About a month had passed since Miss Isles had agreed to allow Jane to study in her classroom or office from time to time, and since then Jane had been spending one to two afternoons a week doing so.
The most recent afternoon she did this, herself and Miss Isles had gotten into a rather unrelated discussion of love lives after Jane had quite unabashedly and genuinely curiously asked, "So, why aren't you married?" Obviously, by now, she was quite bored with the work she had been doing.

Watching the situation unfurl, had Miss Isles been eating, onlookers would have bet huge amounts of money that she was sure to have choked in shock. Her eyes grew wide but she tried not to look entirely gobsmacked by the question. "Pardon?" Was all she could really get out without too much further thought.

"Why aren't you married?" She said as if it were no big deal, and she leaned back on her chair. "I mean, you seem nice and all, and it's not as if you're butt ugly or anything."

Miss Isles just watched, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Caught off guard, she tried to answer the question honestly and safely. She wasn't sure whether to be offended, insulted or complimented. She cleared her throat. "I suppose, after high school I was simply more interested in furthering my education and, in turn, my career." By the end of her sentence she had managed to recompose herself and not be completely put off by it.

"Huh… Fair enough," she shrugged. Leaning forward and resting her elbows on her desk once again, she said, "okay," and simply got back to working.

The confused blonde just stared, though tried not to make it too obvious. "May I enquire as to why you asked?" She said professionally, with a subtle hint of still strong confusion.

Jane seemed remarkably unfazed, as if she wasn't actually aware that it would have been considered a strange question. "Yeah, I mean, I just think it's kind weird is all."

Miss Isles furrowed her eye brows a little. "Okay…There are certainly things that make less sense, but what motivated you to ask this now?"

She raised her shoulders as she said, "I dunno. Just curious, I guess. And this chick just got beheaded for being his wife, so yeah," As if that were a completely normal thing to say.

Miss Isles tried not to be ridiculously confused by all this. Instead she simply uttered, "I see…" And left it at that.

Jane had always been curious. She had always wanted to know how things worked, or why things were, and people were no different. She was often catching people off guard with her unorthodox (but not necessarily impolite) questions. She never asked them maliciously, she simply wanted to understand the answers.

•••

"Hey Janie," her father said as she sat watching television.

"Hey pop," she said contently.

"Can I have the remote?"
This was a common question, and not one that you wanted to refuse.

"Just in the middle of watching something, then it's all yours," she said quite absent-mindedly as she continued to stare at the television screen.

There was the slightest shift in the atmosphere. "Jane," he said with authority. "I go to work all day to feed you, and clothe you…"

Here we go, she thought.

"And I'm tired. Is it really so much to ask to be able to come into my own home and watch my tv?" He said patronisingly.

Jane hated it when he played this card. The "I own everything [even though I don't necessarily] and therefore I own you" card. Jane respected her father for all the hard work he did. At the same time though, she didn't think it was too much to ask to watch like 15minutes of a show. "You know pop, I'm so sick of you using that as an excuse," she said as her frustration began to build. "Look, I get it, you work hard. But we all do things too."

He was far from amused and was ready to pull out the big guns. "Oh yeah? What'd you do all day?" He scoffed, knowing that anything she said wouldn't be worthy.

"I went to school," she emphasised. "That's what eighteen year olds do. And before you bring Frankie and Tommy into this, they went to school too, because that's what kids do! And you know what ma did? She cleaned, she cooked, she sorted any bills that needed paying-"

"And do you know whose money pays those bills? And speaking of kids, didn't anyone ever to teach you to respect your elders?" He was mad.

"I do! Maybe it's you who doesn't respect us, or ma for that matter. Never once have you even acknowledged all the stuff she does. As for Tommy and Frankie, all you've ever done to them is yell abuse at them and tell them how worthless they are. Where's the respect in that?" As the eldest she was used to this sort of thing. Admittedly, it may have escalated quickly because she wasn't in the mood to start with, but all the same the points were still valid.

Her dad simply re-iterated things he'd already said as the colour in his face became a darker shade of red. At one point, he actually raised a hand up ready to put an authoritative slap on her face.

Immediately, Jane jumped before he had decided whether or not to follow through, and left the house.
Admittedly, she hadn't exactly thought about where she would go and found herself at a local park. It was about a 20 minute walk away. She figured that was far enough that people wouldn't know where she was but close enough that she couldn't get into any real trouble when her mother found out.

Hands shoved deep into the pockets on her tracksuit jacket, she was thankful that she was in fact wearing a jacket. Although it was only about 6:20pm, the nights were dark and cool at this time of year. Sitting on top of one of the isolated picnic tables she pulled out her phone.
The first text was to her mother. It read:

Tell me when he's done and I'll come otherwise I'll see you tomorrow.

She didn't mean it as a threat or to guilt anyone, but it was the truth and she didn't know how else to word.

The next was sent to both Frost and Korsak, and read:

Hey, let me know if you've got nothing better to do tonight. C:

She put a smiley face at the end to forcibly lighten the tone of the text.

She put the phone back in her pocket, and began to look around at the night. Her head was still reeling with things that she'd said, and things that he'd said, neither of which really pleased her. She hated that he said things like that, but more so that she responded to them. Despite not being overly fond of her father's character, he always managed to get inside her head.

Nah, can't tonight sorry.
See ya tomorrow

From Korsak. Damn. Her mother would always try to keep the peace by saying that he had good intentions or that he didn't know how to express himself.
"Who knew that made it okay to be a class A dick?" She joked to herself.
She wasn't entirely sure why her mother defended him.

Hello you,

Thank you so kindly for reading this chapter.

I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave any feedback, comments (good or bad), or prompts down below. I would love to hear your thoughts.

To those of you have been asking, I just wanted to re-iterate: Jane is 18 and Maura (Miss Isles) is 23-24. I will be honest though, if you have any issues with that, just stop reading now.

Hope you're all very happy and well.