When Mercy's car pulled up, I noticed there was no Rosalind. Didn't they live next to one another? Mercy looked much the same despite the bob she now wore. Her hair was still that rich jet black and her eyes were still clear and green, her legs were so smooth and strong showing off all the soccer she was playing for Georgia. When she rushed up the stairs we embraced one another letting out a squeal of excitement.

"Becka!" Mercy pulled back to look at me. "Oh my god, you've gotten so hot!"

I pushed at her. "No, I haven't."

"Yeah, you have, I can't wait for you to go to Chicago and get the heck out of this town," Mercy followed me up to my room. She had been one of the few people to know about Chicago, I didn't want to tell anyone since I had not officially gotten accepted.

"Where the heck is Rosalind?"

Mercy stopped and looked at me with a raised brow.

"What happened?"

"She didn't tell you?" Mercy said.

"I called you, I assumed you understood when I said we need to assemble the girls," I said rather frustrated.

"Becka, Rosalind moved, she dropped out." Mercy shook her head. "She's in Miami, engaged with that guy."

"Are you serious?"

Mercy nodded and sat on my desk chair. "As a heart attack, happened maybe like two months ago."

I plopped down on my bed and realized that the friendship that had been forged in high school was a mere illusion. I didn't even know my friends anymore. Yara pregnant by a married guy and now Rosalind engaged. She hadn't even called me to tell me when in the past buying a new pair of jeans had required a conference call for moral support.

"People change, Becka," Mercy said slowly.

Mercy saw it in my face and I turned to look at her with a tight smile.

"What about you, how have you changed?"

Mercy shrugged; her pretty face nonchalant. "I'm in a sorority now but most of them are a bunch of bitches. I get along with two of them and we've become the three musketeers."

Pain shifted in my stomach at that statement. The Patty Girls had been the team, the lifetime team, sisters for life, godmothers to our kids, and when our husbands all died, the Patty Girls would take over retirement homes.

"It's all changing, isn't it?" I said.

Mercy gave me one of her cynical smiles. "Couldn't last forever. There's still Yara, you, and me."

I grimaced. Might as well say it and deal with it. "Yara's pregnant."

Mercy's eyes widened comically. "You're shitting me."

"This was the emergency."

"By married army guy?"

"Coast Guard and yes, the same," I said.

Mercy sat back with an open look of utter disbelief. I realized right then that Mercy was too damn quick to ever get pregnant mostly because her Mom had been a teen mom. Mercy always swore it had messed her up, her mom never got to live out all the stuff you're supposed to get out of your system in your 20s. I remembered the time that we had run into Mercy's mom outside of a club with the newest flavor of the week. Granted, her mom was still hot, she had been in her early 30s when this happened, but Mercy had been so embarrassed. She had cried in the car while we tried to reassure her that we wouldn't think less of her.

"She's so stupid!" Mercy said and stood up, marching back and forth.

"Her dad said he was cutting her off."

"Shit." Mercy pressed her lips together and let out a frustrated groan. "What is she going to do? Married guy is not going to leave his wife, I hope she doesn't even dream of that."

"She's gonna get a job, trying to make it on her own," I said.

"For how long? She can work for 6 months, tops. That's if some boss is not an asshole and doesn't fire her."

I hadn't thought about that, I glanced at Mercy – despite it all Mercy had grown up a lot more street savvy and realistic than the rest of us. While I had been coddled and protected from the world by my parents, Mercy hadn't had that luxury. Many nights she had to figure out what to eat on her own as her Mom was a flight attendant and not always around.

"I don't know."

Mercy turned to stare at me. "Is she keeping it?"

Unflinching and pragmatic.

"Of course, she is, this is Yara."

Mercy pursed her lips and shook her head. "She has no idea what's in store for her or the kid."

I looked away and had to agree with her. What was Yara going to do? She had nowhere to go, this guy would never leave his wife, and Yara was at the mercy of her small savings and maybe government help. That thought twisted my stomach.

"Maybe she can come with me to Chicago, we can split the rent and I can look after the baby when she's working –"

"Fuck that, Becka. Fuck that. You're going to want to have fun, go out, come home drunk, have sex with random frat guys – use a condom for the love of god please – but you're gonna want to do all of these things and I won't let Yara and her incompetence take it away."

"Well, what the hell are we going to do? Let her be homeless and starve?" I stood up and Mercy shook her head.

"You don't understand because what you've known is this town." Mercy pointed to the carpeted floor. "When you get out, Becka, you're going to bloom."

I looked at her, sad at her cynicality. "What good is blooming when your friends are crashing and burning?"

Mercy opened her mouth and then closed it, shaking her head slowly. She sat down, elbows on knees and head in the palm of her hands.

"Your heart, Becky-girl, your goddamn heart," Mercy said softly and looked up at me.

"I'd do the same for you." I smiled at her. "We're Patty Girls. Sisters for life."

Mercy opened her arms and we hugged quite fiercely, grunting when our knees hurt and finally being interrupted by the sound of my phone.

I turned to look at it. "It's Yara."

Mercy sat up and I put it on speaker. What happened next left Mercy quiet and me rather stunned. I couldn't even think.

"We'll be there tomorrow, don't worry, we love you," Mercy said when we hung up.

×××

Mercy had gone to her Mom's house and I had decided that since I was not even going to school tomorrow, I might as well put in a couple of hours that afternoon at the library. The guys would be gone and I would have uninterrupted time to go over my notes.

