Why did you want to play football like a boy? Weren't pompoms and lacrosse sticks enough for you? Why did you pierce your face? Do you think metal is attractive? Why did you change your name and disown your brother? Do you think you are above his mistakes?
Is Spinner really the one for you? He is sweet, clueless, wise in the way that the dim-witted have, but doesn't thinking like that make you condescending? Where are you in all of this?
Why do you barrel through the halls of that high school like a freak? Why don't you ever conform? Why don't you fit in? What's wrong with your square peg?
Do you believe the reviews, bland but sympathetic? Are you more than what's written on the white page? Didn't you breathe any life into those words at all? Jane, where are you?
Why do you tire me? Why do you stress me? Did you really think Spinner was going to die? Do you really think your brother will ever reform? Atone? Will you please hold your knees together and avert your eyes? These are not things for a lady. Tackled by boys in football, their bodies crashing against yours? What sort of sport is this for a girl?
Find your place, take your space. Maybe Cinderella had all the advantages she needed by virtue of her beauty. It was the ugly step-sisters who had to struggle. So they would never fit the glass slipper, they would never fit that narrow definition of beauty. They know that beauty means more than wealth. After all, who does the prince always fall for? Not you, right Jane?
Okay, put on your football clothes, shoulders as broad as any man's. Put the black paint under your eyes. Change and clean your piercing-s. They only leave holes when you're older. Like tattoos of little bugs or flowers grown monstrous with time. Is this what you want? Jane? Jane?
Diet, have that corset always pulled tight. Be pretty and petite, squeeze into all the glass slippers the princes throw at you. You dance for them at their ball. Is this your world view? And oh yeah, phrase all your commands like timid little questions to fool them, "would you mind very much, could you please, if it isn't too much trouble," ect, ect. We girls know the game, as vicious as any football play. What can little circles and x's on a board teach you, anyway?
Jane, you can't play football. They'll crush you.
So it comes out at last, does it, Jane? The bile that's backed up on you for years. You know your brother was wrong. You know Spinner is the one. You know Mia doesn't get it. Model my ass. Stick to football, the game of war, chess with tackle dummies and knee braces. Cinderella be damned. Medieval bullshit. I'll give you bland and sympathetic.
Take your righteous anger and use it on the football field, demolish those white painted lines, shatter the glass slippers. It's no way to judge. Shove your diet. Reclaim your right to the world, and start telling instead of asking. They need time to think it's all their idea, well, you're out of time.
Time out, take a breath, what happened to you, Jane? Are you still there? Are you kissing Spinner? Does he give you the affirmation that you've been crying for? Does he fill the void? Is he a frog or a prince? Throw your frog against the wall. Freud only read the fairy tales and blamed the mothers, doesn't it make sense? We're all descendants of Eve.
Okay, I've come around. Play football. Dance in a fancy dress. Diet. Ask quietly and trick them, look at their fancy purple velvet robes, shrink from their diamonds. They own you, but oh their eyes, that off hazel almost green. You're hypnotized.
What am I talking about, Jane? I've lost the thread. It's all tied up in your outrageous behavior. Football? I felt so bad for you, with your long chin and soulful eyes. I never saw you as the pauper girl with the dead mother and the ugliness all around you. I never saw you as Spinner's lover. I never saw you in the NFL. I don't know what I ever saw. Jane? Where did you go?