I finally blurted out. Geez, finally.
“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks,” she huffed, and my mind raced to figure out what it was that I could have said or done to irritate her. Sure, I hadn’t been the nicest guy towards her lately, but hey, I had an image to uphold, after all.
Reaching over to the napkin caddy, I pulled a couple free and slid them under the little ‘teepee’ Jenna had made with her arms by resting her elbows onto the table, and then interlacing her fingers in a sort of ‘praying’ stance. The top of her head rested against her thumbs; her face looking down at the Formica tabletop. After a few moments, I silently watched as she picked up the napkins, dabbed at her nose with one, and then at the outer corners of her eyes with the other, and then crumpled them both back together into her petite, delicate hands, interlacing her fingers once more.
“Why are you really here, Landon?” The sudden venomous tone in her voice didn’t go unnoticed.
“What do you mean?” I asked, completely caught off-guard.
“Did you think that since Calvin and I were having a disagreement, or a fight, which it actually wasn’t either of those, if you must know, but if we were, that you could just swoop right in and do…..oh, I don’t know…whatever it is you thought you were gonna do?”
Uh-oh. She was pissed. Or at least very quickly becoming that way. I’d seen her temper once or twice before. It wasn’t very becoming to her, but it took a lot to get her that angry, and I had somehow managed to accomplish getting her that pissed off in record time. And the bitch of it all was that I didn’t even know how I had done it.
Shaking my head slowly, cautiously, from side to side a couple of times, I thought very carefully about each word before I actually said it, which was an extremely rare thing itself. “Jenna, no, no, that’s not it at all. I wasn’t trying to ‘swoop’ in and do anything, honest,” I paused, gauging her reaction so far, “Scout’s honor,” I said with a smile, holding up three fingers.
“You were never a boy scout, Landon,” Jenna said with a sigh as she dropped her head back down to continue her fixated stare at the tabletop. But not before I saw the hint of a smile that was on her lips.
“Yeah, well, if I had been a boy scout, you know…” I trailed off, and lowered my head down, tilting it to the side in hopes of getting a better glimpse at her face. Luckily, she lifted her head, the hint of a smile having spread a little farther now. ‘Good, I still have the touch,’ I thought, inwardly smiling and applauding myself.
“Just because you happened to make me smile a little, doesn’t mean anything, Landon,” she huffed. I watched as she gathered what was left of her lunch (a majority of it), and her other belongings, and prepared to get up and leave the booth. There was still a good five minutes or more left until the dismissing bell rang, but obviously she was done talking to me.
“Look,” I said, quickly getting up from my seat and following closely behind Jenna, “you already agreed to talk with me earlier,” I said, leaning down close to her ear as she discarded her trash.
“Yeah, not like I really had a lot of choice there, now did I?” she spat, whirling around to face me.
All of that time that I had spent thinking she was docile and submissive. That she would do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Whenever I said, “Jump,” she would automatically say, “How high?” without hesitation. Just like all of the other girls before (and one or two after) her. But the night that we were supposed to ‘seal the deal,’ and then she had ended up changing her mind… standing up for herself, blatantly refusing… made me realize that she in fact wasn't like any of the other ones.
And with a sudden realization that hit me like a Mack truck, I knew that was the reason I couldn’t shake her from my head, and why she followed me into my dreams nearly every single night.
I was in love with her. I was completely and hopelessly in love with Jenna Matthews.
Well, fuck.
That put a serious kink into my high school player-boy plans, it seemed.
Bringing myself once again back to the here-and-now, the present with Jenna, I tried a different approach.
“Look, this Doug kid is having a party. Come with me,” I gave her my best puppy dog face and the biggest, saddest eyes that I could muster.
“No,” she said simply, yet firmly, and turned to walk away.
“Jenna….wait,” I said, taking a long stride to close the distance she had already made between us. Placing the palm of my hand lightly on her right shoulder, I found myself saying a quick prayer that she wouldn’t desert me, just leave me here, ‘hangin’.’
“What, Landon?” she said as she turned around. She suddenly looked tired, almost exhausted. Was it because of me?
“We don’t have to go to Doug’s. We can do something else, or go somewhere else. Whatever you want, I don’t care,” I found myself on the brink of pleading with her. If only I could get her to agree to some one-on-one time. Just so I could maybe try and explain myself. Something, anything. Just a chance, at least.
“Fine, whatever, Landon. If that’s what it’s going to take to get you to leave me alone, then fine,” she huffed, and with a flash of her arm she turned back around and continued to make her way out of the cafeteria.
“Great, thanks!” I said, probably a little too enthusiastically. “I’ll pick you up at your house around seven, is that okay?” I asked, catching up with her once again, and matching my pace to hers so that we were walking side-by-side.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said, a look of suspicion and curiosity clouding her beautiful features.
Before my ego and the status I felt the need to uphold talked me out of it, I placed a light, quick peck of a kiss onto her cheek, and then bounded down the hallway, catching up with Sandler and the rest of the group that were (thankfully) already at our ‘spot’ at the end of the hall, mine and Jenna’s correspondence seemingly (hopefully) going unnoticed by any of them.
Gracefully striding the last few feet towards my group of friends, I forcefully pushed Jenna as completely as I could possibly manage from my mind, picking up into a conversation between James and Sandler about the Knicks being better than the Miami Heat.
Carrying on as usual, I went about as though mine and Jenna’s conversation just a few minutes prior had never even happened.
After all, I was Landon Craig.
I had an image to uphold.
[[A/N: Here it is, the next chapter! What do y'all think of Landon's POV? Do ya love him now? Still hate him?? Let me know what ya think! Much <3..! =) ]]