TW: references to bullying, self harm and anxiety attacks/meds/near overdoses
Janis and Cady sat in the art room after school, Cady propping herself up elegantly on a wobbly stool and trying her absolute best to remain as still as possible, and Janis in a deep state of concentration, eyeing up her masterpiece. It was only in its beginning stages, but it was already more than beautiful in Janis' eyes. Sure, offering to paint Cady by claiming she needed a new muse was a lame excuse to analyze Cady's chiseled features, but it was something. She was honestly surprised that Cady had bought it. But then again, she wasn't. Being the new kid from Africa gave her a massive disadvantage when it came to socialization with her peers. She had no idea about the concepts of sarcasm or fake excuses; knowledge, or lack thereof, which Janis had maybe...sort of...definitely exploited for her own personal gain. It gave her a reason to stare intensely at every little detail in the face and body of Cady Heron without being seen as a creep.
Her overall curvature, slender, but not too much so, the dainty posture she held atop the stool, the sun-kissed freckles that sporadically dotted her face, and, most importantly, the eyes that could make Janis melt into a puddle right then and there. She could have finished the entire painting in just under an hour. Instead, she worked slowly on purpose, still barely finished with the painted outline after almost two full hours. She needed all the time she could get with Cady. Being this intimate with her was a rarity, and she cherished every second.
"Janis, can we take a break? I've been sitting straight up on this hard stool forever, my back is starting to hurt," Cady complained in the nicest way possible, snapping Janis out of the trance she'd entered, both from painting and staring at Cady.
"Um, yeah, sure," Janis muttered. "You can come look at it so far if you want, I'm starting to fill stuff in."
Cady immediately slouched, relaxing her muscles. "You're sure I won't ruin it if I get up?"
Janis shook her head. "No, no, you're fine. Worst case scenario, I'd have to start all over again, but that's unlikely. I've got pretty much everything laid out," she sighed. She was kind of hoping she'd have to start over, but that would just be rude to keep Cady for that long while she redid it. Cady got up off the stool, stretching her back out for a minute before walking over to be next to Janis. Janis felt a sort of tingle as they got closer.
"Wow, Jan, this is amazing! You're so talented!" Janis blushed a little, smiling as she dismissed the compliment. "No, I'm not really...there are people way better than me."
"Jan, you're so good! Art therapy must have really worked for you!" Cady smiled, innocence beaming through her eyes. The compliment seemed completely out of the blue, but that was how Cady was. She tended to just blurt things out like that, not knowing any better.
Janis' face fell sharply. "What do you mean?!Who told you...?"
Cady's innocence dulled slightly as she spoke. "I was over at Regina's house with Gretch and Karen, and I asked what happened to make you not like her, and she just started talking about 8th grade and that you overreacted about not being invited to some pool party because she could only have, like, six people." Cady spoke bluntly, telling it like it was, perhaps a bit too much.
Janis' eyes filled with fire at the utter lies Cady was spewing. God, she was so gullible. So adorably gullible. "Caddy, listen, you can't just believe everything you hear. Sometimes there's more to the story than meets the eye." Janis' tone was unintentionally cold, filled with rage. Sure, she didn't know Cady that well, but neither did Regina. How could she trust Regina more than she trusted her?
"No offense, but I don't see what the big deal is. It was just a party. It wasn't her fault." Cady was startled by Janis' tone, but maintained her innocence.
Janis raised her voice. "I can't believe you're defending her! That scum-sucking fart-mouthed life ruiner!" Janis had never meant to lash out like she did, but yet, here they were. She was so enraged, she felt like she could punch someone.
"Well, what really happened then?" Cady asked, her curiosity peaked.
"Nothing you need to know right now." And with that, she abruptly packed up her paints and the canvas and stormed out. "We're done here for today, I've gotta go home," she spat, biting her lip to fight back the tears she could feel stinging the corners of her eyes. The door slammed hard behind her, leaving a newly angry Cady alone in the art room.
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Cady knew Janis would be too stubborn and upset to talk to her the next day. Janis was infuriatingly secretive, keeping her feelings locked up inside of her for God knows how long and refusing to let them out until she couldn't hold them in anymore. She hated the idea of Janis breaking down, so for the next several days, she tried to get the truth out through Damian. Janis trusted Damian, and Damian wouldn't lie to her.
Damian felt bad for Cady. He wanted to tell her everything, so he tried a few times, but each time, Janis would punch his arm or shush him frantically. Cady tried to talk to Damian alone, but he wouldn't budge.
