Here's my first Jane by Design story, and my first one-shot altogether.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Yea. Jane by Design isn't mine. Sorry.

"I know that I've come a long way

My heart's headed in the right place

But sometimes your past's hard to face"

-There Was Another Time In My Life – Reliant K

If I was to be completely honest with myself, I would have to say that nothing had turned out as I had first hoped it would when I stepped onto campus at Whitemarsh High School on the first day of school in my freshman year.

No, I wasn't pretty.

No, I wasn't popular.

But that didn't change the fact that I was excited.

High school was supposed to be a new start, a blank page, and I could be anyone I wanted to be. Sure, I had the headgear and an actual brain, but I could still be popular, right?

No. But maybe I wasn't cut out for that life. And no, high school wasn't the best time of my life, and I wasn't really happy, but I did have exactly what I needed- an education and a few good friends. That didn't stop me from being like every single girl at my school, falling for Ben Quimby. The boy was the picture of perfection. The star baseball player, the most popular guy in school, good looks, a social life- the boy had everything.

And boy, did he have my heart. And he never even had a clue.

Of course, Ben Quimby had EVERY girl's heart, but that still didn't make mine any less important in my eyes. I was never one to be into the deep eyes and that silly smile, and the jock personality. Not at all. But somehow he got me.

Maybe it was how even though he teased me, calling me Shaw the Jaw, and laughing at me with his friends, there was still a darkness in his beautiful eyes that said this wasn't what he truly wanted, that this wasn't him. It was someone else.

I had known him before high school, of course. We practically grew up on the same block, swung on the same swing sets, and had all the same elementary school teachers. Occasionally when I saw him visiting his best friends who lived down the street from me, I would walk out onto the porch and wave casually, grinning shyly.

That was before he learned what popularity was like, who he was supposed to hang out with to be cool and popular, and why he was cut out for it and I wasn't. Back in those days, he would wave back.

At some point, he stopped noticing the little girl striving for a bit of his attention. He was too caught up in his perfect world to care about anything else. And perhaps, that was where he belonged.

And he grew up and grew taller and I grew up and became stronger, but something else was different. I was as much infatuated with him as ever, but he was so different. And so I tried to forget.

I stopped waving, I stopped writing his name on my notebooks, and I stopped making casual attempts to get his attention. But that didn't stop me from staring at him across the room and putting hearts around his picture in the yearbook. I couldn't just tear myself away.

After a while, and after graduation, things got better for me. I was stronger, happier and less awkward, pretty even. I was finally getting to the part of life where it couldn't get better. I had a steady job at my old high school, as a counselor, and things well going well for me. Ben's sister started going to Whitemarsh, but I didn't really think about him all that much anymore.

When she came to my office wanting to have an internship at a design company, she handed me the release forms, and from the moment I saw what was supposed to be Ben's signature I could tell it was a forgery. I had studied his signature in my yearbook over and over, enough to notice the faint girly curl to his capital letters. So I called in for a parent conference.

Of course, I was right. He knew nothing about the internship and went as far as to say he would have to figure out how she made his B so loopy. Not that I was paying that much attention to the signature to notice, right? But this was my moment - to prove myself as a professional, to prove myself to have changed from the loser I was in high school and to be worthy of his attention. He didn't even recognize me. Not in the slightest. He just smiled that heartbreaking charming smile as I reminded him how miserable he made my life and how he mocked me. He still didn't remember. So I moved on again. I could be a new person in his mind. Rita Shaw. Not Shaw. Not Shaw the Jaw. Just Rita.

I have to admit, I was a bit freaked out when I found out he got the job as assistant coach. Now he was going to be everywhere, and I wouldn't be able to escape him. It'd be like high school all over again - stuck in the same buildings, him leading the baseball team to victory, wandering the halls, leaving me to stare after him longingly, so close yet so far. I was not willing to put up with that again.

I bitterly accepted the task of showing him around and giving him ground rules and debriefing him on his actual job, not just the coaching part. I led him into his office, separated from mine by a back door. So close, but so far.

And on the end of his first day, he walked into my office, sat out on my couch, and smiled that beautiful smile of his. My heart started beating oddly like it used to in high school. And we started talking and his eyes were sparkling like I hadn't seen in years, and he was laughing and grinning, and everything felt right.

Now I have his attention . And he's the guy I remember from way back when.

This is exactly what I've needed.

And finally, if feels right. I'm not longer incomplete.

And it's kind of perfect.

Hopefully this will end up being the first Jane by Design fanfiction. That'd be really cool

I just really wanted to write one for Rita and Ben, because I haven't found anything for them, but they are by far the cutest and quickest developing couple on the show in my opinion.

Anyways, you read, so PLEASE review. Is anyone else into this couple? Was it a good story?

If you're interested in more Jane by Design stories, follow me as an author, to be updated whenever I post a new story Thanks!

And don't forget to review! It means a lot to me, and it's what makes me want to write. Whenever I get a review, I actually run to my computer to write more. And if you want to see other couples or anything, let me know and I'll do my best to write it!

~dropsofpuresky