THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - VOLUNTEERS

"Look what's happening out in the streets

Got a revolution! (Got to revolution!)"

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE (from the album "Volunteers" (1969)


Sent: February 3rd, 1999

From: JenRocks

To: AGirlNamedJoey

Subject: Boy troubles

Hi, Joey. How crazy do you think it´s possible to be about a guy, you haven´t even kissed yet? I´ve been asking myself that question a lot lately, now that myself and Jack have been working so hard together on Abby´s election campaign. Abby herself, as you could probably imagine, is more concerning herself with soaking up all of the adulation, she´s been getting at school since she stood up to Belinda last week, than anything involving actual student politics. But I have to give her that she´s already become pretty great at doing that politician thing, where they say a whole lot, without really saying anything at all. It seems to be working for her though, so who´s to say that she can´t pull off an upset? I can easier see her winning than mousy, little Mary-Beth, although don´t Dawson that I called her that. She really is a total sweetheart, once you get to know her and her and Dawson are all kinds of cute together, but let´s be real here: If she´s too shy to talk to anyone, that she´s doesn´t at least know pretty well, how big are the chances of her winning anything, that involves her having to talk to strangers and trying to get them to vote for her?

Meanwhile, I´ve been constantly driving myself crazy with trying to come up with the perfect way of telling Jack, how I feel about him. I´ll do it soon, I promise, I just need to find the absolute perfect moment to make my move. Keep those fingers crossed for your old pal back in Capeside here!

PS: How did you tell Pacey, that you´re in love with him? I´m just curious!

XOXO

Jen


Sent: February 2nd, 1999

From: AGirlNamedJoey

To: JenRocks

Subject: re: Boy troubles.

I could easily imagine Abby soaking up being the belle of the ball at school for once in her life! I just wish that I could been there to see it, when she clocked Belinda in the mouth, because that would have made my week or perhaps even, my month! You have no idea how much of a mean bitch that girl has been towards me, ever since we were little kids, trust me! Since I can´t be there to cast my vote, you´ll have to make due with all the positive thoughts, I´ve been sending your way lately. Even if the realist in me thinks that there´s a bigger chance of me seeing a pig fly when I return to Capeside, than any real changes being made at Capeside High, my rarely-used overly optimistic side is rooting for you three underdogs all the way.

Telling Pacey that I love him just kind of came out naturally, after we´d been dating for a while and I´d become absolutely sure, it was how I really felt about him. Being without him now is harder, than I´d ever imagined it would have been, so you aren´t the only one, who´s having her share of "boy troubles" (even if they´re radically different issues, we have to deal with). I would advise you not to wait too long though, because with how you´ve been talking him up, there´s bound to be other girls than just you, who have a thing for him.

Good luck with everything!

Joey


To be honest, when Jen had first heard Abby mention the idea of running for student body president, she hadn´t thought that her often talking-before-she-thinks friend would have followed through with it. After all, it wasn´t uncommon for Abby to come up with some spur of the moment idea, that very few else would have come up with and then, when it came to actually doing it, not having the courage to follow through. For as big of a mouth as Abby had, there was a hidden shyness to her and Jen could remember at least one time, where she´d mentioned that doing any kind of public speaking was one of the last things she could imagine doing, second only to going on a date with any of the boys at their school or turning up there without make-up on.

Perhaps this was a sign, that this was a new Abby. A girl, who was letting the self-esteem that she was getting from having someone like Melissa to boost her confidence and cheer her on all of time, make her willing to take more chances. Although, you couldn´t say that she was a natural at being a politician (she was still the same sharp-tongued old Abby Morgan in some ways, when it came down to it), she was slowly picking it up, as they went along with their campaign. Even if they were unlikely to win, they were still turning some heads with their message of unity and that at least, would end up being a small victory for them and their fellow outcasts at school, no matter what.

For herself, it wasn´t working out too bad either, seeing as it meant that she got all of the alone time, she could possibly have wanted with Jack, most of it being spent in his room at his family´s house (that was practically like a mansion, compared to the small house that herself and Grams lived in). If only there would have been some making out involved their "work sessions", it would have been the cherry on the Sundae, but she was making some small progress with him, or so she hoped.

"What do we do if she gets called out on any of the you know, actual issues, that she´s running on standing for?" she (in a very teen-speech way) asked Jack, as they were putting the final touches on Abby´s speech for the "great debate" between the candidates, scheduled for the school assembly the next day. It was a valid question, since Abby clearly cared more about selling herself as a confident candidate, rather than a competent one.

