A/N: I'm sorry for such a crappy update delay. I had writer's block with this chapter, but the majority of the delay was due to the fact that my car got crashed, shit happened, and then I ran into university finals. (I literally just finished my last final a few hours ago.)

Turning Tables

When It's Gone

Grace sat with her hands in her lap in the passenger seat of Grant's car, parked in the Grant High visitor parking. She was staring out the front window shield watching the throngs of her peers swarm in and out of the building.

"You said you wanted to talk and yet you've barely said a word. Grace, what's going on?"

"When were you going to tell me that you were planning on switching schools?"

Grant was taken aback. "Wha – who told you that?" His face suddenly contorted. "Was it that Ricky?"

"No, actually, and it doesn't matter who I heard it from, what does matter is that I didn't hear it from you. Why would you want to switch schools?"

"To be closer to you!"

"No. That's a drastic move and you know it. You're doing it because you're jealous, even though I've told you a hundred times already that there is nothing between me and Ricky! He's just a friend!"

"You said yourself that you two used to date and that he's got a reputation for sleeping with virgins!"

"And I also said that he's not like that anymore and even if he was, I'd never sleep with him! I don't believe in premarital sex and you know that too!"

Grant curled his fingers into his palm and punched the steering wheel causing the horn to blare and a handful of people nearby to look up and stare at them. He waited until the leering eyes had returned to their own business and then continued angrily: "I'm sorry, Grace, but I just don't trust him."

Grace stared at him disbelievingly. Her silver eyes began to well and she blinked back the extra moisture and turned her head away. Without looking at him she unlocked her seatbelt. "Then you don't trust me, because what you're really saying is that you think my willpower is so nil that I'll just give into Ricky if he wanted me to. Which he doesn't. I asked him to dance at the party. A dance between friends. Contrary to popular belief, boys and girls can be friends, Grant."

"I don't know about that."

"You really don't have any female friends?" At his silence, she reached for the door knob. "I saw what you did at the party," she said as she opened the door. "The look on your face, the way you crumpled that cup up. And all because I was dancing with a friend. Even if it hadn't been innocent, there was no need for that kind of reaction without getting all the facts, and that scares me."

"Grace-"

"No." She climbed out of the car, grabbed her backpack and purse, and then paused before shutting the door. "I need to think a few things over. I'm sorry, but please don't call me. I need my space right now. I'll contact you when I'm ready."

"Grace, come on! You're overreacting!"

"Pot, meet kettle." Grace closed the door and quickly and scurried into the pulsating crowd of students, hoping to blend in and slip away before Grant had any ideas of trying to follow after her.

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"That's them?" Adrian asked while looking at a picture of a young Caucasian couple.

"Mhmm. Michaela and Joel Viceroy. They're in their early thirties and they've been trying to have children for several years, but they can't seem to conceive. They tried in vitro twice in the last year-and-a-half, but Michaela miscarried both times."

"That's terrible."

Heather nodded in agreement. "They're both really sweet. Michaela's a paralegal and Joel is owns a wrecking yard for supplemental income, but he'd like to be a stay-at-home dad. I actually think that's pretty neat."

Adrian nodded enthusiastically. "They sound wonderful so far."

"Yeah. I guess they were all set to adopt at the end of last year, but the mother changed her mind after the baby was born and they were crushed. They weren't even looking again until Margaret suggested that I meet with them."

"So what's the problem?"

"It's not a problem per se, it's more of a concern."

Adrian nodded. "What is?"

Heather touched her stomach and then reached into her bag and pulled out a folded up photo. She handed it to Adrian.

Adrian studied the photo carefully: it was a photo of a very not pregnant Heather, wrapped in the arms of a boy about her age of Eastern Indian descent. She lifted her eyebrow curiously. "Is this…"

"The father. Yes."

"You're concerned he's going to try and exert his paternal rights?"

"No. No." Heather tapped the photo. "The baby," she said slowly, "she's biracial."

