A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews and for adding this to story alerts and favorites. I just couldn't resist writing more about the Cabenmichael girls. :)

After 24 hours with her parents and her little brother, Alex had reached her breaking point. She tried making small talk with them, but her parents had never been the type of people who could engage in casual conversation with their daughter. They asked her about her plans for the following day, her plans for law school, and her plans for life after law school. Every conversation they had with her turned into an interrogation or a lecture and Alex wanted to scream at them that she had no idea what she was going to do in an hour let alone what she was going to do after law school. It had been the same ever since Alex was in kindergarten except back then she was asked about whether or not she had the lead role in the Christmas pageant and if she had read more books than anyone else in her class.

Alex put on some jeans and a Beta Gamma sweatshirt and was about to head out the door when her mother stopped her and insisted that she sit down.

"Where are you going?" Mrs. Cabot asked.

"Out," Alex said coldly.

"With whom?"

"The girls."

"Don't you think you're wasting too much of your time with them?" Mrs. Cabot asked from her spot on the sofa. "We allowed you to take a year off so you could dedicate your time to getting work experience and applying to law school, not so you could spend all of your time with Abbie and Olivia. It's bad enough you're going to be living with them. Are you sure you don't want to live here? You'll have less distractions and you'll be able to focus."

"No, Mother!" Alex said angrily.

"How are your applications coming along? You probably haven't even started."

"No, Mother. I haven't started yet. I just graduated yesterday."

"That's no excuse,"

"It's no excuse?" Alex scoffed. "I graduated from Princeton after only three years instead of four and I still managed to graduate Magna Cum Laude. I was the valedictorian of my high school graduating class and my junior high graduating class, I was always chosen student of the month in elementary school, and I was reading at a third grade level by the time I was three years old. I think I deserve a break. Now, excuse me, but I have somewhere to be."

"Does it involve that bottle of vodka that is sticking out of your purse?" Mrs. Cabot asked, her left eyebrow raised.

"It does," Alex said matter-of-factly. "I'm going to get wasted and listen to Mazzy Starr with Abbie and Olivia. That's my number one priority this summer."

"Alexandra—"

"Shut up for once," Alex said and slammed the front door. It was a simple statement, but Alex had been waiting her whole life to say that.

She honked the horn outside of the Moretti house and Abbie and Olivia came running out, slowly followed by two-year-old Alyssa. Alyssa Benson-Moretti was Olivia's half-sister and Alex always enjoyed seeing the two of them together because Alyssa was like a miniature version of Olivia from their personalities right down to their smiles and dark hair that could never quite stay out of their faces. Whenever Alex and Olivia would take Alyssa somewhere together, people would assume she was Olivia's daughter and they'd comment on how the three of them were a beautiful family. After that, Alex would always squeeze Olivia's hand and tell her how she couldn't wait until they have their own son or daughter. Noticing that her little sister had followed her out, Olivia paused so she could pick her up.

"Alex," Alyssa said to Olivia.

"You want Alex?" Olivia asked playfully.

"Alex!" Alyssa shouted.

"How's my girl?" Alex asked Alyssa once Olivia had handed her over to her. "Did you miss me?"

"Yes," Alyssa said with a huge smile on her face. "My Alex."

"I'm your Alex?" she asked. "Aren't I Olivia's Alex?"

"No!" Alyssa shouted. "My Alex. My Olibbia. My Abbie."

"It's time to take you to Mommy," Olivia told her little sister as she held out her arms for Alex to give Alyssa to her.

"Sissy!" Alyssa screamed. "No! I go with you!"

Hearing her little girl start to cry, Serena came rushing outside. Alyssa was her baby but she was still as attentive to Olivia as she always was even though Olivia kept telling her mom that she was a grown woman now and it wouldn't be long before she had her own family with Alex. Unlike Alex's parents, Serena loved the idea of Olivia and Alex starting a life together and she wanted them to have a child so Alyssa could have a little playmate. Alyssa had never played with other toddlers because she was always with her big sister Olivia. When Olivia first found out her mom was pregnant, she was worried that her mom would love the new baby more than she loved her. Her friends thought it was immature, but her mom understood why Olivia felt the way she did. Olivia was jealous of the new baby for being conceived by the intimacy between husband and wife, what Olivia called the "right way" or the complete opposite of how she was conceived. She was upset with her mom for getting pregnant, but she changed her mind when Alyssa was born. Olivia was the first person who held her and the very first person she smiled at. The two of them formed an inseparable bond and it wasn't long before "sissy" was Alyssa's first word.