"Cross our fingers and pray for a miracle?" Jack jokingly asked back, getting a giggle out of her, that only made her want to ask him straight out if he liked her "that way" or not, grow even bigger inside of her.

"She´ll do fine, I´m sure of it", he then reassured her, even it did little to make Jen believe that Abby would all of a sudden turn into the next version of Bill Clinton, when it came to making incredible excuses for past misbehaviors, should the need arise to.

"Oh, well. It can´t go any worse than catastrophic, can it?" she quipped and his boyish smile at her lame joke was enough to make her nipples stiffen up a little. Luckily, Grams would have already gone to bed, when she got home, giving her all of the privacy, she needed to have a long hard imagining over what was lurking underneath those tight jeans of his, that did nothing to hide the size of the bulge hiding under those layers of rough-hewn fabric. Was he getting those same dirty thoughts, whenever he looked at her? She certainly hoped so.

On the roughly twenty minutes or so walk home, more thoughts of things she wanted to do to that boy´s naked body kept running through her mind, almost quelling the fear that Abby would completely bomb at the assembly the day after. No matter what, she´d already decided that she would follow Gretchen´s advice, and simply come clean to him about her constantly naughtier growing feelings for him. The only thing that remained was getting the timing right and should the day after end up being a huge success for their small-time revolution, she figured that could be the perfect time to go for broke.


"Could this be the day, where you´re finally asking Jen out?" Jack's sister Andie teasingly asked him, as they were coming up towards their school, where what was sure to be a more interesting school day than usual, awaited them.

"Shouldn´t you be more concerned with your own lack of a dating life, since we came here?" he annoyedly snarled back, hoping that it would close the subject. It didn´t work, though and only seemed to make Andie even more curious, as to what was going on between himself and that blonde girl, whom he couldn´t deny that if he was ever to date a girl again, would be at the top of his very short list of choices.

"You´re hiding something, Jackers! I can tell! Have you already kissed and I just don´t know about it yet, she asked full of hope that her brother has finally realized, that he could have met his potential soulmate in Jen?" Andie cheerfully asked him and it wasn´t like he didn´t want to tell her, why it hadn´t happened yet and, in all likelihood, never would. If he came out to her, his sister would be her same sweet and understanding self, she always was, that much he was a hundred percent sure of. It was more how everyone else would react, that stopped him from declaring his gayness to the world.

"Even if we had, like we haven´t, if you really must know, you´re the last girl I´d confess it to!"

"Why not?"

"You´re my twin sister! Telling you about the details of my ... erotic adventures would just be weird!" he declared, like it should have been the only logical answer, he could have given at that moment.

"Everyone´s already making up things about you two, so what´s stopping you?"

"Like what?" he inquired, uncomfortable that such a thing was going on without his knowing.

"That girl Anna-Belle from my advanced math class told me, that she´s sure that she´s seen you making out down by the beach. Of course, after I pressed her on it, I also found out that with how far away she was, when she saw it, it could have been just about any dark-haired boy, blonde-haired girl combination from our school. I can tell you for sure though, that she isn´t the only one, who thinks that there are things, you two aren´t entirely coming clean about to everyone, if you know what I mean?"

"We haven´t even held hands! Why would they ..."

"Jack, let me quickly explain something to you, as if this was anything that should need explaining in the first place! This is a boring-ass high school in a mostly boring-ass small town, where practically nothing happens outside of the tourist season! Of course, the students here will latch on to anything new and interesting that comes their way, and with you and Jen both still being "the new kids on the block" around here, you happen to fall into that category. I´m sorry to tell you, but there isn´t anything that you can do to stop it!" Andie stated matter-of-factly and while he didn´t want to, the sensible thinking side of him still had to agree with her.

"Why couldn´t he just have been like almost everyone else at their school?", he thought to himself in a fleeting moment. It would have made everything in his life so much simpler, that much was for sure.


(Jen´s main thoughts during the first half of the "great debate"):

"Try to concentrate on the debate, Jen and not on how tight Jack´s pants are! Great! Now, you´re picturing Jack in his underpants again! Stop it!"

"Mary-Beth is a so much better at this, than I ever thought she would be! Okay, stop imagining what Jack looks like naked! It isn´t helping you! You so need to get laid again and the sooner, the better!"