Adrian blinked in surprise, having not even given that a consideration. "Yeah?" she replied. "So am I. So is Mercy."

Heather nodded. "Yeah, but a lot of people aren't. Joel and Michaela aren't. I'm afraid they're probably assuming she's going to be as white as I am, which I seriously doubt. That's unfortunately the world we live in: white skin is one of our cultural defaults. I'm not really sure how to tell them this, either."

"You said they're friends of Margaret and Shakur, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well Shakur's Eastern Indian too. I'd say that's at least a sign in your favor."

"True. But I can't just assume that. Plus, even if race isn't an issue for them, it could raise potential issues as she's growing up. I know there are kids who get picked on for being adopted and I've even known kids who are biracial who have been picked on for not looking like one of their parents. I just…I don't want to put my baby into a situation that's harmful to her."

"Kids are mean," Adrian sighed. "And people in general are wicked. I've been picked on for being 'Mexican' before," she said, using air quotations. "But my mom's Colombian. I just have darker skin than her and we both speak Spanish. No matter who you are or what you look like, kids will inevitably find a way to be cruel. So will parents. So will anyone. Even if you found a nice Eastern Indian couple for your daughter, you can't guarantee her the perfect upbringing. All that you can do is find two people who will love her and provide for her."

"So I should just tell them and get it over with?"

"Better sooner than being surprised in the hospital room. I mean, if they have an issue with the pigmentation in her skin, then they aren't the parents for your baby after all. But if they don't, then they really sound like two people who you should keep in mind."

Heather nodded. "Yeah, you're right. I think I knew that, I just needed to hear someone else say it too."

Adrian draped her arm around Heather's shoulders. "Sometimes we all do."

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Ricky dropped a quarter into the soda machine and listened to it clink somewhere within the machinery. He then rolled a second quarter around in his palm and stared at the soda button options. The message on the machine already registered .75but a drink robbed the buyer of a dollar. His eyes maneuvered over the options three times before he put the final quarter in and finally smacked the root beer button with his palm.

"You all right?"

The soda can popped out in time with Ashley's voice. "I don't want to talk about it."

Ashley shrugged. "Fine." She watched him pop the top on his soda and take a swig. "You should really wash of the tops of those. I heard that approximately one of every two soda cans has bacteria on the top."

"Like what?" he asked sarcastically. "Rat urine?"

"Among another things."

Ricky stopped drinking and pulled the can away from his lips. He looked at Ashley, then at the soda, and then finally tossed it into a nearby trashcan and listened to the soda gurgle and fizzle out at the bottom. "Happy now?"

"No. And neither are you." She shrugged indifferently. "But I'm not going to push you to talk about something you don't want to talk about."

Ricky looked around. "Not here."

"Not here?"

"I don't want to talk about it here."

"Where then?"

The drummer looked at his watch. "The band room. We've still got ten minutes before class."

Ashley nodded and followed him without question. When they got inside, it was empty, save for the band instruments people had left in the cubbies. She walked over to a set of drums and casually leaned up against one and waited.

Ricky plied his drumsticks out of his back pockets and sat down at the drummer's station. He lightly tapped the edges of the drums creating minimal noise. "Nora showed up last night."

Ashley's eyes rose in surprise. "That's – that's your biological mother, right?"

"Margaret's my mother in every sense of the word. Nora doesn't deserve the title in any respect."

"Okay then: Nora showed up last night. What did she want?"

Ricky closed his eyes and smacked the drumstick down on the face of one of the drums.

Nora recoiled as Ricky's hand clashed against the wall and she immediately turned at the sound. Her face was still large and ovular but it was paler than Ricky remembered, an ashy sort of flesh. She had so many more wrinkles, too, like a cowboy's old leather belt. Her once almond shaped eyes now just looked like slits and her hair, at one time long and sugar brown, was now dull and cut to her shoulders. She looked at least a decade older than she should. Then she stood, revealing her bony, awkward, emaciated form. "Ricky," she whispered, her voice scratchy like a cold. Her skeletal hand moved to her mouth. "I can't believe how you've grown."

