Friday (part 1)

F .1

In the morning, Jane was sore. And that was all the reminder she needed to recall what had happened yesterday.

Did I really... Yes, I did. And not just once, but twice. With two different people. The first thing I need to do when I get to school is see if Nurse Chaplain has the Morning-After Pill. I'm pretty sure this is the wrong time in my schedule, but, better be safe than sorry.

Not that she really recalled all that much of it; everything after the first half of choir was really a blur. There'd been Russell; there'd been Jeff; there'd been the rain, sweeping down in sheets, barely visible in the blue-light gloom of the October dusk...

And then after that had been the flurry of the hospital, the confusion, the panic—the nurse's growing incredulity as more and more people came. Arie, nearly in tears; Derek, his arm around her; Mr. and Mrs. Chang, looking harrowed. Brandon, Meredith, Christa, Zach, Stasya, Jeff, Jane herself, Sajel and her date... Tommy and Lisa, of all people, what were they doing here? And then Trina, once they were finally allowed to see her: pale, clammy, breathing but seemingly swallowed by the monstrosity of bed and safety equipment and monitor machines. And then finally Dr. Zelvetti, arriving nearly at ten-thirty—who had called her? Why? Of them all, Arie had taken it the worst.

And then someone must have driven her and Lisa home, unless she was hallucinating waking up in her own bed. Because here she was, or here she appeared to be, and the blazing recurrence of sunlight through the window made her think the world had gone crazy and staggered back to summer again.

"All right." Her mother bustled in, dragging Lisa by the arm. "What happened last night? You guys didn't get in until eleven o'clock. I sat and waited for both of you at school for an hour, I tried your cellphones. I almost went insane before just deciding that I'd have to trust you and your witless brains. So, what happened?"

Jane blinked at her. "I had sex," she said.

"What!" said Lisa.

"With whom?" her mother asked.

"Jeff Gainesborough," Jane said. "He's Stasya's friend. He's been hanging out with us for a while. And then also with Russell Hebbert."

"At the same time!" Lisa said.

"No," Jane retorted, "of course not. Separately."

"Who's Russell Hebbert," her mother asked.

"I... I really have no idea," Jane said truthfully.

Megan Myers peered at her for a moment. "I don't understand you at all sometimes." She turned to her younger daughter. "And you? Judging by the activities of the past week, I think I can imagine."

"I had sex," said Lisa.

"Really?" Jane said.

"With whom?" her mother asked.

"Tommy Sternbacher, of course," said Lisa.

Jane gave her an angular glance. "How many times?"

For once Lisa seemed discomfited. She glanced around the room for a moment, as though it might somehow have the answer. "Three," she said.

"The first thing I want both of you to do, once you get the school, is talk to the nurse about getting the Morning-After Pill," Mrs. Myers said. "The last thing we need is— What's so funny?"

Jane shook her head, laughing. "Never mind. Go on, Mom."

Megan Myers stared at the wall for a moment. "Oh, your father's going to have a coronary when he hears about this."

"Maybe we shouldn't tell him," Lisa said.

"Nonsense, of course we should tell him," said her mother. "We can't keep that from him. But you know how he loves his little girls."

"I'm not exactly a little girl anymore," Lisa said.

"I know, why do you think he's going to have a coronary," her mother said. "But still. Lisa, even if you did it three times, unless little Tommy has more endurance than most of mankind put together, there's no way it could've taken until eleven o'clock. Where were you?"

"Well, I, we..." said Lisa.

Jane shook her head. "Trina went to the hospital."

"Trina?" said her mother. "Who's Trina?"

"Trina Chang," said Lisa. "Arie's sister. She's a sophomore."

"Why'd she go to the hospital," her mother asked.

"She, um." Lisa hesitated, once again nervous. "She tried to kill herself."

"What!" said Megan Myers.

"Mom," Jane said, cutting off the explosion. "Arie is clinically depressed. So is Trina. Haven't you ever felt like things were hopeless, that you were ruined and everything was all over?"

"Well..." said Megan Myers, hesitating. "Yes."

