One of the perks of being a senior at the high school Jane and Maura attended was a personalized parking space that the students could purchase the summer before their senior year. The weekend before the new school year, their school would host a parking space painting event in which every senior who'd purchased a parking space would personalize their assigned space using paints that were provided for them. Some would write their favorite quotes or draw their favorite characters while those involved in extracurricular activities would find a way to pay homage to their team or their club. It was at that event that Maura shifted her focus from the Olaf her friend Allie was painting and the Lilo & Stitch quote about family that her friend Sarah was painting to Jane and Jessica's public display of affection near Jessica's parking space. Since it wasn't a school day, the school's dress code didn't apply, and the popular girls took full advantage of that by wearing crop tops, bandeaus, and other types of revealing clothing. Maura tried not to watch, but flaunting the physical aspect of her relationship with Jane was what Jessica did best.
"They're so disgusting," Sarah told Maura and Allie. "Do you hear the things Jessica says about Jane? I really don't want to hear about their sexcapades. And who does Jessica think she is in that bandeau top and short shorts?"
"Jessica has the face of an angel and the body of a porn star," Allie commented. "If I looked like that, I'd probably show off, too. Still, I can't stand either of them."
"I don't care about Jane or Jessica," Maura insisted.
"Then stop staring at them and grab a paint brush so you could paint 'Some people are worth melting for," Allie responded. "You have better writing than I do."
"I've waited three years for one of these spaces and now my parents won't let me have one," Maura said as she painted.
"You took your dad's brand new Escalade and drove to New York without asking him and you got a ticket while you were there," Allie reminded her. "No offense, but that's a pretty good reason to take your driving privileges away."
"Yeah, but we were with her and we didn't even thinking about stopping her," Sarah added. "We're just as guilty, which is why our parking spots are now your parking spots, Maura."
"You'll get your driving privileges back," Allie reassured her. "Until then, you have us because ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind...or forgotten."
"Why was I expecting that?" Sarah rolled her eyes and Maura couldn't help laughing.
Three months had passed since they had painted the parking spaces and so much about Maura's life had changed. She still didn't have her driving privileges, but she was now the girl riding to school with Jane and kissing Jane in the parking lot.
What she had experienced with Jane that morning changed her in a way that she couldn't quite comprehend. Sex had given her confidence when, forty-eight hours ago, the mere possibility that she had had sex with Jane was the reason why she had been tormented.
She held Jane's hand as she practically strutted to her locker and, although they passed girls who rolled their eyes at her, Maura just smiled at them and moved closer to Jane.
The words 'Maura the Whore-a' had been removed, but Maura was still hesitant to open her locker.
"They're not going to put a dead mouse in there, if that's what you're afraid of," Jane said before kissing her. "If you want, I can open it."
Maura linked her fingers around the front belt loops of the jeans Jane was wearing. "I'm not giving you my combination, no matter how cute you are."
"If my cuteness doesn't work, I can find other ways to get your combination." Maura wanted Jane to kiss her again, but they were interrupted by a guy lightly punching Jane in the arm. "Not now, Bradley," Jane said angrily.
"So this is why you missed weight training?" he asked.
"Yeah, well, you know," Jane blushed, which made her best friend laugh.
"Do you two usually brag to each other about your sexual conquests?" Maura asked.
"Not really," Brad shrugged. "Sex is nothing special. It's just something you do."
Maura tried not to sound offended. "Nothing special?"
Jane glared at her friend. "Can we not have this conversation?"
"We're having this conversation," Maura demanded. "I want to know that what we did was special and that me going down on you meant something."
"Whoa," Brad laughed. "Maura has no chill."
"Thank you so much, Brad," Jane said sarcastically. "You're really helping my relationship with Maura."
"Slut," Maura heard a girl say as she walked by Maura's locker. On second glance, she noticed it was the same girl that had given Jane a cupcake the other day.
"Shut up, Sydney," Brad responded. "Tony told me you were all over him last night."
When the friend she was walking with started laughing, Sydney flipped Brad off and walked away.
Brad looked at Jane and shook his head. "I can't believe you fucked Sydney. She's so basic. You should be glad you're with Maura now."
"Very," Jane said as she wrapped her arms around Maura from behind. "As for sex being special, it is now. It's special in a way I never thought it could be and that's because I'm with Maura."
"Who are you?" Brad laughed. "I hope you know that me and the guys are never gonna let you live that down, Rizzoli."
"She's not supposed to have feelings?" Maura asked.
