Jane looked back at her door and was not expected the person at her door. At all.
"Maura? What are- I mean not that I don't, uh-" Jane swallowed the lump in her throat, wiped her face of tears and took a deep breath. "What are you doing here?" She finally managed to get out.
Am I dreaming? Did I fall asleep?
You did get dropped on your head at birth.
Now is not the time!
"I'm sorry, it's just, I saw what happened in the cafeteria. I know I barely even know you but I just wanted to make sure you were okay." She moved towards Jane, sitting on the edge of the bed across from her. She seemed just as nervous. Jane was embarrassed. She always tried her hardest to not let anyone see her cry. Or that she had been crying.
What is happening?
"That's, uh, nice. Thank you. But, who let you in? Sorry not to be rude it's just-" She faltered.
You gotta stop with that.
I'm shutting you off.
"Your mother, actually. It's after school. Barold and Vince told me where you lived. I'm sorry I should not have assumed that you would want me over. I can go-" She said shifting slightly on the bed.
"No! Stay! It's totally fine. I must've fallen asleep. It's fine. It's cool. I'm cool. Are you cool?" Jane rushed out.
Damn, dude.
Didn't I shut you off?!
I'm you. You can't just shut me off. Aren't you supposed to be smart?
Jane scowled deeply.
God, I can be so annoying.
Jane looked over at the sound of Maura laughing, she brought her hand up to her mouth while she giggled uncontrollably. It was obviously contagious as Jane began laughing too.
"What're we-," She said pausing to take a breath, "Laughing at?" She managed to push out.
"I don't remember exactly. You, I suppose." She said still smiling. God, that smile.
"Me?"
"Yes. You. You are thoroughly amusing." She said. A few beats and her eyes were widening in horror. "Not in a bad way! You're funny, I mean. It's your facial expressions."
"I get it. Thanks for doing this by the way. I needed the laugh." Jane was grateful. Sure she had the boys, but they were just that, boys. She tried to be tough around them. She realized that around Maura maybe she didn't have to try to be tough. Maybe she could just be.
"You're welcome. Laughter has been proven to be an exceptional stress relief. Laughter releases endorphins throughout your body. There have also been studies that suggest that it heightens your pain threshold by ten percent." Her smile fell a little. "I'm boring you aren't I?"
"No, not at all." She smiled reassuringly. "It's actually amazing, you know, that you stuff like that." Jane said smiling softly. Maura could hear the sincerity in her voice. Maura smiled brightly back at Jane and focused at the keyboard Jane was seated at.
"You play the piano?" She asked in surprise.
Jane shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah. I taught myself some years ago." She answered. Maura nodded in wonderment and Jane spoke back up.
"So, about our bio project. You're here now, maybe we can brainstorm ideas? I really liked the topic of cadavers."
As soon as Jane finished the sentence she could see the light building behind her eyes. This is what Jane enjoyed about people. The kind of people who are unapologetically and wildly passionate about something. That moment when you could basically see it as it takes them over. It was beautiful to witness and she wished more people would be like that.
"I'm partial to the cadavers myself, so that would be a wonderful thing to research!" Maura finished excitedly.
"Well, let's do that then." Jane said quickly to appease the girl, who smiled at her gratefully. She watched Maura as she gazed at her room for the first time since she arrived.
"Wow," She breathed. "You really enjoy superheroes and video games, don't you?" She asked, walking over to Jane's comic book collection. She looked over at her with her eyebrow quirked, pointing towards the bookshelf.
"May I?" Jane nodded and watched her as she flicked through the books that were covered in plastic.
"You know," She started gaining Jane's attention. "I am partial to DC myself." Jane gasped, feeling as though she had been shot right through the chest.
"How could you say that? Marvel has a MUCH better shared universe than DC will ever have! Even in TV shows they incorporate them so well into the movies!" Jane exclaimed, easily heated by the Marvel/DC debate.
"Well for one," And Maura launched right into it.
They went back and forth like this for a while. Jane felt good—happy. She hadn't thought about what happened earlier that day since Maura walked through her bedroom door.
"I should probably go home." Maura said looking over at the alarm clock on Jane's nightstand.
"Right. Yeah. Did you drive here? Want me to walk you to your car?" Jane asked standing. Maura nodded and stood up as well. They walked down the stairs and out the front door and Jane's jaw immediately dropped.
