"Daria."
A single word was uttered from the darkness and Daria turned towards the source of the noise in a fright. Her heartbeat slowed when she saw who it was. Trent.
"Trent?" she asks in a wary voice.
"I just wanted to uh-um, talk to you, you know, alone."
Daria looks at him weirdly, he seems unusually nervous, the musician generally had a cool, untouchable reserve.
"What's up?" she asks, trying to keep things from getting even more awkward.
"It's about Janey, she asked me to talk to you about , um, something," Trent says, his hands knotting around each other.
He looks at Daria expectantly, as if she should continue on for him but when she doesn't he goes on.
"Well, uh-um, she's sick," he utters the last two words out quickly.
"Sick?"
"Yesterday, after school. She came home complaining about a stomach bug, nothing unusual I guess, being around that paint all day but then it got worse. After dinner she ran out of the room and I could hear her, in the bathroom," Trent explains quietly, with a pained look on his face.
"So whats wrong?" Daria's heart is beating like crazy, what if something were to happen to Jane, who was one of the most important people in her life.
"She asked me to take her to the hospital, the pain was that bad. She has Chron's disease Daria."
"Is-is it fatal?"
"No, but she'll have to be on medication permanently and can't leave the hospital for a while now."
The blow hit her like a tsunami, crashing down her hopes and dreams and her forehead scrunched up in pain just thinking about it.
"Trent, I want to go see her, will you take me, now?" she asks, trying to not cry.
Trent looks at Daria briefly before saying, "Okay."
They both trace their steps back down the road and walked to the Lanes' carport. Just a few hours ago Jane and Daria had been in the house by themselves with not a care in the world. After leaving the classroom at school neither of them had been in the mood to attend school, and that made it the first time they'd wagged school. So they had headed back to Jane's place where there was no one to be seen, Trent and the band were out in some country town doing a gig.
But now, looking at the Lane residence it was almost impossible to believe things had been going perfectly with her best friend. Just a few words and her entire world had been shattered. What an illusion happiness was sometimes.
Daria glances at the car and without warning a distant memory floats back to her mind.
The first time Daria had a proper encounter with Trent.
After a rushed and awkward meeting, in which Daria was rendered speechless and devoid of all her usual sarcastic remarks, Jane was neatly giving them opportunities "alone" to "bond". Trent had been pretty much oblivious to Daria's massive crush on him, much to her relief.
Trent had invited Jane and Daria to come with them to a music festival.
Terrified Daria had hopped into the Tank, Max's old van, prepared to embarrass herself in front of Trent relentlessly.
The van had broken down, leaving the foursome stranded by the road. Jane had swept away with Jesse to look for help nearby, leaving Daria with Trent.
In hindsight, she hadn't mortified herself too much. Apart from that old sandwich of course.
Daria hadn't felt anything for Jane back then, just friendship, and a mutual hatred of other people of course.
Had she been sick then too? Or was it just recently that things had come into play. More likely the latter, as neither Jane nor Daria had ever been one that the fates were nice to.
Trent was driving more slowly than per usual. The combination of grief and reluctance to show Daria her best friend's state of health.
It can't be all that bad, just three hours ago Jane was fine, Daria thinks to herself trying to ease the worried thoughts. Although the same goes with a car crash, three hours ago they were fine, and then that car hit them, another bitter thought goes by her mind.
Her whole life Daria had been perfecting that sarcastic tone, the emotionless mask she put on herself to cover up her true thoughts. Meeting Jane had lightened up her life dramatically and started to break that mask. Maybe her being sick would finally make it fall off completely.
When they reached the Lawndale Hospital Daria hopped out of the car. Expecting Trent to follow she waited.
When he didn't get out she opened the car door again, "You coming?"
"No, I think I'll wait here. I'll give you a lift home after if you want."
"Oh, okay. Um, sure."
Bothered by Trent not wanting to come in Daria feels even more nervous about the whole situation.
She could feel the skin under her glasses sweating and her hands were shaking a bit. If she dared to look in a mirror she would probably see the trademark rash that formed whenever she was nervous.
The shiny, tiled surface of the reception clicked under her boots. A tired looking man looked up at the door hearing her arrival.
"Sorry, no visitors right now. There's been some.. complications."
"Complications?" Daria asks, hoping to God that it wasn't anything to do with Jane.
"There was an outbreak of something deadly contagious. All visitors are prohibited for the time being."
"My best friend, though. I-I need to see her," Daria whimpers.
The receptionist looks anxious at this show of emotion and turns to his computer.
"What's her name?" he asks.
"Uh-um. Jane. Jane Lane."
He types into the computer and a database comes up."
"You can't go and see her in person but a phone call certainly hasn't been prohibited."
"You mean I can talk to her?" she asks, excitedly.
