A STORY I WROTE WITH MY BFF DANIELLE!!! PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!!!

All That We'd Lost

I gasp as I turn around in my kitchen. There stands Mary Anne, who came in, with an 8 month belly on her. Not something we'd ever have thought to see on the 16 year old Mary Anne when we were younger, along with the nose piercing and several tattoos.

I open my mouth to speak but her sharp voice cut me off. "Don't even try, Stacey," she snarls. "I know who I am and I know what I've done. You can't make me feel any worse." I stay silent because I didn't want to make her feel worse... I wanted to love her.

So much had changed. And not for the better. I was deep in the grasp of unrequited love for Mary Anne, Dawn was in California and living on the streets. And then there were Claudia and Kristy. Two of the upper crust at our school, who never deigned to speak to the rest of us.

I don't know where everything had gone wrong. It wasn't any of our faults. Sometimes lives converge in such an awful way and we're all suddenly standing over Mallory's grave... each of us blaming another. I suddenly begin to cry, Mallory a symbol of all that we'd lost: youth, innocence, trust and love.

Mary Anne scoffs in disgust. "Always so weepy, aren't you?" she snaps. I remember Mallory's funeral was the last time I saw her cry... and without a bottle. There were so many bottles on the night Mallory died, so many shattering noises... the bottles, the cars... Mallory's spine.

Mary Anne looks away in disgust and then gasps, clutching her belly. "I think the baby's coming now! Call Pete Black and Logan, one of them's the father."

I rush to the phone, putting aside my own pain. I call Pete and Logan... and Austin, for good measure. But none of them answer. Two of them have changed their numbers, no doubt to avoid paternity suits. I sigh and dial the number of the man I know is the true father: Jeff Schaefer. After his message, I call for an ambulance. As we ride over together, my thoughts go back to that awful night. How ironic that Mary Anne would be giving birth at the hospital where Mallory died and Jessie now lived, confined to a wheelchair... never to dance again.

Ah, Jessie. Just for a few seconds, I allow myself to think of her. She'd been shut off in her own little world for months, not speaking. Just staring off into space and sometimes humming a few fragments of Sleeping Beauty or Coppelia. Jessie used to dance across stage like a magical air fairy. And now, now, she only dances in the confines of her own mind.

But at least she has her mind. I wonder how mine will last as I hold the hand of the only woman I can ever love as she gives birth to someone else's child. Why does she give away to so many what I long to have for my very own? But then, can't one say the same about me? I've given into sin so many times and betrayed the core essence of eternal love. Kristy may be in the uppercrust at school but there is one time she talks to me... late at night, when she wants to come over. That's all I'm good for. But it would show her if she knew I longed to whisper Mary Anne as I gasped into her chocolate tresses.

I shook myself out of my thoughts. Whether she loves me or not, Mary Anne needs me now. I grasp her hands as she pants in the ambulance. Who knows. This may be the only time I ever get to hold it.

We get to the hospital and are rushed to an operating room. The doctor shouts orders at the chaos and nurses run to do his bidding. Mary Anne finally pants and gasps while a baby is born. She smiles down at her little girl. But before she can move to touch it, the nurses hold her back. "Remember," one whispers kindly in her ear. "You're having triplets."

Slowly, Mary Anne births each little Miracle into the world. Two girls, one boy in total. I bitterly think to myself "Now each potential father can have one."

But she smiles with tears in her eyes and she looks up at me. She says, "My little Anastasia, my little Elizabeth and my little McGill. They're all for you Stacey. I've always loved you."

At first I think this will just be until the drugs wear off, but then I see an honesty I've never felt before shining in her tear-filled eyes. "Oh, Mary Anne," I whisper. "Can we name the boy Jesse instead of McGill... I don't want him to get teased." Of course I would say something so awkward and dumb after this, but Mary Anne just smiles. She understands me.

"Of course, my love." And since words have failed me, I lean in and kiss her. That works.