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The two girls stood in Jane’s kitchen. Jane was rummaging through cabinets, looking for anything ceramic she could use for an art project. Any attempt to ask further about the project by Daria was quickly shut down with a simple “You’ll see.” In spite of her curiosity, she let it go and agreed to help her friend search for materials.
Jane’s back was turned to Daria, who was reaching up at a cabinet slightly too tall for her. She persisted for a while until she finally managed to get it open. There, behind a few glass cups was a large, ceramic coffee cup.
Proud of her success, she reached up to move the other cups out of the way quickly and without much thought. Her hand grasped the top of one, pulling it closer and onto one edge. Possibly she was too fast, or not careful enough, or both. For whatever reason, the glass slipped out of her hand which she immediately pulled down as the cup hit the counter.
Daria winced at a sudden pain in her palm. Jane’s attention was so drawn to the loud crash and shattering of cheap glassware that she didn’t notice Daria’s apparent pain.
“Shit, that was one of my favorite cups.” She was lighthearted and smiling, but immediately stopped when she noticed Daria holding her left hand by the wrist. Daria’s face was filled with expression, a mix of pain and fear, immediately letting Jane know something was wrong.
“Oh fuck, you’re bleeding,” Jane pointed out, concern obvious in her voice.
“An excellent observation,” Daria said, trying to return to her usual, dull voice and expression, despite the actuality that she was indeed bleeding, and was in a lot more pain than she was willing to admit.
Jane furrowed her eyebrows and stepped closer to Daria, concerned. She began to inspect the cut without actually touching her. A thin but notably large shard of glass was planted in the bottom of the palm towards her thumb. The cup's intricate design had shattered into a variety of different pieces, one of which was now displayed on Daria’s hand.
Anxiously wanting the glass out, but not wanting to cause any more concern to her friend, she started to toy at it with her index finger and thumb.
“Okay, calm down,” Jane said, grabbing paper towels off of the kitchen counter.
“That’s a new one,” Daria ignored her genuine request and continued to pull at the shard.
“You’re just gonna make it worse.” Jane’s voice was opposite to her gentle movement of pulling Daria’s uninjured hand away from the other one. She was right, the bleeding that was once quite minimal was starting to worsen. Spitefully acknowledging this, Daria took the paper towel from her and held it under her hand to prevent blood from dripping onto the hardwood floors.
Jane motioned for her to follow down the hall, and the two girls entered the bathroom without exchanging any words, Daria not wanting to concern Jane, and Jane not wanting to worry Daria. Jane pushed a handful of various bottles and makeup on the counter to the side, clearing out space. She patted the clearing as a motion for Daria to sit. She began to try and push herself up onto it while using only one hand.
“I should have thought this through a little better,” Jane admitted, trying to smile through Daria’s attempt at sitting on the counter. Without much thought, she grabbed the girl by her waist and helped her up.
Daria awkwardly looked down from the counter at Jane, who was now shorter than her. She didn’t put much thought into what was happening right now, she just figured Jane knew what she was doing. Instead, she was enjoying the way Jane was acting so caring and in charge. it almost made her forget about the glass in her hand. Almost. Reminded of the pain, she let out a small “fuck” and gripped her wrist tighter.
She watched Jane, who was becoming increasingly more concerned, search through her cabinets. Just like the counter, they weren’t anywhere near organized.
Although she never expressed it through spoken words, Jane had always acted this caring toward her, from the moment they had met and onwards. Daria, who would never admit this, was the same. She found herself looking for a not cliche way to describe what they had, but all she could think of was “special”.
To explain it simply, she felt herself drawn to her best friend Jane. She's never had anywhere near those feelings for anyone else before. To be fair, she hadn’t been this close to someone in her life. Maybe this was how all people felt about their best friends, although, something in her wanted this to be different than normal best friends. Extra best friends? Best friends but better? She couldn’t seem to find the right words for it, but her head clung to the phrase “ more than friends ”. She shook the confusing thoughts from her head by focusing her attention back on Jane, not sure why she was thinking of this right now.
“Found it!” Jane shouted, sounding embarrassingly a little more relieved than she meant to. She reached past some stacks of hair gel and Axe deodorant (There were no doubts about what Lane those items belonged to) and pulled out rubbing alcohol. In her other hand was a pair of tweezers.
