Summer eventually wound down and the bright skies turned into the cool, crisp fall with cloudy mornings and chilly nights. The leaves on the trees were just starting to turn colors. Faint dots of ruby and gold studded the green hills. Fall was truly in the air and school was about to start.

As happy as Evelyn was to be back in class, there was still a bitter taste in her mouth. The events of the previous semester still lingered. Staying in the dorms were out of the question, even though the new RA offered to help her find a better roommate and make sure there were no problems. The idea of being in the dorms made her feel physically ill. Still, he did help her find a small studio apartment just off campus, near the labs.

The place catered almost exclusively to students with short, cheap leases. It looked alright from the outside, with rhododendron bushes by the windows, a clean coat of paint on the siding, and a roof which only had a bit of water damage. But they were still cheap apartments and the rhododendron bushes only did so much to hide the cracks in the foundation. The paint only covered up an older, chipped layer which left paint flakes like snow on the windowsills. And the water damage, though invisible on the outside, was much more of a mess on the inside.

Her apartment was tiny, barely bigger than her old dorm room. The walls were a very dated pale goldenrod color and the rough, brown, industrial carpet had a certain funky, lived-in smell wafting off of it. There was a window and a small balcony. But it was facing an ugly brick wall of the next building so there wasn't very much light getting into the room. As her father and Clint helped her carry her things up from the pickup truck, she felt a little bit depressed. At least the bathroom and kitchen were clean, if a little bit dated and cheap looking with off-white linoleum tiles, plastic drawer pulls, and aged appliances.

"We'll get some better light bulbs," said Phil as he set down a box of dishes for the kitchen, "Then this place won't be quite as gloomy."

Clint scoffed as he set down a small nightstand, "I think it is going to take more than a light bulb to cheer this place up. It's a bit like the hotel from 'The Shining.' A sprucing up isn't going to cut it. We need an exorcism."

"Stop," warned Phil, "You'll be surprised what a little cleaning up will do."

To Phil's credit he wasn't wrong. They made a quick run to the grocery store to pick up a few things like new light bulbs, a mop, and enough food to stock the fridge for the first week. Putting in some higher wattage bulbs did help compensate for the lack of natural lighting. Running a vacuum over the carpet did help dissipate a bit of the funky odor. Phil helped clean the countertops and mop the linoleum floors and that helped the apartment appear a little less dusty and gross. She finished the setup by lighting a few scented candles so a fresh coconut-mango smell wafted through the air. But it was still a very small, very dated space. But it was home, for the time being. As she finished unpacking and placed Captain America on her dresser, Clint returned with pizza.

"And thanks to Evey," he smiled, "I had enough holes on my punch card to get a free cinnamon roll pizza."

"A what?" Said Phil as he packed away cleaning supplies under the sink.

"Oh, dude! It's like a pizza but it's topped with that cinnamon roll filling and cream cheese frosting. It's awesome. Nat will eat this stuff by the truckful," he paused, "Don't tell her I said that."

"So now we know her weakness," smiled Evelyn as she took a slice and slapped it on her plate. She paused, "Wait… what do you mean, 'thanks to me'?"

"Well, you," Clint said awkwardly, "have a… very active metabolism. And stuff. So…"

"So I eat a lot."

Clint crammed a piece of stuffed crust piece of pizza in his mouth to render himself incapable of replying. Unfortunately, the molten cheese had other ideas.

"Ow! Motherfuc-"

"Language!" scolded Phil, holding up his finger in warning.

Clint sat next to her while they ate. He was fumbling with his phone, waiting for a call. He was always waiting on a call from SHIELD. Chances are he wouldn't (or couldn't) talk about it, so she didn't pry. Instead, she gave him an extra-long hug before he left.

"Hey, keep in touch," he said, rubbing her shoulder as he hugged her. "I wanna know about all your cool college adventures and stuff."

"My 'adventures' are going to be pretty boring, lots of homework and lab work. You probably wouldn't find it very fun."

