"Danielle Sabrina Mayer!"

The name boomed out over the football field. Nobody was clapping by now; they were only a little of the way through the M's, but 1500 people were graduating today with their various bachelor's degrees, and no one had the strength or interest in applauding every single one of them. I think we'd break our fingers if we tried. She shook the president's hand with a smile, accepted the diploma folder—there was only a vague placeholder picture in it; they'd be mailing the actual sheepskin to her at home in a few weeks—took a moment to put the tassel to the other side, and had just begun to open the diploma for the cameraman when the flash snapped off. She wondered how she'd looked. Shocked, probably, or distracted. The flattop hat they'd given her kept threatening to fall off; she felt the tassel swinging with every step, threatening to yank the whole ensemble off her head by force of inertia.

She wondered where the last four years had managed to run off to. Last she'd checked, she'd been graduating from high school. Now, a blink of an eye later, she had her Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Computer Graphics. If I blink again, will I find myself at the altar across from some man? Maybe that was why Erik never blinked. I should ask him. 'Hey, Erik, are you scared of blinking because, if you do, you'll find yourself at the altar across from some man?' We talk sometimes, after all. Mostly, 'Hi,' and, 'Take your clothes off.' But we do talk.

It was quite a while longer before the final graduate ("Paul Andrew Zdrojkowski!") passed across the stage; Danielle fidgeted under the beating sun, glad the school had gone for white graduation robes. Imagine doing this in black! Then, after the final salutations and benedictions, the party broke up and the graduating class dispersed for the last time. Danielle knew—roughly—where to find her family, as Sonya had texted her once they got seats on the bleachers. What she hadn't expected was to find Mr. and Mrs. Glass there as well. But perhaps it was to be expected. Their moms were friends, after all, and had been for many years; there was no reason to assume they had stopped being so, especially once she and David resumed their friendship again. Or that they had stopped because David was dating someone else. Hell, I'm fucking someone else. Not that they know that.

"Well, that's that!" her father said, grinning. "Now you're all packed up, and we can get in the car and drive home and never come back!"

"Unless Sonya decides to come here," said her mother.

"Oh God, Sonya's going to college?" Danielle said.

"Dude," said Sonya. She had grown to take after their father—stocky, but with a lot more curves than Danielle ever would have. "I'm gonna be a senior. I start turning in my applications in December."

"Oh God," said Danielle, "who are you and where did my kid sister go?"

"Hey, bitch, just because you weren't paying attention doesn't mean life stopped," Sonya snapped.

Danielle saw her mother trade despairing glances with Mrs. Glass. She realized that, with Danielle herself gone to college, Sonya must have been making life a living hell for their mother. She decided it might be nice to try and get Sonya out of the house as much as possible this summer.

Jodie and Erik had come as well, and decided to sit with her family. Of course, because of all the packing-up (and, in some cases, handing-down) of possessions going on at the apartment, Jodie knew her parents pretty well by now; and Erik had simply decided to tag along. She described him as a friend, and so far as she could tell her parents had bought it. It's not like it isn't the truth. We are just friends. ...Who do stuff. Occasionally. It had only happened a few times each quarter, when the crushing darkness became unbearable and she needed to hear someone else's breathing in the room. She rarely heard it for long, of course; he came, did his thing, and went again. Sometimes after he was gone she felt lonelier than ever. The funny thing was, he would stay and chat if he had been invited as a friend; but if they were doing it, then it was all business. She didn't claim to understand it. She didn't claim to understand what exactly their relationship was either.

David came up to them now; his name being further up the alphabet, it had taken him longer to fight his way through the crowds. Had Sonya even thought to contact him?—consideration wasn't her strong point. Did any of his family know how to text him?—technology might not be their strong point. She wondered how he had found them so fast.

Mr. and Mrs. Glass engulfed him in massive hugs and congratulations. He didn't have any other siblings or relatives to pile on, but Danielle's parents were there to get in line. ...And Sonya. And eventually Danielle herself. They had been friends long enough that she could hug him for graduating.

"Is Nicole coming?" said Mrs. Glass. "We've so been hoping to meet her."

"Mo-oomm," said David. "You know we broke up last quarter. She's probably with her family out there somewhere."

"Maybe we can find them," Mrs. Glass said.

David traded a glance with Danielle. She knew what it meant. It would indeed be awkward to find them—not the least because Mr. and Mrs. Smith would probably welcome them with open arms. Danielle didn't think they were the type to let something as minor as a break-up interfere with hospitality.

"You guys were dating for, like, years, right?" Sonya said. "Why'd you break up?"

"Just..." David looked around uncomfortably. "The religion stuff got overbearing. She's very strongly Christian and..."

"Nothing wrong with that," said Mrs. Glass.

"No, of course not," said David. "But it figures really strongly into what she wants for me too."

"Meaning..." said his father.

"She wants David to become a Christian," Danielle said.

"God, nothing sucks more than someone who wants to tell you how to live your life," Sonya interjected.

"It... kinda was," David said.

"She totally must not have put out, then," Sonya said.

"Wow, Sonya," said Danielle, jumping in before Mom could burst a vein, "I don't think you could have been cruder if you'd asked him about the size of his dick." She realized Sonya was about the age where she would start thinking about sex. It was a terrifying thought... Especially considering Sonya's attitude.