"That's how Trina felt, last night," said Jane. "Except worse. Except a lot worse. She felt so bad that she decided the best thing to do would be end it now. And so she tried it."

"Jane..." said her mother. "I'm not sure I want you... Associating with people who—"

"Mom!" Jane flared. "Don't you see? Are you listening? This isn't normal. She tried something crazy, for the same reason anyone would try something crazy—because she was in a crazy situation. She's a normal girl. But sometimes, just like anyone, she does abnormal things. Okay?"

Megan Myers blinked a few times and gaped at her daughter. She had seen Jane act this defensive before; oh yes, she'd seen it many times. But never about... Someone else.

"Well," she said at last. "We've got to get you two to school. Up and at 'em, Janey. One more day."

One more day. She had almost forgotten, in all the chaos of the afternoon and evening. Today was Friday. Her last day in The Program. After tomorrow, she would never need to go without clothes again, unless she wanted to. The end of an era.

Will I ever actually want to go naked?... Probably not. Not in public, at least. But if I ever find a boyfriend, whom I love, and we... You know. Well, it's hard to do that with clothes on, right? That's what Dad said.

Her friends were gathered on the Stetsen porch, as always; Arie and Derek were joking together, Meredith and Brandon conversing with Stasya and Jeff, Zach and Christa talking to Sajel. It was like everything had reset, all the tremors and shakes and confusions gone, and they had all fallen back to a simpler state of life, to a place where everything was easy and strife unknown, kissed away by the warmth of the sun. For a moment she felt a flicker of déjà vu, as if none of the last week had ever happened.

Then Jeff looked up and saw her, and his eyes went wide and tight, and he smiled.

"And Jane herself," said Meredith, smiling. "How are you? I understand something happened last night, before Trina, but we never got a chance to ask you."

"Oh, well," said Jane.

"Jeff won't tell us," Brandon amplified. "He says it's your business and not his."

Jeff gave her a calm look and a shrug.

"Well..." said Jane, suddenly reluctant. Russell she could explain away: she'd been plain-out insane, pushed by his endless confidence into things she never would have agreed to otherwise. Just like Trina, I suppose. But Jeff... That had been entirely her idea. Even more like Trina.

And yet Meredith and Brandon were, of all her friends, the two most likely to understand.

"He and I had sex last night," she said.

"What?!" said Brandon, incredulous. "First you fucked Russell, then you did Jeff??"

Jane winced. "Please. Not so loud."

But it was already too late. "Wait, what?" Sajel called over. "Did you just say she fucked Russell?"

"She did," Arie said. "We saw it."

"And then she did it with Jeff," Brandon said. "Or so she says."

Everyone looked at Jeff, who managed to give them a totally blank face. "Don't look at me," he said. "It was her idea. She was gagging for it."

"I was not!" Jane retorted. "I just... The thing with Russell was bad, okay? It was really bad. He just threw me over the desk and took me, basically."

"Really?" Arie said.

"And him claiming to be some sort of super-skilled sex god, too..." Zach said.

"Did he know it was your first time," Arie asked. "Did you tell him?"

"No," Jane said. "I didn't have a chance to. Everything just moved too fast."

"And how does this relate to Jeff," Brandon asked.

"Well... Russell wasn't my first time," Jane said. "—I mean, it was my first time, but it... wasn't. It wasn't like first times are supposed to be like."

"I dunno," Meredith said. Brandon's arm curled around her waist in a lazy loop. "First times can be overrated. Generally they aren't half as good as porn stories and romance novels and things make them out to be."

"I wouldn't know," said Jane. "But I'm pretty sure that, even for a real one, being thrown over a desk and taken is still a pretty bad deal. Isn't your partner supposed to be nice to you, at least?"

"Yes," Christa said, ending the debate.

"So..." said Jane. "I asked Jeff to help me with a real first time. And... He did."

There was a short silence as they digested this idea.

"So... You fucked Russell," Brandon said, "and then you made love with Jeff."

Jane considered this statement. "Yeah," she said. She liked the sound of it, the clear verbal differences in what was, after all, essentially the same physical act. "Yeah."

