AUTHOR'S NOTE | Yeah, so it's been longer than I said/thought it would be. I'm sorry! I've been so busy. I don't have school or anything - I graduated in June but I'm not going to university right now, since I have no idea what to do with my life - but I've got two jobs, so that's hectic. Anyways. Here's chapter two!

THE ONE WITH THE SONOGRAM AT THE END

You do get a job, after all; it's in the coffee shop and Gunther, the owner or manager or whatever he really is, you can't tell, seems really nice. He shows you how to make coffee and doesn't get mad at you when you drop a mug. Or three mugs. In two days. He tells off Cynthia for giving someone a blueberry muffin instead of chocolate chip, but when you drag over a bar stool to the couch and sit with Monica and the others for at least twenty minutes every day, he doesn't even bat an eye.

It's nice.

"See," says Monica one day, maybe a week or two after the day that was supposed to be your wedding, "you guys don't understand that for us, kissing is as important as any part of it."

You nod, but Joey laughs. "Yeah, right!" He's chuckles to himself for a moment, then meets Monica's eyes across the coffee table and glances at you and Phoebe. "You serious?" he asks incredulously.

Phoebe makes an agreeable sound and you swivel back and forth on your bar stool. "Everything you need to know is in that first kiss," you tell Joey importantly.

"No, I think for us, kissing is pretty much an opening act," explains Chandler. "It's like the stand-up comedian you have to sit through before" - he makes a dramatic pause - "Pink Floyd comes out."

You all stare at him, deadpan, and Ross continues where Chandler left off. "Yeah. And it's not that we don't like the comedian, it's just that - that's, that's not we bought the ticket."

Monica laughs, but Phoebe seems unimpressed. For your part, you raise an eyebrow at Ross while Chandler continues. "See, the problem is, though, after the concert's over - no matter how great the show was - girls are always looking for the comedian again. You know? I mean, we're in the car, fighting traffic, basically just trying to stay awake."

Now it's his turn to be on the receiving end of your raised eyebrow. "Yeah. Well, word of advice," you tell him airily, "bring back the comedian. Otherwise, next time, you're going to find yourself sitting at home, listening to that album alone." Monica gives you a high five for your extended metaphor and Joey is confused, which you've discovered is a normal sort of thing for him.

It seems like a chaotic sort of day. While you're at work, Monica prepares the apartment in what Phoebe tells you confidentially is a twirly way, practically hyperventilating on account of the fact that her parents are coming to visit. When you get back upstairs during your break, you're busy tearing your room apart, looking for your engagement ring from Barry, and by the time you find out that Ugly Naked Guy in the apartment across the street gets exercise equipment, he's not even using it anymore!

You're going to give the ring back to Barry tomorrow. Or, at least, you were going to, but if you can't even find it, that sort of puts a stop to the whole mission, doesn't it? You look between the couch cushions and under the coffee table and Monica watches you, displeased, from the kitchen, where she's scrubbing the counters for a fourth time. Then you look between the couch cushions again and Monica seems to forget about her parents' looming visit for long enough to tell everyone else to spread out across the apartment and help you. It's a nice gesture, really, and you appreciate it - or you will, once the ring is safely tucked away somewhere it can't disappear from.

"I know I had it this morning," you say, trying to trace back your steps. "And I know I had it when I was in the kitchen with -" But then you cut off, because your gaze has just landed on Monica's lasagne. "Oh," you mumble, drawing it out into what must account for several O's and maybe a couple of extra H's, too. "Don't be mad." You address the lasagne because you can already feel Monica's eyes narrowing in on you. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"I gave you one job!" exclaims Monica, snatching the lasagne away from you and holding it up to the light because obviously, lasagnes are transparent and she'll be able to see the ring through the layers of cheese.

You smile hopefully. "But look how straight those noodles are!"

"Monica," tries Chandler, "you know that's not how you look for an engagement ring in a lasagne." He, Joey and Phoebe begin to paw at the top layers with their bare hands; you watch nervously over Chandler's shoulders. Phoebe finds the ring just as you hear Ross tell Monica from the doorway that Carol's pregnant.