"What are you doing here, Nora?"

Nora winced at the sharp blades of ice in his tone. She rounded the sofa to stand in front of Ricky, about a yard stick away. She nodded understandingly. "I deserve that."

"You deserve much more than that."

Again, she agreed by moving her head up and down. "I wanted to apologize."

"It doesn't matter. What's done is done."

"It matters to me." She tried to step forward, only for Ricky to step back. Nora cast her eyes down. "It took me a long time to get clean."

"You don't look it."

Nora touched the curve of her arm unconsciously, even though she was wearing a long sleeved shirt. Then, as if realizing her mistake, she attempted a smile and awkwardly fiddled with the ends of her hair. "Right," she said. "Just think of all that youth I wasted on drugs and alcohol and smoking."

"Yours or mine?"

Nora's eyes glimmered in the pale living room light. She took the back of her hand to them. "I'm sorry for never protecting you," she said suddenly. "I'm sorry for turning to everything else to dull my own pain. You were just a boy."

"So that's why you came back?" Ricky asked coldly. "To remind me of all the things you didn't do?"

Nora shook her head. "No, I said I'm getting clean. And staying clean. This is part of the process: apologizing to those you've wronged. I've sent letters to a lot of people, Ricky. But you're the one I've wronged the most and I knew a letter wouldn't be enough. You don't have to accept it and I'm not asking for forgiveness, I just wanted you to know. And I wanted you to know face-to-face."

Ricky hung there for a moment, as if all of his muscles had come to a simultaneous and sudden stop. After so many lies and false promises, he wasn't sure whether to believe her or not. But he didn't live with her anymore – he was not her responsibility and had not been for years – so there was no need to lie. Unless… "Are you here for money?"

Nora staggered. "What?"

"Do you want money?" he repeated monotonously.

"No. No! I'm not here for anything other than to tell you I'm sorry."

"Well," Ricky said slowly, stepping aside. "Then you've done that, so you can go."

Nora turned her head slightly. She mirrored an abused dog, not sure whether to follow her master's order or not. Finally she nodded again and inched towards Ricky until she was standing just inches from him, enough to touch his hair or cheek if she tried, but she didn't. She merely moved to the door and the moment was gone.

Ricky watched her turn back to look at him and he saw twin tears run down her cheeks which she didn't bother to wipe away that time. He held his ground though, not budging until she had opened the door and walked out. He remained motionless until the door shut and clicked. When he heard a car take off outside he moved to the door and locked it. Once alone, he touched his own cheek and was surprised to realize it was also wet.

"Sounds like you were pretty harsh on her."

"You don't think she deserves it?"

"That's not what I said. I'm just giving you an honest observation. For the record, I'm sure she did deserve it and everyone deserves a little cold reality sometimes. That's part of the reason so many people would like to kick me in the teeth. But screw 'em." She shrugged, unaffected. "Still, if Nora is reaching out to you and really wants to change, that's something."

"Something of a miracle."

"You've changed," Ashley said pointedly. "Why can't she?"

Ricky rubbed one of his drumsticks over the other. "No wonder no one likes you."

"Why's that?" she asked, her tone suddenly transitioning to that of amusement.

"You make sense."

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"Nope. Can't do it!" Ben dropped the chrome scalpel on the table with a metallic ping and turned his head away from the corpse of the frog that he was supposed to be helping to dissect. "I'm sorry I'm such a lab partner fail," he confessed to Amy without looking at her.

Amy laughed and touched his arm. "It's okay, I get it."

"How can you not be squicked out?"

"Would it be weird if I told you my grandfather was an embalmer?"

"A little."

"Yeah," Amy agreed. "Well imagine growing up and going over to his house to visit. He had a funeral home instead of a garage and it always reeked of formaldehyde. You'd be surprised at how much I know much I know about decomposition."

"See, now if you were Ashley telling me this, I would say that would make all kinds of sense. But with you, I would've never guessed."

