Jane had walked two miles in the snow just to be with her and Maura had to resist the urge to post that on social media. Pay attention to her, not them.

"I'm sorry," Jane said nervously to Maura's mother. "I didn't get permission to kiss her."

"It's not my permission that you need," Mrs. Isles pointed out.

Jane's stomach nearly dropped. "Oh, god. I don't have to ask Mr. Isles, do I?"

"No," Mrs. Isles tried not to laugh. "It's only Maura's permission that matters."

"No offense, ma'am, but your husband scares me," Jane confessed. "And now that this whole thing has happened at school, he scares me even more."

"Yet you risked seeing him and being turned away by him after walking here in the snow just so you could see Maura," Mrs. Isles brought to her attention. "What's that say about how much you like her?"

"A lot, I guess."

Maura had her twitter app open and was about to tweet Morgan when her mom took her phone out of her hand. "I'm keeping this."

"Why?" Maura asked in disbelief.

"Because you don't listen," Mrs. Isles told her daughter. "Just before Jane arrived, we had a talk about using social media to feed these girls' egos. You're home, so I know you don't need your phone in case of an emergency and the only person you really want to talk to is already here. You won't be needing your phone for the remainder of Jane's visit."

"Here," Jane said as she handed her phone to Maura's mother. "Take mine, too. I don't want to deal with those girls right now. My mom knows I'm here and you can just give me the phone if she calls me."

Mrs. Isles placed her own phone on the coffee table along with Jane and Maura's phones. "I usually have nothing against technology and social media, but right now it's important for you two girls to become disconnected from it. There's no school today, which means your peers will have even more time to post something negative."

Jane and Maura were seated on one sofa while Mrs. Isles was seated on the sofa opposite them. The coffee table with their phones was in between them and, for once, Maura was grateful that her mom had taken her phone away. Had her father been there, Maura would have kept her distance from Jane, but because she knew her mother wouldn't object, she decided to hold Jane's hand.

"Mr. Isles isn't going to randomly come downstairs and surprise me, right?" Jane asked worriedly. "He isn't here, is he?"

"You're giving him far more credit than he deserves," Mrs. Isles quipped. "Blane's just protective of Maura, especially because you remind him so much of himself in high school although he doesn't like to admit it."

"We have a lot in common," Jane said as she gently squeezed Maura's hand. "We both like basketball and we're both with really beautiful women."

"Blane was a smooth-talker and he said something similar to my father when we first started dating. My father looked him dead in the eye and said, 'Connie isn't a woman. She's a little girl, my little girl, and I don't want you thinking of her as a woman,'" Mrs. Isles reminisced. "I wanted to run upstairs to my room and hide. I was so certain that he wouldn't want to date me after that."

"So, what did you guys do?" Jane asked.

"My father was the least of our problems, just as Maura's father is the least of yours at this point," Mrs. Isles told Jane. "My father's disapproval didn't stop me from wanting to date Blane, just as her father's disapproval won't stop Maura from wanting to date you."

"Grandpa still doesn't like Dad," Maura pointed out. "During every get together, all of the men in the family drink beer outside and he'll still tell Dad to keep his hands off of you."

"Obviously, that doesn't stop us," Mrs. Isles told her daughter. "And, judging by your flushed skin and dilated pupils the other night, your father's disapproval doesn't stop you either."

Maura's cheeks turned red. "Mom!"

"My point is," Mrs. Isles began. "This relationship or soon-to-be relationship is between the two of you, but so much of it has focused on outside factors. You're at the point where you should be getting to know each other and building a strong foundation, which is what Blane and I did and that's one of the reasons why we got through all of that high school nonsense. There has always been mean girls in high school and there will always be mean girls, but what matters is how you handle the situation."

"And how did you handle it?" Jane asked.

"By being there for each other," Mrs. Isles responded. "I knew Blane had been with nearly half of the cheerleaders, the drill team girls, the colorguard girls, and every other stereotypical high school girl. He didn't commit to any of them regardless of what they did for him, but he asked me to be his girlfriend the night after our first date. When everyone found out on Monday, girls who didn't even know who I was before I was Blane's girlfriend had come up with the most cruel nicknames and made that entire week a living hell for me because they wanted me to break up with him, but I wouldn't. He was my boyfriend, not some material possession to be fought over. He could have continued to be with as many girls as he wanted, but he chose to ask me to be his girlfriend just as I had chosen to say yes. He wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him and, once I realized that, those girls didn't matter anymore. When they first started calling me names and tormenting me, my friends and I wanted to retaliate, but that would only make the situation worse. When I stopped paying attention to them and focused on my relationship with my boyfriend and how happy we made each other, they stopped tormenting me because they knew, no matter what they did or what rumors they spread, we were still going to be together."

"So you're saying me and Maura should be together?"

"If that's what you both want," Mrs. Isles responded. "You shouldn't let some girls who will mean absolutely nothing to you in a few months have so much control over what could potentially be a long-lasting relationship. What I didn't realize at your age and what you might not realize yet is that graduation is going to change everything. The friends you see five days a week, you'll be lucky if you even get to see them during winter and summer break once you're in college. It's even more difficult to keep in touch once you start working full-time or attending graduate school. If you're going to have to make time to see your high school friends after graduation, it's almost impossible that you'll actually see your high school enemies unless you run into them by chance. If you do, you don't even have to acknowledge them. Or, you can do what I did last year at the grocery store when I ran into one of the cheerleaders who tormented me. She had just gotten divorced for the third time, so I made sure I flaunted how happily married I am."

"Mom, that's horrible!" Maura said in disgust.

"Not even," Jane said to Maura.. "That woman deserved it after what she did. I hate how people think they can use the ignorance of youth to get away with doing anything they want like their actions have no long-term consequences. Maura, what if your mom would have broken up with your dad because of what that girl told her? Both of your parents would have missed out on being with their soulmate, that one and only person they're meant to be with. I know we've only been on one date, but I already care about you so much and I want to know where this could lead us. I'm your girl, not theirs. I'm going to be better for you and we're going to fix this together. You're not going to face those girls alone. If I have to leave my lunch table so we could sit together, I'll do it. We could ignore those girls and just focus on the two of us like your mom said."

"I think the two of you need to be alone," Mrs. Isles told them. "I'll be upstairs and I'm taking your phones with me."

Now that they were alone, Maura wanted to tell Jane that she didn't care what Katie or Morgan or any of the other girls said about her. She wanted to be Jane's just as much as Jane wanted to be hers, but instead her focus shifted to the sound of keys unlocking the front door.

"My dad is home early," Maura whispered to Jane. "Just act natural. We're not unsupervised so we have nothing to worry about."

"What?" Jane asked, a look of terror on her face. "Is it too late to sneak me out the backdoor? Maura, I'm in my pajamas. I know you saw him this morning, but what if he thinks I spent the night and we slept together? I've never even touched your...cupcake."

"And I'll make sure you never have any of my daughter's baked goods," Mr. Isles said as he closed the door behind him.

"Dad," Maura smiled in an attempt at buttering him up. "Jane and I were just―"

"Save it, Maura. I know she didn't spend the night here," Mr. Isles interrupted. "Jane, go to the kitchen. You and I are going to have a talk."