It's definitely a chaotic day.

"Well, how do you fit into this whole thing?" You twist your hands nervously in front of you while you ask it, trying not to get too much lasagne on your hands from Barry's ring.

Ross doesn't exactly look at you as he answers. Instead, he fixates on the television across the room, sounding frighteningly calm about the whole situation. You think it's the shock. "Carol says she and Susan want me to be involved, but if I'm not comfortable with it, I don't have to be involved." Monica guides him to the couch, one hand on his elbow and the other on his back. "Basically, it's totally up to me."

"She is so great!" announces Phoebe in her usual insensitive, tactless way. "I miss her." Everyone pauses just to stare at her in a horrified, anxious, angry sort of trance.

Monica's always been good at changing the subject, even since the two of you were kids. "Well, what does she mean by involved?" she asks, helping her brother sink down onto the couch cushions.

"They want me to go down to this sonogram thing tomorrow," explains Ross, staring at the coffee table with apparent interest. "Yeah, remember back when life was simpler and she was just a lesbian?"

"Ah, those were the days," sighs Chandler from the armrest of your chair.

You play absentmindedly with your necklace and try not to forget, in the back of your mind, that your engagement ring is sitting on the table next to the mangled lasagne. "So what are you going to do?"

Ross lifts his gaze to the purple wall in the corner, near your bedroom door. "I have no idea. No matter what I do, though, I'm still going to... be a father."

It's strange, to think that all of you are only in your mid-twenties - nobody has a boyfriend or a girlfriend, not since Monica found out about Paul the Wine Guy, and you're supposed to be married but instead you're returning your ex-fiancé's ring tomorrow, and Ross is already divorced but now he's going to have a baby. Life is moving so fast and you don't know if you can keep up with it - and besides that, you're on your own, in a way, for the first time in your life, and your own parents don't seem to want anything to do with you since that disastrous phone call with your father. You've done the dramatic and actually cut up all of your old credit cards, and you're suddenly working in a coffee house and making your own money and everything is scary and so uncertain.

Monica kicks everyone except for Ross out before her parents arrive. Everyone spends their evenings either eating spaghetti with their family or watching terrible TV in Joey and Chandler's apartment; you, meanwhile, race back down to Central Perk when you realize that your break is long over and thankfully, Gunther doesn't get mad at you. When Mr and Mrs Geller have left, Monica drags everybody down to the coffee house and while you clean tables and prepare to close up the place, she lays diagonally across two-thirds of the couch and gives you all a play-by-play on the evening. Gunther's gone home already, so you don't have to pretend to get mad at Joey for sitting on the counter with his feet on the bar stools, and there's not even anyone else in there because you may have already flipped the sign on the door to say that the coffee house is closed, even though you technically have another twenty minutes.

You kick everyone out once the conversation seems to have drawn to a close. Ross is in the bathroom, which you've kind of conveniently forgotten, and when he returns, he kindly offers to help, so you hand him the broom you're holding and sit down.

"Anyway," says Ross, starting to sweep next to the coffee table. "Uh. So, you, uh, nervous about Barry tomorrow?"

"Uh, a little," you say. Really, you're just trying not to think about it. But now, it's like Ross has opened up the floodgates or something, and you can't think about anything else. "A lot," you admit. "You got any advice? You know, as someone who's recently been dumped?"

Ross gives one of those little nervous laughs that you half-remember from high school. "Well, you may want to steer clear of the word dumped," he suggests. "Uh. Chances are he's going to be this, uh, broken shell of a man. You know, so try not to look too terrific. You know, it'll be hard." He's hardly even sweeping now, but you think he's probably doing a better job than you would have, so you decide against saying anything about it. "Or, you know, I'll go down there and I'll give Barry back his ring, and you can go with Carol and Susan to the OB/GYN."

