The worst part about returning to my reclusive ways wasn’t avoiding Jenny, surprisingly. It was having to live with myself once I had succeeded. It was almost appalling how easy it was to slip back into my old ways. Here I was thinking I had made a lot of progress. Changed myself for the better. If anything, my time spent playing with Jenny had only taught me new ways to hide from people. This isn’t what I wanted, and the emptiness I felt every time I succeeded in being alone only confirmed this. Then again I’ve never wanted this. It just always ends up this way. Monica’s reaction was proof enough of that. So I kept to myself, just as I always had throughout middle school and high school. A week went by without me seeing Jenny, or her friends. As I was turning a corner to head to study hall I spied Monica at the other end of the hallway. Thinking quickly, I ducked back around the way I had come, not even seeing David Pannell as I ran right into him. We collided, and he immediately pushed me to the ground with both hands.

“What the fuck is your problem Loya!” he shouted. “You finally want to settle this? Is that it? Fine. I’ll let you make the first move.”

I didn’t even waste a second in replying to him. I scrambled to my feet and headed passed him, allowing his pursuing taunts to roll off my back. The following week I was sitting on my bed, staring at another blank document page, trying to bring some semblance of a story to life, when everything began to shake. Setting the laptop down, I laid back on my bed and sighed. I should have known I couldn’t hide from Jenny if she really wanted to find me. I had just hoped she was courteous enough to make the break clean and easy. Not drag it out instead. My house groaned as the roof was lifted off of it. Jenny’s 300ft tall form waited on the other side, looking all kinds of cross.

“We need to talk,” she announced.

She didn’t even give me a chance to reply. She simply plucked me from my bed, eliciting an unmanly yelp from me, and dropped the roof back on my house. Jenny then stood to her feet and began walking in any random direction. I suppose it didn’t matter to her, since the atmosphere around us distorted and blurred, only to clear up and reveal that we were now walking on an expansive, empty beach. She had also made her sneakers disappear again, as she usually does on her walks, so that she could feel the sand between her toes. No one seemed to be around for miles. That left only the crashing waves, sea air, and the squeal of gulls as the only source of sound. I was about to try again to say something, only to be silenced by that displeased look in her eyes.

“First of all,” she began. “I owe you an apology for what my friends-” she closed her eyes and sighed. “-those girls who hang out with me said to you. I had no idea they’d go after you like that and I should have put a stop to it right away, but I didn’t. That’s my fault and I’m sorry for that, John. I’m also sorry for Monica’s overreaction in the lunchroom, though God knows why she did that. Still, on top of dealing with Zoe’s bullshit that had to have hurt, which I sympathize with immensely.”

Looking down at me, Jenny’s eyebrows furrowed again. “But that was no reason for you to just ghost me like that. To my face of all things! Not even an explanation or anything! Just a ‘we had fun’ and then you run from me faster than when I was 1000ft tall. Like I was some kind of one-night-stand asking for a proposal. And sure, I was confused about it. Figured it had to be because you were all torn up inside. Forget the fact that I’m your friend and friends help each other out through stuff like that. I thought ‘hmmm, maybe he’s just not used to opening up to people about emotional stuff. It’s probably hard for him. I’ll give him some time and some space.’.”

Jenny raised me up to eye level, which I was thankful for. I probably would have been blown off her hand when her nostrils flared. Though she kept herself from yelling, she was still pretty emotional, and her voice was cutting in more ways than one.

“Two weeks!” she snarled. “Two weeks you avoided me! And not just avoided me, you actively ran in the opposite direction whenever you saw me! Like you couldn’t bear to look at me or something! Like you hated me even though I didn’t try to do anything to hurt you! If anything I only wanted to help you! Try and make things better in any way that I could, cause you’ve done the same for me whenever I felt like a freak around you! But instead you just ran away and left me alone, just like anyone else I’ve told my secret to! Only now I couldn’t erase your memory and get you back! And you just left me by myself, stuck with a bunch of shallow whores and douchebags who don’t even care to see the real me! And-”

As her tirade went on, Jenny had gradually begun to cry. Until, at last overwhelmed by emotion, she had to pause simply to control herself. I was struck speechless, both by the suddenness of everything and by the spectacle of it all. No one had ever cried over me before. Not even, I think-

I kept quiet for a few moments while Jenny brought herself under control. Holding her free hand over her eyes, she fought back the tears and brought her voice down a few levels.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I told myself when I came to get you that I wasn’t going to get all worked up.”