Clint loosened his hug and brushed a lock of gingery hair from her face. He smiled at her. "Try to do something for yourself, okay? Don't be the princess up in her tower."

"I'm not a princess," she muttered, squirming in his grasp a little bit. He kissed her forehead.

He sighed in exasperation, "You can be sometimes."

"I'm not gonna fight this with you," she insisted, pushing away a little bit.

"I don't want to either," he admitted, ruffling her hair, "So take my advice and have some fun for yourself. Or I'm going to have to come down here and make you."

"Promise?"

"Yeah, I promise."

She hoped it was a real promise and not the sort of thing you said to make people feel better. They lingered in their hug for a moment or two longer. It didn't last nearly long enough and watching Clint and her father drive off left her feeling genuinely distressed as she walked back up to her empty apartment.

Over the next couple of days, she started to get used to the people around her. The neighbor above had very heavy feet which thudded left and right and back again but she never saw him or her in person. The neighbors on the left were a young couple with four kids. The mom looked perpetually exhausted, with deep purple bags under her eyes and premature wrinkling. The dad was equally as tired, but he was out of the home most of the day. The neighbor on the right was an old man who looked about a billion years old, wrinkled as a raisin and with only two teeth left in his smile. He was nearly deaf, which is probably why the upstairs neighbor or the screaming kids down the hall didn't seem to bother him much. He had a platinum blond caretaker who visited every other day named Felicia.

Also, things seemed to be mysteriously going missing around the apartment block: bikes, purses, watches, anything of any value that happened to be left around. The bulletin board in the mail room was plastered with flyers looking for missing artifacts. It was peculiar and Evelyn made sure her door was locked when she got ready to go to her first day of class.

She picked out her favorite pair of jeans for her first day and a purple button-up cardigan over a white tee shirt. A comfortable pair of clogs finished the look. She took to wearing them in the lab because they were closed toed and didn't make her legs tired when she wore them for hours on end. On top of it all, she wore the peridot necklace that her father gave her. It made her feel confident when she had none.

The walk to campus was not far but it was made more intense by the amount of stuff she had to carry around day to day. Her bag was heavy with all her textbooks. It was a canvas tote that Kitty sent her from England. The lined bag could take a beating and keep going without so much as a popped seam. It was a very nice gift and she would get a lot of mileage out of it.

Her class list was a full eighteen credits, plus the hours she put in at the mutant testing lab. Her morning classes came and went, noon came and brought a quick lunch of microwave tomato soup and a turkey sandwich, and then her afternoon classes. By the time she walked into her kinesiology class, she was utterly exhausted.

Midway though the teacher reading the syllabus aloud and going through the class expectations (to scare off the weak of heart), she felt something tap the back of her head. At first, she ignored it. She couldn't really tell if something actually hit her or if she was just feeling a puff of air or something or someone passing in the row behind her. The second time she felt the tap, she was sure it was something. Turning, she heard a snicker from a row or two back.

"Mr. Kissimmee, is something funny?" asked the professor from the front of the hall. His voice was a crotchety croak, like a grumpy old bullfrog.

"No."

"I didn't think the syllabus was particularly funny either. If you have something to actually contribute, raise your hand."

That seemed to shut the student up. Evelyn glanced down to the floor to see what might have been thrown at her. It was one of those folded triangular footballs, made of a piece of wide-ruled lined paper with a rough edge, like it was torn from a composition notebook. On the side was a scribble of sloppy handwriting but she could see it spelled the word 'freak.'

She sighed, wondering if this asshole was a friend of Evan's. Perhaps he was what Clint called a "shit-disturber." They just like getting attention by being as big a bastard as humanly possible. Last time she heard that phrase, he was referring to Rumlow. During that conversation, Clint also noted 'you can't disturb the shit without getting your hands in the middle of the manure." She tried to eke some measure of comfort from those words. It helped her feel slightly less wretched though class until it was time to go home.

She was finding that the heat in her apartment was a bit unreliable. It was a steam heating system so there were plenty of cold spots and a bit of a metallic smell which lingered in the air. Evelyn pulled on a soft, slouchy black sweater to compensate for the drafts floating in the windows and creeping under the crack of the door. She felt really exhausted. It was a long day and she felt ready for everything to be over and done with.