"Yeah, she can feel that way, but she's not supposed to say it," Brad explained. "We keep that stuff to ourselves or else it makes things weird, like it did when we were talking under the bleachers. It led to me hugging Jane and we didn't know what to do after that."
"You see, Maura," Jane began. "There are three topics of conversation when we're with the guys."
"Topic number one, which is the most important: did you get any pussy?" Brad continued. "Jane and I never share how many girls we've had, but sometimes we'll name names."
"The next topic depends on what season it is: did you see the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, or Patriots game?" Jane added. "The third is just general BS like partying, movies, and music."
"How stimulating," Maura faked a smile. "Jane is different around me. She writes poems about me and…"
"Maura, no," Jane interrupted her, but it was too late.
"What?" Brad laughed. "Jane, bro, you know I'm not going to keep that to myself. You'll be known as Shakespeare by lunchtime."
"Doesn't matter," Jane shrugged. "Maura is worth everything you guys are going to put me through."
"She never said that about Jess," Brad told Maura. "That's how I know Jane is in deep and not the usual way that Jane is in deep."
Maura knew Brad was trying to help, but in just a few minutes, she had had enough of his comments about sex and relationships. She was running low on time until she had to get to her second period class, so she decided to open her locker. Jane was right; there wasn't a dead mouse in her locker. Instead, over a dozen condoms spilled out and landed on the floor.
"That's so weak," Brad commented.
Maura was far more confused than upset. "This doesn't even make sense. If I'm a whore for having sex with Jane, why would I need condoms?" She picked one up off the floor and examined the wrapper. "These aren't even flavored condoms. Why would Jane and I use anything that's meant to be used on people with penises?"
"Welcome to their logic," Jane rolled her eyes. "C'mon, let's get to class."
Brad pointed to the condoms lying on the floor. "Mind if I keep these? They're the good kind and shit's expensive."
"Help yourself," Jane responded. "Twelve condoms...that's like a whole year's supply for you."
"Fuck you, Shakespeare," Brad laughed. "Between now and the time my party is over, these will be gone."
Their banter continued until Brad parted ways with them near his classroom and Maura couldn't help laughing every now and then. With Jane on her left side and Brad on her right, Maura felt a sense of security. Besides Sydney, no one dared call her by her nickname as long as she was with them, which made her wonder exactly how much power Jane and Brad had on their school's social hierarchy.
"It's gonna be okay," Brad said when it was time for them to part ways. "If it's a guy who started this, Jane and I will kick his ass."
"And if it's a girl?" Maura asked.
"Then we'll ruin her," Brad responded. "You don't understand, Maura. People like me, Jane, and Jessica have the power to ruin anyone we want. We've never had to do it before, but I know we could."
Although Brad left to go to class, Maura couldn't take her mind off of what he had said about having the power to ruin others. "Could Jessica have done this?" she asked Jane.
"Jess? Not even," Jane reassured her. "I'll prove it to you." She remembered Jessica's second period classroom was two doors down from theirs so Jane called out to her as she was about to pass by them. "Jess, I need to―"
Jessica turned around to face them. "Fuck you, Jane. I said I was done with your high school ass. That girl Maura can have you."
"See?" Jane told Maura after Jessica had left. "That is how I know it's not Jessica. She hates me enough not to waste any time on revenge."
With Jane in the same statistics class as her, Maura didn't expect any bullying, but she was surprised when she walked the halls on the way to her third and fourth period classes completely unnoticed like she had been for the past three years. Brad or Jane might have told them something or maybe everyone has gotten over this.
Jane and Maura hadn't made any definitive plans for the lunch period other than the fact that they were going to spend it together. Neither of them were excited about leaving their respective tables to sit with the other's friends, nor were they sure if they were even welcome, so Maura waited on Jane to make the first move.
"Do you want to sit with your friends?" Jane asked her via text.
"I'm not ready for yours. You've hooked up with every girl at that table."
"I can't go to your table. Your friends make me uncomfortable."
"We don't have to sit together at lunch," Maura reminded her. "You don't have to leave Brad and your brother to prove that you care about me."
"Meet me outside of your classroom after 7th period. I'll give you a ride home. I miss you already."
Maura was the last to arrive at her usual table. Her friends hadn't bothered to contact her the day she was bullied or on their day off from school, but as they sat at their table, they acted as if nothing had happened. Although they were talking about the same subjects they usually talked about, Maura cared little for what they were saying.
