Jane reached out and touched one of the tiny holographic Earths. It immediately expanded into a large rectangle in front of her and displayed another version of herself, dressed identically and talking to Daria.
Older Jane stepped next to Jane. "These will default to showing the us that exists in that world. If you want to fast forward from the point where it starts, just swipe your hand from right to left while thinking about how far you want to go. Same if you want to focus on somebody else."
"Right," said Jane. She turned her attention back to the screen and blinked as the Jane she was watching reared back and slapped Daria so hard the shorter girl's head turned and her glasses went flying.
"You backstabbing bitch!" Jane screamed as Daria stared at her, hand on her injured cheek. "You kissed him and you have the NERVE to tell me here, in public, in front of EVERYBODY?!"
"I'm sorry!" Daria cried. Actually cried, tears forming in her eyes. "I had to tell you! I didn't mean for it to happen!"
"Bullshit, Daria! Just fucking bullshit!" Jane's fists clenched and her arms came up. Daria flinched and stepped back, unsure of what her now former friend was going to do. The crowd that was forming around them looked at each other, wondering if they needed to go get a teacher.
Jane took a step forward, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, Daria could see the naked hate blazing from within.
"We're done, do you understand?" Jane said, her voice low. "Unless we can't possibly avoid interacting with each other, we are completely done. Don't talk to me, don't try to call me, don't even look at me."
"Jane," Daria pleaded.
"Oh, spare me! I don't give a shit! You and Tom deserve each other! You can go off to hell together, Morgendorffer. It's where you both belong!"
Jane turned and ran off down the hall, leaving the crowd, and Daria, behind. She grit her teeth and willed the tears she felt forming to keep from falling until she had exited the school and ran from the grounds.
Jane frowned and focused, swiping her hand across the screen. The scene changed to an overhead shot of Daria lying on her bed. The cordless phone on the floor began to ring.
"Quinn… Quinn! Phone!" Daria sighed and sat up. "Oh, the hell with it."
She laid back on her bed and thumbed the answer button. "Hello?"
"Daria? It's Tom."
Daria's teeth clenched and she felt her face crumple into a mixture of anger and sadness. "What do you want, Tom?"
"Jane came by earlier."
Daria was silent for a moment then: "And?"
"'And?' And she went ballistic on me! I tried to explain how it was all my fault but she –"
"I don't care," Daria interrupted.
"What?" Tom asked.
"I don't care what she did to you. You deserved it. Just like I deserved what happened to me."
"Wait, what happened to you?"
"She's not my friend anymore," Daria replied, her voice even more monotone than usual. "She broke it off with me. She told me that we could both go to hell. That we deserved it."
"Okay, so she was justifiably upset, that doesn't mean – "
"SHE TOLD ME NEVER TO SPEAK OR EVEN LOOK AT HER AGAIN!" Daria yelled, bolting upright. "I LOST THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN MY LIFE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! I LOST EVERYTHING BECAUSE I LET MY GOD DAMN HORMONES OVERRULE MY BRAIN! I LOST IT ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!"
"Me?!" Tom's voice turned hard. "I explained all that! Yes, I'm just as culpable as you are, but give her some time. She's your best friend! She'll come around!"
"No, Tom, she won't," Daria replied, coldly. "Not this time. You didn't see her eyes. She hates me. I've never had anyone actually hate me before. Anger, indifference, annoyance, yes. Not actual hate. I feel filthy, Tom. I feel like I'm covered in the most disgusting garbage that could ever be dumped on someone and I don't think I'll ever feel clean again."
"Daria, I know it hurts, but –"
"No. You don't," Daria's voice began to hitch and she cursed herself for not being able to keep her emotions under control, but the dam had burst and there was nothing that could be done to stop the flood. "You don't know what it's like to have a real connection with someone after years of feeling alone and to realize you've lost that connection forever. That it's all your fault that it happened. And it's never going to be fixed."
"That's not true," Tom replied.
Daria made a disgusted noise. "Never mind. You don't get it. You never will."
"Daria…"
"Goodbye, Tom," Daria said sharply. "Don't call me again."
"What?! Just like that?"
"Yes, just like that," Daria replied, feeling the walls moving back into place. "If you think any kind of relationship is possible between us now, you're more delusional than I thought."
"Delusional?! Dammit, Daria, I –"
"Goodbye." Daria turned the phone off. It began ringing again almost immediately, but she just let it until it eventually stopped. She got up off the bed and went to her desk.
She opened the top drawer. Sitting on top of a collection of papers and office supplies was a picture of her and Jane standing side by side outside Lawndale High. She couldn't remember when the picture was taken or by who, but it was different from other pictures of the two of them. Daria had her arms folded, as usual, but Jane was casually resting one elbow on Daria's shoulder. Jane's other hand was on her hip. Both girls were smiling at the camera.