Captain America smiled proudly down from her dresser. She didn't sleep with the doll like she did when she was a child but she kept him around mostly out of sentiment. He was comforting on a bad day and full of happy memories to make the day a little brighter. Today, she took him down from the shelf and held him close to her chest as she tried to sleep. Part of her dreaded starting school again. She hated the possibility of running into Evan. She hated the possibility of being gawked at as she went from the class to class. If given her way, she would lock herself in the lab and never come out. These thoughts swirled in her head as she cradled Cap between her arms and tried not to cry herself to sleep.

The next day was better. Nobody harassed her and it seemed like most of the school, fortunately, had decided to move on from the incident. Evan was nowhere to be seen. It was just a much better day, in general. It was also her first day back at the mutant lab. It was nice to be back in her regular habitat. For the first time since arriving back in Baltimore, she felt comfortable. The halls were quiet. Her shoes clicked against the linoleum but that was the only noise to be heard anywhere. She liked the silence, but at the same time, she felt consumed by it.

It was a relief to walk into the kitchenette and see the team gathered around like she recalled. There was Eli, Penelope, Sara, and Tyler from Kentucky. The latter two were apparently seeing each other now and acting absolutely gooey. Spending night after night producing synthetic protein strands apparently had a way of bringing people together.

"You need to drop by sometime to see my wedding dress," insisted Penelope as soon as they had some time to talk.

"I'm free all this week. Is tomorrow too early?"

"Ah, I can't do it tomorrow. Actually, all this week I'm busy," she sighed, rolling her eyes, "Wedding stuff."

"Okay, uh," Evelyn wracked her head to remember her schedule, "I think I'm not busy Monday afternoon. Will that work?"

"Yeah," said Penelope as she consulted the calendar on her phone, "That should work."

It was nice to have plans with friends, Evelyn decided as she poured herself a cup of coffee and drowned the bitter brew with dollops of vanilla Coffee Mate. It was still not the best cup of coffee she ever had. It tasted like it had been sitting out on the countertop for several hours. Eli was leaning back in the plastic chair so the legs were groaning in protest.

"When's the wedding?" asked Eli.

"Three weeks," sighed Penelope, a dreamy look in her eyes, "So exciting!"

Evelyn didn't even realize just how soon the wedding was coming up. She thought that Penelope was going to wait and save up money. Maybe the situation had changed. She made a mental note to ask about it when she went to visit Penelope and they had a private conversation.

Eli poured himself another cup of coffee. Surprisingly, he didn't add any cream or sugar, which was beyond weird. He seemed awful perky and sociable, more than usual.

"Hey, Eli. How's the girl you've been working with…um… what's her name?" Evelyn struggled to remember her name. It had only been three months since she last spoke with her co-workers and already she was losing the details.

"Amanda?"

"Yes! Her. How's she doing?"

"Not really better," he admitted, "But she has transferred to Xavier's School. Her mother thought the containment facilities would be best to prevent another disaster. I drive up there every other week to check in on things and run tests. Doctor McCoy is helping me manage the data."

"Well, that's good. At least she's somewhere that can help her."

"Yes. He's actually offered me a job," smiled Eli, "Once I'm done with my master's degree, he said he would hire me to continue my research and all I'll have to do is teach one class per semester."

"Sounds like you have everything figured out."

"Somewhat. Things are definitely looking up," he smiled and then a light flickered in his eyes as he remembered something. "By the way, I found some interesting things in your blood work. I have some observations on the main drive. I'll e-mail them to you."

"Oh, thanks," she said offhandedly. She would read it eventually, when she got around to it. Her mind was otherwise occupied.

Between Amanda and her co-worker Jay's son, she had to come in contact with a lot of sick kids in the past year and the idea was more than a bit troubling. It seemed especially unfair that these things happened to a child. Adults had time to live and experience all the world had to offer before having to face death but children didn't have that opportunity.