"Funny, given that your dad owns a butcher shop, I would've thought you'd be better mentally equipped for this sort of stuff."

"Yeah, I may be a butcher's son, but I'm no good at it. I've never been good with blood or pain," Ben squeaked.

"Uh, you do realize that it's not actually alive, right?" she asked in a playfully sarcastic tone.

"Doesn't matter. Just seeing that knife cut into frog flesh is bad enough for me. I have issues," he laughed. "I can't even be around other people who are in pain. It's like people who are sympathy pukers, I'm a sympathy hurter and I can imagine hurt enough for that frog and myself."

"Well fear not, because I think we're done here." Amy set down the scalpel, pushed the tray of utensils away, and peeled off the latex gloves she was wearing. "We just need to fill in the blanks now," she said, indicating their science handouts. She eyed the teacher's back as she helped out another pair of lab partners near the front of the room, then leaned into Ben and whispered conspiratorially, "And don't worry, I've got your back." Amy picked up her pencil and began to scribble in the answers on her paper and then slid it over to Ben to copy.

"I owe you something fierce!" Ben whispered as he began to copy the answers down.

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The time on the lower right hand corner of Grace's laptop screen read 2:07 AM. She sat cross legged on her bed draped in a pink Snuggie. A pale light reflected off her face from the rectangular box in her hands, a pink digital camera. Grace brought the camera closer to her face, studying the photographs of herself and Grant that had been taken over the summer at the Young Healers Camp.

"Say cheese!"

"What are you doing with my camera?" Grace grinned. She put her hands on her hips in a mock authoritative gesture.

"I can't help myself," Grant said as he took a snapshot of her. "I've got the most photogenic girlfriend in the world!"

As Grace pressed her thumb down on the arrow button to the right of the LCD screen and went through the pictures, it occurred to her that the majority of them were of either her and/or Grant. And of the ones taken just of her, most of them had been taken by Grant himself. She set the camera down and picked up her cell phone and pressed a button to activate the backlight on the screen. When the backlight turned on it revealed Adrian's bitterly worded text message that had advised her to check her e-mail. Grace pressed two fingers to her right temple and shut her eyes against the sleep deprived headache that was slowly building behind her eyes.

"He's really sweet, Adrian. He likes to shower me with attention."

"So in layman's terms: he's clingy."

"He is not!"

"He's texted you three times since you got to school."

"It's the first day we haven't seen each other in two months! We got really close, okay?" Grace's text message alert began to go off again and she sighed. "Okay, maybe he is a little overzealous, but that's not necessarily a bad thing."

"I'm just glad he doesn't go to our school, otherwise I'd probably never see you again."

The blonde set her phone down on the opposite side of her bed that the digital camera sat on and leaned forward, reaching for her laptop. She set it onto her lap and pulled it open. After typing in her password, the web browser was already up, opened to the Google search box. Grace placed her fingers to home row and let them linger there for a time, then she began to type and the words that eventually appeared in the search box read: signs of an unhealthy relationship. Upon clicking the magnifying glass 427,000 results came back in fifteen seconds. She began to scroll through them, all the while feeling her heart pumping in the back of her throat.

After scrolling for a while, she opted to click on a link titled: Stay Teen | Dating Abuse. First her eyes tumbled over the article and her pink lips moved quietly as she said the words inaudibly beneath her breath. After scrolling downwards she abruptly stopped and moved her fingertip to the screen to read the last few lines: "'Not sure if you're in an unhealthy relationship? Take a step back and ask yourself: Does your boyfriend or girlfriend: pressure you to make the relationship very serious or have sex early in the relationship or before you're ready? Act jealous or possessive? Try to control where you go, what you wear, or what you do? Text or instant message you constantly?'"

Grant grabbed her wrist as she started to step over the threshold. "Grace," he said firmly.

Grace frowned as she turned to him. "Yes?"

"Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Grace laughed lightly. "Oh, I'm sorry." She felt her cheeks warm faintly. "I'm sorry, I would, but my mom's not home and-"

"That's the point."

