A/N: Just a short little Teen Rizzles one-shot that I hope you enjoy. :)
Two months had passed since her high school graduation, but Jane remembered every word she spoke and every conversation she overheard before the ceremony. There were pictures being taken and friends promising that this wasn't the end. "We'll stay friends after graduation" and "I'll see you everyday this summer" made up the majority of the conversations Jane overheard, but what tugged at her heart were the couples. Some were going to the same college, others were going to attempt a long distance relationship while attending college in different states—and then there was Jane and Maura whom everyone assumed would elope during the summer.
They had rented a hotel room instead of attending any graduation parties and it was on that night that Maura had promised to love her forever. They had exchanged class rings as a symbol of the promise to love each other for better or for worse and, even if they weren't married, they considered the vows they made while taking a bubble bath in their hotel room to be more sacred than the vows most married couples said to each other. "The average married couple stays together for seven years," Maura pointed out. "That's not going to be us. We're going to be together forever."
But two months had passed since that day and just over twelve hours had passed since Jane learned that Maura's idea of forever differed from her own.
They had been apart all summer while Maura was vacationing with her family and, when she returned to Boston, she had come back a different person, cold even. She hadn't met anyone, but she no longer had the same feelings for Jane that she once had and she wanted to focus on herself in college instead of being in a relationship. Those were merely the first items on a list that Maura had recited of reasons why she wanted to end their relationship and, to Jane, each reason sounded more overused than the last.
Jane was close to tears, but she didn't want to give Maura the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Over the past five years she had given so much to Maura: her first kiss, her virginity, her class ring that came with a promise to love her as long as she lived. For all that she gave to her, Jane felt as if she was owed a better explanation, but instead they kissed each other for the last time and went their separate ways.
She knew her friends would tell her to just find another girl and her family would tell her to find a way to win Maura's heart again, but neither option appealed to Jane. Instead, she spent hours taking pictures of Maura down from her wall and going through their old love letters. She cried over the words Maura had written until her tears made the ink on the pages start to run, but it was all part of the healing process or so she told herself.
We had love and it wasn't enough. It was nothing either of us did, Jane thought while placing all of Maura's letters and photos inside a shoebox. She didn't have the heart to throw them away regardless of how much she was hurting, but seeing the past five years of her life placed into a single shoebox that would eventually be stored in the closet hit her harder than she had expected. Is this all Maura and I meant to each other? High school is over and so are we. I'm going to pull this out someday, maybe when I move into my first apartment and maybe I'll be with the woman I'm meant to spend the rest of my life with and we'll look at these pictures and reminisce about our first loves and it wont hurt anymore. I'll have found someone who won't break my heart and someone who'll stop me from hurting like this. Maura was my first love, but she's not going to be my last. I'm worthy of love even if it's not from Maura.
For five years, Jane had been in a relationship. She had been 'Jane and Maura' instead of 'Jane' and for the first time in her teen years she was going to learn what it was like to be her own person and experience life for herself. With that thought in mind, Jane took Maura's ring off of her finger and placed it in the shoebox. It was the final step in the plan she had made to get over Maura, but tucking the ring and other remnants of Maura into a shoebox in her closet did little to mend her broken heart. Everything tangible had been tucked away, but the memories of Maura would always be with her and she soon realized she was in for many nights of crying herself to sleep.