Average Jane |Lesbian Story|

Chapter 9

Jane made up her mind to stick to her rules. After making a list of her dream goals, she made it her life mission to cross each one of them.

But the hard part was crossing them.

She felt a sense of optimism, almost excitement flooding through her. She was also slightly overwhelmed by the things she had to commit to. Things that were mostly her least favorite things, like studying instead of watching her TV shows or hanging out with Emily.

But she believed that every great man and woman had to sacrifice a lot to reach their goals, so no more whining. She would have to do the same or die trying. That was how serious she was.

Jane had been shooting baskets from five until seven. She only made 30 baskets out of 100. Compared to her usual performance, she had improved by five percent. A small result, but still a result.

Jane tried lay-up after lay-up until the muscles in her arms and shoulders began to ache. But this time, it was a good kind of ache. It wasn't something that was forced upon her like before. It was the satisfying soreness of muscles training themselves to do what they were supposed to do.

She dribbled up and down the driveway as fast and hard as if she were driving down the court with other team's guards in hot pursuit. The impact of her hands against the ball, the rhythm of the ball rebounding from the pavement, the tingling warmth in her forearms...it all felt great.

The basketball bounced obediently under her hands as if some force in the ball were responding directly to the force in her cupped fingers.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Jane felt like a bouncing machine, programmed to keep on bouncing the ball in the same unchanging rhythm forever.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Bounce.

What made a basketball bounce the way it did? Why was it bouncier than a soccer ball, even though both were about the same size and shape? And those tiny little super-balls. Why did they bounce so hard and so high?

Jane caught the ball on its next up-bounce. She had it!

She had the question of the physical world! She had found the idea for her science fair project.

She would test all different kinds of balls, bouncing on all different kinds of surfaces, to try to find out which balls bounced the highest and why. She knew it wouldn't win a Nobel Prize, but she had thought it up all by herself, and it had come out of a real question that really mattered to her, just Ms. Anderson had said it should.

She could hear her voice right now, telling her, "Why, Jane, what an original idea! I knew you'd come up with something wonderful!"

Wonderful.

She loved the sound of that word coming from her vermilion lips.

~*~

Friday morning, they didn't have class time to work on their projects, but Jane made herself go up to her after class. She was wearing a tight-fitting top, the kind that dancers wear, and the same skirt she had worn on the first day. Her hair was down, held back from her face by two glistening silver barrettes.

"Ms. Anderson," Jane said. "Um...I have kind of an idea for my project."

"Oh, what is it, Jane?" she asked as if there was nothing in the world she wanted to know more than Jane's half-baked idea.