"Aww, look how proud Dawson is of his adorable little girlfriend! Don´t get me ... or rather, yourself, wrong, you´re still glad that it isn´t you in that role, but it would still be nice to just try being looked at like that for once! Like that´ll ever happen!"

"Is this guy trying to talk all of us to sleep? It sure looks like he´s doing a bang-up job at it! Just try not to yawn and it´ll be over soon enough!"

"Stop talking, dude! I´m not the only one, who´s bored to tears here!"

"Okay, so a top three of guys in here, you´d least like to do it with ... let´s see. There´s Chris, he has to be number one ... then again, there´s also that zit-faced freshman kid, who you saw eating one of his own boogers for a dollar and of course there´s always Larry "The Never Empty Fart Machine" Watson, if we´re really scraping the bottom of the barrel! It´s a tough call, I gotta say!"

"Pacey looks bored to tears too. Believe me, you´re not the only one, buddy!"

"Finally, it´s Abby´s turn! Here´s crossing your fingers, that she doesn´t blow it!"

"Okay, so she came off to a nervous start, but she´s getting a hang of it. Come on, Abby! I believe in you! Sort of, anyway!"

"That´s it, get them to nod along with you! And ... one of the jocks is making an obscene gesture at you. Does he actually think doing that would work on any girl with respect for herself?"

"Yes, she got the biggest cheers out of the candidates, we´ve seen so far! We could actually end up winning this thing! Okay, so back to the important stuff again ... does Jack wear boxers or briefs, I wonder?"


After Abby´s speech had gone down like a chocolate cake at a kid´s birthday party, Jack couldn´t help but feel a sense of pride, that he was playing his small part in creating change in a school, where it was all too obviously needed. All of that quickly faded from his mind though, once Belinda took the pulprit and let loose in what can only be described as a display of ultra-bitchy behavior for the ages! He´d met types like her at their old school, just like he imagined that there were at least one of them at every high school in the world, but he´d never seen anything like this before, when it came to blatantly trying to destroy someone else, who had done little to nothing to deserve it.

Mary-Beth got off the easiest, probably because there was nothing that anyone could have against a girl, who always played by the rules, very rarely spoke up and had never done anything bad to anyone else in her entire life. The next pair of candidates didn´t get off as easy and it looked to Jack like if Belinda had been a boy, then they would have clocked her one, to shut her the hell up. Abby got it by far the worst and when Belinda told everyone about her mom being a raging alcoholic, who would soon be sent to jail, it was enough to send Abby humiliated and crying, running out of the auditorium, as an uncomfortable silence fell over every onlooker in there, save for the faint sounds of a nervous giggle here and there.

Jack could far from claim to be among the bravest of those his age, still in that second, he didn´t care if himself and Abby were at best just loose acquaintances, or that everyone would stare at him, if he went after her. It would probably give the most gossip-loving of the girls ideas that something was going on between himself and her, but for those fleeting moments, he couldn´t find it in himself to care either way. If this was his way of standing up for a "fellow gay person" for the first time, then that was how it would be.

He caught up with her not far from the doors to the auditorium, already in the process of cleaning out her locker.

"Don´t you think that´s being kind of hasty?" he shyly asked, as he came up to her.

"I can´t come back here after that, Jack! You don´t know what it was like living with my mom or all of the crap, that woman put me through, while I was living with her! To have it all be announced to the world like that is ..."

"Enough to make it feel like your entire world is falling apart?" he asked and made her stop what she was doing, to look him square in the eyes.

"It´s enough that I know, that I´m bound to turn out as a pathetic loser, who´ll wind up working some dead-end minimum wage job here, because that´s what always happens to small-town girls like me! We don´t get to go off to college, or have big careers that earns us so much cash, that it would make Bill Gates envious! We turn out the exact same as our mothers did and mine is on a downward slope with no end in sight, Jack. They´ll never look at me the same way, now that they all know that that´s what my future looks like too" she told him as earnestly, as he´d ever seen her be before, while a few more tears began flowing down her cheeks.

"Let me just ask you one thing and then, I´ll leave you alone to do whatever you want to with your life. What makes you so sure?"

"Of what?"

"That you´ll amount to nothing or that they´ll never look at you the same way again?"

"Because ... I just know, okay?"

"No, that isn´t okay! If you think that you´re the only one, who scared over what´ll happen in your future, I can tell you that you´re not!"