“Are you ok?” I asked her quietly.

She shook her head, still covering her eyes. “Being lonely hurts.”

“You get used to it with enough practice,” I assured her. “Just takes time.”

“But why?” she whispered. When she lowered her hand I was given an unobstructed view of her eyes. They were practically begging me for an answer. “Why do you think you have to be alone like this when you don’t have to be? Do you even want me around?”

“Of course I do! More than anything!” I shouted up to her, before softening my tone. “But there’s no point when it’s just going to end the same way. All we’d be doing is prolonging the inevitable. It always ends the same.”

“John,” she pleaded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“People leave, Jenny. They always have. They leave and they don’t come back.” I explained, boring into her gaze with my own. “What happened with Monica is just another version of what happened with my best friend. With my mother. You deal with it. You get over it.”

“With your-” she sniffed, trying her best not to become too emotional again. “John what happened?”

I looked away, hugging close to those walls I spent years building up, and the last two weeks repairing.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please. I can’t make you tell me anything, but I’m begging you. Just let me in. Let me help.”

“You don’t need to help me, Jenny. You don’t even need me. You have friends you’ve known way longer. You’ve practically got the whole school-” spread my arms out and gestured widely for emphasis. “You’ve got the whole world to yourself. You’re a goddess. Don’t waste your time on me. I’m not worth it.”

For a moment Jenny seemed to have been struck speechless by what I said. Then a smile slowly bloomed on her face. A very sad, almost broken smile. “Oh John,” she breathed. With the utmost care Jenny drew me to her chest, holding me against her heart in a giantess hug. I could feel the gentle sway of her body rocking ever so slightly back and forth as she held me.

“You have absolutely no idea what you’re worth to me,” she continued. “You think way too little of yourself.”

Against my will, a smile of my own formed from my lips. “Coming from you that’s almost funny.”

Jenny stopped walking and sat down on the beach. Her feet rested in the water, which never once reached higher than her toes, her knees raised up, and her arms propped up on her knees, so that I was directly in front of her.

“I’m not a goddess, John.” she told me. “I’m certainly not God. I don’t want to be God. I’m too flawed. I make too many mistakes. I’m too . . . I’m too human to be God. Please, whatever pedestal you have me on, take me off of it. I don’t deserve praise for anything I’ve ever done in my life. At the end of the day I’m just a little girl still playing with her dolls and playsets.”

Lifting her eyes from me for a while, Jenny allowed herself to appreciate the incredible view of the crystal blue ocean in front of us.

“The world isn’t mine either. It’s just a playground. It’s everyone’s playground, really. I just happen to play . . . bigger games than everyone else. But you’re the first playmate I think I’ve ever had since I’ve got my powers. The only real friend I’ve had since then.”

She frowned. “Those girls at lunch? Zoe and all of them? They’re not really my friends. They just think of themselves as the celebrities of the school. They latched onto me in middle school because they thought it made their group look better. Like having me in their little clique validated their beliefs that they were better than everyone else. They don’t care about me in any real sense. I’m just the latest fashion trend for them to show off in front of everyone. Another shallow celebrity for them to be seen in public with. I think that’s why Zoe tried so hard to drive a wedge between us. She only cares about her own image and was afraid of what would happen if people saw you hanging out with me. As if you could make them look worse than they already make themselves look.” 

The giantess looked back to me and smiled. “I had no idea how lonely I was until we became friends and then I was forced to go back to only hanging with them the last two weeks. It was miserable, having to sit there and pretend like I gave a shit about which guy any of them wanted to fuck. I’ve never once heard any of them discuss a book before. I’m convinced most of those girls don’t know how to read anything unless it’s on social media.”

