"The destroying of one, to satisfy the other"
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 i...
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When Jane thought back to her childhood she liked to think of the good memories. That tended not to be birthdays or her middle school graduation where her parents refused to pay for the gown so she walked the stage in her easter dress. It didn't help that the dress was patterned with bunnies and she was made fun of up until she started going to parties in high school. No, she liked to think of the fun parts of her life. When she got her first job at the local bookstore. She enjoyed recommending books to people, except that one time when an old lady asked her for a recommendation on pornographic books, but she was a good worker so she recommended a book nonetheless. Or when she used the money from said job to buy an actually good camera. Or the time she won a photography competition for her picture of a frog, sure it was only a $25 prize, but it was an achievement in itself.
One thing she didn't like to think about was her time on the yearbook committee, it's not like she had a bad time or anything, but it's also what led her to the situation she was currently in. Her parents had told her she needed more extracurriculars for her college application and so she took it up, and in all honesty, she hadn't minded it. She got to take photos for hours, of the football team, who hadn't actually won anything for years, the wrestling team, the drama team...she'd done it all. Then Lottie asked her to take photo's of their semi-finals game, and she agreed. Then she was offered a trip to the finals and looking back on it, Jane honestly thought she never would have said yes if Lottie hadn't been so insistent.
And now she was here, in the middle of the woods only god knew where...with a permanent limp, with 11 skirts and 5 dresses and no trousers and more friends than she'd ever had before. Perhaps not friends, maybe acquaintances? Half friends? She wasn't quite sure, but it was rather nice she had to admit. She let Van explain movies to her, talked to Shauna about books, tried, unsuccessfully to include Natalie in their conversation about an ethics book and then tried to explain the book until Natalie walked away. Jane had to get better at reading between the lines if she was going to turn these half friends into full ones. But Javi? Javi was special, he was her favourite, though she'd never admit it. He did actually listen to her ethics explanations without complaint and she listened to his longwinded stories about his holidays, the plays Javi did with drama club, the fact his dad hated him doing drama club. In a way it was just as much about her as it was about him. She got to look after him in a way that her parents hadn't looked after her. She listened and encouraged him as he explained how he'd gone from being tree number 4 to Sonny in Grease. Which, she was sure was a mighty achievement and she later checked with Van to confirm. He was what made everything okay, gave her something to focus on.
"Jane?"
Jane looked up to meet Tai's eyes, losing her train of thought as she met Tai's awkward gaze, every so often she'd look away, too uncomfortable to deal with the situation she'd created. "You okay Tai?" Jane mumbled, she was a bit of a people-pleaser and it didn't matter what insults Tai threw at her, her incessant need to be liked meant that she'd spend the rest of the time in the wilderness chasing her approval. It was almost sad, she was treating Tai the way she treated her parents. As someone whose favour she desperately needed to win over, and likely never would.
"I'm fine!" Tai bit out before taking a deep breath to calm herself down. "I mean..." Tai trailed off awkwardly, shifting on her feet uncomfortably as she tried to say what she clearly needed to but didn't want to. "Just wanted to...erm. Thank you. For helping with the wood earlier..." Tai sighed awkwardly before muttering under her breath "Even if you did drop half of what you carried..."
But that muttered insult was nothing, it went in one of Janes ears and right out the other. "I mean it was no problem at all!" Jane beamed up at her as she tried to stand up before wobbling and letting Tai steady her by grabbing her arm with an irritated sigh, but that irritated sigh did not have the desired effect. "You know I can help you tomorrow if you want? We could talk about Little women? I saw you were reading it the other day...Did you get it from the book pile I left out?" Jane began to ramble, staring up at Tai eagerly, it was as though she could sense that she was making Tai more irritated but this was the first good interaction she'd had with Tai and she had a desperate need to keep it going. She couldn't quite understand why...maybe she really wanted to be friends? No she knew what this was, it was the lack of support and love from her parents shining through once again, filling her with this desperate void to make the people who didn't like her, like her. It was like even if she had a dozen friends who loved her, she'd still be consumed with the one that hated her.
"No thanks." Tai muttered shortly. "You gonna sit down and get back to washing?"
Jane nodded awkwardly as she let Tai help her sit back down on the log again. She knew she'd messed this up, her one chance to get Tai to like her, maybe even want to be half-friends and the second Jane was safely sat down again, Tai spun on her heel and walked off in the other direction. But she muttered something under her breath which made Jane pause when reaching for the next shirt to wash.
"Total Amy, desperate to be liked."
Maybe all wasn't lost after all? But an astute observation nonetheless.
Hey guys, I know it's been a while but in all honesty I'm not sure what direction to take this book so any suggestions you have would be great! I'll make sure to dedicate a chapter to you if I use your idea. But I wanted to use this chapter to give you better insight into who Jane is as a character. Let me know what you think! <3
