"My god, Anne! Tell me everything, everything!"

Anne had gotten back to the apartment she shared with her best friend and her blush and nervousness had given her away. Mae knew that something had happened.

Anne Elliot had met Mae Rivera during their freshmen orientation and had later discovered that they were going to be roommates. Mae's bubbly personality was a total contrast to Anne's shyness and yet, their friendship had flourished.

"Well, I was going over my notes for tomorrow, and the waiter came by my table and asked if he could take my empty cup away."

"How did he look like?," Mae asked.

"He was... is... tall, blond hair with bright green eyes, kind of cute…," Anne started.

"Oh, cute! I never heard you say that before about anyone," Mae noted.

"I know... But I don't want to overreact to this. Maybe he was just being polite."

"Continue with your story, and I will tell you."

Anne sat on the floor next to her friend and told her everything, giving her all the details.

"Oh, Anne, he obviously was flirting with you."

"Do you think so?"

"Yeah, I do. His free drink approach might a little old school, but it was a nice gesture. Besides, it worked! You talked to him!," Mae exclaimed.

"Well, yeah. It was easy to talk to him," Anne said pensive.

"Now, you have to come back to the coffee shop and talk some more," Mae teased.

"Mae!", Anne yelled.

"What! You should!"

"Well, I'm going back, but not because of him! I'm meeting some of my students there."

"Yay! You see, maybe you'll get something more out of your tutoring than a line in your CV."

Anne shook her head, laughing and made her friend promise that she would not make things bigger and not pressure her. Mae agreed and then left for her night job.

Anne went to her bedroom and fell on the bed, wanting more than ever to be able to talk to her mother.

Walter Elliot had been twenty-one when he had met Helena Sorensen, who was the same age. He called it love at first sight; she referred to it as a hard-fought courtship. Despite hearing their love story, Anne could still not believe that her mother had married his father.

"He won me over," Helena used to say.

They had met in New York, just after Walter had graduated from college. The Elliot's were a prominent family in the city, and the name carried a certain weight of tradition. Walter was set to follow his father's and grandfather's footsteps by going to law school and working at Elliot and Grant Associates.

Helena, on the other hand, had recently moved to New York from Sweden to pursue a career in journalism. She had landed an internship at the New York Post for six months and was hoping to be hired at the newspaper.

Elliot and Helene had coincided at a party and the Scandinavian beauty, with golden hair and dark blue eyes, had enchanted Walter. He had used all the charms known to men that night to get a date with her. Helena was not really looking for a relationship but enjoyed Walter's chase and personality, and eventually accepted to be his girlfriend.

A year later, they were married, and nine months later, Helena gave birth to Elisabeth. Anne had been born five years after that and Mary four years after her middle sister.

Helena had actually gotten a paid position after the internship and her time was split between work and her new family. She also had to fulfill the duties bestowed in her by Walter's family.

All those responsibilities had been very hard for her so she stopped working before Mary was born, and focused on her children. Anne was very young at the time, but as she grew older, she wondered how much that decision had affected her mother and her marriage.

And then, something terrible happened that changed the whole family. Helena was diagnosed with cervical cancer when Anne was sixteen years old and had died shortly after.

Everyone had been terribly sad at the beginning, yet, as time went by, Elisabeth and Walter turned to stone and Mary became indifferent and rebellious. Walter had not known how to deal with his teenage daughter and had sent her to boarding school in Europe.

Elisabeth went to law school like her father and Anne moved to Boston for college, trying to start anew.

Anne had found a new family in Mae, despite her father's prejudices. Mae was the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants and had a partial scholarship to Harvard. However, the money was not enough and Mae had to work part time to support herself.

Anne and Mae had moved to a small apartment in Cambridge after their first year at college. Anne's living arrangement was not up to her father's standards and Walter and Elisabeth stopped visiting her, always making an excuse. Instead, they wanted her to go back home or to their house in the Hamptons on her school breaks, but Anne was tired of their shallowness and also found excuses not to see them.

Anne rolled on her bed and sighed. She was sure that her mother would have hated to see the change in her family.

She tried to clear her mind, as it pained her to think about that, and Frederick's lively eyes suddenly appeared. She was not very good with boys, but something about her interaction with him made her decide to take a chance.