"Don't you want to say good-bye to her?" said Mr. Glass. "You might never see her again."

"No, that could be... Uncomfortable," said David.

And so they drove to Danielle's apartment and packed up the last of her stuff; and then they drove home. Sonya was assigned to keep Danielle company in her car, a decision she understood but knew was going to be trouble. But Mom said, "You two can catch up. You've barely seen each other for four years!" And Danielle knew what she was really saying was, 'Get her out of our hair for two hours, will ya?' And so she did.

By the time they got home, Danielle wanted Sonya out of her hair. The entire ride had been talking, yes... From Sonya, to Danielle, with very little alteration. Sonya had a million things to say, and all of them were negative, whether it be on the selection of boys at Sheldon Oaks High School or Danielle's taste in clothing (or friends) (or music) (or colleges) or their parents, whose tribulations Danielle now had a new and personal appreciation for. Had Sonya always been this much of a bitch? Had she simply gotten used to it after thirteen years of exposure? At least she hasn't tried to kick me in the head yet.

Stepping into her room was a different experience for her. Though she'd come home over the summers, she rarely unpacked all that much; she'd always known she was leaving again. To come back here—to come back here with the understanding that, this time, she was here to stay—felt foreign to her. Foreign, too, to have this much space; intoxicating, almost. And to have all her possessions: there were clothes she hadn't brought to college, old books, teddy bears. Her old high-school diary was in the same drawer she'd left it in, the most recent entry six years old. It wasn't home to be here, and yet it was; everything was second nature to her here, and she needed only to reach out for a thing to find it exactly where she thought it would be. Bizarre sensation.

Within a month, though, Danielle knew it wasn't home, or at least couldn't stay that way. She had changed in college, become more independent; she had outgrown this roof, this room. These rules. These parents.

"How many times do we have to tell you!" her mother shrieked. "If you're going to be out past eleven, we expect you to call!"

"I'm sorry," Danielle said, "I was at Liz's, we lost track of time. But I'm an adult, I can take care of myself. Sonya's still out, and I bet she hasn't called either. How come she gets to—"

"Don't try to change the subject, young lady! If we ask you to call, you better had!"

"Mom, if it's that important, you could call me."

"It should be important to you! You aren't just out in the wilds anymore, young lady! You have a family who worries sick about you! —And what the hell is that!" said Mom, pointing.

Danielle had almost forgotten the can of beer she was holding. "This?"

"Since when do you drink alcohol?!"

"Umm... Since I turned 21, Mom, and it became legal."

"You mean to tell me you got behind the wheel of a car with alcohol in your bloodstream?!"

Danielle was starting to be annoyed now. "I had one beer all night, Mom—one. You're looking at it. There are amounts of alcohol that could hamper my judgment, but this is not one of them."

"You're never going to Liz's house again, do you hear me? Never again! I am going to call her mother right now and tell her what—"

"Mom, it's a little bit late," Danielle said. "Maybe you should wait until tomorrow." She didn't really want her mom making that phone call. She didn't think Mrs. Lewiston would overreact this way; she seemed sane. ...Of course, so had Mom.

"Ohh, I see how it is now," Mom said. "You spend a year in a dorm room and you think you know everything, don't you! You think you can tell me what to do!"

Danielle wondered if this was supposed to make her angry. In truth, the best she could claim was vague perplexity. She wasn't even slightly buzzed, but maybe the booze was helping her stay laid-back. "Mom, I'm going to bed. We can pick this up in the morning if you like. Good night."

"That's it," her mother shrieked as she ascended the stairs, "that's it, I've had enough of your misbehavior. Go to your room, young lady, or I'll— Where do you think you're going! Come back here!"

The next morning she was less hysterical. She knocked on Danielle's door just as Danielle was returning from the shower. "Danielle, I... I think I need to apologize for last night. I overreacted, I... It was wrong of me."

"Mom, don't worry about it," said Danielle. "It was late; we were tired." I don't think Mom's ever apologized to me before. Whatever the case, she knew that acting vindictive over it—or victorious—wouldn't make things better.

"Still, it wasn't right for me to take out my frustrations on... How am I supposed to raise you well if I can't even live by my own standards."

"Well..." said Danielle. "My friend Jodie always said that the best lessons she ever learned from her parents were the ones where she learned to not be like them... There's hope."

Her mother laughed without amusement. "There's hope. Yes, I suppose. What if we already tried that, and it didn't work?"

Danielle blinked at her mother, aware suddenly that something else was going on beneath the surface of this conversation. "Does this, um... Does this have anything to do with how Sonya didn't arrive until 3 AM last night?"

Her mother raised an eyebrow. "You were still awake at 3 AM?"

"You were too?" Danielle returned, with a smile.

Mom didn't smile back. "Well, sometimes I don't even... I'm sure that... Well, Sonya's always been a little willful."

"Yes," said Danielle, "if by, 'a little,' we mean, 'completely and totally.' And, I've got a hunch that it got worse while I wasn't there to distract her."

"Just a little," said Mom. "Danielle, you have no idea of the living hell we've experienced for—"

"On the contrary, Mom," Danielle returned. "What you lived for four years, I lived for the twelve years before it. And, as I recall, you didn't believe me when I told you."

