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Jane wasn’t allowed to like Daria.
Well, okay, that’s a lie. Let’s put it like this: Jane wasn’t allowed to like Daria that way. In third grader terms, Jane like-liked Daria. Daria was Jane’s friend. Daria was Jane’s nice straight friend, and Jane was Daria’s nice straight friend. (Right?)
And then one day things changed.
Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. It’s not like one day out of the blue Jane was like, “Hey, you know what sounds great? Making out with Daria. Good ol’ Daria, my best friend, probably has really nice lips and kissing her would just be terrific.” It was more like one day Jane noticed how much happier she was around Daria. That’s not weird, people are usually happier around friends. And then the butterflies came.
It’s such a fuckin’ cliche: butterflies in the stomach. If you would’ve told Jane a year ago she would be getting butterflies over anybody she probably would have kicked you out of the house at least, clocked you in the head at worst. The thing was that Jane and Daria were talking over pizza and Daria gave one of her Daria Smirks™ and then Jane couldn’t help but notice how sweet, yes, you heard that right, sweet, Daria looked. From there it was all downhill.
It’s not even that she could put her finger on why she found Daria so attractive. Daria was definitely pretty, in that unconventional way Jane liked, but Jane liked unconventional boys. She liked sharp edges and rough hands (and big heads). Not Daria’s soft (barely there) curves and dainty hands (don’t tell Daria Jane thought that, she’d be dead in a second), and just all the things she normally doesn’t like on boys she finds perfect about Daria. Sexuality is a fuckin’ weird thing.
Long story short, Jane was in deep shit. Deep, deep shit and she couldn’t even talk to Daria to try to get over her feelings or at least have as much of an emotional release as Jane Lane can have. So she did what all people with one sided crushes did: mope. She had to find the right balance between “mopey Jane” and “normal Jane” because Daria knew Jane, and she would know something was up. So Jane went on with life, as normal, trying to avoid that urge she sometimes has to tell Daria she’s fallen down the rabbit hole that is “lesbiansim.” Or maybe just bisexuality. Who really knows at this point.
“Jane. Jane. Jane!” Daria yelled, or at least as much as she could yell in her normal monotone.
“Oh? Huh, what? What is it?” Jane wasn’t really paying attention to what Daria was saying (surprise surprise), her mind occupied with… other things.
Daria, looking exasperated asked, “Jane, were you listening to any of the things I just said?”
“No, not really,” Jane replied, looking a bit sheepish. “But I’m all ears now.”
Daria sighed. “It’s fine. It’s not like it was anything big, I was mostly just whining about Quinn. Again.”
“Why am I not surprised? What harebrained scheme has Quinn come up with now? Is she trying to date four boys at once now instead of just three? Or has she made some kind of gladiator style pit for her loving suitors to duke it out in? No, no, Quinn’s not smart enough for that. So, what is it?”
“It’s nothing, really. Honestly that gladiator thing was probably more interesting than what I was rambling on about.”
Jane wasn’t really sure what to say to that, and what little conversation there was fizzled out into an uncomfortable silence.
Daria seemed to be struggling to find what to say to say before finally settling on, “Jane, I hate to ask this because you know that other’s well-being is high on the list of things I value, but are you okay? I mean. You’ve just seemed… off?”
Shit.
“Daria, I’m fine. And I don’t mean that in the ‘I’m fine, mom, I’m just gonna go cry upstairs alone in my room without you knowing,’ way I mean that in the, ‘I am actually, really fine.’”
“Okay.” Daria looked unconvinced. But she dropped it, and the rest of the day went about as normal as a day in the lives of Daria-And-Jane could go.
“Shit, I’m actually pretty thirsty. Maybe you and Trent could go get something to drink while I hold down the fort?” Jane suggested, wanting to give Daria “quality” time with Trent.
“Nah. I’d rather just stay here.”
Huh. That was a surprise.
“Okay then. I’ll go grab some drinks. Don’t burn anything down while I’m gone.” Trent left, leaving Daria and Jane in the theater alone.
“Why did Trent come along?” Daria asked, looking genuinely curious as to why he was here.
Jane shrugged. “I needed a ride, he said he would, and I figured you wouldn’t mind if he came along. I mean. Well. You know.”
Daria mmm-ed. “I guess. I don’t know. The more I think about it the less I like Trent. Being around him more,” Daria looked straight in Jane’s eyes and mocking Jane’s voice as much as she could, went, “Well. You know.”
“Yeah. I do.”
Daria and Jane sat around, watching the previews for a little bit before Trent finally came back with the drinks, almost crawling over the two girls to get to his seat next to Daria.
Eventually the movie started and it was some shitty action flick or something, Jane wasn’t really sure, Daria and her agreed on seeing it for “ironic purposes.” Note: that's a terrible reason to see a movie.
All of a sudden Jane felt a weight on her shoulder and. Oh no. Uncharacteristically, Daria had fallen asleep during the movie and decided, “Hey, Jane’s shoulder? Great pillow.” Jane tensed up, not wanting to wake Daria but. Daria. On shoulder.
Not ideal.
