From March to June, twelve-year-old Olivia's Saturday mornings would be dedicated to softball. Her team may not have won that morning, but the loss didn't matter to Olivia. She had hit a homerun and three of her favorite people were there to watch her: her mom, her uncle, and her girlfriend, Alex. It made Olivia particularly proud to see her two favorite women dressed in her team colors. Alex was wearing a mint green v-neck t-shirt with her long hair back in a ponytail with a mint green scrunchie. Her mom wore the t-shirt that all the moms wore but, never being the kind to wear an oversized t-shirt, she had cut it into a tank top to wear with her leggings. Neither her mom nor Alex knew anything about softball, but her uncle Kyle was there to explain everything to them and, even if Alex didn't understand the game, Olivia didn't mind as long as her cute good luck charm was there to watch her play.

She and Alex had been a couple for two months and, at twelve, two months felt like a serious commitment, especially because Alex was now allowed to come over on weekends. There wasn't even the slightest chance that she'd be allowed in Olivia's room with the door closed, but Olivia didn't care where they were as long as she was allowed to hold Alex's hand.

They decided to watch a movie on the couch after the game while Olivia's mom and uncle were having a glass of wine in the kitchen. Olivia always enjoyed when her uncle visited and she'd overhear the casual back and forth between them－the kind that happened between siblings－the casual teasing, sharing stories, making each other laugh. It was what Olivia sometimes longed to have even if she knew it were impossible.

"I wish I had a brother," she told Alex.

Alex pressed pause on the remote so she could focus on Olivia without any distractions. "No, you don't," she told her, her eyes wide. "Little brothers are annoying. I'll give you mine for the weekend and you'll be so glad you're an only child."

"Not even," Olivia insisted. "Your little brother Logan is fun. Remember when me and him built a LEGO T-Rex and your parents took us to the batting cages and I taught him how to hit a curveball?"

Alex batted her eyelashes at her. "That's because you like boy things."

"I like you," Olivia said as she started to tickle her. "And you are definitely not a boy thing."

"Olivia!" Alex squealed loudly when Olivia continued to tickle her.

"Girls?" they heard Serena call out from the kitchen. "What are you doing in there?"

"Nothing," Alex and Olivia responded in unison, although they knew their time alone was now over. She quickly pressed play on the remote and sat a comfortable distance away from Alex.

Her uncle Kyle was the first to enter the living room followed by her mom, both with a full wine glass in hand. "Your mom says we have to come cramp your style, as if she didn't have her first girlfriend when she was twelve or thirteen," her uncle said to her. He sat down on an accent chair on one side of the couch while her mom sat down on the other. "What are we watching?"

"The Blair Witch Project," Alex responded. "I've always wanted to see it, but my mom has my Netflix profile set to a Kids' profile. I never get to watch anything fun. I'm twelve now. I should be able to watch whatever I want."

"Maybe not whatever you want," Serena told her. "But I'm sure she'll let you watch more things little by little. Middle school sleepovers are when most girls start watching horror movies."

"I remember the first time Serena watched this movie with her friends," Kyle began. "She had a sleepover for her 13th birthday and there were probably ten girls over. My sister thought she was so cool because she was the only one who wasn't scared. What she didn't tell them was that she had watched this movie the night before to prepare herself so she wouldn't be scared in front of her friends. There's this scene toward the end where there's a lot of screaming and that's when I decided to mess with the circuit breaker and turn all the lights off in the house. Serena ran to our parents' room, screaming 'Daddy!' at the top of her lungs. Just like that, her seventh grade reputation was ruined."

Olivia was laughing hysterically, but Alex wasn't so amused. "That sounds like something my little brother would do. Why are boys such jerks?"

Serena gently swirled her wine in the glass before taking a sip. "Boys are jerks until you humble them."

"Had I known what my sister was capable of, I wouldn't have spent the first 18 years of my life messing with her and it'd be in your brother's best interest for him not to mess with you either," Kyle responded. "Serena and I are best friends now, but when we were kids, I messed with her all the time and she never did anything about it. Little did I know she wasn't one for petty revenge. My sister is calculated and cunning and she got me back in the best way."

"How?" Alex asked, wide-eyed. "Is it something I can do, too?"

"Maybe in a few years," Serena responded. "It was the first time frat boys proved themselves useful. Out of every college in America, he decided to go to the same school I did and join my sorority's brother fraternity."

"Had I known my sister had actual henchmen, I wouldn't have," Kyle chuckled. "This was 2007, so you know those douchey looking frat boys in teen movies back then with the gelled hair and Abercrombie shirts with the popped collars? That's exactly what they looked like. They had these rich boy names like Kemper, Bennett, and Bradford, and my sister had all of them wrapped around her finger. They made my life a living hell when I started pledging just because she told them to and when I begged her to call this whole thing off, she said, in the most innocent tone of voice, 'My darling baby brother, this is only the beginning. You still have eight weeks left.' After that, I never messed with Serena again. To this day, I won't even eat the last slice of pizza until I make sure Serena doesn't want it. There was this other guy, Emerson, who was her best friend at the time－"

"I have to call my girlfriend," Serena interrupted. "Excuse me." She quickly got up to leave and Kyle hurried after her.