"Jesus. This yours?" Jane gawked. It was a black Tesla Model 6 Maura smiled softly back.
"Yes. My parents bought it for me as a sixteenth birthday present. It is incredibly fuel efficient with a 60 kW-hr battery pack." Maura said while still standing by Jane. Jane shook her head smiling and walked over to the driver's side door opening it waiting for her to get in.
"Thank you."
"No problem, see you tomorrow?"
"Bright and early. Goodnight, Jane." Maura smiled once more before pulling out of the driveway and driving home. Jane walked back to the front door just to see her mother waiting for her at the front door.
"So, who's your new friend?"
Jane groaned.
Jane was in her room playing on her piano when her mother called her and her brother down. She walked out of her room the same time Frankie came out of his and they walked down the stairs into the kitchen where her father was already seated reading a newspaper.
"Hey, Pop." Frankie greeted as he took a seat to the left of his father, Jane sitting next to him. He nodded back without taking his eyes off of the sports page.
"Where's, Tommy?" Jane asked while her mom set the last dish of food on the table. Her mother always went all out no matter what. Typical Italians.
"He's over a friend's house studying." Angela said as she took a seat at the table. Jane rolled her eyes at her youngest brother. It's the first day of school, studying for what?
"So, Jane, you made a new friend today I gather?" Her mother asked while pretending nonchalant as she forked some of her pasta in her mouth.
"Maura? Yeah, I mean she's pretty cool. She's new. She's from France." Jane said as she kept her attention focused on the food on the plate in front of her.
"France? How nice! I've always wanted to go to France." Her mother finished wistfully. That was when her Father put down the paper next to him and decided to join in on family conversation.
"Oh yeah? Since when?" Her father probed.
"Since always." Angela huffed.
"Yeah, well, don't hold your breath. Hey Frankie, you're doing baseball, right?"
"Yeah, I am." He said excitedly. Frankie always loved playing baseball and the entire family, sans Angela, enjoyed it a lot too.
"When are tryouts? We gotta work on that curve ball son, don't wanna have you pitching like a wuss like you usually do." Their father said nonchalantly. Jane had half a mind to give him the other half. She clenched her jaw and picked her fork up and continued eating while Frankie replied to their father.
"Sure. We can work on it. I guess I did need the practice anyway." Frankie softly replied.
"You throw just fine." Jane mumbled under her breath throwing a glance at her brother, who shot a worried look back. He leaned over a little and touched her shoulder with his and shook his head slightly. Jane let out a small sigh and scooted her chair away from the table.
"May I be excused?" Jane asked as she was standing up. Her father grunted in response picking his newspaper back up. Jane bounded up the stairs and closed her door softly behind her after she entered her room. She looked around her room for something to occupy her time. She let out a grunt of frustration.
God, this sucks.
Jane looked over at her nightstand when she heard her phone vibrate with a new message.
Frost: Call of Duty?
Jane quickly texted him a confirmation and grabbed her controller and remote, hitting the power button on both and reached over to her nightstand to grab her headset. She logged onto her account and put in COD: Ghosts joined Frost's party, noticing that Korsak was already in.
"Hey, guys." Jane spoke and adjusted the volume in the side of the headset.
"Jane." Frost and Korsak answered simply and waited for her to elaborate. Probably wanted to know how she was doing and just used Ghosts as an excuse.
"You gave Maura my address?" She asked, trying to put off the conversation she wanted to avoid.
"Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. It's just, she can be extremely persuasive." Frost rushed out. Jane snorted.
"Scared of a girl?" She tossed at him. She heard Korsak start laughing and Frost take in a sharp gasp.
"No! She might be tiny but she just does this thing with her eyebrow and her eyes!" Jane and Korsak laughed harder and her grunted in response.
"Whatever, let's play Extinction." Jane groaned, she hated this gameplay.
"Honestly, why take out Zombies and replace them with aliens? Who does that?" She complained as the game started. Plus, it was just plain boring.
"Zombies are in the past, Jane. Come to the dark side, we have Aliens." Korsak said as he dropped his voice lower.
They played for about another hour before Korsak said that he had to go, leaving only Frost and Jane.
"Talk to me, Jane. What happened?" Frost asked, his voice dripping in concern. Jane exhaled.
Be strong.
"Nothing, it was just an accident." Lie #1 "I went home early to clean up, that's all."
"Then why did Maura have me tell her where you lived? Also, when did that happen? It's almost like she had been your friend for years with how worried she was."
