As Jane drove home, she was more at peace with the world than she had been all day. Something that Miss Isles had said put her remarkably at ease. She wasn't sure what it was, or if it was a good thing that she did, but for the moment she was thankful for it.
Parking her car near in her street, she took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts. Go in, be civil, stay out of the way (and they'll be out of yours), and just get through the night.

At dinner that evening, Jane was quiet mostly except for the odd pleasantry or request for something she couldn't reach on the table. She ate relatively quickly before returning to her room.
Her mood had declined a little since she arrived home, but she was determined not to let it stop her. Jane wasn't a huge fan of emotions, however she was even less of a fan when they were caused by someone else. Although, that can be a pretty normal response.

•••

"Can I ask you something?" Jane asked with a perplexed look on her face, as she looked up from her textbook.

"Yes, Jane." She said formally.

"Why are you so nice to me?"

Miss Isles understood the words but not the motivating implication of the question. "In what way?"

Jane shrugged. "I dunno. You let me do tutoring with you again even though I flaked last time. You took a genuine interest in me when I didn't do well on a test," she paused. "I dunno, there's just this overall niceness about you."

She tried to gauge what had caused the young girl in front of her to ask this question now. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean. However, I believe every student has immense potential and I am aware that, unfortunately, that potential does not always get the opportunity to be nourished," she said frankly. "I try to encourage the growth of all my students."

Jane was amazed. Watching her speak she was not only quite matter of fact about it all but it seemed not to even faze her that she was doing a rather incredible thing. "Hm." In a short time Jane had developed the utmost respect for her teacher, and at times she found it intimidating.

"May I ask you a question now?" She was suddenly more interested than before. Her movements were calculated though. She did not shift at all in her chair, eye contact was never broken and she made sure not to have a judging look on her face.

"Sure," Jane said quickly, now intrigued. This may be the first real insight into Miss Isles' head, and it was not one she was going to pass up.

"What caused you to fail that first test that I called you up on?" She said kindly but professionally.

Rather involuntarily Jane felt herself sink in her seat a little and couldn't help but look down to her books (anywhere but on Miss Isles). "Oh," she remarked, stalling. She tried to recall what reason she had chosen to give her in the first instance.

Deciding to push a little, she spoke before Jane had the chance to again. "Now, if I am remembering correctly, you said it was because you were tired." There was a very slight smugness to her words as she knew that in this case she was indeed correct. "I will admit though that, as I have mentioned previously, I suspect that is not the truthful reason."

Jane opened her mouth to deny it, but instead just let out a small sigh realising that lying to her again wouldn't exactly strengthen their relationship, whatever it was. "Honestly," she paused, "I was tired." She looked away as she spoke. "I'd been up most of the night before because my brother," she said with animosity, "had… let's just say that he'd done something incredibly stupid that involved the cops." She looked up to see the face in front her before continuing. She was expecting shock or to have her run for the door or something, but nothing. There was no change. Miss Isles simply continued to intently listen. Shrugging it off she said, "Anyway, dad had gone to the station to pick up my brother and sort him out, and ma was kind of freaking out… a lot." The thought of that night suddenly made her a little unhappy. "All in all, it wasn't really a quiet night."

When she was certain that Jane had divulged as much as she wanted to, she said, "How did you cope with the event?"

Jane wasn't expecting to be the one experiencing shock after that story, but there she was. She wouldn't have guessed that a person's first response to hearing the story would be to ask how she coped. How her brother was doing, maybe. How her parents were coping, maybe. But how she was doing? No way. In her head, whilst she certainly felt the impact of it, she would have thought that it would have seemed irrelevant to an outsider. Particular an adult whom she didn't even really know her.

Miss Isles noticed that Jane seemed quite taken back by the question and amended her words by saying, "I apologise; that was rude of me. Please don't feel obliged to answer."

"Nah," she said trying to come off strong and unfazed, "No, I mean. It's not that. I'm just surprised," she said honestly.

Maura was confused.

