I will undress your soul

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

After the calm weekend Jane spent in chatting with a complete stranger she met on internet, Monday was really busy for her. She had a lot of work to do, but after work she promised Maura to meet her in Dirty robber for a drink. Maura insisted on going so she had to accept, even though she was kind of busy and tired. She didn't want Maura to feel bad if she declined politely so Jane just went there after she finished work. When she got there, she saw that Maura was already waiting for her.

"I wanted to talk to you," Maura stated after Jane sat on the table, ordering herself a drink.

"About what?" Jane asked, wondering what was on Maura's mind. She seemed lost in thought.

"Jane, I am invited to a wedding," Maura started the conversation with that odd news. It wasn't that odd but Jane was just surprised. Was that what Maura wanted to talk about with her, Jane wondered. She was a bit confused because she didn't expect something like that.

"And you're telling me this because you want me to be your plus one?" Jane asked, rising her eyebrow, looking at Maura suspiciously. She just didn't know where Maura was heading with that statement.

"No. Actually, I am not going."

"Really? Why?" Jane asked, intrigued.

"I am busy. I have lots of work so I declined the invitation. But that's not important," Maura explained nervously.

"Ok. Good for you," Jane retorted, getting bored by the conversation. She was really tired and just wanted to go home and rest. "By the way, is it someone I know?" Jane wondered, feeling kind of confused because Maura seemed very nervous and she was acting kind of weird. And not her weird usual self. It was something else. Something was going on, but Jane couldn't put her finger on it.

"No. You don't know her. She is a friend from college," Maura answered back quickly, sounding a bit agitated by her question.

Jane knew that Maura didn't have many friends so it was surprising.

"What's her name? Do I know anything about her?" She decided to ask since she wanted to know more.

"It's... it's...uhm... Mandy!" Maura started stuttering. "Yeah. Mandy," she repeated more confidently.

Jane thought for a few seconds.

"Doesn't ring a bell. Have you spoken about her to me?" Jane asked Maura, looking at her.

"That's not important!" Maura retorted a bit too loudly, sounding somewhat angry for something. But Jane had no idea what was going on.

"And you know..." Maura started saying nervously again, this time sounding calmer than before, or at least not so loud. "She... she is marrying a woman. What do you think about that?" Maura stuttered quickly in the end and fell silent.

Jane was a bit confused. Did Maura mean what she thinks about gay marriage or about weddings at all? Or maybe about her friend? She didn't make things clear for her. Maura's question was very unclear and odd. And Jane was feeling uncomfortable talking about that specific topic with Maura. What if something slipped out of her mouth? Involuntary, of course. It was too risky so she avoided talking about it.

"Well... at some point you gotta tie the knot," Jane answered.

"That's not what I mean," Maura started saying, but Jane interrupted her, seeing Frankie entering at Dirty robber in that very moment.

"Oh, look! Frankie's here! He just came." Jane pointed out, relieved by his appearance at the right moment. She greeted him and he joined them on the table. Then Jane noticed that Maura was scratching, looking a bit disappointed for some reason.

"Maura, why are you scratching yourself?" Jane wondered what was going on with Maura.

"Oh, look, Frankie is here. I will leave you two alone." Maura said and quickly got up, leaving as if she was in a hurry.

"But... but..." She was gone before Jane could finish her sentence. "You wanted to talk," Jane murmured under her breath.

Maura definitely was acting weird that day. Something was going on, but Jane couldn't understand her so she just blamed the hard case they were working on. Maura was probably very tired and that was the reason she was acting a bit strangely.

The next few days were really busy for Jane. The whole week went by very quickly. Jane didn't have much free time so she didn't write to lonely_heart, but she haven't heard from her either. She was waiting for the weekend so she could finally get some good sleep, some rest and maybe read something, and just relax a little bit. Because she had very tiring and stressful week, working on tough cases.

When the weekend finally came, Jane decided to write to lonely_heart again. She didn't have any unread messages from her - they haven't chatted since last Sunday. But Jane was busy at work so she hoped that lonely_heart wouldn't mind it. After all, lonely_heart haven't written her a word during the past days. Maybe she was busy too, she thought to herself, wondering what lonely_heart was doing. But mostly, Jane wanted to know what happened with her promise. Did she follow her advice as she asked her last time they chatted? So Jane logged in the site and started typing her a message:

"Hello, lonely_heart. How was your week? Did you ask your friend? What happened? Did you muster enough courage? I hope so."