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Lunch period had always been an exercise in denial for Genevieve Prideux. She had sat at that table almost every day for nearly four years, watched groups of kids talking and laughing and passing notes. A few times she had dared to dream of being one of those people, one of those kids. She had imagined what it would have been like in a world where popularity was not a measurement of how much you could gossip or how early you lost your V-card to the star quarterback, not that Jenny would have admitted to knowing what a V-card was. Jenny had imagined all of the people, living life in peace.

Then she found out that it really, really wasn't easy if you tried.

The day she had approached another table had become somewhat of an urban myth to students who had come to Meadowview afterwards. It was freshman year when Jenny, confident that high school would be different, had mustered up the courage after two weeks of longing looks and a dozen 'Miley Cyrus Tells You How To Be Popular!' articles. With her lunchbox (it was a retro square plastic thing, the theme unrecognizable beneath a blanket of stickers) clutched in both hands, Jenny strode up to the table that held a few of Meadowview's cheerleaders, a handful of football players, and the small entourage of average students that had been admitted exclusively to tell them how great they were and how wonderful they looked.

Jenny had smiled. She had reached over, tapped one of the girls on the shoulder, and politely spoken her own social death sentence, “Is anybody sitting here? Could I sit here?”

The laughter had been deafening, though the trashcan they had dumped her in muffled even the sounds of the entire lunchroom breaking into enthusiastic applause. It had taken a week before Jenny's braids no longer smelled of rectangular pizza. Two before her parents could coax her out of her bedroom and back to school. That had been Jenny's first real taste of the cruelness of children. Since that day she had smiled cheerfully and drank her apple juice at her own table while she wrote in her diary. She had watched them, envied them, wished that she was taller, skinnier, prettier. Unwilling to lie and let them cheat off of her math homework. Unwilling and unable to be more cruel, more cutthroat, more cynical and petty.

Jenny watched them, but silently accepted that she would never be them. Even the unpopular kids, the ones who wanted to be popular, would not touch her for fear of catching some sort of social leprosy. They stayed far away from Genevieve Prideux, a victim of great ravenous beast of Being Nice.

It was for this reason that Jenny stared in shocked silence, unable to pull up her usual smile or overenthusiastic greeting.

Charys Murphy was talking to her.

Charys Murphy was talking to her, and Mr. Gordon hadn't even told her to.

Charys Murphy was talking to her and none of the words had been baby, kid, cry, whine, or tattle-tale.

Several glances turned their way, some sliding back to their trays a moment later, some lingering with the corners of their mouths upturned in anticipation. They expected something terrible and wonderful. Some elaborate prank, some vicious act, something and anything to appease the crowd and return Charys to her rightful status of in. So when she set down her can of Pringles and dropped into the seat across from Jenny, eyes widened. Eyes averted, as though they couldn't bear to watch such a fall from grace.

“I like Wednesdays,” Jenny managed finally. Of course she liked Wednesdays. Jenny leaned in towards Charys, tapping her pen on the table and glancing from one side to the other as though about to reveal some big secret. Plenty of people were still watching, but this didn't seem to discourage her, “On Wednesdays the kitchen staff make cake for the teachers lounge, but nobody ever eats it.”

This was because it was, compared to your average cake, absolutely awful.

“If I stay after and help stack the trays, they let me have all the cake I want!”

Jenny's slim figure did not reflect this. This was likely due to the fact that Jenny never ate more than half a piece, due to the aforementioned awfulness. Still, she stayed and stacked trays anways. She stayed and ate her half-piece of cake and talked about how wonderful it was. She stayed and enjoyed the way the kitchen women smiled at her and said that if they had a daughter, they'd want a daughter like Jenny. She stayed and listened to their gossip about teacher's affairs, gasping when someone mentioned two of them kissing at the last pep rally. Jenny stayed and was adored for that short half-hour, not even seeing the pity in their eyes.

They never saw the pity in hers, either.

When Charys blamed the terribleness of the cake on Jenny, she would probably smile sheepishly and apologize. That was the thing about Jenny-V, you could always count on her to stand there, smile, and apologize for the misfortune she had caused you. Especially if she had caused you no misfortune at all. Jenny was the kind of girl who would let you hate her because you needed someone to hate.

You could also count on her to skip senior prom.

