Chapter 3
THEN: DIANA
“Iknow you already heard this during orientation, but starting this year, athletes are not exempt from regular P.E.,” Coach Matthews said, ignoring the answering groans from the rest of the class sitting across from her on the gymnasium bleachers.
“Starting your junior year, this also becomes a health-focused class, mainly, sex education.” There were more answering groans from the students around Diana, but none from Diana herself.
She had accepted this fate long ago and was actually looking forward to not every class being so damn physical.
Besides, Diana’s energy was low these days.
She had no desire to move around for health class.
Jay had left a gaping hole in her heart when she left for California, and it didn’t help that everywhere was blasting songs like Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me,” and Mariah Carey’s “You’ll Always Be My Baby.
” Diana’s own CD player rotated through the grunge scene, from Hole to Garbage to Nirvana.
And of course, Alanis Morissette had dropped a bitchin’ break-up album the year before.
When her sister Julia had asked her to come riding with her one day in the late summer, Diana had decided to throw herself into it. Horses were sweet, stoic, and once they warmed up to you, rarely abandoned you, which is how Diana was feeling, abandoned.
All was good till one of her horses got spooked and by a sheer mishap had thrown Diana.
She’d landed on her feet, which killed both her ankles and SI joints.
She’d spent the rest of the summer healing, but the pain still persisted if she stayed on her feet too long.
So sitting down and learning about what goes where and when instead of what used to be a game of dodgeball or volleyball was welcomed.
“Come on Coach, we really could use the time to work on our routines,” a voice said from the crowd, pulling Diana back into the present.
“Jacobs, don’t start with me. I can promise you I am just as excited as you are about this,” Coach Matthews answered to a small grumble of laughter.
“Bet you she has to teach us sex-ed because she’s the only female coach,” Janice said into Diana’s ear.
Diana totally agreed with her friend. Coach Matthews was a tall and stocky woman with cropped auburn hair.
She wore big glasses and windbreakers that belonged in the 80s.
There were some rumors about the coach, many of them around her trying to “be one of the boys”.
Diana thought it was all nonsense. She was a gym coach and looked like a gym coach.
True, everything about her was very masculine in Diana’s eyes, except for her long acrylic nails that ranged in color week to week, but Diana figured that was just how she chose to express herself.
And she was not “one of the boys”; she was always relegated to the stuff the other coaches didn’t seem to want to do, like writing the game schedule on the school chalkboard each week, making announcements, and apparently, teaching health to high school juniors.
“Oh come on Coach,” another voice called from the same vicinity as Emmy Jacobs, so Diana knew it was another cheerleader, “this is a really important time for us athletes.”
“You’re a cheerleader,” a male voice replied before Coach Matthews could speak, and a few more male voices weighed in, agreeing and laughing.
“I mean if even the athletes have to endure this class…” Janice whispered next to Diana again and Diana turned to look at her friend. Before she could say anything, Coach Mathews spoke up.
“Cheerleaders are athletes. I’d like to see you all throw someone your own weight into the air and catch them, all while making it look easy.
” That cut the murmuring and laughter immediately.
“That said, Wright, while I appreciate you supporting your captain, our friend here is right,” Coach Matthews said, turning her head in Janice and Diana’s direction.
Diana saw the blush bloom across Janice’s brown skin, accentuating her beautiful chestnut eyes and pouty red mouth.
She clearly hadn’t thought Coach Matthews could hear her.
“If the footballers, and all the rest of the athletes have to sit for health, so do the cheerleaders.”
“Now the sex-ed portion of this class is only half the year, and I want to share with you that in the next class I will be partnering you up for the highly anticipated,”—she said sarcastically, “baby raising experiment.” The whole class groaned.
“You will work with your partner on raising a baby, in this case a RealCare baby doll. Now I am going to hand out an overview of how to care for the doll and a rubric on how you will be graded. Please note you will be expected to care for your baby for eight weeks, with the final week of the quarter being your presentation and final grade. The dolls will record your care, and you will need to work with your partner on figuring out a care plan. I am telling you this now, because you start in two weeks, but your homework is to work with your partner this week on that care plan and present it to me next week. After which, we will go through any questions or feedback, and then you will meet your baby.” The dread was palpable in the room.
“If this doesn’t sound like fun, well, just be thankful this is only eight weeks of your life. It is meant to give you a sense of one of the many outcomes of sex, particularly without protection or birth control.”
Diana looked back at Janice who looked at her with frightened eyes.
