On Maura Isles' first day as a full-time science teacher at St Agatha's Catholic School, Jane Rizzoli turns seventeen.
Three weeks pass. Tall, brazen Jane Rizzoli sits in the back row of Advanced Placement Biology with the petite, soft-spoken Abbie Rhodes. In Advanced Placement Physics, Jane Rizzoli sits in the front row, next to Abbie Rhodes. In Advanced Placement Chemistry, they move to the back again.
Maura sees Jane for eight hours a week.
Maura does not miss the way Jane looks at Abbie.
Jane looks at Abbie Rhodes like there is nothing warmer and brighter and truer.
Maura has an inkling.
"Ms Isles, my Bunsen burner still ain't lightin'!
Maura looks up from her preparation materials to the lab bench which Jane Rizzoli, Claudia Witner, and James Annechi are bent over.
Jane groans loudly. "It's stuffed!"
"It's 'vanced placement chemistry and she still can't light a Bunsen burner," James tsks in good humour, nudging Claudia.
Jane refuses to stop fiddling with the instrument. "Back off, Annechi," she mumbles.
Maura feels her temples throb. Forty minutes of non-stop banter.
She looks around the room, at her small class of just eight students. At a lab bench across the room, Abbie stands by herself, watching her successful, bubbling tube of formaldehyde.
Maura stands. "Jane, you're welcome to work with Abbie."
Although Jane, bent over the lab bench, has her back to Maura, the teacher can see the girl's entire body stiffen. Maura watches as Jane's fingers brush a stray curl behind her ear.
"I'm good," Jane whispers to the Bunsen burner.
Maura glances across the room, and catches sweet Abbie's eyes. The girl is teary. Looking at Jane, looking after Jane, desperate for Jane to look up at her. Teary.
The room falls silent.
Maura rephrases her question. "Jane, maybe you'd like to work with Abbie?"
Jane swivels on the spot. Her glare meets Maura's. There is a deep blush running over her cheeks and spreading like wildfire beneath the collar of her dress.
"Can I be excused?" Jane murmurs, her voice too deep for her age.
Maura glances across the room at Abbie, who is slowly removing her lab coat.
"You may. Don't be long."
Jane Rizzoli leaves the room like a hurricane.
All eyes turn to Abbie.
Maura's heart aches suddenly.
She had an inkling.
And now Abbie Rhodes is crying in her lab.
"Abbie, if you'd like to be excused…"
Abbie is out the door before Maura can finish.
Maura Isles was not properly trained for this. She was trained in chemistry, and biology, and physics, and everything under the sun. She was trained in high school melodrama and the psychology of adolescents, but she was not properly trained for this.
After fifteen minutes, when Abbie and Jane have not returned to sixth period chemistry, Maura goes looking for her students.
She tells the class to continue working. She'll return in a moment.
The whispers are quiet, almost discreet but they echo off the tiles in the girl's bathroom and out into the narrow, dark corridor of the science block.
"Everybody knows." Jane. "I hate that everybody knows."
"I wish…" Abbie.
"Yeah. Me too."
"Do you think you're gay?"
"No." Quick.
"I think I might love you, Jane."
"Don't say stuff like that."
"But I can't help it."
"Can you please stop crying?"
"I can't help it!"
"Please…"
Maura can't stop listening. It's the most horrible thing she's ever done. She stays.
"Abbie, you have to tell people it didn't happen. You have to tell people that he made it up. If my folks find out about this, they'll hate me forever."
Quiet.
"Even if I tell people…you'll still hate me?" Abbie says this like she knows, but it still comes out as a question.
And then, nothing. Not a whisper. Not a word.
Maura swallows over the lump in her throat.
She can do this.
She can be an adult.
A twenty-four year old adult, but an adult nonetheless.
She steps into the girl's bathroom, the click of her heels on tile piercing.
"Oh," she gasps.
Her students are pressed together. Kissing.
Jane pulls back from Abbie like she's been burned. Abbie's eyes are glassy and unfocused when they look to Maura. Jane's stare is wild.
Maura looks to the ground. She clears her throat.
"Oh, god," Abbie chokes.
"It's okay, sweetheart," Maura hears herself say. Nothing has ever felt more unnatural and deceitful.
The year is 1989. Nothing about this is okay.
For a moment, Abbie looks like she might be okay. Maybe, just maybe, Maura is safe. Maybe, just maybe, Maura won't tell.