"Ren, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. Ren?"

Although she wanted to check on her mom, she knew whatever her mom was upset about was probably something she had no business asking about, so she decided to stay with Alex. "Everything is okay," Alex said as she rested her head on Olivia's shoulder. "My brother and I fight all the time and everything is okay after our parents make us talk about it."

"Maybe you're right." Olivia pressed play on the remote and the two of them watched the movie until the pizza arrived. With free reign to order whatever she wanted, Olivia got two large pizzas, wings, cheesy bread, and pasta. It took both her and Alex to carry it to the table, but Olivia made sure to carry the pizzas because they were the heaviest items and Olivia thought it would show Alex how strong she was.

"I'll be right back," she told Alex once everything was neatly placed on the kitchen table. "Mom! Uncle Kyle! The pizza is here!"

She pressed her ear to the door and kept as quiet as she could so she could hear them talking.

"How could you even bring him up in front of Olivia?" she heard her mom ask. "Or bring him up in front of me, for that matter? You'll never understand what he did to me...what he still does to me every time I see him on social media with his wife and kids. He ruined my life when he raped me and it didn't phase him. I don't follow him. I don't search for his name. I blocked him, but there's no getting away from him in our social circle when everyone knows everyone. I have these constant reminders of the worst night of my life. Even Olivia…I just thought...how could I love someone that was conceived by a monster?"

She never even wanted me. She still doesn't want me. The person I love most in the world doesn't even love me back. She's just been saying it all these years because she's had to. Olivia swallowed hard to prevent herself from crying. With Alex waiting for her in the kitchen, she wanted to remain calm and collected. She didn't cry when she saw her. Instead, she hugged Alex longer than she ever had before and found comfort in her arms since she knew she couldn't hug her mommy anymore.

Just as she had been taught to do by her own mother, Serena touched up her makeup and pretended as if nothing had happened. It was all a misunderstanding her mother had told her when she was twenty-one. 'What did you expect, Serena? You were in his room and you kissed him.' It was the same thing his mother and father had told her, too. 'How was my son supposed to know when you were giving him every signal that you wanted him to.' Her father had told her not to report it; they'd settle this between the two families. Mr. Benson was a producer and with a premier coming up, he didn't want an investigation getting in the way and ruining his career. Social media was in its infancy in 2008, but Emerson and his parents had found a way to use it against her.

That night, once Alex and Kyle went home and Olivia was fast asleep, she started to reflect on what had gotten her to that point in her life. It happened at a beach-themed party that Emerson's frat was hosting. She was in a bikini top and denim shorts as were the rest of the girls and she had taken a few shots as had everyone else at the party, but the pictures posted on Facebook the next day portrayed a girl that had gotten completely wasted and was hanging on the entire executive board of the fraternity. For the past two years they had been her friends and she had several pictures with them, but because of what she was wearing and because these were some of the first to be posted on social media, an entirely different narrative was created, one that even her own parents believed.

Serena knew the statistics on rape that were told to her and every other student during freshman orientation, but she had lived a sheltered life before college and she had always imagined that rapists were scary-looking men that attacked girls in the middle of the night when they walked alone on quiet streets. She never could have fathomed that her rapist would be her best friend.

With three weeks left of her junior year, Serena was already looking forward to her final year of college. She had run for president of her sorority and found out she won just hours before the party began. Serena wasn't a binge drinker by any means, but she drank more than usual that night to celebrate her victory. She went up to Emerson's room just as she did every time she visited the frat house, but unlike every other night, she kissed him. Kissing led to something a little further that she consented to, but when she said she didn't want to have sex and wanted to take things slow if they were going to go from best friends to something more, he took that choice away from her. The alcohol she had consumed earlier had left her in an in between stage where she was lucid enough to know what was going on but too drunk to fight him off of her. To make matters worse for her, he held her afterward and suggested she stay the night because, as he said, 'you never know what kind of maniacs are out there in the middle of the night.'

...but she didn't stay. She figured whoever was out there probably wasn't as bad as who was in that frat house. Not knowing what else to do when she got home, she immediately got in the shower to wash off his scent and anything else of his that was left on her. She saw the bruises on her body from when he held her down and, for the first time, it felt real for her. It wasn't a bad dream or some drunken hallucination. Her rapist wasn't the boogeyman hiding in the shadows; he was one of the people she loved most in the world.

Kyle had beat him within an inch of his life once he found out what had happened and it was another thing that both families swept under the rug to protect their image. It'll all go away during summer break, Serena told herself. I'm going to come back here and I'm going to be president of Phi Delt and be who I used to be－who I still am; however, a positive pregnancy test that summer made her come to the realization that her life would never be the same. Her parents and her friends all told her to 'get rid of that thing' and she had every intention of getting an abortion until she felt her baby kick. She knew her life would never be the same and she also knew it probably wasn't the right approach to take, but Serena wanted to right the wrongs of her own mother and she felt as if this baby would give her that opportunity.

"Mommy," she heard her now twelve-year-old daughter sobbing in the doorway of her bedroom that night, bringing her out of her thought process.