She sat down at the computer after she finished her tasks for the lab and logged into the Worldcat database to look up some medical journals. Not many journal at the school library were digitally indexed yet, so she would have to make a trip to the library the next morning to pick up hard copies of most things. But she could do her research now and see if she could put any on hold. She entered in "childhood diseases" as a search query to begin. She spent the rest of her shift following the train of thought down the rabbit hole. By the time she left, there were two articles printed out and another four ready for pickup in the morning.

Not that she had an abundance of time for extra reading. Although the first week of classes were light on reading, she was in higher-level classes now and it meant extensive note-taking, lots of dry textbooks, and carpel-tunnel inducing amounts of research papers and book reports. But maybe her personal reading could result in research for a school paper eventually. The first week of school actually gave way to a quiet weekend.

There was an early storm raging outside. Rain tapped against the window, rolling down the glass, reflecting the light so the whole room was tinted azure. Some part of her was grateful that the rain was there to clear the air. But the gray skies and seemingly never ending gloom only highlighted how small and cooped up she felt. As the sun sank behind the buildings, the night came quickly. She couldn't very well go outside or even open a window. So she was stuck in a drywall prison. It was torture. She felt like she was going a bit insane. Over the course of one morning, she cleaned just about the entire apartment, did laundry, memorized the pattern of the popcorn ceiling, finished the fairly light first week homework, made her lunch for the next day, and it was only about noon by the time she finished. She wanted to scream.

There were the lab results from her blood tests that Eli had been working on, as well as a handful of journals that she wanted to read. There was a publication from the American Cancer Society which provided a nice overview of childhood cancers that she wanted to copy down for future use. She supposed she could work on those but the room itself felt like a prison that she needed to leave, if only for a short while.

She created little "fairy lights" in the air to amuse herself. She really hadn't created these in quite some time. But it did help warm up the place and compensate for the shoddy heating. It also helped release a little bit of the persistent buzz which always ran just under her skin. Her mind wandered back to the medical journals. Could she use her powers to help cure some of these kids?

Maybe.

She also wasn't about to pretend that the process was at all controlled or at all sterile. That would have to change. Her classes taught her enough about infections to know that she hadn't exactly been thinking about cleanliness up to this point and it was frankly nothing short of a miracle nothing had gone septic on her watch. However, wearing gloves didn't really help since latex and plastic both melted pretty much as soon as she started channelling energy.

But…

Maybe if she was clever, there was a solution to that particular problem. She pulled on a pair of running shoes and threw on a scarf before heading out into the rain. She found silver wire from the craft store and a pair of heavy work gloves from a local hardware store. The next stop was to the craft store for the rest of the supplies. Sitting at the work table with a spool of thread, an X-acto knife, and a heavy-duty leather needle, she began working on her project. It took a long time to get it to look like the image she had in her head, but finally she had a pair of sterile gloves which could transmit the energy from her hands.

However, when she tried it out, it didn't quite work like she expected. The textured surface of the gloves started to melt. Evelyn stopped the flow of energy and tried to disentangle her gloves from her hands. The fabric part of the gloves then burst into flames. Evelyn threw them into the sink and hastily turned on the tap. Cold water soaked the wet mass of sticky, melted, and charred fabric. Fortunately, the fire alarm didn't go off.

"Okay. Trying again."

It was back to the hardware store for even more silver wire and a few more pairs of cheap garden gloves. This time she opted to attach the thick pieces of silver wire to the gloves using a thinner wire rather than thread. It worked marginally better but still burst into flames after a few seconds. This time she needed to douse the thing in baking soda to smother the flames. The fire alarm chirped and Evelyn had to open a window to air out the haze of smoke.

It was back to the hardware store to gather more supplies. When she got there, a thin boy with braces was working the garden center. Evelyn walked up to him with a question about garden gloves."

"Do you have anything fireproof?"

"Fireproof?" the guy looked around and started to look up and down the aisles, "I think we might have something. I'll check with the manager."