"Oh, you've got Carol tomorrow... When did it get so complicated?" You don't really expect an answer, but Ross mumbles something in agreement that you hardly hear, it's so quiet. "Remember when we were in high school together? I mean, didn't you think you were just going to meet someone, fall in love, and that'd be it?" You lean back against the couch cushions, waiting for an answer. "Ross?"

You hear a rustle from behind you as he starts and stutters out, "Oh! Yeah. Yes."

Shaking your head in disbelief, you lean your head back and close your eyes. "I never thought I'd be here."

Ross has his hand resting in a very convenient place and you lean on it, using it as a pillow. "Me neither," he says, but you don't think he's really talking to you, exactly. You stay like that, quiet, until you realize that it's past ten o'clock and you're allowed to clock out and go home now.

The next morning, you procrastinate for as long as possible and it's nearly lunch time when you finally make it to Barry's office. His secretary recognizes you and points you in the right direction, looking after you hopefully. You think that she's praying that you're here to ask him to take you back, and you check twice to make sure that the ring is still safe in the pocket on the outside of your purse before you open the door. "Barry?"

"Come on in!"

He doesn't sound like a broken shell of a man. You open the door a little farther and edge cautiously into the room. He's checking on a teenage boy's teeth, but when you shut the door behind you, he swivels away and stands up. "So, how are you doing?"

The way he says it, anyone would think that he was the one to leave you.

"I'm," you try. "I'm okay." You give him a smile. Maybe you kind of want him to be a broken shell of a man, because it seems like he doesn't really care what happened between you, and you were supposed to be married. "You look great," you tell him, and it's not really a lie.

Barry gets called away by the intercom and you're left with the teenager lying in the dentist's chair. The kid stares at you through his too-round glasses, eyebrows raised interestedly. You somewhat awkwardly fix your hair and point in the general direction of the door. "I dumped him." He doesn't seem to care, and you frown unhappily to yourself while he watches. Barry's completely fine, not a broken shell like Ross said he would be. Maybe Ross is the exception to the rule and the whole broken shell thing is only for one out of every hundred thousand guys who get divorced or dumped or left at the altar. Really, shouldn't Barry be a little more upset? And here you are, and you've gone to all this work not to look to terrific, like Ross told you to, wearing overalls and throwing your hair up messily in a simple clip, and Barry's just grinning away and doing completely fine.

Hasn't this ruined his plans for the next twenty years?

You take your hair down and brush it out as well as you can with your fingers. You lean across the kid in the dentist's chair and try to apply lip gloss using the mirror on Barry's light, and the kid doesn't look all that disturbed or impressed by a twenty-five-year-old leaning over him. What's wrong with him, anyway?

Barry bursts back into the room and sits down on his little wheeled stool. "So, what have you been up to?" he asks, still in that chirpy sort of I-was-left-at-the-altar-and-I'm-totally-fine way.

You run your fingers through your hair again, trying to make it look sort of messy in a pretty way. "Oh, not much," you tell him airily. "I, uh, got a job."

"That's great," he says with a bright smile, showing all his teeth. He brushes past you to get some fancy tools off the table and doesn't even flinch at the way that his elbow actually makes contact with yours.

"Why are you so tanned?" you ask his back.

He freezes for a moment, his back still to you as he searches for the right tool, and then admits carefully, "I went to Aruba." He says it like he thinks you might be mad, and it takes you a moment to remember the fact that your honeymoon was supposed to be in Aruba.

Your heart thumps loudly. "Oh, no - you went on our honeymoon alone?"

It seems kind of depressing, but the first thing Barry does is deny it. "No." He crosses back to the kid who you don't think has hit puberty yet and adds, "I went with, uh... Now, this may hurt." You frown, swiveling slowly to face Barry instead of the wall. "I went with Mindy."

At this, your stomach twists painfully. It feels kind of like you imagine a dish cloth might feel after Monica finishes washing the dishes and wrings it out, all wrapped tightly around itself, all the life being forced out of it. "Mindy?" you repeat in a shocked sort of whisper. "My maid of honour, Mindy?"