"Sorry, sweets, I've been sworn to secrecy. Janis'll murder us both if she finds out I told you without her there."
"You're scared of Janis?"
"No!" His tone went suddenly defensive before softening. "Caddy, listen, a lot of shit happened that year, and I really wish I could tell you, believe me, I do, but I know exactly what's gonna happen. You'll feel all bad and go and try to comfort her, she'll know you found out, she'll know I told you, and it'll break her. I hate seeing her upset just as much as you, if not more, and I'm just trying to prevent something bad."
Cady nodded, disappointed but understanding. He was right. She knew he was right. But curiosity overwhelmed her. Later that day, she tried asking other kids, but they were of little help. She ran herself ragged trying to figure out just what the hell happened in 8th grade. It wasn't for her sake, it was for Janis'. She was starting to feel like Janis didn't trust her enough. She had been a student at North Shore for the past several months, and though she was still posing as a Plastic, she wanted Janis' trust with her problems.
All she had wanted was to know why Janis gets pale and quiet whenever someone calls her a "space dyke" (whatever that meant), why kids spit on her and push her over in the halls and threaten to hurt her, why Cady once saw Damian break the lock on someone's locker that Janis had been shoved in, why girls waited five minutes for another open stall in the bathrooms when there was one open right next to where Janis was, why Damian says she has "episodes" in the middle of the night, coming to school the next day with a dead, still frantic look in her eyes, why Cady could see pronounced scars on Janis' legs and arms no matter how much she wore to try and cover them up, why she wore these long, thick clothes anyway even when it was 80 degrees out, refusing to take them off even when she was drenched in sweat and clammy and near passing out, why she sometimes comes to Cady's house feeling delirious, loopy, ethereal, and not Janis, hopped up on medications to make her seem like herself when she's really some other person that isn't the Janis that Cady knows and loves. She cared about Janis deeply, and it hurt her to the core that Janis didn't seem to care enough back.
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Cady found Janis in the art room after school that day. She looked dead as usual, clearly sleep deprived, her eyes red, puffy, and half open. She had obviously been crying.
"Jan, we gotta talk."
"What is there to talk about?! I'm not telling you about 8th grade! There's no way in hell you'll get it out of me!" Tears coursed down her reddened cheeks despite her attempts to hold them back.
"Really, you'll feel better if you talk about it. It's not good to keep this kind of stuff in."
Janis stayed silent for a minute. Cady was right, but Janis was too stubborn to admit it. Why she couldn't just spit it out and get it over with, she didn't know.
"Janis, I'm starting to think you don't trust me. We've known each other for a while now and this seems pretty important to you, and I-"
Janis cuts her off. "Caddy...that's a complicated fucking statement you just made there. The whole school likes to think they know everything about 8th grade, but they don't. All the shit they know comes from what Regina's told them, that's what I'm sure you've heard. You're all blind, and I'd like it to stay that way. Regina's created her own sick, twisted version of the story that makes her seem like the hero and everyone believes it. She's completely forgotten the truth somehow, playing it off like it's no big deal, like I'm the one who was in the wrong, that I caused this whole scene over a fucking pool party, that I should've just kept my mouth shut because I'm..." She paused for a second to catch her breath, which was lacking, blinking hard to fight back the tears that she could feel were starting to form. "Nobody knows the full truth except for Damian. If I tell you what you want to know so desperately, it'll change everything."
"Janis, you don't have to tell me absolutely everything if you don't want to."
"No, see, there's the problem. There is no such thing as half the story. Either you know Regina's version, which isn't even a fraction of the story, or you know the full truth."
"Just start at the very beginning and work your way up to wherever you want to go. You're brave, Janis. I care about you, and I hate seeing you this upset."
Janis tried to speak again. She tried to say something, anything. But Cady just looked so ready to catch her and pick up the pieces if and when she fell hard that she went numb. Her mind wouldn't let her speak again until she sank helplessly against the wall and buried her head in her knees, crisp, salty tears pooling in her eyes and absorbing into her lacy black tights. She didn't deserve Cady, she knew she didn't. But somehow Cady stayed with her, rubbing her back and whispering soothing nothings to her until she calmed down, waiting patiently until Janis was ready.
After a few minutes, Janis' mouth went dry and she couldn't muster up the energy to sob anymore, so she stopped.