As the kid walked away, it occurred to Evelyn that she may want to think up a cover story in case he asked. Chances were he wasn't going to, but maybe he would. Maybe she needed to have a good reason for it. After wracking her brain for a few minutes she settled on the story that she was setting up a backyard smoker. That seemed to be good enough of an excuse.

Unfortunately, when the kid returned to direct her to the gloves, he didn't ask to hear her brilliant excuse. Evelyn found herself a little bit disappointed. She was trying hard to doing the whole SHIELD spy thing but never had a chance to practice. So it was a bit of a bummer.

So she was buried once again in the work of putting together her vision. It took until evening to come up with a prototype. It was kind of a mess. The glove had been cut apart and sewn back together like some sort of Frankenstein monster and there were loose wires sticking out the sides. When she tested them, she could feel the energy flowing through the wires and gathering in a more streamlined position. The lights seemed to glow a little more brightly, gathering into orbs and bubbling off the gloves like the blobs in a lava lamp. It seemed to be working fine, at least for the time being. At the end of it all, the gloves were signed but not completely ruined. The silver did a pretty good job of directing the energy generally where she wanted it to go. Maybe if the gloves were better fitting, it would work a little better.

"Well, that's something," she decided, too tired to continue to work this night.

She continued to tweak the design over the next couple of days. She found that bending the wires slightly to create a circular ring in the middle of her palm helped focus the energy into a central beam. She wanted to see if she could replicate the same pattern on the fingertips to see if she could create a smaller beam but she also promised Penelope that she would drop by to see the wedding dress.

"I need your new address so I can send you a wedding invite," said Penelope right after she arrived, "I'd give it to you now but all the stuff is with Josh's mom right now. I just don't have room for all the stuff."

"I understand," said Evelyn sympathetically as she pulled off her flats before walking into the apartment.

"Who would have thought there was so much stuff that went into a wedding? Seriously? Last week, Josh and I were having a serious conversation about going to the courthouse and eloping. I mean the food, the venue, the flowers, dresses! God, don't get me started about bridesmaid dresses. It is a nightmare trying to get everyone together for the fittings and stuff. Then everyone has an opinion about the dresses: color, style, even the shoes to wear with it! Ugh! Sorry, I'm ranting but wedding has been my life for the whole summer."

Evelyn wanted to relate but couldn't. She just hadn't spent much time around weddings. Kitty loved weddings and had lots of ideas. Together they flicked through the magazines, laughing at ugly bridesmaid dresses and gawking at several thousand dollar gowns with impractical amounts of glitter. But other than that, she didn't really know all that much about weddings or wedding planning. She honestly hadn't thought about her own wedding. One needed to have a serious partner before seriously thinking about her wedding and that step was probably the most difficult one. She certainly failed at it.

"Do you want to see the dress?" smiled Penelope. She was already hurrying to the bedroom to pull it out, pretty much regardless of if Evelyn said yes or no. Her excitement was obvious. It took a while for Penelope to change into the gown. It wasn't until she stepped out of the master bathroom that Evelyn realized what took so long.

Penelope wore a very large, very beautiful, pure white wedding dress. The full length skirt was stuffed with layers of puffy petticoats. There was lace and beads all over the skirt so it shimmered as she moved. It had an illusion top, sheer material and clusters of sequins and lace all the way up to the neckline and continued down to long sleeves. The beautiful bride spun in the bedroom mirror so Evelyn could admire the gown from all angles.

"It's certainly impressive," said Evelyn as Penelope turned around in a full circle so she could see the dress from all angles, "It's really… sparkly."

"I wanted something a bit simpler," admitted Penelope, "But Mom insisted on something big and fluffy. I wasn't really interested but then I tried this on and… it just worked. It was the perfect dress!"

Evelyn was wondering if the definition of 'perfect' had changed since she last looked it up. Granted, it was pretty even if Evelyn could never see herself wearing something like that. There was too much fluff and bedazzling for her tastes. But Penelope looked like a fairy tale princess, even without hair and makeup done. She pulled out the veil for Evelyn to see.