Daria squinted at the objects in discontent, fearing the next part of this whole ordeal.
“You’ll be fine, it’ll hurt pretty bad for a split second, and then it’ll be over,” Jane assured her friend, sensing her anxious look.
“Have you ever actually done this before?” Daria asked dryly. As much as she wanted to trust Jane with the future functionality of her hand, she couldn’t find it in her heart to.
“Not exactly, but Trent stepped on glass once and I watched him do this himself.”
“Jane Lane, if you-”
“Relax, Amiga. What do you need your left hand for so bad anyway?” She joked as she rinsed the tweezers in rubbing alcohol and lightly grasped the injured hand.
Daria felt her face rise in temperature and promptly looked away. More than friends , she thought again. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew what that meant. She just didn’t know why she was so focused on this concept despite knowing what it means. This is normal , she reassured herself. We’re just best friends, we can’t be anything more, I can’t be-
“SON OF A-”
Her internal crisis was interrupted by a sting in her hand and a piece of glass in the sink next to her. She felt sick when she looked down at the blood, so instead, she tried to look at Jane. Like she said earlier, Jane cared a lot, just not through words. She cared through things such as the worried expression she held on her face right now.
“Sorry. I’m fine,” Daria said. It was the truth. The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as she was anticipating.
“Better be Morgendorffer.” Jane smiled at Daria’s reassurance and pulled out some gauze. “For once, I am thankful Trent gets hurt so often.”
Daria remained silent as she lightly rinsed the rest of the blood off her hand herself and Jane started wrapping the gauze around the cut.
“Wow, it’s been a good ten minutes since you said something witty or existential. Your hand bothering you that much?” Jane asked with a complimentary smile that Daria could only read as concern.
“No. It’s just.” Daria shuffled awkwardly in her seat on the counter. “I’m glad you…” She mumbled off unintelligibly. This was so dumb. She made the formal decision in her head that she would stop talking about this subject effective immediately because this was so dumb.
Where was she even going with this? They’ve never said words of appreciation like that before.
“Hey,” Jane started. She put the gauze down and placed her hand on Daria’s shoulder. “It’s no big deal. I know you care just as much as I do. So really, it’s not a big deal.”
“Actually, I was going to say I’m glad you have so much room on your bathroom sink. Real comfy up here,” Daria quickly retorted in an attempt to distract herself from how warm her face felt right now, and how fast her heart was beating, and how much Jane meant to her at this moment.
Jane hesitated for a moment before standing on her toes to reach Daria from the counter, leaning in close and looking her in the eyes. She pushed some of Daria’s slightly unkempt hair out of her face.
Daria resisted the urge to look away in embarrassment as much as she could because she was enjoying this so much. Being this close to her friend, no words spoken, just Jane’s hand cupped under her cheek.
Jane moved in even closer, till her lips were hovering right in front of Daria’s. She quickly leaned to the left and planted a small kiss on Daria’s cheek.
When she pulled away, they both were completely still for a few seconds. It took some time for Daria to process what had happened. As happy as she was, she was disappointed Jane hadn’t actually kissed her. Regardless, the small peck on her cheek made her feel unexplainably relieved, as if she had wanted Jane to do that for her whole life.
Eventually, unable to express her emotions properly, and noticing she hadn’t breathed in a few seconds and she let out a huff of breath, followed by Jane doing the same. The two girls laughed to themselves for a while, unable to think of anything to say but still enjoying the tender moment.
Daria didn’t know what any of this meant. She didn’t know why she enjoyed it so much when Jane was nice to her, she didn’t know why she liked Jane’s presence so much. She didn’t understand why she felt drawn to Jane the moment they met. She couldn’t tell why that kiss made her stomach feel light and her chest feel full. All of this was new and weird. But none of this mattered right now. All she could think about was Jane herself.
Her best friend. Her hopefully more than best friend? Jane Lane. The red-jacketed, black-haired artist that she wanted nothing more than to kiss.
“Sooooo,” Jane promptly said with an awkward smile as she looked down at Daria’s wrapped up hand. “How about a pizza, champ?”