Hey, everyone! What's up? Chapter Three!

It was only two days later when the reply came. Clarice's fingers quivered as she peeled open the envelope. She was seated on her bed in her pajamas. The sun had long bleached the windows and pointed out the dust specs. It was starting to rain.

She had not been at the academy for the last two days. Clarice felt bad for how she'd treated Ardelia, and felt she'd made it worse by giving her the cold shoulder yesterday... And today.

Her hair was not brushed and the tangles pressed against her neck. Starling focused on that detail as her hands slid the paper out of its package. It was face down. She was scared to flip it over and read it.

Taunting herself, Clarice placed the letter beside her and got up to get a drink. The floor leached the warmth from her feet.

Her kitchen was relatively clean- it had a busy feel to it and crumbs were under the table. There were probably a few mounds under fridge by now. She had the habit of kicking stuff underneath it when small motivations left her.

Clarice opened her fridge and almost grabbed the milk, but she stopped. A frequent dream she had that particularly disturbed her: milk leaking from her breasts and eventually turning to waves of blood.

'Maybe I'll have milk a different time,' Clarice swiped her gaze to a package of ham slices.

No, that would not do either. It looked to much like meat... 'Ham IS meat, hoetard,' Clarice grumbled to herself. It looked too much like the meat in her dreams.

She had to have something. Clarice picked out a mini cucumber and crunched on it halfheartedly. She was almost finished when she realized that it hadn't been washed.

It wasn't fair. Clarice could remember her whole life, waking up and only recalling small fragments of dreams. Never had dreams been so vivid. Also, even her ugliest nightmares hadn't caused her to cry into her pillow and check her breasts in the mirror worriedly.

She shuffled back to the bedroom and checked the letter.

'Dear Clarice,

I would say congratulations, but the erratic spikes of your handwriting and the way you stabbed the paper with each flick of your wrist suggests that you would rather not hear that.

What have you whited out, Clarice? You have a habit of hiding what you truly want to say. You know that you can put anything you want on this letter, yet you are shy of voicing your own needs. Years of fending for your skinny self has toughened you, hasn't it? You cannot allow yourself to show any weakness, is that it?

Oh, well. I will humor you and pretend that you simply wrote to me to tell you of this fortune. Congratulations.

~H

PS. The child will stop the screaming of the lambs, is that why you've gotten it? Or are you just bored and think that you'd be an exemplary mother?'

Clarice's eyes sucked in the delicate black ink loops, mouthing the words. When she got to the bottom of the soft paper, she repeated her memorizing process.

Not sure what to feel, Starling flopped on her side onto the bed and rubbed her tummy. Eventually, the growing despair rang so sharply that she realized her emotion. She felt so helpless.

'Hey...' Ardelia's voice was halting on the phone.

'Hey, Ardelia,' Clarice was sitting in her armchair, hugging her knees. Her hand holding the telephone shook ever so slightly.

'What's up?'

'I'm just... I'm, um, sorry for ditching you and then pretending that you didn't exist. That was pretty bitchy of me. It won't happen again,' Clarice rocked back and forth nervously. She would punch herself in the face if she lost her best friend.

'Aw, it's cool, Clarice. Maybe we could go jogging again tomorrow?' Ardelia sounded cheerful to have heard from her.

'Yeah, I'd like that. Look... I need to tell you something,' her mouth dried up. She clenched the leather armrest and the telephone harder. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip.

'Go ahead! What's going on?' Ardelia Mapp paused. 'You don't need to worry about offending me, you know that.'

'Oh, it's not you!' again, too forceful.

'Who, then? Is Paul Krendler being a-'

'I'm pregnant, Ardelia.'

There. She'd said it. It was done. Clarice exhaled into the phone. She was startled at how sweaty the objects that she were clutching had become.

She could hear Ardelia breathing on the other end. Mapp clicked her tongue. Clarice knew that her friend was trying to think of something wise to say, and quickly.

'I-I'm coming over. Be right there,' a 'click' followed. Clarice put down the phone and felt like a large weight had lifted off her chest. She smiled wearily at her furniture.

Clarice calmly opened the door for Ardelia when she arrived. Her old roommate's blue coat was soaked from the downpour outside.

'Great weather,' Mapp grinned morosely.

'Yeah, want some tea?'

'I'm good. What I want is for you to tell me...WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!'

Clarice blinked in a fury, crushing the tears threatening to appear 'I am not going to cry.'

The two sat on the sofa and faced each other. Ardelia's comforting dark eyes searched Starling's, and she put her hands on Clarice's knee.

'When was this?' Ardelia spoke after a few moments of silence.

Clarice did not want to answer, she felt like she'd start crying. 'About eleven weeks ago...that party,' she croaked.

'That defense unit guy's birthday?' Ardelia referred.

'Yes...'

'What...um...happened? Have you told anyone?'

'Yeah, ah, no. Just you.' Clarice thought that once she had started talking, it'd be easy. It wasn't.

'What happened?' Ardelia repeated.

Clarice's gaze fluttered away from Mapp's. She could hear blood surging through her ears. Her hands gripped Ardelia's wrists.

'You don't have to tell me,' Ardelia sounded disappointed.

'No, no, I brought you here to tell you.'

Ardelia looked like she was trying not to sigh. 'When you're ready.'

Clarice tapped her feet on the hardwood. She squirmed on the couch cushion. The words seemed to be a weight in her stomach, with no interest of leaving her mouth and making sense of anything.

'I-I-... There were drinks,' she began.

'You were drinking?' Ardelia's tone was gentle.

'Yes. Things were getting blurry. The sounds were loud. Everything was funny.' She was painting a picture inside of her head. Omitting details on purpose, spinning the simplest story while the grand scale preformed in her memories.

She could smell the wine and the sweat and the food. The throbbing blood in her ears resembled the bass of the music.

Clarice shuddered and continued. 'I wasn't really partying much, just sitting and drinking. I didn't really know the birthday guy.'

Ardelia felt Clarice trying to tell her something. 'Who did you end up...hanging out with?'

'The people I know. Besides you.'

'Who were they, Clarice?'

Starling's eyes glittered with tears. She gently gnawed the inside of her cheek.

'Clarice?'

'I don't remember,' Clarice rasped.

'W-wh-a-?'

'I don't remember!' she burst out, feeling something inside of her stir.

Well that's just great...please don't be shy, drop a review! They make me happy and maybe I'll be nicer to Clarice. Thanks for everyone who's been reading so far!