"Please! With your family´s money and everything else, you have going for you, you can get into any college, you want to, except for perhaps Yale or Harvard! My family have no money to send me to school for. Even if I´ve really been trying my hardest in school lately, my grades suck donkey balls and all I had going for me was this stupid idea, that I could somehow stop Belinda from becoming the uber-bitch of all of Capeside High! Do yourself a favor and save your breath for someone else, because this girl is a lost cause!"

"I don´t think that you´re a lost cause" a voice said, as the girl that it belonged to, came up behind him. "I think you´re amazing and that there isn´t anything you can´t do, if you put your mind and soul into it", she continued, as he turned his head to see that it was Melissa.

"You can´t make me change my mind!" Abby tried half-heartedly retorting. It didn´t stop Melissa from coming up closer to her, as Jack took a step back to give them some semblance of privacy.

"Don´t be too sure about that just yet!" Melissa smilingly replied and moments later, Jack became a close-hand witness to the first same-sex kiss, he´d seen in real life. He´d seen it on TV and sometimes felt a little jealous, that the ones he was watching were open about who they were, when he couldn´t find it in himself to be. Seeing it up-close like this however, had a much different kind of impact on him, than any of those other times had.

It also helped to make him sure of another thing: He had to come clean about being gay to Jen and the sooner, the better, before there was any chance that she ended up getting emotionally hurt, due to himself being such a coward over such as a simple thing as being faithful to who, he was.

If there was such a thing as something that he was entirely sure of, it was that Jen deserved so much better than that.


Jen sincerely hadn´t thought that Abby would have had the courage to return to the auditorium after the humiliation, that Belinda (in the meanest way possible) had bestowed upon her. Had it been herself, then she probably would have either wanted to pick a fight with Belinda or to run and hide, but Abby did something even better than that: Not only did she return to the auditorium, she also unleashed a verbal tirade on her foe, that would have surely made Joey proud of her too, had she been there to see it, before finishing off the show with sharing a long kiss with Melissa (to the huge cheers of the many in the crowd, who clearly didn´t share Belinda´s narrow-minded ideas of what a "Proper Couple" should be. Or, as she suspected, were just horny teenage boys, who got off on seeing pretty two girls kissing, one or the other).

"When I first met you, I didn´t think in my wildest dreams that I´d ever be saying this, but you´re my new personal idol, Abby! You´re right up there with Kim Deal from The Breeders, the girls from The Runaways and Patti Smith and that´s saying something!" she grinningly told Abby on their way to the Ice House, where Abby´s upcoming waitressing shift awaited, to no doubt get her back down to earth again, after the way she´d been almost treated as a rock star by their fellow outcasts, since her "public showing of emotion" with Melissa in the auditorium, a few hours earlier. Rumors had it that it had already led to one other same sex couple coming out in the wake of their very public smooch and if that was true, then who knew what kind of avalanche of openness, that one kiss could have brought with it.

"I´m truly honored, Jen!" Abby grinned back at her, with the pride still oozing off her tiny corpus and no doubt making her feel like she was a foot taller than usual!

"I haven´t even asked yet: What did the principal say, when he called you to his office afterwards?"

"He added another day of Saturday detention onto the many, I´ve already been piling up lately! This time for "showing open disregard" to the PDA code in a public setting" Abby sighed. "Do you think Bessie will give me the chewing out of a lifetime again, like she did after I punched Belinda?"

"If you sell it to her the right way, I think she might even reward you for it. If you weren´t out before, you definitely are now! How does that feel?"

"Like I need to tell my parents in person, before they find out through someone else! Even if they aren´t exactly campaigning for parents of the year, they should still hear it from me first".

"What if they have any ... how do I say it ... objections to it?"

"Then I remind them how god awful they´ve been as parents to me these past years! If you want the truth, I don´t think I´d care all that much, if one of them did. They may have brought me into this world, but any right they had to make decisions for me vanished, when they gave up on being the ones, who tried to raise me the right way. Anyway, I´m done with the whole "trying to be someone, I´m not"! This is just who I am, a too often big-mouthed teenage lesbian from a small North Eastern town, who has no idea what she wants to do with her life and without a doubt has a ton of issues stemming from her childhood, that she still needs to work on!"

