Jon felt better after lunch. He still felt like every conversation was a game he had to win, but after talking with the cheerleaders he had realized that he could win the game just by deciding to play. It wasn't a struggle. It wasn't a challenge. In fact, in many ways it was fun. He found himself walking off the school grounds at the end of the day feeling like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He hadn't even realized he'd been carrying the weight of the world before.
Was this what Sarah had meant when she wanted him to understand life in her shoes?
"No, I am not going to flirt with him!" came a voice from behind him.
Jon turned around. It was Karyn walking towards him, but something was different about her.
"I'm not going to insult him either," she seemed to say into the air.
She looked distracted. What could it be? Her shoes! "Karyn," Jon said with the ease of a person who knew they were right, "just because they're called Ugg 'boots' doesn't mean you should wear boot-cut jeans and cover them up!"
Karyn looked at him, for just a moment, as though he were insane, then shook her head and started talking to herself again. "I don't care if a boy can 'out-fashion' me, and I'm not going to compete with Joaawhoah!"
Karyn seemed to lose her balance for a moment, but when she returned to having two feet firmly planted on the ground, the boot cut jeans were replaced with skinny jeans with cuffs were tucked into a pair of chestnut-colored suede Ugg boots in precisely Sarah's size.
Jon gave a satisfied smirk, which just grew more satisfied when he looked up to see the rest of Karyn. Not only had her pants changed, but her green jumper had turned into a loose green tank dress, the light cotton hem falling to her mid-thigh and the arm holes wide enough to clearly expose the black band of her bra as it wrapped around her side. This look would not adhere to the school dress code even slightly, but, Jon mused, it was definitely sexy.
"What are you doing after school, Jon?" Karyn asked through bedroom eyes, an unstated promise in her voice. Her outfit, it turned out, was not the only thing that had become sexy.
"I-" Jon faltered. He'd lost initiative. Nobody had been this forward with him all day, and he wasn't sure what to do. "I'm just going home. What are you doing?"
"Oh, I have to get to cheerleading practice," Karyn almost looked surprised to hear herself say those words, "but when I'm done I can," she paused to raise her eyebrows, "come over to your place."
Something seemed odd to Jon about the idea of Karyn going to cheerleading practice, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. In any case, he couldn't afford to lose more ground in this conversation than he already had. "I will be waiting for you."
And the two teenagers parted ways.