"We didn't believe it when we lived it," Mom said. "Danielle, you of all people should know by now how your sister operates. She takes refuge in audacity. She does things so... Ugh! I don't even know how to explain it!"

"Well, at the very least, she does the things you were accusing me of," Danielle said. "She stays out late with her friends, and she doesn't call."

"And when we ask her to, she has this indignant outrage act," Mom said. "You know, things like, 'How dare you,' 'I thought you trusted me,' on and on. One would think it would stop working by now, but... One would be wrong."

Danielle felt a niggling suspicion. "...Does she drink?"

"I have no idea," said her mother in a brittle voice. "And we can't find out. She's too crafty to show it, or to let us smell her breath. One time I... One time, I decided to sneak into her room while she was asleep, to smell her breath. Well, I found out that she wakes up very, very easily."

"And?" said Danielle.

"And... She claims that all her Taekwondo training means she has reflexes she can't control." Her mother's mouth twisted.

"So she punched you." Danielle wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. "In 'self-defense.' "

Her mother heard the sarcasm quotes. "Oh, yes, absolutely, because we all know Sonya would never do that deliberately. But your father..."

"Didn't believe."

"And still doesn't. I know he likes to think he's being the voice of reason, but the simple fact is..."

"Well, enough of our pity party," Danielle said, putting her hand on Mom's arm. "The more important question is, how do we get her to stop."

Mom looked at her silently for a moment. Then she said, "Have you ever thought about moving out?"

That was either the weirdest non-sequitur of my life, or Mom's playing a deeper game than I'm aware of. "Well, you just got me back," she said, trying for a laugh. "You want to get rid of me already?"

Mom didn't laugh. "Oh, Danielle. I'm your mother, and that means I will love you no matter what. Even if you punch me in the face. But... It's like you said last night. You're grown up now. You're old enough to live your own life in your own way, and being here limits your ability to do that."

"Well..." said Danielle. "Yes, the thought had crossed my mind. But housing prices..."

"Are about as low as they're going to get," her mother said.

"But I don't have a job. And also... Well, I've been in an empty apartment. I don't want to live alone."

"And none of your friends are interested?"

"I actually haven't asked," said Danielle, "but... I dunno. Maybe they would. Maybe they wouldn't. I've never lived with them, and it's been a while since I've known them. Besides, what does this have to do with getting Sonya to calm down and stop being a bitch?"

Mom said nothing.

Danielle made the connection. "Mom, if you think that I am going to be roommates with Sonya, then you—"

"No, no, that actually... I was trying to find a way to explain what I'm thinking. It doesn't involve her moving out. That's a horrific idea. We can barely control her now, it'd be even worse if she was under somebody else's roof."

"Then what? Besides the obvious, of having somewhere to send her when you can't stand her."

"It's... Well, yes, it's partially that. But it's... Well, you know that Sonya respects you a great deal."

Danielle gave a single snort of laughter. "Right, because punching someone in the face is totally how you express respect."

"But that's the thing," said Mom, utterly straight-faced. "With Sonya, it is. I don't know who raised her this way, but when she actually cares about someone's opinion, she goes out of her way to hurt them."

"Why?"

"I think... I think she doesn't like to feel vulnerable. The people she loves... They have power over her. So she hurts them, to prevent them from hurting her."

Danielle gave another snort. "God, the first time she has sex, she's either gonna chew his dick off or just have a complete meltdown."

Oh my god, did I just say that? To my mother?? But Mom just covered her eyes with a hand. "I've had to contemplate one daughter losing her virginity, don't make me contemplate the other. But that's neither here nor there. The point is... If we can get you out of the house, and get her out of the house, I think she might feel... I think she might stop feeling constrained by that power structure. I think she might feel more comfortable relating to you as, not someone who is in a position of power to her, and thus a threat... But as an equal. As a peer."

"As someone she doesn't have to punch," Danielle said.

"Yes," said Mom.

Danielle had to admit, there was some sense to the theory. "That still doesn't solve the question of who I'm gonna room with. Or where. And what money I'm gonna pay it with."

"Well, the job is inevitable," said Mom. "Money is the new oxygen. As to the others, start asking around. Maybe you'll find someone who's interested."

And so Danielle started shopping herself out on Craigslist. She did it only half-heartedly; it wasn't even August yet, and she wanted at least a month more of down time before she launched herself into... Whatever she would end up doing. She had enough graphics experience to work at most regular publications and maybe even some magazines, but heaven only knew what was actually open. All she did know was that, whatever job she started at, it would be the end of her free time until the day she retired. (And unless she got lucky, she might never retire. Politics didn't concern Danielle too much—she figured she had enough problems in her own life without worrying about the country too—but she knew enough about what the Baby Boom had done to Social Security to know that she would never see a cent of it.)

The question of a roommate eluded her as well. It took Danielle a little while to realize that she wasn't asking Liz or Carmen on purpose—that, if truth be told, she didn't want to live with them. They were her friends, and she loved them, but her life was in a different place than it had been when their friendships were strong. She just didn't think they were right for her anymore. But, if so, whom? Not David; that would simply be too awkward. She often went out with him and Liz as friends, but if she wasn't in a place where she could room with Liz, she was even further from a place where she could room with David.