Jane looks like she wants to die.
"Girls—
"What are you going to do?" Jane demands. Her eyes are black and full of fear.
Maura bites her tongue.
"I'm not going to do anything."
Maura watches as Jane clenches her jaw.
"Really?" she wonders, unconvinced. "You find two girls kissing, and you're gonna say nothin'?"
Abbie begins to whimper.
Maura stands straighter. Although there are seven years between them, Jane is at least four inches taller than her teacher.
"You have my word."
"Yeah, well, we had her brother's word and that meant jack shit," Jane retorts quickly.
Maura pauses.
Jane watches Abbie cry, but does not reach out to comfort her.
The school bell chimes, indicating the next period.
"This is your senior year," Maura starts. "You may not realise it, but there's a whole world out there just waiting to welcome you two into it. A world of people like you."
People like us, Maura wants to say. But the year is 1989, and Maura loves her job. Her new job.
"Save it," Jane says through tears.
"Ms Isles," Abbie cries softly, "we're really sorry. This was really inappropriate and…I'm so embarrassed…"
Maura nods. "Abbie—
The girl is already out the door.
Maura turns back to Jane. "Will she be okay?"
Jane shrugs.
…
…
…
"Her brother walked in on us. Together."
"I see…"
"It'd be real neat if you didn't tell no one," Jane whispers. "Abby's real messed up about it. She doesn't deserve this. She's a real good person. " She clears her throat. "She saved me."
Maura doesn't make a sound.
Jane looks down.
"Yeah." Jane scratches at the back of her neck. "Okay then."
Jane keeps looking down as she leaves the bathroom.
Maura wonders if she'll ever meet Jane Rizzoli's gaze again.
Maura's stockings are thin and her dress too short as she makes her way down the flight of stairs to the dark basement bar that is HiJax.
Evie is at the back of the room, towering over a short redhead Maura thinks she's seen maybe once or twice on HiJax's poor excuse for a dance floor.
But when Evie spots Maura, the redhead is forgotten.
"Want to tie me up and teach me a lesson, Ms Isles?" Evie wonders as they find a seat in an empty booth. She licks Maura's pulse. The leather of Evie's biker jacket feels delicious beneath Maura's finger tips. Maura downs her glass of vodka.
She can smell the alcohol on Evie's breath. "I bet you look gorgeous in your teacher get up."
Maura smirks.
"I wonder what little Billy and Janie would think if they knew you fucked women?"
Maura feels herself go rigid.
"Sorry," Evie croons, planting little kisses along the shell of Maura's ear. "Too crude?"
Maura pulls back and looks into the brunette's eyes.
"Let's go back to your place."
She's not in love with Evie.
But she thinks that, maybe, probably, Evie might be in love with her.
She runs her fingernails through Evie's short hair as the mechanic bathes her tongue between Maura's folds. Maura spreads her legs wider, trying to focus on Evie. Evie. Sex. Evie's tongue.
"Hey," Maura whispers. "Come up here?"
Evie pulls back. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing…"
"I want to make you come."
Maura presses her palm against Evie's cheek. "You're beautiful."
Evie smiles warmly.
"I have a student. A lesbian. Well, two. But one of them…I can't stop thinking about her."
"Dirty!" Evie plays.
"No," Maura admonishes. "Not like that! I…I walked in on them—kissing."
"I told you all-girls schools were full of dykes."
Maura pulls the sheet up over her naked breasts.
"They're closeted. Completely tortured." Maura licks her lips. "They've been outed."
Evie reaches for Maura's hand. She brings it to her lips, and kisses each of Maura's fingertips. "How old are they?"
"Seventeen." Maura looks into Evie's older, darker eyes. "One of them just stood there crying, and then she ran out. But Jane…she stayed. Taking it for the both of them. I want to help her, but I don't know how to."
"You didn't tell her you're a dyke did you?"
"No. Do you think I should have?"
"Don't you dare. You could lose your job." Maura felt the tightness in her chest returning. "Hey," Evie whispered. "She'll come to you if she trusts you." Maura tried her best to summon a smile, but in moments it didn't matter because Evie was kissing her, softly, and then harder, and then hardly at all, because she was moving lower beneath the sheets, and suddenly, her fingers were inside Maura.
I could love her, Maura thinks.
After all, shouldn't you love the girl who saved you?