"It's just, the thing that happened with my brother, it wasn't really about me. And like, if people ask about anyone it's usually him, or how it affected my other brother or my parents."
As the eldest she was used to the accidental neglect that came with it, but she didn't mind. In fact, she usually preferred it. Now that she'd verbalised it though, it suddenly hurt a little to think that no-one really cared to ask how she was. Just because she understood why no-one asked about her didn't make it right, or make her less important, did it?

As if it were obvious, Miss Isles said, "You are my student, Jane. Not only that, but you are a student whom when asked originally about some poor test results felt the need to lie or to cover it up. It seemed rather unlikely at the time that you had really dealt with it properly, perhaps because you hadn't had the chance. This particular event was also the cause for you to perform poorly in the first instance, and that is certainly something that is my concern." Her words were almost clinical as she spoke of the facts and logical progressions from gathered information, and from anybody else would have seemed uncaring or unsympathetic. From her though, they felt, to Jane at least, like quite possibly one of the kindest things she could remember hearing anyone say.

Despite that, she was suddenly quite overwhelmed. Usually she would be mentally prepared, but something about Miss Isles had her off her guard. She felt like crying. What the fuck? Don't cry. Don't cry. She panicked. She wasn't used someone to being this nice to her, - this interested in her. – "Sorry, I should go."

"Jane, wai-" Miss Isles said with an astounding level of guilt both in her voice and on her face.

Without another word, Jane grabbed her things and in seconds was out the door before Miss Isles really had a chance to speak again.

•••

What the hell was that? I don't even know where to start. Why did I cry? And how lame is that? Gees, I mean, if anyone knew that a teacher had made you cry… Just… what the hell? Why did I let her get in your head? The conversation wasn't even about me, it was about Tommy…

Jane sat awake on her bed in the dark that night when everyone had gone to sleep. She took a few deep breaths as the battle in her head took a break. She was done crying, but now she was intent on knowing why that even happened in the first place. Even the voice in her head shifted from angry to calm. The nerves were there, but she knew to find the information she needed, getting worked up wouldn't help. Besides, what she was about to ask wasn't exactly a foreign question to her.

Do I like her? Like… like like her?
I don't know if I'm even… 'gay', but it's not like it would be that strange, would it? Lord knows the relationships I've had with guys haven't exactly been a great success.
Ew, but she's your teacher Rizzoli…

She paused as she had to question whether she even wanted to allow the next question into her mind.

Does she like me? I mean, she has gone out of her way to look out for me. Way more than any of the other teachers.
Is that why I like her? Do I like her?
Fuck… I hate this.

In another part of town, in their respective house was Miss Maura Isles. It was coming up to 11:30pm and she had only just completed her work including the marking of assignments for one of her classes. After tallying up all of the results, the class mark sat at an average of 71.

Hm… It's not awful, she thought to herself. I mean, it's not superb, but at least it's a passing mark.

She had always thought of year 8s as a very mixed group of people. They had just finished being the new kids and having no idea where anything was, but hadn't quite reached the age of doing tests that mattered and 'ruling the school'. It was this bizarre state of limbo where kids could really go either way, hence the usually mixed test results. It's an entire year of having nowhere to go and nothing important to do. They are simply passing time.

As she tidied her workspace and collected all of the papers in front of her, she went to check her school e-mail one last time before retiring to her bed. She hadn't quite had enough time to sort all of the already dealt with e-mails into the appropriate folders this week. Most were simply checking boxes or asking about extensions. Looking through to find which belonged where, she saw the most recent e-mail from Jane. She found herself stopped in her tracks momentarily.

I wonder how she's doing… I don't think I have her class over the next couple of days. I feel awful for making her uncomfortable, although I'm not entirely sure what it was specifically that made her respond with such discomfort and uneasiness.
She let out a small sigh.
She's so very determined to be infallible, I'm not sure she's ever really opened up to anyone. Barry and Vince seem to be supportive enough.
She pursed her lips knowing all too well that, whilst in no way their fault, their support may not quite be enough for Jane. At least, at this time.
Although I'm certain she'd never admit it, she is quite sensitive inside that tough exterior and clever mind.
She stared at the screen for another moment without thought.
…Be careful with her.

Thank you so very kindly for reading.

Please do leave a comment, some feedback or a hello. I'd really love to know your thoughts.

Hope you are very happy and well.

CC