She looked over and saw Trent munching on popcorn and being his normal Trent self and knew she didn’t have anything to worry about on that front. One could always count on Trent for not paying attention to anything. So, she relaxed a bit and enjoyed the warmth of Daria on her shoulder. She knew they wouldn’t speak of it ever. Sometimes you just gotta take whatever you can get.
Even if what you can get is a sick illusion of what you really want.
They’re hanging out at Jane’s house after school.
“Hey Jane?”
“Yeah Daria?”
“You ever just want something you know that you’ll never be able to have?”
“Yeah, Daria.”
Art is hard.
Art is really, really hard.
And don’t take Jane for the type of artist who just lounges about waiting for something to come to them (Going back to Trent, again?). Jane is ready to fight for her art. She might not seem the type all the time, but she takes pride in what she does, goddammit, and she’s going to prove herself one day.
That day seems very far off though, because for now Jane is in a slump. Even in this crazy world with crazy people there’s nothing catching Jane’s eye.
(Except for Daria. But how do you tell your best friend that you’d love to do a nude drawing of them, and don’t want to keep it strictly artistic. Hint: you don’t.)
So Jane mopes around in the hopes that she’ll have an artistic breakthrough in these dark, terrible times. Probably not. So she forces herself to slop paint on a canvas or sculpt monstrous, abstract things in the hopes that maybe something’s good. Nothing’s good. Oh well. Life goes on. Art goes on.
“What if you put some blue there?” Daria suggests, looking at the canvas that’s been beat to hell and back.
“What do you know about art? I thought you were a language kinda girl.”
“I am. But I still feel like there could be some blue there.”
Jane steps back, takes in the whole painting, and realizes that yeah. There could be some blue there. She quirks up one eyebrow at Daria, wondering when she got such a good grasp on color theory, and slaps on some blue.
It looks better. Not good, but better.
Jane flops down onto her bed and asks Daria the same thing she’s been wondering for a while. “Why must art be so tedious and soul sucking?”
Daria retorts, “Because in order to create something that moves others, we must first give up a little part of ourselves to put into that creation. You’ve run out of soul to give.” Jane is pretty sure Daria is being sarcastic, but it’s one of those rare times she’s just not sure.
“Daria, I never had a soul to give.”
“Sure you did. I couldn’t be friends with a completely soulless person. Just a mostly soulless one.”
Jane’s heart skips a beat and those annoying butterflies she thought went away long ago are back.
“Shit.” Jane says.
Daria concurs.
Jane thinks about telling Daria, sometimes. It’s a terrifying thought, but she does think about it. She also thinks about Daria telling her. Daria, with her blush and her inability to speak around people she likes (or at least, around Trent when she liked him. Fuck!). But that’s not how it would happen. Maybe Daria would just try to hold Jane’s hand one day, and Jane would just instinctively know it was because Daria was into her too. Maybe it’d be like a bad teen romance where they have a sleepover and bam! Out come the secrets. Maybe Jane could just grow up and tell Daria because she knows Daria wouldn’t freak out and they’d stay friends.
That’s not what happens.
That’s not what happens at all.
They’re lying on Jane’s gross bedroom floor.
“Hey Jane.”
“Yeah Daria?”
“You ever want something you don’t think you can have, but you’re not sure? And you want to be optimistic but it’s so far fetched for you to be optimistic that you don’t try to think about it too much?”
This sounds familiar.
“This sounds like a very personal thing, Daria.” Jane sits up. “So, Daria,” Jane says in the most annoying voice she can think of, “tell Dr. Lane what’s wrong.”
Daria’s face sets in a hard line. “No, Jane, this is serious. I don’t want to joke about this.”
The facade falls. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I mean. Yeah. It’s fine.”
“Okay. So as Jane Lane talking to her friend Daria Morgendorffer, what’s up?”
“So, my fragile teenage heart has decided to start liking someone. I thought after Trent I would’ve learned my lesson about love, or the illusion of love that the media teaches you is love, but here we are. Here I am.”
Jane can’t tell at this point if she’s crumbled a little bit or if she’s successfully forced happiness onto her face. “Which boy out of the sea of fish at Lawndale High has swept our dear Daria off her feet. Or is it an out of towner? Or it is an older boy? Did Daria get a sugar daddy? If you did can you hook me u-” Daria gives Jane a withering look that shuts her up real fast.
“I don’t have a sugar daddy. And I don’t,” Daria seems to brace herself before going on, “have a crush on a boy.”
Jane’s world comes crashing down on her. Daria? Girl?
Jane isn’t sure if she can handle any name other than her’s coming out of Daria’s mouth. But who else could it be? Jane goes through the list of girls in her head that Daria could possibly like, and Jane’s the only one she can think of. The only one she wants to think about.
After what seems like a beat too long, Jane forces a smile and goes, “Okay. Girl. Cool. Who is it?”
The next two words that come out of Daria’s mouth is almost surreal, in a way. Like in cartoon, where you can see the words come out of the characters mouth.
Daria’s blushing furiously.
Like a bad 80s movie, the world seems to come to a halt.
“Jane Lane.”
Jane isn’t exactly sure how to react.
But what Jane does know is that maybe once in a while the cruel and sadistic thing calls life likes to give people breaks.
Jane’s break turned out to be her own name.