It was the hardest question; and, ironically, it was the one that was answered without her having to lift a finger. One day as she was clicking listlessly around the Internet, she heard the doorbell ring; on the other side was a moon-pale face, dark hair, large, frightened eyes. "I... I... I hope I'm not disturbing anything, but... Can I stay at your house for a few days?"

David came rushing over when she called. By the time he arrived, she'd helped Nicole unload her few trunks and bags from the taxi, sent the driver off with a nice tip, and fixed her a cup of hot chocolate, which was somewhat inappropriate to the season but the only thing Danielle could think of. Mom and Dad were out at work, Sonya doing God-knew-what; there were, for the moment, only three of them. When he arrived, David swept Nicole into a hug only slightly smaller than the one Danielle had given her. Nicole looked like she hadn't slept in several days.

"I... After we broke up," Nicole said, "and after we graduated, my mom and dad came up to help me pack and move home." She was sitting on the couch across from them, looking miserable; David had quite specifically chosen not to sit next to her, and Danielle, after a moment of anxiety, had decided to do the same. "So we packed up, and they... It wasn't a big apartment, but big enough for two people, and they asked why only I was living there. And I told them the truth—that I had had a roommate, but we'd had a fight, and the roommate had moved out."

"Only, you didn't tell them who the roommate was," said David, who had moved onto a friend's couch after the break-up.

"Isn't there a Biblical stricture against pre-marital cohabitation?" said Danielle.

"Which is why I didn't tell them," said Nicole.

"I could've told you it might've ended badly," Danielle said. "I mean, any relationship can still go down the tubes. Moving in with a boyfriend?"

"Hindsight is 20/20, Danielle," said David. "Besides, who else could she have lived with?"

"She could've lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment," Danielle said. "Like she ended up doing. You're just lucky they didn't make the connection. It was a one-bedroom apartment, after all."

"Look, Nicole, what happened?" said David. "I had already moved out by graduation, and I'm pretty sure I took all my stuff with me." Looking at him, Danielle suddenly wondered how painful this must be for him. He and Nicole had only been broken up for about four months. But then, that was David; feeling pain in the course of being a friend had never deterred him.

"Well... You took most of your stuff with you," said Nicole. "But there were some things we... We decided I should keep. Remember?"

David covered his face with his hands. "Oh no. They found the boxers?"

"Wait, your folks went looking through your stuff?" said Danielle.

Nicole said, "I guess they... I guess they might have noticed that I wasn't saying a lot about my roommate. Or maybe there were... Other things."

"What, that they found?" said David.

"That they noticed," said Nicole. "That... They helped me clean up the apartment, I don't even know what could have fallen behind the couch or under the bed or anything. But... They had suspicions."

"So what happened?" said Danielle. "How does that bring you here?"

"Well, they... They sat me down, and... Brought out the things they found when they were looking through my stuff."

"The boxers," said David.

"What's wrong with boxer shorts?" Danielle said. "People wear them."

"Yes, but these had... an... Interesting image on them," said David.

"Why, what did... Never mind, I think I'd rather not know," said Danielle.

"But it wasn't just those," said Nicole. "They also... They also found the bullet. And the box of condoms."

"Jesus," David said, "couldn't you—"

"Do not abuse my Savior's name, David!" Nicole flared.

"Lena, couldn't you have bothered to hide these things just a little? Leaving them out where anyone can find them—"

"I did hide them!" Nicole protested, from angry to tearful in an instant. "I can't even imagine how hard they must have looked, it must've taken the whole day—"

"Can we argue about that another time?" said Danielle. "It's not really solving anything. Nicole, what happened when you came home and they had all this evidence of your horrendous wrong-doing? ...Actually, I think I can imagine."

"They kicked you out," David said.

Nicole nodded. "They said... They said I had half an hour to pack and, and to find somewhere to go, and... And that they would, they would start calling all their friends and telling them that I was a sinner, and they should..." Now she was crying in earnest. "They should turn me away if I..."

"Well, we're not turning you away," said David, but Danielle had a different answer. She crossed the living room in three steps and gathered her best friend in her arms. Nicole clutched at her with desperate strength, sobbing into her shoulder. Should she say something soothing, like, "It'll be okay"? Danielle had never believed in saying those things. Would it be?

Danielle glanced back at David, who was still sitting on the other couch, looking dismal. Clearly he wanted to give his friend a hug too; why hadn't he...? Oh. Well, that's stupid. She has bigger things to worry about than the fact that you're her ex-boyfriend. "Get over here, stupid," she said, and David stood up and hugged Nicole from the other side, sandwiching her between them.

After Nicole was done crying, they sat down again—this time all of them on the same couch. Though most of her emotions had been expended, Nicole was still troubled. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she said. "I barely know my aunts or uncles, and all the people I know..."

"Come on, Nicole. You don't have any friends your parents haven't managed to turn against you?" David said.

"That doesn't matter," said Danielle. "Because wherever I am, she still has family. As to what you're going to do, Nicole, you're going to do what you thought you would after you graduated: find a job, move out and live your life. And, as it just so happens, I'm planning on doing the same thing, and I need a roommate."

Nicole looked at her. "You'd want to live with me? After... After all that's happened?"

"You're my sister, Nicole," Danielle said. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather live with."