"I don't know." Lie #2 "She's not used to it here, you know? I like her. We're friends, I guess."
"Yeah, she is pretty cool. Kinda weird."
"This is coming from you, Frost. Look in the mirror." She cringed as soon as the words came out, harsher than she had intended.
"Alright, I get it. I'm sorry. I should probably go though. You sure you're ok?"
"Yeah." Lie #3 "You can go. I'm fine." Jane swallowed thickly. She wanted this conversation to end already.
Be strong.
"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, then." Jane gave a quick okay and logged off of her account and shut everything down, turned to bury her face in her pillow and let sleep overtake her.
She had woken up earlier than usual and trudged down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was greeted by her little brother, Tommy, who was just barely staying awake in front of his bowl of Lucky Charms.
"Hey, Tommy. Didn't catch you last night." He opened his eyes a little wider to look at Jane as she sat at the table with her own cereal.
"Studying." He grunted.
"What is there to study on the first day of school, Tommy?" Jane lifted an eyebrow in question.
"It's too early for a lecture, alright? I was studying." Tommy got up from the table and grabbed his backpack and headed out the door to his own school.
Kid is only 12 and in the seventh grade, what's there to do in the seventh grade?
I can think of lots of things.
Too bad nobody asked you.
Technically you did ask.
Jane groaned and called Frankie down saying that it was time to go, and they both headed out of the door and to school.
Jane was still continuing her daily debate with Korsak and Frost as they walked through the student parking lot and into the school. In light, of last night's game it was centered around Zombies vs. Aliens.
"Look, all's I'm saying is that if I hear someone shout 'Alien!' I'm gonna look around for a tiny brown guy named ET. Not scary at all. Zombies eat people. That's pretty boss. Also, the walking dead, need I say more?" Jane argued as they walked down the hallway.
"She's gotta point Frost, The Walking Dead pretty much blows everything out of the water. Zombies are better." Frost just rolled his eyes and tossed a 'whatever' over his shoulder as he walked to his first hour class.
Korsak waved bye and took off in the same direction. Jane walked a couple of steps into her class and pushed up her glasses as she took her usual seat next to Maura in her AP Bio class. Maura already had her notes and books open and glanced over at Jane when she sat down.
"Good morning." That was enough to make a wide grin spread onto Jane's face.
"Morning." Maura turned to Jane and quirked an eyebrow noticing that Jane was staring. "Your eyes are pretty. What color are they?" Jane asked with a lazy grin on her face.
"I would say hazel, but that term varies from person to person. There are studies that state that hazel eyes come from a larger amount of melanin, however, it is not conclusive research. I'm rambling, aren't I?" Maura smiled and checked the front of the room to make sure the teacher hadn't begun lecturing. They still had time before the bell signaling the beginning of classes rang.
"No more than usual, it's fine though. It's a cool thing about you." Jane said while getting out her materials as the teacher came in and wrote the agenda on the board.
"You think I'm cool?"
"I mean, of course I do. I like how much you like what you like, you know?" She scrunched her nose and punched her glasses back up her face. "I mean, wait what? That was worded funny." Jane tried to backtrack and restructure the sentence in her mind to at least exude a hint of literacy. She caught blush on Maura's face before she turned back around to pay attention to the teacher.
Jane did her best to take down notes. They were touching on the topic of Human Anatomy in order to go more in depth about cells. Jane began to get more in the groove as the class period went on and began to furiously scribble down and highlight her notes. She may get distracted sometimes, but she was a good student. After the teacher wrapped up the lesson he reminded the class of their project and that it was due in two weeks.
"Do you want to work on our project after school today?" Maura questioned as she began to put her materials away.
"Yeah, sounds good." Jane agreed and followed suite. They walked out of there class and down the hallway. It had become routine for Jane to walk Maura to her classes. Maura turned around before she headed in and pulled out her phone.
"Here, put your number in, we can work on it at my house tonight. If that's good for you?" Jane nodded so quickly she thought her head might fall off.
"Perfectly fine. Always fine. So fine. I mean, just- yeah okay. I'll text you so you have my number too, okay?" Maura nodded and waved goodbye and walked into her class. Jane sighed and leaned up against the wall.
I'm on cloud motherfucking 9.
Well bring yourself down to 8 because it's time for U.S. Government.
The warning bell rang signaling she had 30 seconds to get to class.