Neither of them were excited for this infamous school project, but they had decided at the start of the year they’d be partners.
But it sounded like Coach Matthews was choosing everyone’s partner.
Just to double check Diana raised her hand.
“Yes Blake,” Coach Matthews said, handing a stack of papers to a student to take one and pass it down.
“You said you are partnering us up, as in, we don’t get to choose our partners?”
“That is correct, I have your assigned partners here,” she said, raising a clipboard.
“Wait, but in real life wouldn’t we be choosing our partners? Like someone we have a relationship with beforehand?” Janice asked.
“Not necessarily,” Coach Matthews began.
"Plenty of people have children with people they don’t know or people they think they know.
In either case, this is a great chance for you to get to know someone else in your class.
If an unexpected pregnancy happens, then you’ll have to build a very different kind of relationship with someone; it is a great bonding exercise. ”
This time Diana groaned with the rest of the class.
She and Janice were what she thought of as situational best friends.
Janice was an outcast and ostracized by the rest of the grade for reasons that seemed ridiculous to Diana, and Diana had no interest in befriending anyone in her class who only wanted to befriend her because she was a Blake.
Janice had moved to Maplewood as a sophomore due to her mom’s job and didn’t really fit the town mold.
She had black oily hair that she sometimes wore in braids, and was short, plump, and passionate about the internet in a way that Diana was not.
She said it had something to do with the romantic fanfic she wrote for a show called Sailor Moon, but Diana wasn’t into cartoons or anime or whatever.
What she was into was the fact that Janice wrote stories that involved women loving women, and didn’t know shit about her last name.
Diana had been shocked to learn that although Janice wrote queer fanfic (she also had a gay romance fanfic for something called Dragon Ball Z), she had yet to do anything with anyone.
When Diana had asked her why she’d just shrugged and said that her fic was the “only way sex was interesting to her”.
Diana hadn’t known what to make of that, but the fact that it had felt atypical gave Diana the bravery to reveal she was dating another girl.
All Janice had said in response was “Phat”.
“Alright, those of you who are observant will notice we also have a couple more girls than we do boys, so there will be some, uh, girl and girl couples.” The crowd snickered and Diana felt her face go red.
She wasn’t necessarily secretive about finding girls attractive, but she also knew what would happen to her if everyone else found out: someone would tell her parents and all hell would break loose.
Not a Blake, not the eldest daughter who surely would marry some rich boy her parents picked out for her and make rich babies and rich, rich, rich —tradition, tradition, tradition.
Upholding the Blake Family legacy and all.
Diana had Julia, but as Julia had cut off all her hair recently, much to the scandal of her parents and gossip around town, Diana decided not to push it.
“Can there be boy and boy?” a quiet voice asked from the crowd.
Diana looked to find Henry Erickson, the only out gay kid in the grade.
Though Diana was sure it had been by choice.
The kid had been teased mercilessly all throughout middle school, and while Diana never had class with him, she did know all about the rumors of him supposedly being ‘obsessed’ with a footballer.
Though, considering how out of the way said footballer and his friends went to bully Henry, Diana thought the obsession was the other way around.
Diana would have befriended Henry if he too hadn’t been so into the idea that she was a “Blake” when she had first met him.
Still, she admired the way he’d just said “fuck it” once high school came around and totally embraced his femboy style.
“Yeah you’d like that wouldn’t you, fairy boy,” a gruff voice answered, and it was like a switch was flicked on Coach Matthews.
“There will be none of that! I need you to stay after class with me for a moment. To answer your question Henry, while yes, your question makes sense, it was easier to pair up the boys and girls first and then pair up the remaining girls.”
Diana watched Henry’s shoulders slump and then he nodded.
Diana was suddenly struck with the urge to go sit next to him and put her arm around him.
“And since I have your attention Henry, I am letting you know that you will be working with Janice Woodward,” Diana turned to look at Janice.
She smiled weakly at her friend and Janice smiled back.
“Oh thank god, could be worse,” she said, letting out a breath.
“Could have been so much worse,” Diana said looking at the back of the alpha male who had said the offensive words to Henry. Catching Henry’s eye through the crowd, it looked like he had the same feeling.
Coach Matthews kept going down her pairings, much to the dismay and to the relief of various students. It didn’t seem like there was any particular order, and Diana wondered after seeing the pairing like Henry and Janice if the woman had put some real thought into things.
“Diana Blake,” the room went silent as it often did when a Blake was involved, “you are our first female-only pairing; you will be working with Margaret McDonald.”