Hiding a growing wave of worry – Would Charys offend the kitchen women? What if the cake was stale and Charys didn't like it? Would Charys tell everyone she had only stale cake and Hello Kitty pencil toppers to offer the world? Would she grow old alone because of the Great Cake Misfortune of 2010? - Genevieve closed the cover of her diary. With a click of the bright pink pen, she jammed it into the spiral binding and tucked it away into an equally pink backpack.

The look she leveled at Charys once the deed was done was surprising. There was a sad, knowing smile, a peculiar arch to her brows that spoke of so much more than what Jenny would ever be willing to say. Of all the things to be said about her, nobody in their right mind would have called Genevieve Prideux stupid. Naïve, certainly, but never stupid. She crossed her arms on top of the table, barely-nibbled Pringle still held between two fingers, and set her chin down on top of them.

“Charys Murphy,” Jenny said, and you knew she was serious because she was using surnames, “Why are you sitting at this table?”

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

“I'm serious.”

"On the next episode of Mystery of Mysteries, narrated by Morgan Freeman.”

"I'm seeeeeeriooous," Jenny repeated, because drawing out vowels made people listen. Except when it didn't.

It never did.

“They're not that bad.”

Yes, they were.

“They don't mean it, really.”

Yes, they did.

“They're just doing what they think they're supposed to do.”

Jenny spouted her perpetually perky point of view with a smile that showed not a hint of insincerity, but perhaps the slightest bit of pity. That pity faded as they refocused on Charys, brows arching in the kind of understanding that nobody ever wanted. It was the kind of understanding that said, 'You're alone like me' and came with a forced smile while she accepted the piece of gum. The kind of understand to which Charys Murphy would have made some snappy come back and thought, 'Alone, but not like you.'

Unlike the rest of the school, teenagers who did not know who they were or what they wanted or where to go, Charys Murphy did not need her pity. As far as Jenny was concerned, Charys Murphy had everything. Charys Murphy was pretty enough and popular enough and Mr. Gordon looked at her when she wasn't even raiding her hand to answer a question or half-standing on her desk waving her arm like a wounded soldier trying to signal the last medical copter flying rescues over the beaches of Normandy. Charys Murphy had everything Jenny Prideux could ever want.

It just went to show how very little she knew about Charys Murphy.

Jenny broke the piece of gum in half and handed half back to Charys, as though Charys did not have an entire pack.

“I'm going to fail all of my exams and not get into Sovereign Heights and then I am going to die,” Jenny said, as though this were a simple fact and not a gross exaggeration. She popped the half-piece of gum in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, “I can't ask Mr. Gordon because he's busy with his stupid girlfriend doing something stupid.” Jenny immediately felt guilty, and her cheeks flushed a bright red.

“Did you know I friended him on Facebook two days ago and my friend request is still pending?"

By the time Charys had finished talking, Jenny had already pulled her laptop out and was frantically logging into her Facebook account. As soon as she'd cancelled the friend request – she took a moment to update her status to 'OMG! I'm popular!' – she was opening a Word document and frantically writing down Chary's advice as though it were the Gospel As Delivered to Jenny Prideux From The Mouth Of God.

She even typed out Charys' words in red.

Charys was staring at Jenny with some expression that toed the line between amusement and pity, and Jenny was staring at her screen with some expression that die not toe any lines, but took a flying leap across the shame-pity border and landed squarely in utter humiliation. It was familiar territory, with Jenny-shaped snow angels covering the hillsides and little Jenny-sized footprints all over the sidewalks.

“What's the First Rule,” she inquired without looking up, fingers hovering over the keyboard like a cobra ready to strike.

“Don't stand outside of his window with a boom box lifted over your head.”

“I don't own a boom box,” Jenny said as she typed, as though this solved the matter entirely.

“Just don't stand outside of his window.”

“What about the other Rules?” She finally looked up.

Charys sighed, and together they spent the remainder of the lunch period composing the rough draft of We Love Stephanie: The Fabulous Teenage Girl's Guide To Secretly Loving Ray Gordon Without Letting Him Know Because You'll Just Embarrass Yourself Jenny Why Are You Typing That No You Can't Use The Word Fabulous What The Hell Are You Still Quoting Me? No Seriously, Stop That. Give Me That Laptop You Braid-Brainedas;lsjd;awiojf;woiawvdiofe.

The following walk to History class was occupied by Jenny adamantly defending the use of the world 'fabulous' in the title, which culminated in Charys tearing the mock title page out of Jenny's notebook, balling it up, and shoving it in her mouth.

Jenny frowned and told her she was going to get paper cuts on her esophagus before taking her seat.