Of course, around then Mom and Dad started arriving from work; and eventually Sonya filtered in. To say her parents were surprised would be an understatement, but once Danielle had explained to them where this unexpected visitor came from, they were more understanding. Sonya, of course, looked quite ready to do (or say) something horrifically bitchy, but Danielle had a stroke of inspiration: she simply took Sonya quietly aside and said, "If you aren't nice to my friend, I will tell Mom and Dad where you were last night." Of course, Danielle had absolutely no idea where her sister had been last night, or even if it had been something Sonya would want to keep secret; but as a gamble, it paid off, because Sonya's eyes went wide and she was, in fact, polite (or at least silent) to Nicole for the rest of the day. (Danielle wondered where Sonya had gone last night.)

It was a few more days before Danielle felt comfortable introducing Nicole to Liz and Heidi—or rather, before Danielle felt Nicole would be comfortable meeting them. Nicole had come to visit during the summers before she and David started dating, so she wasn't a complete stranger to them; but she also knew that Nicole was the type of person who needed a lot of time to adjust to new circumstances. And this wasn't just a visit, where Nicole knew she'd have to meet a lot of people in a hurry, and then could go home and decompress for a week; now, this was Nicole's home (at least as far as Danielle was concerned), and things had to go at the pace she would be comfortable with.

Liz and Heidi were solicitous, of course, and went out of their way to be nice to her. Of course, there was a lot to get caught up on with them as well. Liz was doing better; she had struggled through with her degree with the help of the free counseling center at USF. Much as she disliked to admit it, she was trying Paxil to see if it might make a difference. She was very happy to be back home, where her family was—and where she could fall back on the Stantons. "I didn't believe you when you told me, Dani, but you were right. They are my friends. And that's just something I wasn't able to achieve with the other psychologists I tried. Maybe now that I'm home, I can start getting better, faster."

Heidi had found herself in a whirlwind of male attention for her senior year. From the sounds of it, she had navigated it pretty well—and was almost irritated at how most of the boys had treated her. "I mean, it was pretty obvious they were only thinking about one thing. I never had to deal with that when I was all frumpy-looking."

"That is one advantage of the frump look," Danielle conceded. "But I'm sure you can learn to navigate it. I'm sure you can learn to tell when someone is genuinely interested in you as a person, as opposed to when they just, you know, wanna get in your pants."

"I can tell," said Heidi gloomily. "They all do."

"Maybe they do," said Liz, "but that doesn't mean that they aren't also interested in you as a person. If you're going to turn down every boy you meet just because he wants to have sex, you will die an old maid."

("Didn't we go over this last year?" Danielle wondered.)

Amy, of course, hadn't come home; she had moved in with her boyfriend James, and when they visited for a short time in August it was clear that they were married in all but name. To Danielle, the biggest news was that Weston had managed to get himself hitched and saddled as well: some girl he'd been sleeping with had gotten pregnant, and he'd taken the plunge and married her. Danielle wished him well—if that was how he wanted to live his life, then more power to him—but didn't think it was going to work out. She didn't know this girl at all, but she knew Weston. He wasn't the type to be satisfied with what he actually had. But who knew, in the end?—perhaps fatherhood would change him.

When Danielle proposed that she had found her new roommate, Mom and Dad were skeptical; they knew there was history between the two of them. But Danielle assured them that this was water under the bridge, that the problem had only been that her two best friends were dating. Furthermore, Danielle refused point-blank to entertain the idea that Nicole should be given a great deal of time to overcome her loss and get settled. Surprisingly, Liz backed her up on this. "The last thing you want to do, Mrs. Mayer, is give Nicole a long time with nothing to do but sit there and think about what she did wrong. That way lies madness. It would be better if she had things to occupy herself with. It's the time-honored advice for getting over break-ups, and it's what's right for her right now."

So, after a week or so, during which Nicole was settled in the guest bedroom and made to feel as welcome as possible, Danielle began the job search and the apartment search in earnest, bringing Nicole with her. Of course, Nicole's degree was in education, and there was only so much she could accomplish without a teaching credential—something she might be hard-pressed to obtain now. But, with help from Danielle's mom, Nicole began to fish with a wide net, applying herself where her talents, not just her degree, might be of use.

For Danielle, work was an easier issue; there was always a need for graphic designers, especially since this wasn't the Silicon Valley and computer-savvy people weren't a dime a dozen. But most of it was commissioned work: someone wanted a flyer for this concert or that festival or such-and-such a back-to-school meeting. It was work, yes, but it wasn't particularly steady.

Finding an apartment was, ironically, the easiest part, if the most expensive one. Within a week or so, Danielle had a line on a nice two-bedroom in a decent part of the city. Of course, the owners of the apartment were (understandably) reticent to rent to two recent graduates with a pile of debt and nary a job between them. But even as Danielle began to worry about the seeming lopsidedness of the situation, things began to fall into place: Danielle was offered work at the school district office, helping create the multitude of flyers they needed. It wasn't really what she had trained for, but PhotoShop was second nature to her now, and most of what they wanted, she could do. Nicole, meanwhile, got work as a teacher at a local music school; Danielle hadn't known her friend had any musical talent, and was surprised to learn that Nicole had a Certificate of Merit at the piano, and a fair singing voice as well from years of churchgoing. Soon she was leading classes of four-year-olds as well as giving individual lessons. And, with this income in hand, they were soon signing the contract on the apartment they had found.

