As we come inside Peri's condo, Ruby, Rose, Greg, and I cannot help but be fascinated by how surprisingly immaculate Peri seems to have kept the place. Garnet, however, has been asleep this whole time; she has no idea how beautiful Peri's place is.

"Welcome to Casa Peri!" Peri exclaims enthusiastically. "This is where you will find all sort of home movies, fanfiction, and other things I happen to be interested in!"

"Wow, that sounds cool, Peri," Rose says. "Can we read some of these fanfics while we're here?"

"Only a few," Peri replies. "The rest are off-limits."

"Why? What's off-limits about them?"

Peri looks around as if anybody else might be near you and answers, sotto voce, "They're erotic fanfics."
"Ooh, erotic fanfics," Ruby chimes in.

Peri smiles proudly. "Yep, those kind. I've written erotic fanfics about Kirk and Spock, Xena and Gabrielle, Picard and Data, Goku and Vegeta, and even about Harry Potter and Ron Weasley."

"Wow, those sound like quite the fanfics there."

"Oh yeah. You want me to read one of them to you?"

I lift my hand up while holding Garnet in my other arm. "Maybe another time. Besides, there's a baby here."

"Oh well, your loss. You want me to show you one of my home movies?"

I smile and answer, "Sure."

"Oh, thank God! I finally have an audience!" Peri gestures us to follow her to another room. "You're about to see the works of the next Stanley Kubrick!"


It's now six in the evening, and Ruby, Rose, Greg, Garnet, and I are all ready to go back to the beach house.

"Alright, it was nice seeing you again!" I call out to Peri as I follow everyone else back home.

"You too, Sapphire!" Peri calls back out to me. "We should do this again sometime!"

I smile, knowing that I just brightened up a good portion of the day for our old friend. Once back inside the beach house, we find Pearl sitting at the table by herself. She's still apprehensive from the incident this afternoon.

"Hey, Pearl..." I speak quietly to her. "We're back."

Pearl does not say anything back.

"Hey, Pearl," Ruby starts to speak. "Where's Amy?"

"I asked her to do errands," Pearl finally replies quietly. "I needed some time alone after I broke down."

Now it's Rose's turn to speak. "You scared me there for a second, Pearl. What's wrong?"

Pearl doesn't say anything at first. Then she tilts her head up and cranes it at Greg.

"It's Greg," Pearl finally replies after thirty seconds of silence.

Rose raises a brow in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"Greg is what's wrong."

"What did he do to set you off, though? Why don't you like him? I don't understand."

Pearl just rolls her eyes. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because he's trying to steal you away from me... from us..."

"He's not stealing anything from anybody, Pearl, especially not me. Every single time I've hung out with him, I've done so of my own volition. I love when Greg and I are together, actually."

"Well... well..." Now Pearl is fumbling with her words. "If you love him so much, why don't you just abandon us and go live with him, huh?!"

That really does it for Rose. She tries her best to compose herself and she thinks over her words carefully.

"Look, Pearl, I get it," Rose begins. "We've had a special relationship for a long time. It's that kind of relationship that no one can ever forget. However, what you just said just stung me so badly that I can't even begin to tell you how much it hurt. How can you just say that I'll abandon you just to hang out with Greg? How can you just think that every new person I want to... sow my oats with is going to take me away from you? Don't forget, you were the one I had to turn to when I was having problems with Coral. Why can't you just be happy that I'm making new friends?"

"Rose, you don't understand..." Pearl starts to speak before Rose cuts her off.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I don't understand everything there is to know about anxiety, but that doesn't mean you have to use it to hold people back. That doesn't mean you have to use it to control me, Pearl..." She stops and sits down next to Pearl. "I'm sorry, Pearl. I've been trying to understand. I really have. It's just... I don't think this relationship can work, Pearl."

Pearl is taken aback by this. "What? What are you saying?"

"I think it's over, Pearl," Rose replies softly. "But that doesn't mean we can't still be friends, right?"

Pearl sighs heavily. "Of course not. I'll always cherish our time together as girlfriends." Pearl gives a little smile.

Rose smiles back. "Me too."

Jeez, that actually turned out better than I was expecting. I can't be certain if their platonic relationship will ever be the same after that, but there is one thing I can be certain about. Ruby and I will not be heading down that road for a long time.