It was one of the only times Daria could remember the two of them having any sort of physical contact.
She took the picture back to her bed and stared at it. She felt the tears well up again. She kissed the tips of her fingers, then gently placed those fingers on Jane's image.
"I love you," she whispered. "And I am so sorry."
Daria pulled the photo to her chest and rolled on her side. The room faded into darkness as the sun set, the only sound being Daria's sobs.
Jane swiped again. The image changed to a much older Jane Lane in her forties. She was at a cocktail party of some kind. As Jane watched, a young man who gave off the vibe of being a secretary or personal assistant came up to the older Jane on the screen.
"'Shattered Dreams' just sold," Malcolm whispered into Jane's ear. Jane blinked and turned to him.
"Seriously? How much?"
"Twenty-five thousand."
Jane stared. "That's ten times the asking price! It's not even my best piece!"
Malcolm shrugged. "There was a bidding war for it. Every time someone bid on it, there was an anonymous bidder on the phone who kept raising the price. They finally won at 25K."
"God damn," Jane breathed. "I made that back in college. Won my first competition at BFAC. Maybe it was somebody from there who remembered it."
Jane frowned and swiped again, changing the focus of her thoughts. She had a sneaking suspicion she knew who the anonymous buyer was. Sure enough, the scene changed to a small studio apartment. A bed was in one corner of the room, a weird looking flat TV mounted on the wall opposite. A small brunette with glasses was hanging a painting in Jane's signature style on the wall.
-
She couldn't really afford it. Not on her salary. But her credit was good, and she managed to take out a loan to pay for it. It was worth every penny.
Daria stepped back and looked at the full image. A nightmare swirl of colors dominated the canvas, but most prominent were two chaotic zig zags: one red, one green. The two zig zags were connected at the top, but separated as they came down the canvas, eventually separated by a thick smear of black. Both zig zags trailed off into straight lines that ran to the bottom of the canvas.
Daria remembered the painting. She had heard through the grapevine that Jane had been accepted to Boston Fine Arts College. That had been a punch in the gut as Daria herself had been accepted to Raft. And while they were two separate campuses, they were both in roughly the same area of Boston and there was overlap at all the usual college hangouts in the area between the two schools.
Daria did her best to keep Jane finding out they were in the same city, and was largely successful, mostly by Daria never leaving campus if she could possibly avoid it. But one day, curiosity had gotten the better of her. She had heard through an acquaintance who had friends who went to BFAC of their first major student competition. Daria had ventured onto BFAC's campus, taking great care to ensure she didn't run into Jane, and managed to see the entries.
"Shattered Dreams" is what Jane had called the painting. The other art students and art lovers around her had commented on what the meaning of the painting was. They were right in that it was the expression of loss and pain, but they didn't know the real reason why it had been painted. Daria felt the familiar ache in her chest as she looked at Jane's painted expression on how their friendship had died.
A week later, she picked up BFAC's college paper and was elated to see Jane had won first place in the painting category.
Years later, she was looking Jane up online. She knew it was stalkerish, but she felt the need to see how Jane was doing. She only checked up on her every six months or so. And she was proud of her former friend for making a living doing what she loved. And that was when she found Shattered Dreams again and knew she had to have it. To have something of Jane still in her life, even if she couldn't have Jane herself.
Daria sat on her bed and looked at the painting. She knew she should get to bed. Her days started at an ungodly 4 AM, working at the Amazon facility outside of town. She had signed up for extra shifts to help pay for the painting.
She sniffled and felt the familiar prickling in her eyes that always seemed to come whenever she thought of Jane. She looked up at the painting and gave it a small smile.
"I still love you."
She took off her jeans, unhooked and slid her bra out of her shirt, then turned off the lights and climbed into bed. Life sucked, but at least she had a little bit of Jane to help her get through it.
-
Jane swiped again and frowned as the image didn't change. She looked over at Older Jane. "What's going on?"
"You've reached the present in that universe," Older Jane replied. "These things don't show the future. Just up to wherever 'now' is in that universe's timeline."
"So in this universe, I make it as an artist, and Daria's working some crapsack job in South America?"
"What?" Older Jane asked, confused. "No, I think that Daria is living in New Jersey somewhere."
"Then what's Amazon?" Jane asked.
Older Jane smirked. "You may or may not find out in a couple of years. It depends on if it comes into existence in this world."
Jane tapped the screen and it shrank back into the representation of the Earth. "Can I look at another one?"
"You can look at as many as you like," Older Jane answered. "We've got all day."