I felt like he was telling me the truth, but who knows and why did it even matter? He was nothing to me. I did feel bad for judging him so quickly, though. Being judgmental was not a quality I liked in other people, but apparently I was getting pretty good at it myself. I took a deep breath and sighed.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I had no right to judge you. You’ve been very nice to us tonight and I shouldn’t have been so impolite.”
Being wrong was one thing, but admitting it was something altogether different. It was like asking for help when you’re determined to do something on your own. Asking for help was another thing I rarely did.
“That’s okay,” Landon said. “I get that a lot.”
I could see the smirk on his face as he sat there looking at me.
“You look awfully smug. Did you enjoy that?” I asked.
He started laughing and flipped his chair up and around so it was next to mine. He ran his hand across my forehead and asked, “Do you realize that when you get angry, you get this line across here that gives you away?”
I flinched from his touch. I did not expect him to touch me. Lizzie was the only person who’d been in my personal space in a long time. Landon made me nervous. There was something about the way his brown eyes looked at me that made me look away. My stomach started to ball up in a knot and I could feel my face getting red.
“I think the storm is over now,” I said. “We must have escaped the worst of it. We should get back to the house now.”
Landon smiled.
“I’m pretty sure it’s been over for a while now,” he said. “You probably would have realized that had you not been scolding me.”
“I was not scolding you!” I argued.
“Watch out—your line is starting to show,” Landon said, chuckling.
I got out of my chair and stomped off toward the stairs. “You’re really starting to irritate me,” I complained.
“Would you like me to carry her for you?” he asked, nodding at Lizzie. “Those stairs are pretty steep.”
I normally would not have agreed, but he was right: The stairs were steep and I did not want to take the chance of falling with my sister in my arms.
“Thank you,” I growled.
Landon reached out to take Lizzie from me. I didn’t know how she would have reacted if she’d awakened and seen he was carrying her. Lizzie never met a stranger, so she probably wouldn’t have cared. Landon lifted her from me and headed for the stairs. I followed behind him. It was still raining outside, but not nearly as badly as it had been earlier.
When we got to our house, I opened the door and pointed Landon toward our room. I showed him which bed to put Lizzie in and he laid her down gently. She rolled over onto her side and tucked her little hands under her pillow. I took her shoes off, pulled the covers over her, and walked into the living room.
Landon already had walked back to the door and was getting ready to walk outside when he turned to me and said, “I do have one question, if you don’t mind.”
I leaned up against the wall, crossed my arms, looked directly at him, and said, “Oh yeah, what would that be?”
He stifled a laugh. “Why on earth would Lizzie think that storm was going to drop off a witch?”
I couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“We were watching The Wizard of Oz before we came to your house,” I answered.
Landon chuckled as he walked out the door.
What had happened tonight? Why was he being nice to me? I was nothing to him. But I ended up dreaming of that boy all night long.
I woke the next morning and still couldn’t believe Landon had gotten into my space the way he had. When he touched my face, I thought I was going to freak out. The feeling I got in the pit of my stomach was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I still didn’t understand why he’d done that. He hadn’t made another attempt to talk to me since my first day of school when I had seen him in the lunch room.
He was definitely not what I’d thought he was. I’d had him pegged as this arrogant ass and he actually seemed like a pretty nice guy. I’d noticed before that he was nice-looking, but now I seemed to be very aware that he was absolutely gorgeous and I couldn’t get him off my mind. I’d never really thought of him that way before. I guess I just couldn’t see past what I’d thought was arrogance.
Freaky lunch friends
It was Monday again, time to head back to Farm School. It was pretty much a normal day, until lunch. I hadn’t seen Landon all day, so when I hit the lunch room I looked around to see if I could find him, not that I would have approached him anyway. He could have just been being nice to me because we were neighbors. Yeah, that’s all it was. I put my head down and went through the line, grabbed my pizza, and headed to my table in the corner. I sat with my back toward the rest of the cafeteria the way I always did. I was just starting to enjoy my pizza when some girl I’d never seen before came over to my table, set her tray down, and claimed a seat. She was a pretty girl. She was thin and kind of tall, and her hair hung in red ringlets that fell just below her shoulders. Her red hair had blonde highlights in it and the curls were loose. She was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Life’s a Beach.”
“Do you mind if I sit with you?” she asked. “I hate new schools and I just never know where to sit. Ya know, I went to a new school back home and ended up sittin’ down right smack in the middle of the snotty girls. I sure don’t wanna do that again. They were so dang mean to me. I was glad I only had to go to that school a month before we moved again. So, I’m figurin’ since you’re sittin’ by yourself that you must be new too. My name is Milah Jo, and I just moved here from Alabama. We just got up here yesterday and Mama’s already makin’ me go to school. Do you believe that? She didn’t even let me get all my stuff unpacked. We moved up here ’cause my mama done got tired of my daddy runnin’ around all the time. She said she wasn’t gonna put up with it no more and packed us kids right up in Daddy’s Chevette. Boy, I bet he was mad when he found out his car was gone. Anyway, Mama brought us young’uns up here to live with Maw and Paw. We may be here a few days or a few months. I just never know anymore. Did I tell you my name is Milah Jo? What’s yours, hon?”