“You’re the only one who sees me for who I am, John, and I’m not just talking about my powers.” she assured me. “For all of the characters I’ve pretended to be in our games, I’ve only ever been my real self when I’m around you. I . . . I don’t want to lose that.”

I broke away the gaze. “I . . . honestly had no idea you felt that way.”

Jenny nodded. “So when I see you going through something horrible, I want to be there to help. And when you pushed me away and stopped talking to me, it hurt.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” I admitted. “And truthfully I didn’t think it would. I thought I’d be the only one losing out on something great.”

“Then why do it?” she asked.

I stopped talking and turned around to stare at the ocean, like you’re supposed to do when you think heavy thoughts. I wanted to tell her why I was like this. The problem was there was a lot of hurt to go through. Things I didn’t want to have to feel again. I shook that thought from my head as violently as I could. If I could stop being a hypocrite for just five seconds I’d see that I had been wallowing in my own self pity, basking in my old pains, for the past two weeks. Not only did Jenny deserve to know those things, I had no right to keep them from her and then cry to myself that I’m alone in life. It’s what cowards and emotional masochists do, not men.

“Do you remember that story you told me about the student in middle school who got hit by a car? Eddy Parks?” I asked. When she nodded I continued. “Well I knew him most of . . . pretty much all of elementary school. He was my best friend.”

The giantess let slip a small gasp despite her efforts to suppress it. The result was a slight breeze that stirred my clothes a bit. But she remained silent so I continued.

“I called him Rage growing up because he used to go out of his way to taunt anyone who tried to act as a bully to either of us. He taught me how to be a professional smart ass, actually.” I recalled with a small chuckle. “We used to hang out and play imagination games. We’d spend hours in the woods behind his house going on ‘adventures’ and stuff. Before Eddy, I really didn’t come out of my shell for anyone. I think he might have been protective of me, in a way. At one point we both only had one parent, so he was like an older brother to me. He’d make me laugh, and I’d impress him with my imagination . . . I still call him, sometimes. His phone was turned off but the number never changed. I mostly do it just to hear his voice off the answering machine . . . I still miss him.”

I turned around to see Jenny with tear streaks decorating her face. Despite how sad she looked, they managed to catch the light in the right way as to make her face appear to be shining. “John I’m . . . I’m so sorry to hear that . . . I- . . . You- . . . you mentioned your mother earlier. What happened, I mean . . . did she . . .”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. She left when I was about five. Never gave me an explanation or anything. Just a kiss on the cheek, a goodbye, and she was off.”

“Oh God,” she breathed. Jenny brought me back to her chest for another hug. This one felt more protective than the last one. There was so much emotion in it. So much warmth. I tried my best to hug as much of her as I could in return. She sniffed, trying to keep herself from crying too hard over me. “People have only ever left you, have they.”

“I just thought it was a part of life.” I confirmed. “I expected it. I couldn’t really make friends after that.”

“So . . . when you pushed me away . . .” she began.

“I thought it was going to happen eventually.” I finished. “I thought it was better to get it over with. It might hurt more if I waited any longer.”

“There’s where you went wrong. You started off assuming it would happen at all.” she pointed out.

“Well . . . when Monica . . . I . . . I don’t know what even happened.” I confessed. “I thought she actually liked me for a bit.”

“I thought so too. And, to be honest, I think she still does. I know she does.” Jenny said.

“How?”

She brought me away from her chest and looked earnestly at me. “I’m not entirely sure. But the way she reacted to you that day was way too out of character. Something was bothering her.”

I considered that for a second. “How do we find out what it is, though?”

The giantess smirked. “Leave that one to me.”

I tried to hide the uneasiness in my smile. “Uh . . . I don’t know if head games would solve anything, Jenny. Thank you, though.”

But my best friend only rolled her eyes and smiled. “I’m not talking about my personal powers. I’m talking about the one power half the human population shares.”

“And that is?” I asked.

“Girl talk.”