Moving into this apartment was, in its own way, very different from what Danielle had experienced before. It wasn't by any means the first time she had ever lived in an apartment, nor was it the first time she'd ever lived with Nicole; but it was certainly different to be in her own place and yet be only a few minutes from home, so that if she needed to get something from Mom or Dad (or, for that matter, if Mom needed to shuffle Sonya off for her sanity), she could do so. She didn't have to pack up absolutely everything she needed, and she realized that, even though she was now (technically) more grown-up than she had been in college, her parents would be a bigger part of her life now than they had then.

It was also unusual in the amount of furniture Danielle didn't have. The apartments she had stayed at previously had involved an interesting program in the form of "we provide the furniture, but if you mess it up too much, we charge you extra for them at the end of the year." This complex handled furniture much more conventionally—that is, it didn't handle it at all; she had to bring her own. Danielle didn't have any furniture, and if Nicole did, it was all with her parents, which meant it might as well be on the moon. Mom helped them bargain-hunt, but even getting only the most necessary of things—beds, a couch for the living room, utensils, a refrigerator—involved enough money to make Danielle panic. ...Though, after Mom insisted she was paying for it all as a graduation gift, Danielle continued to panic, if for a slightly different reason. Nicole was able to face it without blinking. But then, Nicole had always had a bit of a shell-shocked air to her.

David was with them sometimes, and not at others. He had gotten employed at a local development firm and was serving as something between intern, assistant architect, and secretary & general gofer. Like Danielle, he was seeking to move out, with his long-time friend Scott O'Conner; unlike Danielle, he was being somewhat stymied by Scott's reluctance to abandon the last summer of his life and get into the workforce. Eventually Scott found a sporting-goods store that was willing to take him on, and out the two of them went.

She could tell, on the occasions when David was with them, that he was still uncomfortable in Nicole's presence. She supposed she didn't blame him; they hadn't been broken up for very long. Nicole, for her part, was unfailingly polite with him, but much of the intimacy was gone; once he had been on the short list of people she felt comfortable around, but now he got the same facade Danielle's parents did, or Liz and Heidi. David seemed to take the hint, and started asking if Nicole was around before bringing up the idea of hanging out. Danielle knew that both of them needed to do whatever they needed to do, but it made her sad to see them at such an impasse. Both of them were family to her, if in different ways, and she wanted to see them comfortable with each other again.

Of course, Nicole had changed too over the course of the last sixteen months. In some ways she was more reticent, more hesitant to speak her mind—about housework, about the lights, about having the air conditioning on. But in other matters she was more demanding than before. She wanted to hang a crucifix in the living room, for instance, which Danielle thought was a little confusing in lieu of the burning-of-poster she'd perpetrated four years ago. Plus, she wasn't sure she wanted that in her living room. But Nicole was adamant, and Danielle decided it wasn't a big thing to complain about.

Another example came the first time Danielle broke out her vibrator for a little private time. It had been nearly three months since she'd had any sexual activity in her life (Erik), and she was ready for some release. But when she was done, Nicole came knocking at her door. "Can you not make noises when you do that? I... I mean, I don't want to hear that."

There were all sorts of things Danielle could say about how she hadn't wanted to hear Nicole's noises, but she decided to say, "I'm sorry, I hadn't realized you could hear me. I'll try and be quieter next time." In truth, it annoyed her; she liked being able to be vocal when she came. But that was life. Next time I'll have to do it when she's not here.

True to Mom's promise, the moment Danielle was moved in, Mom was trying to shunt Sonya out into the apartment. Of course, it wasn't just Mom; Sonya, too, was eager to spread her wings and get out from under parental oppression. What Danielle hadn't counted on was that Sonya was expecting to use Danielle as a co-conspirator. She wanted Danielle's help.

Danielle wasn't sure what she wanted to do in this case. When Mom said that it would give her a chance to get closer to Sonya, was this what she'd meant? She mulled over it for an hour before talking to Nicole about it, feeling that Nicole had the right combinations of sympathy and relationships (or lack thereof) for an objective judgment. ...And to not rat on Danielle if she chose to help her sister's ne'er-do-welling.

"Should you help your sister?" Nicole said. "Yes."

Danielle blinked. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. Sonya wants to go out drinking with friends. She talks about picking up boys. I don't know the details, but it's entirely possible that she's no longer a virgin. ...No longer a virgin? Hell! It's entirely possible that she's being completely promiscuous and having casual sex with strangers!"

"Which is why you should agree to be her partner-in-crime," Nicole said. "Danielle, you know as well as I do that your sister is going to go do these dangerous things whether you help her to or not. So, when you agree to help her, that means you're a part of the process. Now you can challenge her on her most dangerous ideas. Now, when she tries to do stupid things, you can hold her back."

"I don't know if I can, she's always been pig-head stubborn," Danielle grumbled, but she could see the wisdom in Nicole's idea. Sonya's track record of respecting her family was essentially zero. If she could get Sonya to treat her as a friend instead... "It's a good idea."

"I learned it from my parents," Nicole said.

