The week passed by at snail's pace. I couldn't remember a time when I had been so bored with my classes and friends. I constantly found myself on the lookout for Jana, though every time I did happen to see her, I ducked out of the way so she wouldn't spot me. I wanted to talk to her so bad, but what could I say? My friends wisely avoided the topic with me. They kept our conversations on other topics and didn't even mention any of Jana's best friends. I didn't look for other girls to date, either. There was absolutely no one I wanted to go out with.
On Saturday, almost exactly a week after we had split, I trudged to the library after lunch to work on a Family Livings report. We were supposed to pick a topic and research it, then write a report on it. The topics were really dumb, I thought, and I had just randomly chosen to do Day-Care Centers. I have no idea why. I'm not interested in them or anything. I had just found the books I needed and had seated myself at a table near the windows when I heard someone come up next to me.
"Hi, Randy! Mind if I sit by you?"
I looked up to see Sara Sawyer standing there. She was a nice girl. I had gone to school with her for years and we were sorta friends. I smiled halfheartedly.
"Sure, go ahead."
She plopped down into the seat and opened her notebook.
"Working on the Family Livings report?" She asked, then added, not waiting for an answer, "what topic did you pick?"
"Day-care Centers," I mumbled.
"Wow! Me too! Maybe we can share research."
I thought that over quickly. I sure didn't mind. The sooner I got this over with, the better.
"Sure."
We worked on our projects for the next half hour, and it actually went pretty well. We couldn't talk much because we were in the library, but all the better, because I really didn't feel much like talking anyway. Good grief, I thought suddenly as a horrible thought hit me. What if one of Jana's friends, or even Jana herself, saw me spending time with Sara? She might think I was dating her for the experiment, and there was no way I wanted to give Jana that idea. I wanted Jana to see that I liked and respected her, but I was not going to follow her every wish. At least while we were broken up.
Sara brought me back to the present when she slammed her notebook shut. She glanced at her watch and then smiled at me.
"Hey, it's only 1:30. Are you going to go over to Bumpers for a while?"
I had mentioned to Scott and Mark that I would try to see them at Bumpers today.
"Yeah, I'll probably go over for awhile."
"Great! So am I. Want to walk over together?"
"Okay." I didn't really WANT to, what if somebody saw us?, but I couldn't very well say, no thanks, I'd rather walk over by myself. She'd think I was being rude.
A few minutes later, we found ourselves being swept into Bumpers. The place was packed, as usual, and I looked around to see if I could spot Scott or Mark.
"Hey, Kirwan!"
I turned around to see Keith Masterson coming towards me.
"Hi, Keith," I replied. Keith was a pretty good friend of mine, and dated Jana's best friend, Beth Barry.
"You two come from the library or something?" He asked, nodding to the notebooks in Sara's and my hands.
"Yeah, we were looking up stuff for Family Living reports." I saw Keith look back and forth between Sara and I and then raise his eyebrows. Oh great. "Hey, have you seen Daly or Peters?" I asked quickly.
"Yup, Mark's over there, but Scott left a little while ago. See ya around."
I waved and then said goodbye to Sara and quickly started making my way towards the table where Mark was sitting with a bunch of guys from the football team.
"What's up?" I said as I sank into a seat. Everyone said their greetings and we talked for awhile, then I excused myself to get a soda. I wasn't really paying attention to the people around me, until I was almost at the order counter. Sitting near the middle of a room in a green bumper car by herself was Jana. I couldn't help but think about all the fun times we've had together and that if we were still dating, I might go over and sit next to her and we'd talk for awhile. The feeling depressed me so much that I tried to look away, but just at that moment, Jana looked up herself and locked eyes with me. She, too, looked sad- or was her face reflecting mine?- but quickly looked away. I watched as she stood up and walked over to a booth where Beth Barry was sitting with the Dreadful Alternatives, our school's rockband. As she sank in next to Parker Donovan, I turned and headed to get in line. I didn't want to see her have fun with other kids when I was so miserable. I couldn't remember when I'd been so depressed. What a rotten week. I hoped the next would be better. Ha.
If I'd only known what was to come.