"You ready to talk now?" Cady asked gently, taking Janis' fingertips and squeezing them lightly. Her hand was warm and soft and comforting, so much so that Janis almost broke down again. She waited a minute, her breaths quivering, before she began her story.
"Before eighth grade, Regina and I were best friends. We spent all our time together, we carpooled to school, had sleepovers, like, every weekend, sometimes twice in one week. And then eight grade started. Regina got her first boyfriend, this guy Kyle, that she met at some dance, and then everything became about him. Whenever we'd hang out he was all she talked about, and then after a little while she'd start blowing me off to spend time with him, and I'd try and ask her why, and she'd keep saying that I'm obsessed with her and that I'm jealous and shit, and I guess that obsession turned into something else. Then she was having an all-girls pool party, and I thought that we could finally reconnect since Kyle wouldn't be there, but then when I went to ask her if I was invited, she just said..." Janis' voice cut out for a second, tears reappearing in her eyes. Cady said nothing, waiting patiently for Janis to continue.
"She said that she couldn't invite me because she thought I was a lesbian, and that I had some kind of lesbian crush on her, and she tried to out me in front of the whole school, and then I said something dumb on impulse about being a space alien with 4 butts, and then I went to my locker at the end of the day and someone had scratched 'space dyke' into it with a key. From there, it all went downhill. Everyone became all paranoid that I was gonna make out with them and fuck them, and they stopped using the girls' bathroom whenever I was in there, and people would spit on me and beat me up and shove me in lockers, and one time they forced me to kiss some girl on a dare. They made fun of me for eating when aliens don't eat and for what I looked like because I stopped caring about my appearance. From there I couldn't take it anymore so I started cutting and then people started noticing and that's when my anxiety got really bad and I started losing sleep and having panic attacks almost every night, and one day I had one in public with my mom and she made me tell her what was going on. She just lost it at Regina's mom, and then Regina started all these other awful rumors about me and made herself seem innocent and everyone believed her except Damian, and it just got so bad that I started messing with my anxiety meds and luckily my parents found out before something bad happened. They pulled me out of school for the rest of the year, I started therapy, and that's where I got interested in art, and my anxiety calmed down some until my parents made me go back here because they couldn't afford a homeschool program. Regina has been making it her life's mission to ruin me ever since, and now you're here, and I'm breaking down in front of you, and now you know everything."
Cady sat next to Janis in absolute silence for a minute, both to make sure she was done and to fully wrap her head around the entire ordeal. Janis was panting excessively, out of breath from talking and anxious from remembering those events.
Cady wrapped her arms around Janis' shaking body as she collapsed into her, tears pouring down her cheeks as she struggled to breathe. "Jan, breathe, please, you're okay. You're very brave, I'm so sorry. Just breathe, deep breaths, in and out. I'm so proud of you."
Janis rested her head on Cady's chest, comforted by the coolness of Cady's skin. The more deep breaths she took, the more she settled against her.
"I feel like I'm gonna pass out," Janis muttered. Her head felt like it was floating two stories above her as she trembled like a chihuahua against Cady. She shut her eyes for a minute as Cady stroked her soft, thick hair.
"Can I get you some water?" Cady asked. Janis nodded slightly, pulling away reluctantly from her soothing body. Cady pulled Janis' water bottle out of her backpack and gave it to her as Janis leaned her head against the wall behind her. "Need anything else?"
"Can you just...stay here with me a little longer? That took a lot out of me. I feel like I've just barfed up a novel. I don't wanna be alone." She took a sip out of the cold aluminum bottle, the water cooling her throat as she swallowed it roughly.
Pure astonishment filled Cady's eyes. Never in a million years would she ever think she'd hear Janis say she didn't want to be alone. "Yeah, sure." Cady settled back down against the wall and let Janis lay against her, wiping any stray tears away and brushing her two-toned hair out of her face.
"I'm sorry I snapped at you before," Janis whispered hoarsely.
"I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have tried to pressure you," Cady replied. "It took a lot of courage for you to tell me all that." Janis smiled weakly, looking up at Cady through reddened eyes. "I'm glad you trust me," Cady whispered.
"I'm glad I can."
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A/N: Hey everyone, I'm so sorry that there has been such a huge gap between this part and the last one, it took me a while to come up with the idea and write everything out. I may have a few ideas of my own for more parts but they're extremely vague at the moment and I need to plan stuff out. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated but no smut or suicide please, that's where I draw the line. Also I'd like to stay at canon age so nothing in the past or future. That's it for now okay bye!!