Re: Jen & Ophelia
Ophelia blushed fiercely at that again and she was overly aware all over again at how close she and Jen were sitting. She wasn’t completely sold on being straight either, because gosh, some girls were so pretty and they smelled nice. But it was hard to parse out what was attraction and what was just admiration. Maybe she just wanted female friends. No girl had made her all hot and bothered yet like watching Greg had, but neither had a lot of dudes, so Phee didn’t know. “Thanks,” she murmured, pleasantly flustered for a second. Jen had said if she was into girls, so she wasn’t, so Phee needed to push that aside. “But yeah, no, I mean ... I dunno. He’s all popular and perfect and like, belongs at these kinds of parties and I don’t, so I’d probably like, bore him to death. He’s nice to me though, but probably ‘cause of Sebastian.”
Jen could relate to what she said by not fitting in at parties like this one because she usually felt the same way but tonight she felt different. Maybe it was the booze, maybe the fact that people were actually talking to her but she felt good and like she fit in just fine. Hearing Ophelia didn't fit in made her scoff softly. "You don't?" she asked and turned to face Ophelia a little better, resting her shoulder against the back of the couch. "You look like you fit in just fine, you totally belong here. If you go talk to him what's the absolutely worst thing that can happen?"
Tonight did seem to be different, which was very strange considering where they were. Maybe it was because it was Halloween. It was the perfect time of year to pretend to be someone else. And Ophelia was doing well pretending to be a druid fairy babe, who apparently looked gorgeous and was good at being at parties. “Ohmygod, um ...” she started with a laugh, then took another drink from her cup as she squinted and thought about it. It was a good question, she guessed. “He could be like, ‘I totally know you like me, and it grosses me out, so like, never talk to me again.’ That would probably be the worst.” Phee wrinkled her nose. That probably wasn’t a thing Greg would ever say, but when had logic ever stopped the fear of rejection?
"Oh my god," Jen laughed. "If he says something like that, if he's the type of guy to say something like that then eww. Eww! He doesn't deserve even your friendship." She knew Greg couldn't be like that. He was Sebastian's friend and Sebastian was so sweet! But maybe he did have an asshole best friend, that happened sometimes. Would he be mean to his best friend's sister though? "Why would it be gross anyway? I think at worst he'd just not feel the same way and maybe even feel a bit bad about it, you know?" God she was chatty when she drank, or maybe she was just hyper tonight. "If you're sure you like him you should talk to him. God I wish I was sure about anything, you know?"
It wasn’t so much that Greg would say that, but what if he thought it? What if he just tried to let her down easy but then started to avoid her completely or ... something. Really, when she thought about it at the moment, that didn’t seem so terrible. He was just a boy, right? And even this pretty girl next to her had said she was gorgeous. “I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t like, say that to my face. But I don’t wanna ... I dunno.” Ophelia felt like her vocabulary was failing her, so she just laughed and shook her head a bit, waving one hand in a helpless gesture. “I dunno what I mean. I just like, never dated anybody or anything, never been kissed, blah blah cliche shy girl,” she said, rolling her eyes. Phee focused on Jen again with a little smile. “You’re not sure about anything? Nobody’s like ... caught your eye?”
"Way to try to change the subject," Jen said with a little laugh. "Boys are dumb, if you know what you want you just have to take it. Trying to play coy around them is like... I don't know. Holding up a written sign in front of a blind man. Like, they may know something's there but they're like duuuh? So you could just walk up to him and tell him it's a shame nobody's kissed you yet and either he'll fix that or he'll look dumb and you can just laugh at him and walk away."