It was a long cathedral veil, folded neatly in the box and surrounded with pale pink tissue paper. It was made of lace and more of the same, shiny glass beads on the dress. She didn't take it out of the box, but it was still very pretty.

"Everything else is pretty simple," explained Penelope, "But I wanted the dress and the veil to be nice."

"So where are you going to hold the ceremony?"

"It's gonna be at Josh's church with his pastor. They've known each other for ages. And that's fine with me. I like them. And to save money we are going to hold the reception in the church rec hall. I know it's not super romantic or anything but the price is right."

"Where are you honeymooning?"

"Oh," she shrugged, "Neither of us have a lot of money for a honeymoon. We decided we would rather save it and put a down payment for a house. So, we're just going to spend a long weekend in the city."

"You'll enjoy yourself."

Penelope itched her neck. The lace on the illusion top was clearly causing her problems and irritating the delicate skin on her neck. "I'll tell you what I'll be enjoying. I'll be enjoying some of the gifts the cousins have given me at the bachelorette party."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. His sisters are a bit crazy. I got all sorts of panties and condoms and things that I don't actually know what to do with," she shrugged, "But, you know, they're all married. I'm assuming they're giving good advice about the wedding night stuff."

"Have you ever… you know?" asked Evelyn. It was prying, but she was curious. Maybe some part of her was looking for advice. Maybe part of her was just being a bit too inquisitive for her own good.

Penelope blushed, "No. Uh, not even with Josh. I was actually a little surprised he was okay with moving in together and, you know, sleeping in the same bed. He's kind of old fashioned. So, I really did need the sisters and cousins and stuff giving me all the advice they could because I don't have a clue what I'm doing."

Evelyn would be lying if she said the same. It was part of studying medicine, you had to learn the various functions of the human body and that included reproduction. It was all in a clinical sense, of course. All of her curiosity was out of a genuine desire for medical knowledge. Or mostly a desire for medical knowledge.

"So, uh, when was the bachelorette party?"

"We had it over the summer. His sister, Agatha, arranged it. I would have asked her to invite you but it was kind of a surprise to me too. And I don't know if she knows who you are."

"Yeah, uh, that makes sense," she muttered. "I was busy anyway."

"I thought you were. I didn't hear much from you over the summer."

That made the awful feeling in Evelyn's stomach double in size. She already felt a bit upset about being left out, but now she couldn't really blame her either. It was a sick sort of feeling which sat in her gut, confused and stagnant. Privately, she admonished herself for making this all about her. It was Penelope's wedding and she honestly had no say in the matter. She had no right to feel excluded.

Except she totally did.

"Hey!" said Josh as he walked in the front door, "Penelope? Where are you?"

"Josh! Don't come in the bedroom! I'm in my dress!"

"What dress? The dress?"

"Yes, the dress. I'm showing Evelyn."

"Alright, alright," he closed the door, "I'm not disturbing anything. I want to be surprised."

And indeed he was surprised on the wedding day. It was actually a very beautiful moment. Evelyn sat toward the middle back of the church and watched the proceedings. Actually she was beginning to itch a bit because the drugstore pantyhose she picked up the night before didn't quite fit properly, rode up in the back, and rubbed so her skin started to turn pink. On top of it all, the ceremony seemed to last about a year. Since when did weddings take so long? Why did weddings take so long?

At least it served as a nice opportunity to meet some of her friend's family as she went down the reception line once . Josh's mother, Dolores, was a large African-American woman. She was exceptionally elegant with a pretty pink and blue patterned dress and matching high heels. She wore a pearl necklace, bracelets, and earrings. To top it all off, she had on a straw hat filled with colorful ribbons on top her short, tightly curled hair. Her makeup was impeccable, almost professional. In the reception line, she hugged Penelope warmly, almost engulfing her. The petite bride was easily a third of her size, even in the voluminous dress.

His father, Abe, was a taller, thinner man with slightly lighter skin than his wife. He had salt and pepper hair and a matching beard which was trimmed and neat. He had a wide smile and a strange, almost jig-like, walk. Both his parents spoke loud, their voices booming across the hall and laughter filling the room up to the rafters.