Serena lifted up her comforter and patted the bed with her hand so her daughter could join her. "Come here, Ollie."

Once she lied down, she felt Olivia cling to her tighter than ever before. "Mom, I heard something you told Uncle Kyle and I wanna know if it's true or maybe you're gonna lie to me again. I don't know. If you want, I can leave. We can call social services tomorrow and－"

"Ollie," Serena interrupted, completely taken aback. "Ollie, what are you talking about? I never want you to leave me." One of Serena's worst nightmares had just come true. She was going to have to tell her and she had no idea how.

"I know you were raped," Olivia blurted out. "I know you never wanted me and my dad was some monster who hurt you. Do I remind you of him? Why did you even keep me? No mom would want a daughter like me. I learned that in some places abortion is only legal if the pregnancy is because of rape. It's okay everywhere to abort babies like me. I'm one of those kids that's...less than. I'm the kind that it's okay to get rid of."

Serena wiped her daughter's tears away and held her close. She still had the slightest hint of the cologne that she wore whenever she wanted to impress Alex, but the LEGO movie PJ shirt and PJ pants she was wearing made Serena feel like she was still her little girl despite how much she was growing up. "Ollie…" she hesitated to give herself more time to think. "Every woman has the right to choose what she does with her own body and I would never judge another woman for the choices she's made regarding abortion just as I'd like to think no other woman would judge me. With that being said, I had every option in the world available to me and out of all those options, I knew the best choice for me was to keep you and I've never regretted that."

"Do you promise?"

"Hold up your pinky," Serena told her. Olivia held up her pinky next to Serena's. They were both wearing heart-shaped pinky rings that Serena had bought a year earlier. "Remember what I said when I got us these matching rings that time we went on our mother/daughter adventure? I pinky promise to always love you and always be there for you. No matter what happens in life or how far away you may go for college or for your career, I'll always be in your heart and you'll always be in mine. I know things weren't easy for us at first and I couldn't be there for you as much as I wanted to when you were little and I might have made a few mistakes, but there was not a single moment in your entire life that I didn't love you."

"I don't remind you of him when you look at me?"

"No, Ollie, nothing about you reminds me of him. Yes, that had crossed my mind when I was pregnant, but that never happened once you were born," Serena promised her. "You don't even look anything like him. You look like your uncle Kyle but never tell him that because you're beautiful and I don't want him thinking he's attractive and getting all arrogant about it."

"Mom," Olivia laughed.

Olivia's laughter was and always would be Serena's favorite sound. Her daughter had been conceived in a violent act, but everything about her was so innocent. The twelve years since she had given birth to her had been the best years of her life. Twelve years of cuddles, laughter, and being able to love someone so unconditionally. She'd do anything for Olivia and she had already done more than her daughter would ever know. There were custody battles between her and Emerson when Olivia was a baby and he was still trying to fight Serena for the chance to be a part of Olivia's life. It all happened out of court now that he had a wife and kids, but she and Kyle and the rest of the Benson family were going to do all they could to keep him away from Olivia.

"Ollie, I want you to listen to me, okay?"

"Okay," Olivia nodded.

"You are, have been, and forever will be the best thing that has ever happened to me. He was there when you were conceived but he didn't create you. It was my body that created you for nine months, not his. You are nothing like him, Ollie. You are the sweetest girl and being your mom has been the greatest experience and greatest honor of my entire life."

"Mom?"

"Yes, Olliegator?"

"I don't think you made any mistakes. I think you're the best mom in the world. My friends think so, too. Everyone says you're the cool mom." Olivia gave her a kiss on the cheek. "And, Mom?"

"Yes, Ollie Koalie?" Serena playfully tapped her daughter's nose.

"Why do you sleep in Jamie's shirt instead of the pretty pajamas you used to wear?"

It was yet another question that Serena wasn't prepared for. "Jamie is my girlfriend now and she and I love each other very much and sometimes, when we aren't together, I really miss her. If I sleep in her shirt, it's like she's here with me."

"I miss Alex sometimes, too," Olivia responded. "Do you think she'd like it if I gave her a shirt to wear when she misses me?"

"I think she'd like that very much," Serena told her even if she wasn't ready for her little girl to be that serious about her girlfriend. "I have an idea. What about if you and I have a sleepover night?"

"Sleepover night!" Olivia said excitedly. "I'll make the popcorn and pick a movie for us to watch. Can we watch another scary movie?"

"Anything you want," Serena smiled at her.

Sleepover night was Olivia's favorite mother/daughter tradition and, even if she was tired, Serena was willing to do whatever she could to make her daughter feel loved.

When her college-aged self imagined life in her thirties, she imagined she'd be a famous writer living in London or Paris and she'd spend all of her free time travelling the world and treating life like some grand adventure. Motherhood had never even crossed her mind because she felt it would only slow her down. Serena Benson was now just a couple of weeks shy of her 34th birthday and, although her life had turned out nothing like she had planned, the twelve-year-old girl eating handfuls of popcorn on the couch next to her－her daughter, her everything－was the reason why it had turned out better than she could ever imagine.