Grace quickly looked down at her wrist and gave it a rub as she recalled the way Grant had lingered on her porch until she had turned out the lights that night. It had struck her funny then, wondering why he hadn't left yet, but now it made her insides start to twist. She quickly pushed her laptop away and wrapped her arms around her stomach. "Adrian was right."

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"It's four in the morn-awh," Ben yawned from the doorway of the nursery. He covered his mouth as his ears popped inside his head and then she blinked sleepily. "-ing. Come to bed."

Adrian was reclined in the rocking chair in the corner of the room, wide awake. "I can't," she sighed somewhere between bitter and regretful.

"Why not?"

"I can't sleep."

Ben shuffled across the carpet to stand by his girlfriend's side. "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing."

"Is this about Grace?" Ben tried again. Silence. He placed one hand on Adrian's shoulder and began to massage it. "Please?" he begged. "Talk to me?"

"She's my best friend," Adrian finally breathed out. "Maybe I was too hard on her?" She lifted her hand revealing her cell phone.

"Is she not talking to you?"

"I don't know. I was so mad and jealous after Ricky told me about Grant that after school got out just I sent her that text and the e-mail in the heat of the moment. I guess I figured she'd come to me and want to apologize or something. At least see things my way on him this time. But she avoided me all day. I tried to pretend it didn't bother me but-"

"She's your best friend."

"Yeah."

"I know you don't want to hear this, but maybe – just maybe – you should apologize?"

Adrian let her head fall sideways onto Ben's hand which was still positioned on her shoulder. "You're right," she sighed. "I didn't want to hear that."

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"Grace! I can't tell you how relieved I was to get your call this morning." Grant pulled his arm out from behind his back to reveal a bouquet of red and pink roses. "I've been thinking about everything and you're absolutely right. I overreacted. I'm sorry! It won't happen again, I promise." He pushed the roses at the blonde.

Grace pursed her lips uneasily and shook her head.

Grant blinked, stunned. "You don't like them?"

"No, it's not that. They're – they're beautiful."

"Then what's wrong?"

Grace covered her hand with her mouth. "I – I'm sorry, Grant. But I can't."

His eyes turned hard. "You can't what?"

"I can't do this. I accept your apology and I appreciate it, but I can't just continue on like this never happened. There are just all these little things and-" A noise escaped the back of her throat. She swallowed and felt her eyes sparking up. "I just don't think we're as good for each other as we thought. That might be partly my fault because I rushed into this relationship without thinking about it. My dad had just passed away and you helped ease that pain a little. I'm grateful for that, but I just don't think we work in the long term."

"So you're breaking up with me?" he snapped. "Because I got jealous and made one lousy mistake? What happened to your morals, Grace? I thought you were a Christian!"

"I am a Christian! And I told you that I forgive you, but it doesn't matter! I can't be your girlfriend anymore, Grant. I'm sorry. I really am!"

"Yeah. Sure you are, Grace." Grant lifted the bouquet between them. He turned it horizontally and grabbed the stems beneath the roses and began to bend and twist them until each stem finally frayed and broke in half, then he threw the flowers on the ground at Grace's feet. His hands were stained with fresh blood from the thorns when he was done. "Screw you!"

Grace covered her mouth as she watched Grant climb back into his car, slam the door, and break the speed limit out of the Dairy Shack parking lot. Tears were falling down her face as she looked down at the ruined bouquet. She staggered back and pulled her cell phone out of her purse, only realizing that she had a missed call from Adrian when she flipped it open. Whimpering, she hit the callback button and pressed the phone to her ear as it began to ring.

By the second ring Adrian's voice was on the other line: "Grace! Look, did you get my message? I'm-"

"S – sorry," Grace stuttered into the phone. "I'm sorry. Y – you were right, Adrian."

"Grace, what's going on? What's wrong?"

Grace wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Can you c-come pick me up?" she whimpered. "P-please?"

"Where are you?"

"The Diary Sh-"

"I'm on my way."