Chapter 8: Precipice
Daria was lying on her back with her head hanging off the bed and her long, brown hair pooling on the burgundy throw rug when Jane walked into the bedroom (upside-down, from Daria's perspective). Their eyes met, and the two friends spent a few moments looking at each other in silence before Jane stammered out an anxious, "Hey."
"Hey," Daria gently answered back before rolling over and propping herself up on her elbows, which she was gripping for dear life. Alright, let's get this over with. If Jane keeps her compassionate letdown speech under ten minutes and I can make it home without scaling a utility pole and biting into a powerline, I may be able to catch the end of Sick, Sad World. But the way she's looking at me right now…I haven't seen that before. Wait, nope—there's no way in hell I am getting my hopes up on this one.
"So, I was thinking," began Jane as she dropped her funeral clothes on the burgeoning closet pile and took a few hesitant steps toward the bed. "There's no one in Boston, or in this ridiculous world for that matter, who's quite like you. And as Mr. O'Neill would confirm—if he still could—life is short." She paused, looked up at the ceiling, and took a deep breath. "The truth is that I've been avoiding certain unsettling thoughts and feelings for years now. Thoughts and feelings about…"
"Women?" Daria supplied, barely breathing now.
Nervous laughter from Jane. "Well, yeah. And, um…about you too, Daria."
The introvert on the bed had now forgotten how to breathe entirely. Jane slowly closed the distance between them with cautious footsteps, as though landmines might be lying in wait beneath the throw rug. She knelt in front of Daria and, attempting a nonchalance she definitely didn't feel, asked her best friend, "Whaddya say we give this whole Sapphic thing a whirl? Maybe we could…try a kiss?"
Oh good GOD. A steadily-reddening Daria nervously pushed her glasses up her nose and licked her Mojave-dry lips. For a few moments, she had no words. Her eyes were enormous behind her lenses when she eventually answered with a small and frightened, "Yeah." Leaning ever so slowly into the silence between them, the longtime confidantes finally felt their lips meet with a sweet hesitance that soon melted into wholly enthralled adoration. If it was like anything, it was like riding your bicycle on a warm summer night with your arms thrown out and your face turned up to the limitless stars. Upon smudging Daria's glasses with her nose for a second time, Jane laughed and gently removed them. Daria smiled as she shifted and slid down onto the floor, where she and her companion fell softly into one other's embrace again. As the moon rose in the sky and the two friends grew tired, Daria accepted Jane's offer to join her in the bed ("No funny business, Morgendorffer, I swear—just fully-clothed sleep"). With Daria in a pair of borrowed pajamas, the two wrapped themselves in each other's arms and soon drifted off.