A/N: I've always liked the idea of Jane and Olivia being best friends and I hope you will, too.
It was a snowy day in early March when Jane received an email from the BCU Admissions Office notifying her that her application status had changed. She was in the living room with her mom and, although Mrs. Rizzoli had been anxiously awaiting decisions from the schools her daughter had applied to, Jane was hesitant to log into her BCU application while in the same room as her. Jane had applied to ten universities and had yet to be denied admission, but the financial aid packages nine out of ten of those universities offered her didn't suit the Rizzoli family's needs. As a middle class family, the Rizzoli family made too much money for Jane to receive grants or need-based scholarships, but not enough for them to actually afford the $500 or $600 a month loan payments in addition to the rest of their expenses.
As a little girl, Jane watched the Women's College World Series and dreamed of someday playing softball for the schools she saw on TV―the powerhouses―as she had heard them called. Florida, LSU, UCLA, and half a dozen others had already accepted her and offered her a spot on the team, but their acceptance came with only partial scholarships that would just about cover the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition. Jane knew her father would have done anything to send her to one of those schools, but the thought of making her parents struggle financially was too much for her to handle, so she lied and said she hadn't been accepted to any universities despite the fact that her parents could see right through those lies.
The next four years of her academic life would be determined by BCU's decision and, the moment she received the email, Jane lied about having to call a friend before running up to her room and locking the door behind her. She nervously logged into the BCU application portal from her phone and once she saw that her application status had switched from pending to accepted, she couldn't stop herself from smiling. Clicking a link to get to her acceptance letter wasn't as exciting as receiving an actual hard copy in the mail, so Jane did the next best thing and printed it out. Her next step was to view her financial aid package, which she found to be an even more nail-biting experience than waiting for an acceptance. It wasn't a full ride that they offered her, but the school was willing to cover everything except for $5,000 a year that Jane could receive in Stafford loans that she wouldn't have to pay back until after she graduated.
She ran downstairs with her acceptance letter in hand and gave it to her mom. Jane had expected just a hug, but she was taken by surprise when her mom started to cry. Jane even shed a few tears as her mom hugged her, although she'd never admit that to her brothers. The Rizzoli family went out to dinner that night to celebrate and, within a few days, Angela took it upon herself to start searching Pinterest for lists of what Jane should take with her to college despite the fact that her daughter still had two more months of high school.
Jane spent countless days over the summer shopping with her mom for all of the items college students were expected to take to their dorm despite the fact that most of the lists posted online were made by large retail stores who just wanted parents to buy more merchandise from them. "I'm only going to be a twenty or thirty-minute drive from home. I don't need all of this stuff," Jane told her mom several times over the summer, but Angela would typically respond with something along the lines of, "My first-born going away to college is a once in a lifetime experience. Don't ruin it for me."
Over the summer, the BCU Student Housing Office sent Jane an email with the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of her two future roommates. Three weeks had passed and Jane had yet to contact them, so she was relieved when Abigail Carmichael, one of her roommates, decided to contact her and her other roommate via a group text message. They mostly talked about who should bring what, but when they divulged some of the details of their lives, she learned that Abigail, or Abbie as she preferred to be called, was from Texas and her other roommate, Olivia Benson, was from New York. When they shared their Instagram usernames with each other, a running joke started that Abbie and Jane were twins who had been separated at birth. Even their parents were amazed by the uncanny resemblance. From their Instagram posts, Jane learned that Olivia was a basketball player who spent most of her time with her girlfriend. Every picture she posted was either of the two of them or candid pictures of Alex, her girlfriend. Such a lez, Jane thought, although she envied the fact that Olivia had a loving, stable relationship while she, on the other hand, had yet to even kiss a girl. While scrolling through Abbie's Instagram, Jane learned that she was a track star who lived on a ranch in Texas. Her account was made up of selfies and pictures of her with her friends doing things that Jane considered stereotypical southern activities like off-roading and drinking around a bonfire. She was Homecoming queen and the girlfriend of a quarterback in a town that revolved around the local high school football team going to state and Jane wondered why she'd leave that to live in a city where nobody knew her name.
The more Jane talked to Olivia, the more excited she became about starting college. Because Jane never had a girlfriend, she never felt as if she had a reason to come out to her family and friends, but with Olivia there was no need to come out. She could simply tell her without it being some huge revelation. The conversations they had made her feel as if Olivia was the type of person she had waited a lifetime to meet. As a Red Sox fan, Jane disapproved of Olivia's love for the Yankees, so the two of them engaged in friendly banter about each other's teams. Had they gone to the same high school, they would have been best friends, but they couldn't say the same for Abbie and they worried how their living situation would be with her as a roommate.
"She's not like us," Jane said to Olivia in a text message. "Two lesbians living with a straight, small town, Texas homecoming queen. This is going to be interesting."
"A Republican, straight, small town, Texas homecoming queen," Olivia added. "Do you think she'll condemn us or, even worse, do you think she'll say 'y'all' all the time?"
"Maybe. haha. Then again I also thought you'd say 'yous guys' all the time because you're from New York," Jane responded. "Btw does Alex have a friend for me or am I going to be the third wheel all year?"
"Her roommate is cute."
"Cute and gay or cute and straight?"
"Cute and why don't you ask her yourself when school starts."
"You're a horrible wingwoman. You have three weeks to work on that."
"And you have three weeks to learn to control your hormones."
Jane figured the odds of something happening between her and Alex's roommate were out of the question and she had yet to even see what she looked like, but she couldn't help getting lost in a fantasy world where she had a girlfriend. She imagined different scenarios in which she and this hypothetical girl could meet and the dates they'd go on, but she knew even the best fantasies couldn't compare to the real thing. I don't need a girl to complete me. I'm okay by myself, Jane told herself whenever she'd get lonely. But I guess someone cute to make out with wouldn't hurt.
Between all the time she spent preparing for college and the going away parties she attended for friends and acquaintances, Jane's summer flew by before she could fully come to terms with the fact that she'd be taking such a big step from childhood to adulthood.
"It's going to be okay," Olivia said to her via text message the night before move-in day. "And, if it's not, we have each other. And we have your mom's homemade Italian food just twenty minutes away."