"Yes."
Daria feels guiltily relieved and she didn't feel up to seeing Jane in person. Although a phone call could probably give just as good an indication of her status.
"I have a visitor at reception who would like to speak to a patient. That's not breaching protocol is it?"
"Yes. Jane Lane. Okay, yep that's fine."
"You can speak to her but for five minutes maximum."
Daria nods, not trusting her voice to not give away how she was feeling.
After a while there's a voice at the other end of the line and the receptionist picks up the phone again.
"Here you go," he says kindly, smiling at Daria in a way that makes her want to puke.
"Thanks," she says dryly anyway.
"Daria." Jane's voice is quiet and is nothing like its usual tone. Not even her trademark greeting, yo.
"Jane. How're you feeling?" She feels silly for asking the question, of course she wouldn't be feeling 'Great! Let's go get some pizza to celebrate!', but what else could she say?!
"Crap Daria, I'm sorry, I didn't want all this to happen."
Daria scoffs, "It's okay Jane, obviously you didn't but hey, it happened anyway, thats life."
"Daria I don't exactly want all of your philosophical reasoning right now," Jane grunts.
"Sorry. I know," Daria sighs.
"So did Trent tell you everything about it all?"
"Yeah."
"This whole thing sucks doesn't it. And no one's sure how or why I got it. Mum and Dad are coming to see me, and they might even drag along a dozen or so other forgotten family members," she whines, still managing to fit in some sarcasm. The Lane family were not close, and Jane would often make sarcastic remarks about the situation.
"How come a contagious disease had to ravage the hospital right when I came to visit."
"Oh its the stars trying to keep us apart of course."
"Well, something had to didn't it," Daria mutters unthinkingly.
When Jane didn't reply Daria blurts out, "Sorry, that was horrible. I was just thinking about us, in fact I've really been thinking about us all day. And how things in my life never seem to work out. And that I want us to work out so badly." At hearing this the receptionist looked at Daria and frowned. Ugh, great.
"Awh Daria. You over think things. Everything'll turn out okay. You'll see," Jane reassures her.
"Thanks. I know. Its just hard."
The receptionist suddenly stands up and announces, "Five minutes is up thanks."
"Ugh, I've got to go Jane, but I'll come again as soon as this outbreak has cleared up I promise," she groans. There were just three other words that popped to her mind but she filed them away quickly, she didn't need that at the moment.
"See ya Daria."
She presses the end call button and the receptionist quickly snatches the phone away from her.
Daria gives him a piercing look at said, "Homophobia isn't healthy."
He drops the phone onto the receiver in surprise, "Excuse me?"
"You heard what I said. She's my best friend, we also happen to be going out too, if you have a problem with that its your problem. I'm not going to let someone else's stupid opinion change what I do," she says scathingly and rushes out the door before the idiotic receptionist saw her crying.
Outside the building Trent is still there, he looks up at Daria and looks away again when he sees her face.
She rushes to the car and rubs her wet eyes before getting in.
"Hey Daria," Trent says smoothly, sounding like his old self.
"Hey."
Trent doesn't ask anything about what happened much to the relief of Daria. She didn't feel like talking to anyone about anything right now.
It starts to rain on the way home, and by the time they arrive at the Morgendorffers' its pouring down.
"Thanks for the ride Trent."
"No problem. Uh-um you wanna come over after school tomorrow?" he asks.
She looks at him quizzically for a moment before replying, "Sure, see you then."
School. Tomorrow. Without Jane. It'd be the first time she'd ever attended Lawndale High without Jane's comforting presence. And there'd be questions. Someone would probably know by now that Jane was hospitalised, and they'd automatically assume that Daria would know about it. Which was true of course but extremely annoying. She couldn't fake sick tomorrow, her mother would know something was up. And she wasn't very fond of confessing her feelings to anyone, particularly a nosy family member.
The realisation of Jane being sick suddenly hit home and she stopped dead on the middle of the path. The tears rolled out of her eyes and she felt like screaming. The person who she loved the most wasn't ever going to be the same again.
Running to the front door she knocked and was greeted by Sandi, one of Quinn's self-centered, shallow and overly fashion conscious friends.
"Uh Quinn, its your cousin, she's like been outside."
"Just let me inside my own house."
"Okay then," she replies snidely.
Without even looking at Quinn and the rest of her friends she walks up the stairs to her bedroom. After her friends had gone Quinn would probably come up and ask why Daria was out so late. As a precaution she dragged her desk chair over across the door so no one could come in.
Absentmindedly she went over to the TV and switched it on.
..."Next on Sick, Sad World," the sound that came out of the television reminded her achingly of her best friend. She decided to watch it anyway. Sometimes a bit of self-anguish could do wonders.
