AllFreeNovel
Share Us
12
The moment Jane got home from work that night, she walked into her bedroom and flopped onto her bed. She didn’t feel like doing anything tonight. Not dinner, not drinks, not dancing, nothing. She had been so blindsided by Austin asking her about high school that she couldn’t stop thinking about it all day. She powered through her day and did her best to forget about it, but all day it would pop up from time to time… reminding her of what happened.
“Hey,” Ali said from her bedroom door. “I thought I heard you come in,” she said, looking at her watch. “And about time. Jane, it’s almost 8 pm. Are you OK?”
Laying face down, Jane nodded her head up and down, murmuring sounds that indicated she was alive and conscious.
Knowing her sister all too well, Ali walked in and sat on the edge of Jane’s bed, thinking she might be sick or have a headache. “Janie? Are you sure you’re OK? You don’t normally lay down after a full day of work, especially on a Friday night.”
Jane slowly rolled over on her bed and looked at her sister. She had a blank stare on her face and just felt like sinking into her bed.
Alarmed at the look on Jane’s face, “Oh, God. What happened? Did you quit? Did you get fired? Did Austin ask you out? What?” Her sister looked down at her with a worried look on her face.
“He knows we went to high school together,” Jane stated, looking at Ali.
“OK…” Ali added, not sure why that was such a bad thing because she figured it would come out eventually. “Did he remember you? Or say anything about what happened? I mean, I did tell you he would most likely find out.”
“I don’t know how he put two and two together, but he did,” Jane replied.
Ali sat, staring at her sister with confusion on her face. She wasn’t sure why her sister was acting so weird about it. Who cared if he knew that they went to high school together? It was more than 10 years ago. “OK, so he found out. Why do you look like you want to hide away forever?”
Jane slowly lifted herself up and crossed her legs so that she was facing her sister on the bed. “You know why, Ali.”
“Did he say something to you about it?” Ali asked.
“No,” Jane answered, “but now I feel like it’s only a matter of time. And what if he says something to his brothers?”
Ali stared at her sister, knowing she didn't have an answer for her.
Jane sat there, feeling her stomach knot up as she thought back to sophomore year in her chemistry class. Someone in her chemistry class must have figured out that she had a crush on Austin back then. She never discovered how someone knew that but, one day after class, Tim Walsh, a friend of Austin’s, approached her and told her that Austin had a crush on her and wanted to ask her out. Jane had been completely blindsided by Tim’s revelation and felt herself come alive about the idea of Austin Drew wanting to ask her out. As much as she knew it seemed crazy, because she was most definitely not Austin’s type back in high school, she also couldn’t figure out why Tim would purposely lie about it to her, so she allowed herself to dare to dream.
Jane slowly looked over at her sister, “You remember when Tim convinced me to ask Austin to hang out? I’ll never forget him claiming that Austin didn’t know for sure how I felt about him, so it would be easier if I said something to him first.” Jane paused for a second, feeling her stomach tighten. “My God, I was so naïve. I was so nervous about it, but Tim kept pushing me to ask him, so I somehow built up the nerve to go up to him after chemistry class and ask him out. I still don’t know how I had the nerve to do it back then but, fool that I was, I did.”
Ali took a pillow off Jane’s bed and nudged her with it. “You weren't a fool, Jane! That ass told you he liked you!”
“And you remember what happened after I asked him, right?” Jane asked, making eye contact with her sister
Ali just nodded, knowing that Austin’s reaction had hurt her to the core.
Jane shook her head and let out a deep breath, “My God, I’ll never forget him just staring at me. He had no idea who I was, or why I was asking. I completely caught him off guard. I realized instantly that Tim had pulled a cruel joke on me and had lied about the entire thing. I looked like a total fool in front of Austin and was totally humiliated.”
“Oh, Janie…” Ali said in a kind voice, reaching over to stroke her sister’s arm. "My heart broke for you when that happened. It was a shitty thing to do.”
“Austin basically looked at me like I was a joke and went right back to walking down the hallway. He didn’t even answer me; he just looked at me with a blank stare. The next day in class, Tim looked at me with a smirk on his face, making me feel even worse. It was horrible. I was simply an idiot for thinking people like Austin fell for people like me.”
“Well, don’t forget… that whole thing was Tim’s idea, not Austin’s. That guy was a freaking jerk.”
Jane nodded her head, knowing that was true, but also knowing that Austin could have come to her defense back then, or made the blow a little softer for her.
“Did he give any indication of remembering this incident?” Ali asked.
Jane shook her head. “He didn’t say anything about it to me; he just simply asked if I went to Barrington High School. I mean, I know it wasn’t a big deal to him, because he barely acknowledged me in high school anyway; but it was, most definitely, the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me.”
“So that was all he asked today—did you go to Barrington High? Nothing else?” Ali asked.
“No,” Jane answered, “thank God. To be honest, I was completely blindsided by him saying anything in the first place. He had just come in to give me an update about the wedding, and as he was leaving, he asked me about high school. It totally threw me off guard.”
“So what did you say?”
