Jane Newman was a photographer by nature, and when offered the opportunity to travel across the country with the girls' soccer team to photograph them for the yearbook, who was she to say no? Who cares if she didn't really speak to any of them? It's...
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Taissa was really starting to dislike Jane Newman. No one else could quite understand; in fact, everyone else on the team seemed to really like her; it was all to varying degrees...Misty's creepy obsession with Jane, Jackie's pure friendship with her - which was weird since she didn't even show that sort of affection to Shauna; even Javi seemed to be enamoured with her, letting her baby him when he could barely look at his own brother. But none of that was why Taissa didn't like Jane. It was because of Van.
No one else understood. How could they? It's not like they knew of her and Van's relationship; they didn't know of the secret kisses they shared under the bleachers, the lingering touches, the sweet words they'd spoken. And now, Van was barely even looking at her any more. Now Van saved her sweet words, her lingering touches for Jane. It was only a matter of time before the sweet kisses meant for her would be given to Tai, and in the wilderness, there would be no escape from the kind of pain that would cause her.
No. No one else could possibly understand.
That innocent act, the sweet smile, the wide, innocent eyes as she smiled at her, as she pretended not to know that she was flirting with a taken woman in front of her girlfriend. Jane was a pretender, and Tai was sure of it. It was only a matter of time before her true colours were revealed, and Tai would be there to dance on her grave when it happened.
She did, however, have to begrudgingly admit that Jane wasn't completely useless. She tried her best, albeit with her leg in such bad shape; she couldn't do much. That much was obvious. But she still did her chores, she still cleaned the clothes and hung them up to dry, and she'd still tried to cook them all dinner with Shauna's rations, but that had only happened once. They weren't stupid enough to put her on dinner duty again, not after the horror they'd had to eat the first time.
And the only person to truly try and console her was Van. As they all ripped into her about her shoddy cooking, Tai being the first to jump onto that train, Van was there, an arm around her shoulder as she tried to convince Jane that she'd enjoyed it. And Tai was seething, especially since when the bowls had been put at her feet to be washed up, the only one to be empty, the only one clean of that disgusting soup, or whatever it was supposed to be, was Van's bowl.