*************************************************************************************

A few days later I stood by myself in the school library, trying not to lose my shit over the fact that I was currently being a real life superhero. I was leaning against one of the bookshelves, trying to be all nonchalant and stoic despite the fact that I was currently invisible. Jenny sat on the floor in the seating area nearby, occasionally glancing up at me and chuckling to herself. She was the only one who could see or hear me. She had wanted me around, but obviously I couldn’t be seen by Monica or else she might not want to talk. Hence the invisibility. It was a little disorienting, looking down and not seeing my own body,  but still amazing. If I weren’t currently anxious out of my freaking mind over the mystery of why my crush wants to hang out with me one day, and then demands I stay away from her the next, I’d be tempted to have some fun while I’m all ghostly.

“You sure she’s going to be here today?” I asked.

“I’ve seen her in here the past few days to use the computers,” Jenny assured me. “She’s obviously got some assignment to work on, so this is where she’d come.”

“And if she finished it?”

She shrugged. “Then I find another opportunity to talk to her. I just thought I’d try this first so that you could be here.”

“And I appreciate it. Though you realize you’ve just turned me into a stalker.” I pointed out.

Jenny smiled. “You mean you weren’t already one?”

“Ah-ha, ah-ha. If I’m a stalker then what does that make you?” I asked.

“Let’s see. A deviant, a kidnapper, a tyrant, a seductress, a megalomaniac . . .” she listed. “Should I continue?”

“I’m already scared enough,” I responded.

“Oh that’s a matter of opinion,” she insisted. “I think I’ll continue.”

“Think what you want, as long as what you do is talk to her.” I said, indicating to Monica who had just entered the library. Jenny waved her over.

“Hey Monica!’ she called, indicating to one of the seats next to her. Monica approached Jenny in an easygoing manner, as she normally would. When she drew closer, her steps noticeably grew more hesitant. Jenny frowned. “Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m just getting a headache right now. I’ve been getting them a lot lately.” she said.

“Then here, take a seat.” Jenny offered, patting the chair nearest to her.

Monica sat down with an audible sigh as her brain oriented itself. She took a moment to allow her head to settle, before putting the lighthearted smile back on her face. “So what’s up Jenny?”

“I was hoping I could ask you about something . . .” she began.

Monica tilted her head. “Yeah?”

“John,” she continued. “I uh . . . well . . .”

“Oh,” Moncia looked down to the floor with a grimace. “That . . .”

Jenny tried to press gently. “Did he do something wrong?”

“No!” she was quick to object. “I just . . . I didn’t mean to shout at him like that. I just . . . I don’t know what happened.”

Jenny was silent for a moment. “You know he likes you, right?”

My heart immediately leapt into my throat. “Could you have maybe left that part out!” I shouted, thankful that Jenny was the only one who could hear me.

You’re about as subtle as a bull in a China shop, she answered me telepathically. I was beginning to feel like I was in X-Men. If Monica never noticed, she’s too dumb for you.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to send back my own telepathic message, so I just had to hope that Jenny could feel my glare.

Monica chuckled. “Yeah I noticed. He’s a sweet guy, you know.”

Jenny laughed as well. “Believe me I know.”

Fucking women. And fucking me for being too stupid to keep up with them.

“I didn’t mean to yell at him like that.” Monica continued. “I . . . I don’t know what happened. After I saw him my head just started . . . burning. Worse than anything I’ve ever felt before. I . . . I shouldn’t have yelled at him, though. He was only trying to help. I want to apologize but I haven’t seen him. Not that I blame him. I wouldn’t want to see me either after that.”

Jenny placed a hand on Monica’s. “I’ll let him know you feel that way. He probably wants nothing more than to apologize himself.”

She gave the other young woman a grateful smile. “Thank you, Jenny. The only other blessing that’s come out of this is that the whole school seems to have forgotten it. Or at least they’re not talking about it, which is amazing.”

Jenny shrugged. “High school. Never know what they’ll care about.”

Well played, you cheeky bitch. Well played. I gave her a very slow clap, more for my own amusement. For some reason I had the distinct feeling that she was glaring at me without actually looking at me.

Monica, who had been hiding her face in her hands out of embarrassment, was now rubbing at her temples and groaning.

