Two Tales of Inadequacy
Part 2 - Jane's Eye View
by Tha Wrecka

She catches herself doing it again at midnight, crying to some stupid song on the radio. Except this time it's upbeat, poppy. She takes it as a sign that her walls are crumbling and Freak Jane wants to come out to play.

Of course she would never admit this, or allow this weakness to show. She is hard on the outside, carrying the affectation of being blissfully happy. She is everything they want her to be. She tries to tell herself what she believes should be true. We are what we pretend to be.

Except she knows the only thing that could make her want to cry to 40-something Madonna is Sam. Wednesday's Sam sighting. And she knows this means the darkness will come creeping back towards her, desperately trying to swallow her whole with a cry of "We'll eat you up we love you so."

The wild things are in her imagination and she knows, if she just tries hard enough, she can turn them off, hide them away. But hard enough is harder than she can seem to try. And the wild things keep haunting her. Taunting her.

So she tries to ignore them, pretend they don't exist. She play's the real world's game of pretence and ignores. Ignores her father's drunkeness. Ignores her brother's criminal inclinations. Ignores the track marks on Sam's arms. Ignores Sam over all. Ignores the nuclear winter he brings out in her.

She lets Matt come over. She allows the feel of his warm, soft, large hands. She sits next to him in casual clothing and listens to him insult her favourite movie. She finds herself longing for something. She can almost allow herself to lean over and rest her head on his shoulder. Almost. And she knows he'd indulge her because that's what he does -- indulge her. She almost allows him to lull her to sleep. Because he is comfortable. He feels like all things comfortable like greasy pizza, watching silly sitcoms and singing along to the radio in the car. He almost makes her feel like she fits in this place, like she belongs. Almost.

It's not his fault. She just doesn't DO comfortable. She doesn't remember how. She knows there was a time, when childhood innocence still existed for her, when she was comfortable and happy and sincere and all those things she knows she should be. But somewhere along the way she's been twisted, somehow. She sees Death of Mother and Father's Heart Breaks. She sees Baby Brother Stealing and StepMonster Gets Upset. She sees that love equals pain and death is all there is.

So she starts to equate pain with love, with cleanliness, with right. She starts to think that through blood she can be cleansed. She turns her anger in on herself. They don't see it. They don't see her. They ignore the skin that easily bruises, the scratchmarks hidden under long hair, the razor marks hidden under long sleeves. They ignore the black nail polish and the death poetry and the sixteen billion suicide attempts. They ignore the crying into the pillow, the artery-hardening diet and the rate at which she buys band-aids. And she adapts. She adapts to slipping under the radar, to not getting their attention. And she lets them believe that she's strong and she's okay and that their problems are more important than anything about her is.

Because she is a bad actress but a Very Convincing liar.

And she's never been afraid of the dark. Only the things in it she can't see. Not just the monsters, the hideously deformed axe-murderers and the crocodiles in the sewers. She's afraid of the not being able to see herself.

So her self-destructive inner self falls for Sam, the untouchable, and she whiles away in the land of the unrequited. She hides her tears and keeps her voice quiet.

But just once it doesn't work. He's not supposed to see her. He's not supposed to speak to her. He's not supposed to catch her in a moment of weakness. But for one second on a cold day she feels his presence and knows he sees her crying. And she can't stand the negative attention. So she gets angry. Very angry. Her fists clench and unclench. Her teeth grit. She realises her cover is almost blown.

So she plans again. She will adapt into something... else. Instead of hiding in the shadows she will become everything Disney movies and Mills and Boon novels tell her she should be. And she does.

But the night before she decides to make the change apparent, high from the thrill of a drama performance, she finds him in the lobby, alone. And he looks at her with his ice blue eyes. And he speaks to her with his holier-than-thou voice. And it infuriates her that he acknowledges her presence now. So she says the wrong words just to see if he reacts. And he doesn't, not while she's looking, not until she's gotten home and not there to revel in her spiteful triumph. But she hears all about it. Hears about how he falters, how he's only human, and giggles along with the plastic, condascending girls, one of whom she's about to become (in appearance if not in reality).

She pushes it. She doesn't look at him at all anymore, instead waiting to feel his eyes on her, the hurt swirling behind them. She ignores him in class. She ignores him on the train. She ignores him on the street. And this fuels her anger even more. Because she still wants to have him, still has to have him.

Has to have those perfectly carved cheekbones, those stunningly drawn lips, those hands that form angry red fists. Has to have. Has to possess. Has to destroy.

Has to deny. And she's good enough at lying to herself.

So she burrows herself into comfortable Matt and gets a manicure. Pretends everything is alright. We are what we pretend to be.

She knows it's not. She knows her inner rage is building and soon she's going to explode.

Matt will be hurt. Betty will be shocked. Sam will be the nothing she used to be.

And Jane won't be able to stand the negative attention. She'll deal. She'll move on. She'll construct a new, convincing lie. She'll adapt.