"You haven't asked me about Jane," Maura brought to their attention. "You also haven't asked if we did anything."
Sarah opened up a small bag of chips she had brought for lunch. "You've been late two days in a row and you're dating Jane Rizzoli; we know you did something."
"What was it like?" Allie asked, her eyes wide. "It had to have been good. I mean, it's Jane Rizzoli. She's so experienced. Does she live up to her reputation?"
"I don't know," Maura smiled. Although only a few hours had passed since her first sexual experience with Jane, she felt like she had waited a lifetime to tell her friends. "Jane didn't do anything…I did."
"You did?" Allie asked in disbelief. "Tell me everything."
"I'll pass," Sarah insisted. "Jane is so gross. Please tell me you used some kind of protection."
Maura leaned in closer to them. "I didn't. I wanted to taste her."
Allie smiled. "And how was it? Tasting a girl, I mean. Is it much different from going down on a guy?"
"She's never gone down on a guy," Sarah reminded her.
"Good because guys taste gross," Allie said as she scrunched her face. "That's why I never swallow."
"I love the way Jane tastes," Maura bragged. "I can't wait to taste her again and be in control of her orgasm or feel her inside of me."
Allie reached over to grab Maura's hand. "Make sure she starts with one finger unless you're wet enough for two."
"I will be," Maura smiled. "I already am just by thinking about her."
Allie covered her mouth and tried not to laugh. "Maura!"
"Look, I want you to be happy and have a girlfriend and all that fun stuff, but I don't want that girl to be Jane," Sarah told her. "You deserve someone better than her."
"She's different," Maura said in Jane's defense. "She isn't the sex-obsessed girl we thought she was." She took notice of the way her two friends were looking at her. "Okay, she is, but that's not why she wants to be with me. Yesterday, she walked two miles in the snow just to be with me. You would have known that had you texted me or called me yesterday."
"Is she really worth all of this?" Sarah asked. "Everything was fine before she came along. Nobody bullied you."
"That bullying isn't going to last forever. It's already tapered off over the past three class periods," Maura insisted. "My parents went through the same thing in high school and they're still happily married after all of these years."
"Your parents aren't normal," Sarah argued. "They're like some fucking '80s teen movie that's continued for thirty years. It's not right."
"What the fuck's wrong with you?" Allie asked Sarah. "You've been so weird the past few days"
Maura started to feel sympathetic. "Is everything okay at home? We're here if you want to talk."
"Fuck you, Maura," Sarah responded. She grabbed her backpack from the floor and unzipped the front pouch so she could look for her lip gloss. "Go back to sucking Jane's clit."
"What do you have planned after school?" Allie asked as she looked inside the front pouch of Sarah's backpack. "You always keep condoms in your purse, not your backpack."
"What kind do you use?" Maura asked. "Jane uses the flavored kind."
"And this matters because…" Sarah rolled her eyes.
Allie grabbed the condom from Sarah's backpack and showed it to Maura. "Not that you and Jane need these, but it's this kind. I guess you could use them on a strap on. Does Jane use a strap-on?"
Under normal circumstances, the thought of Jane in a strap on would have sent Maura into overdrive, but all she could focus on was the condom in Allie's hand. "I need to go."
"Where are you going?" Allie asked her. "Are you feeling okay?"
Maura packed her lunch bag in her backpack and left the table without saying another word to her friends. She felt like she had been punched in the stomach. It was the ultimate betrayal for Maura. When her mother had shared her high school experiences with her and offered her advice, her stories didn't include betrayal by one of her best friends. Her mom's best friends were like Maura's aunts and Maura enjoyed spending time with them and their daughters whenever they came over to visit her mom. That past summer, they had given Maura her first taste of wine and Maura imagined that thirty years from now, she'd have similar get-togethers with Allie and Sarah and they'd have daughters who looked like they did as teenagers and they'd talk about how they had sleepovers every Friday and the time Maura took her dad's Escalade to New York, but it all seemed so unlikely now.
Just as she had two days ago, Maura found herself completely alone and crying in the bathroom. She knew it was Sarah who had placed the condoms in her locker―it made perfect sense to her once she remembered the way Sarah had acted when she said she was going to date Jane. Whether or not Sarah had written on her locker was still up for debate, but Maura didn't want to find out―not just yet. Her phone was going off with messages from Allie, Jane, and even Brad (although Maura wasn't sure how he had gotten her number), but there was nothing from the one person whom she hoped would message her.
Ten minutes of solitude passed before Maura heard the door open. Please be Jane.