Josh had four older sisters, all of whom were married and all of them had a batch of children of their own. The children ranged in age from ten years old to two months old. The sheer amount of children running around the reception hall was enough to make Evelyn feel a bit tired just watching them. Exhausted mothers threw back the contents of their champagne flutes and then went to chase after the kids. In that moment, Evelyn began to seriously reconsider any thoughts she may have had regarding having kids of her own someday.

Penelope's family, in contrast, was smaller. She explained that many of them were still back over in Asia and making the trip across the ocean was not practical. They still sent cards and gifts, wrapped in simple brown paper and tied with red and gold ribbons. Her mother, Sandra, who was even shorter than Penelope, wore a pink traditional dress. Her nails were manicured and her silky hair was pulled up into a tight bun and fastened with a pin made of rosewood. Her father, Michael, had a severe face but on the day of his daughter's wedding he was smiling and happy. He wore a pressed suit and a red tie.

Evelyn finally had the chance to meet Penelope's older sister, Linda, and her daughter, Gina. Even though Gina was only twelve, she looked very much like her aunt with the same round face and a matching dimpled smile which showed off their round cheeks. Apparently Gina could walk up walls due to very tiny, almost microscopic, barbed hairs on her body. You would never know by looking at her.

"Penelope told me you wrote the recommendation for her to attend Xavier's school," said Linda in lightly accented English, grasping Evelyn's hands between hers, "I can't tell you how grateful I am for all your help."

"I'm happy to help. I know how it feels to be… different."

They turned to look over a Gina, who was playing with two of Josh's nieces who were about her age. She was smiling, happy as they threw a balloon up in the air and raced around trying to catch it. Laughter bubbled from their lips like a clear spring of water on a sunny day. They danced and played like normal kids.

"She was teased in school," admitted Linda, "People tend to not know what to do around something… someone… who is different. So, it was hard to try to explain to her that the whole school didn't hate her, they just didn't know how to act around her. I don't know how well she understood. But, now that she is at the right school, she can focus on studying and being around people who treat her well."

Evelyn nodded. It was a familiar feeling.

Linda pulled something from her bag and handed her a card, "I know it's not much, but I wanted to give you a little something. Penelope told me you liked coffee."

Evelyn opened the small envelope and inside was a Starbucks card. She smiled, "Thank you. You didn't have to."

"I wanted to," insisted Linda, "It's the least I can do."

Evelyn took the card and tucked the gift into her purse. Linda went off to speak with other family members after a short while, so Evelyn was left alone with a slice of cake and a plastic cup full of sparkling cider.

She couldn't help but feel a bit like an outsider looking in at the party. Evelyn knew Josh and Penelope, but not really. Not personally. Not in the same way as all the aunts, uncles, and the multitude of cousins did. She wasn't even a bridesmaid. Hell, she wasn't even invited to the bachelorette party. It wasn't that she was jealous, it just made her fixate on her lonely feelings.

After the reception, she spent a long time wandering around Baltimore. She didn't want to go back to her cold, dark apartment until she had to. So she spent the evening in a nearby Starbucks. The gift card Linda gave her was burning a hole in her pocket. They were playing music she liked: Counting Crows and Diana Krall. It was the perfect pairing as rain clouds started to gather above the shop and fat little raindrops plopped against the sidewalk. She indulged in a pumpkin spice latte and watched the rain pick up. She would have been content to sit there all night but eventually the store would close and she would have to choice but to head home.

Her phone rang. The number was familiar and one she had not seen in quite a while. Excitedly, she opened her phone and heard Kitty's voice on the other end of the line.

"Evey! I'm going to be back in town on Wednesday!"

"Really?" She perked up.

"Yeah! Oh my God, I can't wait to tell you about England it was amazing!

A smile broke across her face, "Can you come down to Baltimore to hang out?"

"Sure! When are you free?"

Evelyn couldn't stop her smile from overtaking the gloomy mood. "Anytime."