"Oh? They did this for you?"

"They did the opposite," Nicole said, her eyes downcast. "When they found out I was doing things they disapproved of, they... They just blew their tops. They said they didn't want to have anything to do with me ever again. Didn't... Didn't try to teach me, or learn why I had done it, just... Decided I was worthless."

Danielle scooped her into her arms. "Maybe they did, but it wasn't all bad. They gave you back to me. Nicole, you have no idea how much I missed you."

"I missed you too," said Nicole. "I didn't... I knew that it hurt you that David and I were together, but I had never... He was my first. My first everything. I couldn't bear to give him up."

"I didn't want you to. I was happy you were happy. I just... Couldn't be happy myself."

"And I... I did a terrible thing, too." Nicole was crying again. "I would always... We weren't always... You know... Doing things. When my heart was up. Sometimes we were just talking, or even just doing homework, or... But when it was the three of us, I would see you look at David, or him look at you, and just... You were always thinking the same things. And it... I wanted that to be me, I wanted to be the person he would look at and have a conversation with. And it hurt that..."

"Shh," said Danielle. "It's okay. Those things are over and we don't have to worry about them now."

"I'm sorry," Nicole cried. "I wanted him to myself. I knew that I had to hurt you, and I hated that, but I wanted him to myself."

"Well, neither of us have him now," said Danielle. "He'll go and meet some other girl, and he'll fall in love with her, and she'll be jealous of the fact that he's still friends with two of his exes until we go and meet some guys and fall in love with them. And then everyone will be happy. And in the meanwhile, we're friends again, and that's worth everything to me."

Nicole gave a bit of a laugh. "Worth being friends with Sonya? Because that's what I just told you to do."

Danielle laughed too. "Worth even that."

And so Sonya started to come over to hang out on occasion. If Danielle had thought being nice to her would yield any change in her attitude, she was rudely disabused: Sonya was still a bitch, complaining loudly and roundly about everything. The couch they'd gotten was too bumpy; the little TV was too small; Danielle didn't have anything fun to do. And the first thing Sonya wanted help on was a shock: she needed Danielle to buy her a dildo harness, because Mom was watching Sonya's credit card statements like a hawk. Danielle, who knew what a dildo harness was for, wondered what Sonya could want one for. Then she had a brainstorm: by feigning complete ignorance, she could find out. "A... A dildo? Is that... Is that some kind of animal?" It was more fun that it should've been, watching Sonya's anger rise and then have to be smothered down.

What Sonya needed this for was relatively innocuous—two of her friends were in a lesbian relationship and they wanted to do their ordering by proxy. But Sonya dropped enough cryptic hints during the conversation for Danielle to start getting a picture. Sonya probably was sexually active, possibly with more than one guy and possibly with more than one guy at a time. She seemed contemptuous of her lovers (if they could be called that at all) and, for that matter, contemptuous of most of the people around her, even those people she called friends. They were all stupid or out-of-control or ugly or something.

Surely she doesn't act like this around her friends, they'd never put up with her, Danielle thought; but the first time she met Sonya's friends, she discovered that, yes, they did. Each of them was just as bitchy as Sonya—and, even more than that, none of them seemed to take it amiss. Sonya could call them a "roadside gig" or "crack whore," or they her, without anyone (except Danielle) blinking. Danielle wondered at this bizarre form of bonding. Did they actually think these were compliments? Did they actually treat them like they were compliments?

Sometimes it would be all four of them—Sonya, David, Nicole and Danielle—in the living room, talking or watching TV. Times like these were the only times Danielle ever saw Sonya being polite. Why? Because David was there? He was practically family to her. If she was willing to snub Mom and Dad, why should she care what he thought of her? Maybe it was Nicole. Maybe Sonya was still taking that one threat seriously. Somehow, Danielle doubted it.

Sometimes Danielle went to David's place as well, an apartment in a somewhat more run-down area of the city, though still a safe one; sometimes Scott, a bronzed surfer type who seemed perpetually stoned (if mellow, and quite pleasant company), would be there; sometimes Scott's girlfriend, a black-clad girl who called herself Penumbra Darkholme and was clearly a good five or six years younger than he, would be there as well. David generally preferred to come over to Danielle's place, for which she hardly blamed him. He seemed to have no other friends, or at least no other friends he cared to stay in touch with. At first, Danielle wondered if she needed to get him out more; but then she realized that she was much the same. Who were the people she really cared about in life? Nicole, her beloved sister; and David himself. If Liz moved back to California this minute, Danielle would not be devastated. I guess we're both private people in the end.

Spending time with him again—for the first time in more than a year—made her remember how much she had missed him. No wonder I had to settle with hopping into bed with a stranger. I was so lonely I didn't even realize it; it just became a fact of life. Nicole was her sister; she would love her even if, for some reason, she didn't like her all that much (like when she was dating David), and knew that Nicole felt the same way. With David it was much the same, except deeper; she knew David's soul like she did her own. Nicole had identified it: there were so many things David and Danielle just didn't need to say to each other, because they knew it already. That simpatico had been such a big part of her life as she grew up, and it had been difficult in the intervening years to learn to live without it.