“How long have these headaches been bothering you?” Jenny asked.

“A few weeks.” she answered.

Leaning in closer, Jenny led Monica’s hands aside so that she could place her own on her forehead. “Let me see if I can help.”

They both remained still. Monica’s face was set in pain, and Jenny’s in concentration. Her amazonian hand could have covered her entire head if she wanted to. Neither of them moved for almost a minute.

“Uh, Jenny?” I asked.

Suddenly both of them gasped. Monica began breathing almost hysterically. Jenny, her eyes still closed, looked like she had just been struck in the back of the head.

“Wha- what are you doing!” she yelled.

Still neither of them moved. It was as if she couldn’t pull her hand from Monica’s head. They both kept hyperventilating, with Jenny growing more and more hysterical.

“Monica you have to stop! Let go!” she raved. Her voice was so powerful it reverberated in my stomach. Students who had been walking passed the library stopped to see what was going on. The air around me was becoming warm. Within seconds that changed to humid, like a tropical beach during a heatwave. I saw my own invisible form blur, then gradually fade into sight. I jumped to their side.

“Jenny! What’s going on!” I shouted.

Neither one of them acted as if they knew I was there. Reaching down I tried to pry Jenny’s hand away from Monica’s head, having no idea what was transpiring between the two of them. Even though Jenny only had her palm pressed against Monica’s forehead, it remained fixed there against my efforts as if she had been gripping it with all of her might. I kept trying. Suddenly there was a flash of light. I had the distinct feeling of being thrown from my feet. It wasn’t until my vision languidly began to return that I saw that I had landed a good twenty feet from where Monica sat. Jenny had landed not far from me, looking just as dazed, if not more. Monica was the only one who remained where she had been, albeit lying on the floor instead of sitting in the chair. My head was spinning, making it difficult to get a hold of myself. I struggled to first pick myself up off the ground. 

“Jenny, what the fu-”

I didn’t get any further. A flash of movement out of the corner of my eye took my attention away, and later my speech.

Monica was starting to grow.

It was slow, and gradual, but definitely happening. My crush was lying on the ground and starting to grow. Already she had reached eight feet in height, by my estimation. Had I not had experience with batshit insane things happening I probably would have stayed rooted to this spot until she had grown on top of me. Instead I sprinted over to Jenny, who was just now regaining her senses. I grabbed her wrist and yanked on her arm, knowing damn well I couldn’t have lifted her 15ft tall frame unless she was doing most of the work.

“Jenny! What the actual fuck!” I whispered hoarsely.

My amazonian friend took a few seconds to process what was happening, and when she finally did her jaw dropped faster than any building I’ve ever seen her topple.

“What the- John! I’m not doing this!” she answered.

That more than anything set me off. Jenny didn’t panic. Jenny didn’t feel fear. She was in control, always. Whatever happened around us, however scary, she was always the biggest person in the room. She was the one you looked to to make sure that everything was still alright. Nothing happened that she didn’t want. No one got hurt, because she never wanted that.

If Jenny Delhaze wasn’t in control of something . . . 

“Run,” I said to her.

She looked back at me. It hurt like hell to see actual fear in her eyes. It made me want to crawl into a ball on the floor and pretend like everything was a bad dream. I tugged on her arm harder. Monica was now reaching twenty feet in height, and didn’t appear to be slowing down at all.

“Get up and run!” I yelled.

“John I-”

I twisted my entire body away and pulled on her arm with every muscle I could put into the action. I actually managed to drag her body forward from a seated position to her knees.

“Dammit Jenny move! We’ll figure out what’s going on when the fucking school isn’t falling on us!” 

My friend managed to climb to her feet, and I sprinted on ahead, knowing that her long legs would carry her much easier than mine, so I needed the head start. I never released her arm, as ridiculous as it probably looked. I led us straight for the front doors amidst the panicking of students who had been nearby. It took me back through dozens of games, to the first one I had played with Jenny. Just like back then, what seemed like a lifetime ago, I didn’t know what to expect. Only that something had gone horribly wrong, and I needed to get my giant friend to safety.