"Do you want to stay with me tomorrow?" Olivia asked Alyssa. The now sleepy two-year-old just nodded and tried to hide her face in her sister's shoulder.

"Not tomorrow," Serena insisted. "It's your first night in your very first place together. I'm sure there are other activities you have in mind that don't involve this little one."

"No!" Alyssa screamed. "I go with Sissy."

"The princess has spoken," Olivia told her mom.

"Are you sure you two don't mind?" Serena asked. "How about you, Eddie?"

"I'll be having sex with my girlfriend on every surface of our bedroom, so I'm not even going to know anyone else exists," Abbie said proudly. "Alex and Olivia are the two mother hens."

"We don't mind at all," Alex told Serena. "Alyssa gives us practice for when we have a baby of our own."

"I hope it's soon," Serena said before getting her little girl from Olivia. "Do you want Sissy to have a baby, Alyssa?"

"I'm the baby," Alyssa asserted.

"These two aren't ready yet," Abbie told Serena as she gestured to her two best friends. "First they need to start fucking again and then they can start thinking about having a baby."

Even though everyone was used to how blunt Abbie was, her comment brought about the end of their discussion. Olivia may have been 21, but Serena still liked to think of her daughter as someone who never had sex. The way things were going between Alex and Olivia, she wasn't too far off.

"Shotgun!" Abbie shouted, nearly pushing Olivia out of the way. Olivia had wanted to sit in the front seat with her girlfriend, but she knew there was no way she could sit in the front after Abbie had already called shotgun. It had been a Cabenmichael rule since Mr. and Mrs. Cabot gave Alex a car for her 16th birthday.

"Where are we going?" Abbie asked once Alex had passed the residential area and started driving on a lonely road.

"Isn't it obvious? We're going to the water tower," Olivia told her. "Alex and I are on the same wavelength right now."

"More like always," Alex said and smiled at the rearview mirror so her girlfriend could see.

"The water tower with a bottle of vodka?" Abbie asked. "I thought you were above that, Cabot. You always talked about going for cocktails at trendy lounges with your little Princeton friends. Now you're slummin' it?"

"We're 21, babe. We can go to a bar if you want to," Olivia pointed out.

"No," Alex insisted. "There are two types of drunken nights you can have in Fallbrook: the type of night when you act mature and go to a bar and the type when you swipe a bottle of vodka from your parents' liquor cabinet and get drunk on the water tower. Tonight is the latter."

Alex carefully secured the bottle in her purse as the three of them climbed the water tower. Either they weren't as energetic as they used to be or someone had raised the water tower because the girls were nearly out of breath when they reached the top. Alex gave the bottle of vodka for Abbie to open while she cuddled up to Olivia. The girls usually stood near the railing, but this time they decided to sit down and lean against the tank. It was Alex's suggestion and there was no reason for it other than she wanted Olivia to hold her. Olivia wrapped her arms around her girlfriend and held her as tight as she possibly could. Seeing how they were so focused on each other, Abbie decided to start taking a drink from the bottle. After chugging three shots worth, she handed the bottle to Olivia who drank the equivalent of one shot and then Alex who chugged nearly half of the bottle.

"Baby, that's enough," Olivia said, prying the bottle from Alex's hands.

"I need this," Alex insisted. The smell of vodka was now strong on her breath and Olivia was going to try her hardest to keep the bottle away from her for the rest of the evening. Alex wasn't wild when she drank. Rather, she was the type of girl who spilled all of her secrets when she had a few shots in her system.

Without Alex being aware of what they were doing, Abbie and Olivia were passing the bottle around and taking longer sips than they usually did. More alcohol in their system meant less alcohol in Alex's system. By the time the bottle was nearly finished, Alex had a total of 9 shots and she was starting to kiss Olivia's neck.

"I'm going to ride you into oblivion," Alex told her girlfriend. Olivia was embarrassed, but Abbie couldn't stop laughing. She knew Alex was just drunk, but she wished she were being sincere for Olivia's sake. It had been awhile since the two of them had sex and Abbie knew it was starting to take a toll on them.