"So," Derek said. "How was it?"

"Well..."

"He meant Jeff, lady, stop hogging the spotlight," Zach interjected, grinning.

Jane blushed. "Err. I."

"Zach, shut up," Sajel said, "minus three hundred points Zach. Jeff and Jane: how was it?"

"Well," Zach said, "he had fun, we know that..."

"Not necessarily," Meredith said. "I'm sure that's what Russell's saying about Jane right now, and we all know the truth of that."

"Well, that's what makes him a moron," Zach said easily. "Unlike myself, who is sensitive, kind and perceptive."

Sajel gave a loud, amused "Hah!"

"So, how was it, guys?" Christa asked.

"Well. Zach basically got it," Jeff said. "I liked it. I mean, I had sex: what's to complain about?"

"Spoken like a true man," Brandon observed dryly.

"And you, Jane?" Arie asked. "How was it for you?"

"Well..." Jane reflected on the events of the past twenty-four hours. "The sex was good. I mean, that's kind of to be expected. Brandon was right: I really am sensitive. It doesn't take a lot to make me, uhm. Come.

"The thing is..." She swallowed. What an enormous admission to make. "I like... Sex. I mean, I know I used to, um. Masturbate. A lot, until my mom caught me and yelled at me. I was six, so I was, you know, really impressionable. And then there's all that stuff you guys told me about not wanting to be perceived as flawed—"

"Hey, it's not like we were just making that stuff up," Zach protested.

"No, I know that," Jane said. "But I haven't been able to figure out if it's right or not. It feels right, though, and it certainly explains my actions."

"So what prompted you to change your mind," Meredith asked.

Jane thought for a moment.

"It... The time was right," she said, and everyone nodded.

"I had all of you guys, you know, telling me that this was the time. And not just you: everyone. Lisa, Dr. Zelvetti, my classmates, the school in general... Even my parents. Not to say that they, you know, wanted me to have sex, but they told me: 'You're in The Program for a reason. Don't waste it.' But the hardest thing for me to do was admit that I was in The Program for a reason. That I did want to explore my, my, you know, sexuality. But once I did..." She shrugged.

"You really, really explored it," Zach said, grinning. "Is there anything you haven't done?"

Jane felt a spike of wicked humor in herself and said, grinning: "Anal."

"Whoa!" said Zach. Arie catcalled, and everyone else laughed.

"So, Jane," Meredith said. "If someone asked you out today, would you have sex with him?"

"What, today," Jane asked.

"Well, not necessarily today..." Meredith said. "Though you'd be in good company if you did. Most of us slept with our partners on our first date. Or before... Actually, come to think of it, I think Brandon and I were the only ones who actually waited until our first date to do it."

"Hey," Stasya said, "what am I, chopped liver?"

"I might ask the same thing," Sajel said.

"Right, but we aren't asking you," Zach said, sticking his tongue out.

Sajel tossed her hands. "Chopped-liverdom. Nine thousand, three hundred forty two points from Zach."

"Why that number?" Zach asked.

"Not on the first date," Jane said, "I'm not that desperate."

"But you'd consider doing it at all," Brandon said.

"Well... Yeah," Jane said. "If the time was right. Brandon, believe it or not, I did actually think about having sex with you. Not, like, seriously contemplated it, but, just... Fantasized." She shrugged. "About what it might be like, one day, if you and I were married, had children... I could conceive of it happening, is the point, though never on the time scale you were suggesting."

"The time wasn't right," Brandon said.

"Yeah," Jane said. "It wasn't."

Brandon sighed. "I wish you'd told me that."

"I'm glad I didn't," Jane said. "Because look at us now. Look at you now." He was holding Meredith's hand, unwilling to be separated from her for even a minute. "I love you, Brandon, and I always will, but you're much happier with Meredith. Even I can see that."

"The time was just... Never right," Brandon said.

"Yeah," said Jane.

"But one day, the time will be," he said. "For you."

"Yeah," Jane said. "Like, when I'm on birth control, for instance."