Um, okay. This was strange. I hadn’t asked her to sit with me and I sure hadn’t asked for her life story, but she’d given it to me anyway. How should I deal with this one? I so knew what it is like to be the new kid. She couldn’t mean any harm because she didn’t know anyone yet, right?
“I’m Jane, Jane Michaels,” I answered. “Yes, I’m new. I’ve been here about a month.”
“Girl, you been here a month and you’re still sittin’ by yourself? What, do you not make friends easy? Smell bad or something? Oh gosh, you brush your teeth, don’t ya? Cause that’s just nasty if you don’t. How in the world could you be here a month and not have any friends? My mama tells me I’m a social butterfly and I will bloom wherever I go. She also tells me I never know when to shut up neither. She thinks I just rattle on and on all the time.”
Then, Milah Jo laughed, very loudly. I didn’t laugh with her.
All I could think about was how that laugh would be drawing attention our way. I decided I was going to have to get rid of her.
“I hate to tell you, Milah Jo, but I’m not well-liked here, and sitting with me may be social suicide. So if you want to be a social butterfly, you might want to find another place to sit.”
She gave me a strange look.
“Hon, I make friends wherever I go. I make enemies too. And my senses tell me you need a friend, so unless you wanna be mean and run me off, you’ll let me sit with you for a little while. But of course, darlin’, if I’m really botherin’ ya, I can move.”
Okay, now I felt like an ass. I didn’t want to intentionally be mean to anyone. And she sounded so genuine with that Southern accent of hers. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let
her sit with me at lunch until she made some friends.
“If you want to sit here, I guess you can,” I finally said.
“Thanks, hon, that sure is nice of you. So, can you fill me in on any of the good gossip about any of the students here?”
“As you can see, I sit alone, so I don’t know much of anything about anybody around here. You’ll have to go scouting around somewhere else to get that info,” I explained.
The truth was I might not have talked to anybody, but I sure did observe them. You could learn a lot from observation. I was pretty sure Emily was Queen Bee of the snotty girls and that there were a bunch of guys so into farming that they were in a club for it. I didn’t know what to think of the girls with the long hair and long skirts. The jury was still out on that one.
Before Milah Jo had a chance to say anything, a tray landed on the other side of mine. What the hell was going on today? I turned and looked up to see Landon standing there.
“I see you’re letting people sit with you today and I thought I would join in while I had the chance. Do you mind?” he asked.
This had to be some kind of joke. Why couldn’t these people just leave me alone already?
“You’re kidding me, right?” I said. “Why would you even want to sit with me?”
“Girl, what in the world are you doin’?” Milah Jo chimed in. “Come on over here, honey. You can sit next to me. I don’t mind,” she said, patting the seat next to her.
“That’s really nice of you. And what is your name?” Landon asked her.
“Oh, my name is Milah Jo. Milah Jo Duncan. And your name is?”
I was pretty sure she was starting to drool.
Landon reached out his hand to shake Milah Jo’s.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Landon Whitman. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take this seat next to Jane.”
“That’s fine, hon. You sit wherever you like as long as it’s at this table,” Milah Jo said. “I would have to say that Landon Whitman sounds like a fine, upstanding name. Suits you well, I think.”
What was Landon doing? Didn’t he realize everyone was going to see him sitting with me?
“Aren’t you worried that someone might see you over here?” I asked. “I’m sure you’ve heard all the stuff they say about me.”
That was my one last plea to get him to move. Deep down, I really didn’t want him to go. For some reason, I craved his company now, but I sure didn’t want him to know that. No matter how much I wanted him to sit with me, I had to get him to leave.
He raised his eyebrows and cocked a grin.
“Really, Jane, are you judging me again? I don’t care what they see and I don’t believe what they say. I told you the other night that I’m not like that. I meant it. You’ve sparked my curiosity and I would really like to get to know you if that’s okay.”
Milah Jo leaned over my way and spoke what I think she thought was a whisper, but I’m sure Landon and everyone else in the cafeteria heard her.
“Girl, if you don’t tell that boy what he wants to know about you, I’m gonna tell him everything he could possibly ever want to know about me. That boy is HOT! Woo, Wee! HOT!”
I could feel my face turning red. I had known this girl for maybe ten minutes and she had already managed to embarrass me. Instead of shrinking down in my chair like I normally did, I decided I would try to act like I had some kind of confidence.
“Are you curious about me, Landon, or the story behind me?” I snapped.
“You got a story behind ya, girlie?” Milah Jo interrupted. “You better start spillin’, toots. I’m always up for a good story.”
“No, there’s no story here,” I said, sighing.
“Jane, I would just really like to get to know you. That’s it,” Landon said.
He leaned in close to my face.
“I like you. You’re not like all the other girls around here. They’re all so superficial. You seem real. With you, what you see is what you get. I like that. Can’t we be friends?”