Barry shrugs. "Yeah. We're, uh, kind of a thing now." He says it so nonchalantly. He doesn't seem to be worried about you getting angry anymore. Shouldn't he say that he's dating the girl who was supposed to be your maid of honour in a more cautious way than he said that he went on your honeymoon?

"Oh," you exclaim. It kind of hurts to smile like this doesn't matter to you. It shouldn't matter to you. You ran away from your wedding and your ex-fiancé is doing fine without you, and you're doing fine without him, so everyone should be happy, right? "Well. You got plugs!" you announce, shocked, and pull his face down to examine his hairline. Barry carefully removes his face from your grip. "And you got lenses," you say, and you're not even pretending to smile anymore. Your ex-fiancé is doing better without you. He's doing better with your ex-best friend. That's not the way that anything is supposed to work in real life, is it? "But you hate sticking your finger in your eye."

Barry smiles to himself. "Not for her."

He would never have gotten lenses for you. That kind of stings a little, too. You don't love him, you swear you don't - but the man you were supposed to marry isn't supposed to fall in love, at least not so quickly, and especially not with Mindy, of all people. Isn't there some kind of code against that? Mindy was your best friend, until she started ignoring your phone calls when you tried to call her four times after settling in at Monica's apartment, and now she's dating your ex. You think there's some sort of taboo on that.

You turn slowly to face the wall again because the wall isn't doing better without you. "Listen," says Barry from your shoulder, "I really wanted to thank you."

Thank you?

"Okay." You try to sound cheerful, turning back to face him in a much more composed manner.

"See, about a month ago, I wanted to hurt you more than I've ever wanted to hurt anyone in my life," he explains. Well, at least he did want to hurt you for running out on him. At least he isn't that insensitive. "And I'm an orthodontist. You know, you were right. I thought we were happy, but we weren't happy. But with Mindy, now I'm happy."

You look down at your feet. Stuttering a little, you slip the engagement ring out from your purse and hold it out to him. The whole thing isn't nearly as dramatic as you'd half-hoped it would be, and you leave the dentist's office feeling a little - okay, a lot - dejected.

At least Ross seems to have had a better day than you. It's kind of funny, isn't it? You went to see Barry expecting to be happy about it and came back depressed, and Ross went to the OB/GYN with his ex-wife expecting to be depressed and came back happy. He brings back a recording of the ultrasound and excitedly puts it into Monica's VCR, and you all crowd around the TV to watch.

You call Mindy again and this time she picks up. Maybe it's because she knows that you know about her and Barry now. "Hi, Mindy. Hi! It's Rachel!"

"Oh, hey," she says absentmindedly from the other end of the line. "How are you? Are you okay with everything?" She's talking too loud and you think she's chewing gum about half a millimeter away from the mouthpiece.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you tell her confidently. You're pacing back and forth and hardly paying attention to Carol's ultrasound on the television screen, heart beating irregularly in your chest, which you think is unhealthy, but you're too busy concentrating on the words you've been scribbling down over and over on the notepad next to the phone for the last hour. "I saw Barry today."

Mindy pauses and asks carefully, "Did he tell you about..." She sounds so worried as she trails off, and the chewing sounds stop.

You nod, even though she can't see you. "Oh, yeah, he told me." She starts to talk quickly, but you cut her off. "No, no, it's okay. Really. It's okay. I hope you two are very happy, I really do. Oh, and Min - you know - if everything works out, and you guys end up getting married and having kids and everything, I just hope they have his old hairline and your old nose."

And with that, as everyone else watches - Joey, Chandler and Phoebe with idiotic grins stretching across their faces - you hang up before Mindy can answer. Monica and Ross don't look as impressed as the others, and you sit down on the couch, feeling pleased with yourself. "Okay, that was a cheap shot, but I feel so much better now!"

AUTHOR'S NOTE #2 | I swear I'll try to take less time with the next chapter. That was almost a month for this one, and that was just because I was busy and when I wasn't, I kept deciding I wasn't in the mood to write. I'll be more focused for chapter three. I hope. Please review!