"Scratch out the big-mouthed and lesbian part and you might as well have been describing me or most of the other girls, who go to our school. It´s probably why they´ve begun flocking to you, that they see one of their own in you. The boys too, although you could have won over an undesired group of them, let´s call them "the pervert voters", with your not-so-little smooch with Melissa, so you might want to watch out for that!"

"Who cares, as long as they like me? I haven´t told you the best part yet. Guess who I´ll be spending Saturday detention alone with in the library?" Abby winked, like Jen needed to ask, in order to know the answer.

"It supposed to be a punishment, Abby! Maybe, I should do something to give myself Saturday detention, so I can be there to chaperone you two! Do you think that calling Mr. Peterson a fossil will be enough, or do I have to take it a step further than that?" she teasingly asked, as Abby shook her head in protest.

"Don´t you dare, Jen! It was all Melissa´s idea, you know? For us to kiss in front of everyone. She came up with it right after our first kiss, out in the hallway just before our second kiss, that was the one you ... and everyone else, saw. Wanna hear something else? I think that I´m falling in love with her! If I´m not already, I´m not entirely sure on that part! I mean, it isn´t like I´ve actually been in love before, where it was like this and ..."

"The other party liked you back the same way?" Jen interrupted, as Abby nodded along with her in understanding.

"Jealous?"

"A little bit. I´m just happy for you, that you´ve found someone like her, to have those feelings for and who has them for you too. You wouldn´t happen to have some spare courage that you can send my way, so I can stop with this ever more pathetic growing chickening out when it comes to asking Jack, if he wants to try going on a date with me?"

"Do you want me to test the waters for you?" Abby asked and it wasn´t the worst of compromises between trying to forget about her crush and going for broke with asking him straight out, if he wanted to play an intense game of tonsil hockey.

"Try to be a little subtle, alright? I don´t want to risk this friendship, I´ve begun to build with him over this either" she answered, before becoming immediately unsure of that answer just moments later.

"I can be subtle, when I have to! Just leave it to me, Jen and I´ll get you your answer in no time!" Abby tried to reassure her, although Jen still had her deep doubts on the subject.


With their mom having one of her "bad days" and not being able to do much, Jack had suggested to his sister that they went to the Ice House for dinner, mostly because he´d Pacey praising their burgers and he hadn´t had a proper restaurant burger since before they´d left Providence over a month and a half earlier. Andie had been easy to convince and from there on, all he´d wanted was an evening with no stressing over anything, least of all any "Jen Problems". Unfortunately, their waitress for the evening was Abby, who (as it was quickly coming to find out about her) wasn´t one to pull any punches, when it came to asking directly.

"Okay, Jack. So, you´ll have the double bacon cheese burger with fries and a large coke on the side. Andie, can you tell me why your brother is such a dumbass, that he can´t see clear as day that Jen has an enormous crush on him?" Abby, as she was taking their orders, quite openly asked his sister, making himself immediately wanting to crawl under the table or making a go for the door.

"I don´t know, Abby! I´ve been asking myself that same question a lot! Why is it, Jack?" his sister asked him, as both girls (in spite of both of them being shorter than himself) stared him down to make him feel around three inches tall.

"It´s ... complicated, okay!" he tried with, only it didn´t satisfy either of his two interrogators.

"See, even he doesn´t know anymore!" his sister teasingly said.

"Just ask her out on one date, Jack! If it works out, then that´s great and even if it doesn´t, then you can say that you´ve tried it and both of you can move on. If not for yourself, then you can at least do it for Jen. She deserves to know where she stands, don´t you agree?" Abby asked and something in what she said made him think to himself, that she wasn´t entirely off in her idea. Not all of it, but just going on a date with Jen didn´t naturally mean that he had to do anything physical with her and if their date was bad, that could get her to forget about her impossible crush on him.

"There´s a dance coming up soon. You could ask her to be your date for that?" his sister suggested and after they´d finished their dinner, they´d stopped by Screen Time, where he knew that Jen and Pacey were working the evening shift together. He´d only had to hint at asking Jen to come with him to the dance, before she´d asked the question for him and with that, the plan was set.

Now, he just had to keep her at bay for a few weeks until the dance and use that time to work on the details for how exactly to fulfill his plan.

END OF CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

SORRY FOR THE WAIT FOR THIS CHAPTER, BUT I´VE BEEN TOO BUSY WITH OTHER THINGS IN MY LIFE LATELY TO DO MUCH WRITING. I HOPE THAT YOU ENJOYED IT.