How was I to respond to that? I’d gone so long avoiding any kind of interaction with other people, I didn’t even know if I would know how to be somebody’s friend. Now all of a sudden I had two people sitting next to me claiming they wanted to be my friends. They both seemed genuine too. I’d decided long ago I wouldn’t open myself up to get hurt, but I was so lonely. The only person I ever actually carried on a conversation with was four years old. Maybe I could just pretend to be friends with them. I didn’t have to expose my whole, real self to them. Okay, it would be nice to have somebody to sit with at lunch or go do something with every once in a while. Oh, no. No. No. No. I couldn’t be considering this. This was not a good idea. I knew it wouldn’t end well, yet I couldn’t bring myself to turn them away. It was so lonely being me.
“I guess since the both of you have decided to invade my space and declare it Jane Needs a Friend Day, I guess I could give you both a chance. But, don’t expect much from me. I will not be a good friend,” I advised.
Milah Jo smiled big and clapped her hands together.
“Darlin’, I told you I make friends wherever I go. So what are we doing this weekend?”
“You want to do something this weekend? Well, you’re probably going to have to ask someone else about that, because I don’t know anything about this place or what they do here in Hicksville,” I replied.
Milah Jo smiled at me again and then pointed straight at Landon.
He was leaning back in his chair with a huge grin on his face.
“That works for me. What are you girls up for?”
“I don’t know. What do farm kids do around here?” I queried.
“We farm kids here in Hicksville do a lot of things. Some probably aren’t so different from what you did in the city. Others will probably sound crazy to you, City Girl. I bet you don’t even have it in you to keep up. Do you want to do something you’re used to or something you’ve never done before? Or are you scared?”
Now he was just looking totally full of himself.
I dropped my pizza onto my plate.
“I can take anything you throw at me, Mustang Boy!”
I’ve always been secretly competitive; I don’t like for someone to think I can’t do something. I didn’t know if Landon somehow knew that or if he just got lucky, but either way he had my full attention.
He leaned up and folded his hands on the table. I could tell he was starting to enjoy this.
“Okay, how about a little paintball war on Saturday?” Landon suggested.
I leaned forward toward the table also.
“Is that something like laser tag? Because I’m pretty good at that.”
Milah Jo burst out laughing.
“Girl, paintball ain’t nothin’ like laser tag! Laser tag is for sissies; paintball will hurt your ass.”
She looked over at Landon.
“Dude, seriously? You say you like Jane here and you wanna take her out and shoot her up with paintballs. What the hell is that about?”
He looked at me and then looked at Milah Jo.
“Jane would be on my team; I would totally have her back. Kyle can go with us and partner up with you, Milah Jo.”
I was pretty sure the twinkles in Milah Jo’s eyes were spelling out “double date.” There was no doubt she liked the idea of that. I would have to straighten her out to make sure she knew this was no kind of date—just a few people doing something fun. That was it.
“Sounds good to me. Just let me know when and where,” I lied.
Getting shot with balls of paint did not sound good to me. But I would give it a try, especially if Landon thought I was scared.
He leaned back in his chair again.
“We can head out around ten Saturday morning to pick up Milah Jo and Kyle. Milah Jo, where do you live anyway?”
Milah Jo looked like she was going to jump right out of her chair.
“I live out on the old McCoy farm on Graces Run Road. Do you know where that is?”
How in the world was I going to be friends with this girl? Every emotion she felt just radiated from her. I didn’t radiate crap.
Landon looked a little confused.
“Do you mean Otis and Thelma’s place?”
Milah Jo smiled and said, “Yeah, hon, that’s my Maw and Paw. Do you know ’em?”
Landon didn’t look confused anymore.
“Everybody knows Otis and Thelma. I’m pretty sure you can find Otis sitting in McDonald’s having his coffee every morning around six.”
Milah Jo laughed.
“Yep, that’s my Paw! Maw gets so mad at him. She just don’t understand why he can’t drink his coffee at home.”
The bell rang, which meant my very freaky lunch was over. Good thing, too, because I didn’t think I could have handled much more awkwardness. As we got out of our seats, Landon let us know he would see us again tomorrow at lunch and headed toward the gym. Milah Jo asked if she could see my schedule, because she wanted to know if any of our classes matched up for the rest of the day. We had English together last period. She was happy she would see a familiar face at least once throughout the rest of the day. She even told me she was “tickled pink.” Who says that?
I was glad to end the day and get off that stinking-ass bus. I had to find out what that smell was. It was horrible. I took my time walking up the lane to the house. I needed time to reflect on my day. How had things gotten so strange all of a sudden? I’d really thought I’d fallen into a nice routine of solitude. It had been a month and no one had bothered to try to be my friend. I’d been doing pretty well, until now. I had to admit, though: There was a small part of me that was kind of excited at the thought of Landon wanting to get to know me. I just didn’t understand why. There wasn’t anything special about me. And I was not real sure what to think of Milah Jo yet. That accent of hers was so funny. She called everyone “hon” and “darlin’.” She did seem like a pretty interesting person. I would have to make sure I kept my guard up. I didn’t want to let these two very close to me; I would just end up hurt if I did.
Opiate Jane Page 4