The campus was quiet and it looked rather pretty in the dusk as the lights started to shine against the night. The balminess of Florida was easing the slightest bit as October rolled in. When I pushed the doors of the library open I beelined for our usual table and I was surprised to find Victor there, by himself, hunched over a book, and with a bottle of water next to him. His head was in his hand making his forearm muscles stand out. I was glad to see him, if there was one person who understood the need for quiet while studying it was Victor. Out of our entire group the pair of us would most likely be the ones to graduate. This is why we had sort of known one another, we were always in the same honor classes, sitting close to one another because of our last names.

As if he sensed me, he looked up, surprised but gave a smile.

"What happened to the gym?" I took a seat across from him.

"Still there."

"Good, I was worried about it." I pulled out my notebooks.

He looked me over, his brow furrowed. "What's wrong?"

I stared at him then looked around to make sure we were alone. We were, everyone else had gone home. There was a magic to the library when it was empty as if the rows of books were protector wings. We could hide in there.

"I called in the girls like you suggested," I whispered.

His eyes softened. "And?"

I swallowed and looked down, studying my frayed nails. "Mercy came, she was pissed. Her Mom had her when she was like eighteen so she wasn't happy but I got her to come around."

He nodded, waiting for me to continue after I took a deep breath.

"Then Yara called," I looked at him. "She had her doctor's appointment, to check and make sure everything was OK... but there's no heartbeat."

Victor was quiet, studying me, and the kindness of his eyes made something in my chest shift. The tears I had held back to put a strong front in front of Mercy and Yara were crumbling. My leg bounced up and down and my lip trembled.

"They said that sometimes these things happen," I said. "So tomorrow they're taking it out, they remove it at this clinic in Lakeland."

I heard, more than saw, Victor pushing his chair back and before I realized what he was doing he was kneeling before me, pulling my knees to him and making my look at him. He didn't say anything but pushed my mess of a hair back to look at my face.

"Why am I relieved?" The tears chocked at me despite my best efforts to keep them at bay. "I'm so relieved, Victor, and I shouldn't –"

His large hands covered mine and I felt a warmth flood through my body.

"Yara claims she's happy and fine with it all but I know her, she puts up a front, I guess like we all do. We always want to make sure we're fine. That everyone knows that everything is good but when the doors close, we're trash."

I looked at him, his kind warm eyes, downturned at the corners, so sincere and open. Why did he have to end up being the one who consoles me? Out of all the people in the entire world.

"People don't like to admit they're not OK," he said, squeezing my hands and I nodded in agreement.

"I'm going with her tomorrow, me and Mercy are," I said. "The clinic is like an hour away. We have to be there at 10 so I'm gonna miss my classes."

"You're literally ahead in all your classes, you'll be fine," he said quickly, and I gave him a small smile in thanks. His hands let go of mine and he reached for my knees, holding them tight and giving them a squeeze, a little hand hug. I wanted to move away from him but he didn't let me. I didn't want him to know how much it bothered me but he didn't seem to notice, his eyes stayed just as warm and open and I held my breath until he stood and sat next to me, pulling all his crap from across the table. I turned on my seat but he reached for my leg and plopped it on his lap, keeping it there as he went back to his notes.

I stayed pretty stiff for a while as I tried to read the text before me but I couldn't concentrate because all I could think was I had broached a boundary with that kiss and Victor said he would not forget and I could never forget. And this? This was something I had always wanted to do with a boyfriend but here was Victor, his hand relaxed over my calves. Slowly, the gentle rhythm of his breathing as he read relaxed me. I shifted and he looked at me and I smiled at him.

"You're my best friend," I admitted.

He studied me and slowly nodded. "Yeah. Mine too."

A warmth so powerful filled me and I let out a happy hum.

"Have you called Crystal?" I asked and watched him from the corner of my eye.

"Yeah, we had lunch today," he said.

"She's nice."

"Very nice."

I chewed on my lip. Good. I hadn't ruined it. We were still friends and I would not trade this for anything. I went back to reading and it was a long time before we went home.

Recommended 90s Playlist (will grow with each chapter)

1. Gettin' Jiggy With It - Will Smith

2. Kiss The Rain - Billie Myers

3. Come Baby Come - K7

4. Tubthumping - Chumbawamba

5. Bitch - Meredith Brooks

6. Something to Talk About - Bonnie Raitt

7. WannaBe - Spice Girls

8. Miami - Will Smith

9. Ghetto Supastar - Pras

10. All Cried Out - Allure

11. The Way - Fastball

12. Walkin' on the Sun - Smash Mouth

13. Can't Get Enough of You Baby - Smash Mouth

14. Stay (I missed you) - Lisa Loeb

15. Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) - The Offspring

16. Sex & Candy - Marcy Playground

17. Lullaby - Shawn Mullins

18. Inside Out - Eve 6

19. My Way - Usher

20. Last Kiss - Pearl Jam

21. She's So High - Tal Bachman

22. Slide - The Goo Goo Dolls

23. Y Hubo Alguien - Marc Anthony

24. Here's to the Night - Eve 6

25. I Love You Always Forever - Donna Lewis

26. You Sang to Me - Marc Anthony

27. Kryptonite - 3 Doors Down

28. Best I Ever Had - Gary Allan

29. Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer

30. Try Again - Aaliyah

31. I Knew I Loved You - Savage Garden

32. Because You Loved Me - Celine Dion