With that in mind, maybe she shouldn't have been surprised at what David said to her in early September, as summer was beginning to close and the leaves were starting to think about donning their fall colors. The two of them had gotten take-out from the local Chinese place; David had ordered for both of them, effortlessly, knowing exactly what she would like. They argued over the last wonton, laughed about the preponderance of soy-sauce packets, and teased each other about their food choices—he over her love of cilantro, which he abhorred, and she for his complete inability to use the chopsticks. They had done this a hundred times over the course of their friendship; sometimes it had been stilted, the camaraderie stifled by the memories of their break-up, of the pains that had passed between them. Today, though, it felt like nothing had changed. They might have been sixteen again, blithely innocent, still chatting about how they planned to head out to the field and give themselves to each other.

And with that in mind, maybe she shouldn't have been surprised at what David said to her after he put his fork and napkin down. "Danielle, I... I've really been having fun with you."

Maybe she shouldn't've been surprised, but she was; she had no idea what was coming. So she just laughed and made a joke out of it: "Well, I sure hope so. I'd be a pretty bad friend if you weren't having fun."

"Doing this just reminds me of... Of old times," David said. "We had to live without each other's company for a while, but... Even back then, I always missed your company."

"I missed you too," said Danielle, first beginning to get an inkling that this wasn't just any old conversation. "Nicole is a wonderful person, but what we have is... different."

"You and I... We've shared so much. We've been friends practically our whole lives, we spent our entire educations together without even trying, we... When we're talking, or hanging out, or, or whatever, I just... I can't help but feel that this is meant to be. And I don't want to be separated from you anymore."

"Okay, um, David," said Danielle, confused now. "Are we talking, just, like, staying friends? Or... Are you trying to get us back together?"

"Well..." said David. "...Back together. I love you, and I miss you, and I wanna try again."

Danielle said nothing.

"...Don't tell me you didn't see this coming," David said, looking a little daunted.

"I didn't see this coming," Danielle confessed. "I'm surprised."

"Why?" said David. "Don't you... Don't you miss what we've had? I've been sitting here wishing I could kiss you for the last hour."

"Oh, Davey," she said. "Of course I miss what we had. I love you; I always have, I always will."

"When you were with that... That Erik guy... It just killed me. Knowing that you didn't love him, and that... And I mean, it was like, 'Hey, I'm right here, how come...' "

"Maybe I should have," she said with a twist of her lip, "I didn't much like it either. But... Davey, we—you and I—we broke up for a reason. There were things that weren't working between us."

"I know," he said, "I know. But the thing is... I've changed."

"Well, so have I," she said, "but, that doesn't mean we still fit together. David, I'm a different woman than the girl you dated. I'm more bitchy, I have less patience with people, I..." She thought about her long vacation, about the months of school when she'd just decided to quit her life. Did Davey even know about that time? Yesterday it had been solidly behind her; suddenly it seemed now to loom over her. "...I've been with men I didn't love," she finished. "If you're expecting things to be all just the same as they were before, they aren't going to be. I'm different. You're different."

"I know," he said, "it isn't like... I'm not saying we should just go back and pretend like the last six years haven't happened. We are different people. But, Nellie, what I'm saying is... I think those two people are still good for each other. There are things that have changed, yes, but I don't think that's one of them."

Danielle was silent. Thinking about all she had been through in the past six years. Thinking about how catastrophic it had been to lose him. Thinking about how much she'd struggled to stand on her own two feet. Thinking about his spinelessness, his neediness, his laziness. Thinking about how much she'd depended on his presence in her life.

"Look, Danielle, I..." He sighed. "I know the road might be bumpy. I'm not saying everything will be perfect. But... I don't want to live without you. That's all it is. I just don't want to live without you."

...And, in the end, wasn't that the answer she needed?

"Look, if it gets uncomfortable..."

"We'll stop and re-evaluate," he said. "But you have to realize that it is gonna get uncomfortable at certain points; that's just the nature of the beast. We can't chicken out over that."

She saw that he was right. "But let's not rush into things," she said. "You and I... We have a lot of history, we have a lot of intimacy. We could easily get in too deep, too fast. Let's be careful."

After a moment's consideration, he nodded. "We messed it up once," he said, "I don't wanna mess it up again."

Fear came rushing over her at once. "I don't either. I just..." She reached out and grabbed his hand. "It scares me. I lost you once. What if... What if...?"

"We're smarter now," he said. "We know more about ourselves, about what we want. About what we don't want. We can express ourselves better. It doesn't have to end badly this time."

"I hope," she said, remembering that long aching time when he had been gone from her. I can't take that again. If it happens again...

Without realizing where she was going, she stood up, blundering past the table and the chair. She came around and stood before him. He had always known her heart, inside and out; surely he understood her now.

"Danielle," he said, "umm. What...?"

She squeezed her eyes shut before tears came. "Hug me, you fool."

He did. His long arms came around her, the solidness of his shoulder in just the right place, his chin tucked over the top of her head. She stood in his arms and shivered. He had always known her, had always understood her; had always been the other half of her self. What if she lost that?—for good? Forever? I was never alive until he came. I was never myself unless he was here. What if...

"I'm scared too," he murmured.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah. But... You've always been my best self, Davey. You're what makes me strongest. If we... If the two of us can't do it, together, it... It can't be done."

"And we can do it." He kissed the top of her head. "I know we can."