She’d just said her little speech about how there was this other guy she’d been seeing and he wanted her to be his “sort of, um, girlfriend.” So she really couldn’t see John-Paul anymore, because the other guy wanted to “make things sort of official.”
She’d had this vague idea that it would be better to make it sound as if it were Connor’s fault, as if he were making her break up with John-Paul, but now, as John-Paul’s face reddened, she wondered if it had been a mistake to mention another boy at all. She could have blamed it on her father. She could have said that she was too nervous about his finding out that she was seeing a boy.
But part of her had wanted John-Paul to know that she was in demand.
“But Janie.” John-Paul’s voice sounded girly and squeaky, as if he was about to cry. “I thought you were my girlfriend.”
Janie was horrified. Her own face flushed in sympathy, and she looked away toward the swings and heard herself giggle. A strange, high-pitched giggle. It was a terrible habit she had, of laughing when she was nervous, when she didn’t find anything funny about a particular situation. It had happened, for example, when Janie was thirteen and the school principal had come in to their homeroom with such a somber, mournful expression on his normally jolly face and told them that their geography teacher’s husband had died. Janie had been so shocked and distressed, and then she’d laughed. It was inexplicable. The whole class had turned to look at her accusingly, and she’d just about died of shame.
John-Paul lunged at her. Her first fleeting thought was that he was going to kiss her, and this was his odd yet masterful technique, and she was pleased and excited. He wasn’t going to let her break up with him. He wasn’t going to stand for it!
But then his hands grabbed her neck. She tried to say, “That’s hurting, John-Paul,” but she couldn’t speak, and she wanted to clear up this dreadful misunderstanding, to explain that she actually liked him more than Connor, and she’d never meant to hurt his feelings, and she wanted to be his girlfriend, and she tried to convey that with her eyes, which were staring straight into his, his beautiful eyes, and she thought for a second that she saw a shift, a shocked recognition, and she felt a loosening of hands, but there was something else happening; something very wrong and unfamiliar was happening to her body, and at that instant, a far-off part of her mind remembered that her mother had been going to pick her up from school today to take her to a doctor’s appointment, and she’d forgotten all about it and gone to Connor’s house instead. Her mother would be furious.
Her last properly articulated thought was: Oh, shit.
After that there were no more thoughts, just helpless, flailing panic.
FORTY-SIX
GOOD FRIDAY
Juice!” demanded Jacob.
“What do you want, sweetie?” whispered Lauren.
Juice, thought Rachel. He wants a juice. Are you deaf?
It was only just light, and Rachel, Rob and Lauren were standing in a shivery little circle at Wattle Valley Park, rubbing their hands together and stamping their feet, while Jacob slithered in and out between their legs. He was bundled up in a parka that Rachel suspected was too small for him, his arms sticking straight out like a snowman’s.
As expected, Lauren was wearing her trench coat, although her ponytail didn’t look quite as perfect as normal—there were a few strands escaping from her hair band—and she looked tired. She was carrying a single red rose, which Rachel thought was a silly choice. It was like those roses in long plastic cylinders that young men gave to their girlfriends on Valentine’s Day.
Rachel herself was carrying a small posy of sweet peas she’d picked from her own backyard, tied up with a piece of green velvet ribbon like Janie used to wear when she was very little.