"You should let her do it, Livya," Abbie said excitedly. "Serena does that to me sometimes. She'll just push me on the bed and get on top and she's so forceful that sometimes I can't even move. We just get so lost in the moment that I actually notice scratches on our bodies."

"Yes, but your girlfriend is a nymphomaniac," Olivia pointed out. "Alex and I aren't."

"I could if you want me to be," Alex said before sloppily kissing Olivia.

Sensing how uncomfortable her best friend was, Abbie decided to change the subject. "You can see all of Fallbrook from here," she said as she stood against the railing. "And that's so depressing."

"This place wasn't always depressing," Olivia pointed out.

"Not always," Alex agreed. "It just seemed so much…bigger…and more significant when I was in high school."

"Fallbrook?" Abbie asked. "We're talking about the same place, right?"

"Yeah," Alex told her. "You knew Dallas and Austin as a little girl, so of course this place was going to be depressing, but Olivia and I were born here. Before college, this place was all we ever knew and all we ever needed. It used to be enough."

"A lot of things were enough back then," Olivia said glumly.

"You okay?" Abbie asked.

"I don't know," Olivia admitted. "I've been thinking a lot about the future and what I should do and how far we've all come since we were little kids playing on the playground. Do you remember when playing on the playground was enough? We'd beg our moms to take us and it would be the highlight of our whole day, our whole week even. Now, I look at Alyssa and it dawns on me that every woman was once a little girl—we were little girls—and someday Alyssa is going to be our age and do what we do and climb this water tower with her friends and they'll wonder what the hell to do with their lives and remember when life was simple just like we're doing right now. It's a never-ending cycle. She'll go to North High and walk the same halls we did. She'll graduate in 2011, which isn't that far away when you think about it, but it'll seem like an eternity to her. When we were kids, 1992 seemed like decades away but here we are in 1995 and Abbie, you're in law school, and Alex you're starting law school next year and I—I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do, but it doesn't matter because I'll figure it out even if it takes the next twenty years. My aunt Olivia is 43 and she still doesn't know what she wants to do and she's like the most interesting person I know. She told me that she, Aunt Lorraine, and my mom used to climb this tower 25 years ago just like we do and just like Alyssa will. She'll wear different clothes and listen to different music, but her feelings will be still be the same and kids will still do the same thing that we did in high school and what my mom and my aunts did in high school. That's all that changes—clothes and music."

"And hair," Abbie interjected.

"And hair," Olivia agreed. "But it's all the same. There's probably people in other states or even other countries having this same conversation right now on water towers or in basements or their equivalent of Sticky's. This stuff never changes, but we do. I look at little boys and wonder if one of them will have a crush on Alyssa and if she'll have a crush on him and if they'll go to prom together and how upset I'll be if he tries something with her and she doesn't want him to. She's two and I'm thinking of her hypothetical prom date. What's that say about me?"

"It means you're neurotic," Abbie teased. "But, really, what the hell do you want to do?"

"I don't know," Olivia admitted and then started chugging from the bottle. "I just don't want to sit at a desk and watch the seconds go by on the clock. I don't want to hear tick, tick, tick. There goes your 30th birthday, Olivia. Tick, tick, tick, there's your 40th."

"So, in other words…" Abbie began and gestured toward Olivia.

"I'm going to do what I've wanted to do since I was four," Olivia said excitedly.

"Olivia, no," Abbie groaned, but it was too late. Olivia had already gotten up and started doing her best Wonder Woman pose.

"I'm going to do it," Olivia said. "I'm going to be my own version of Wonder Woman and save New York from evil-doers."

"Babe, what the hell?" Alex slurred.

"I don't know," Olivia said and started laughing.

"I told my mom to shut up today and it felt great," Alex announced. "I think this is the best night of my life. No, wait—yeah, it is. No. Wait, yeah, this is the best night of my life. I love you guys."

Once the bottle was finished, the girls came to the conclusion that they were all too drunk to stand, let alone climb down the water tower. They spent the next few hours telling stories about the things they did in high school and what they hoped for their future and, for the first time in years, that water tower and even their little suburb were enough.