Average Jane |Lesbian Story|

Chapter 16

Jane met Emily outside in the hall.

"Well?" Emily said. Jane didn't know if Emily had heard the conversation or not. Ms. Anderson's voice was always so soft and low.

"She just wanted to ask me about one answer I put down on yesterday's homework," Jane decided to lie instead. It was better than telling the truth: she was just praising me for being a hero.

But Jane knew she had deserved only the first part of Ms. Anderson's praise, not the second. She wasn't being particularly kind to Lucy. She was as deeply involved in the contest scam as anyone. Even more deeply. She was the one who had told her about it in the first place.

Right then, halfway to art class, Jane made a solemn vow. She would tell Lucy the truth about the contest. She would tell her today.

During art class, while Jane was supposed to be sketching a still life of a bowl of bananas, Jane made herself open Mary's Valentine and Lucy's note. Mary's Valentine was a regular friendly valentine with a foiled chocolate heart stuck to it. Jane ate the chocolate right away. Chocolate was bad for her skin, but she needed to keep with her strength

Then she unfolded the slip of paper Lucy had left on her desk. Sure enough, it was as a poem.

'For Jane

Today is the day we speak our love,

So I will speak my love for you

It is yours, if you should want,

A love that is forever true

It is yours if you should want

A love that burns with an endless flame

A love that will outlast the hills,

And all of earthly glory and fame.'

At the bottom, in tiny print, she signed her initials: L.A.

Jane took a deep breath after she finished reading. It certainly didn't make her look forward to sitting next to its author in Pear-Teaching in another twenty minutes. She made an entry in Unfair Life.

Friday, February, 14th: Lucy Adams gave Jane Waleski a valentine, Lucy Adams who cannot even light a match, loves Jane Waleski with a love that burns with an endless flame.

Did Lucy really like her that much? She hardly knew Jane. Of course, you would say that she hardly knew Grace Anderson, but she liked her that much. Jane felt as if her love for Grace would be forever true. It would burn with an endless flame. It would outlast the hills. And while, as the Vice President of Loser Club, Jane wasn't expecting much in the way of earthly glory and fame, whatever she got of it she would give to Grace.

Jane tore a sheet of paper from the back of her sketchpad. She knew what she was going to. Sitting right there in art class, she was going to write Ms. Anderson a poem.

She had written poems before, for school assignments, but they had all been terrible. How did you go about writing a good poem, a poem that would really tell another person what you wanted to say?

Ignoring the bowl of bananas, Jane picked up her pencil and wrote:

"My love for you is like..." But she didn't know how to finish the line. Like what? What was it like?

How did Lucy do it?

She thought about Grace Anderson standing in front of the class that morning, giving the Bunsen burner demonstration, looking beautiful even in the safety goggles. But safety goggles weren't poetic enough to put into a poems