Months passed since Frankie and I had told her parents that we were having a baby. In that time, Newt and Jewell had gotten in contact with a family who would adopt our baby. To my surprise, however, the family wanting to adopt was none other than Mr. Richardson and Ms. Aguirre (who was now the new Mrs. Richardson, having married him a few months after the murder-suicide took place). When we heard from the soon-to-be-adoptive parents last, Mr. Richardson's kids seemed pretty thrilled at the thought of having a new sibling around the house. While Frankie and I didn't know Mr. Richardson all that well, he seemed like a pretty nice guy. He even sent condolence flowers to us the week of the murder-suicide.

At school, Frankie and I heard people talk all around us. By this time, it was starting to become obvious that Frankie was pregnant. The doctor had told us at the last appointment that she was at twenty-one weeks and that we were expecting a girl. First Amy, and now this kid. What was it with me siring girls? I thought it was weird, but it honestly didn't matter. I would've loved that baby regardless. At lunch, Frankie and I would often hang out by the bleachers at the football field and eat our lunches Newt and Jewell had packed for us. Nothing too spectacular tended to happen around that time, but one day, we could hear Tiffany's voice from underneath us.

"Hey," Frankie called out to me in a hushed whisper. "What's Tiffany doing underneath us?"

"I don't know," I replied, also in a hushed whisper. "You wanna check it out?"

Frankie shrugged. "Guess I don't see why not."

Without skipping a beat, we put away our half-eaten lunches and rushed down to underneath the bleachers. To our shock, Tiffany was hanging out with not just the school bad boy Ralph, but also a bunch of other self-proclaimed bad kids. You could smell marijuana and whiskey on their clothes.

"Whoa!" Frankie's nose wrinkled at the smell of the marijuana. "What are you doing hanging around those losers, Tiffany?"

"What does it look like, you fucking slut?" Tiffany blew smoke in our faces. "I'm just spending time with my boyfriend and our friends."

"Wait, what about Elena?" I asked, confused. "What's she got to say about this?"

"Oh, we don't hang out anymore," Tiffany nonchalantly replied. "She kept insisting that Ralph was bad for me and tried to break us up. I couldn't listen to her nag at me anymore. I already get enough of that at home. So I dumped her."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. You'd do the same if your friend kept trying to break you and your boyfriend up."

I looked at my old middle school bully with a cocked head, concerned. "Uh, no, I wouldn't. I have no idea why you'd even assume that."

"Alright, suit yourself." She then scowled at us. "Now get lost. We're trying to have a good time here."

So Frankie and I left to finish our lunches somewhere else. I could've sworn I also saw Tiffany flip the bird at us while we were heading back inside the school.

A few nights later, Frankie and I were studying up for an exam in Environmental Science (a class that I wasn't doing so well in) when we heard a knock at the front door. We got up from my bed and went to see who it was. To our surprise, it was Tiffany. She was intoxicated to the point where she was stumbling and needed to lean on the door-frame for support. That familiar smell of marijuana and whiskey hit our noses as we stood in front of her. We could tell just by looking at her that this wasn't the girl who'd tormented us back in middle school. This was, more or less, an empty shell of a person (or at least, she was getting there).

Tiffany proceeded to take a good look around her. "Hey, this isn't my house..."

At that moment, just as Tiffany was about to turn around and stumble away, Newt and Jewell suddenly came onto the scene and pulled her inside.

"Why did you come here?" Jewell asked, clearly irritated by the thought of having to get out of bed so soon.

"I thought this was my house," Tiffany slurred.

"What? No, your house is fifteen miles that way." Newt was pointing to her left as he said this. "Stay here. Jewell and I are going to call your house and have them pick you up as soon as possible."

Tiffany just laughed hysterically. "Good luck with that, Mrs. McBride! Dad and Holly went off on a week-long vacation to Vegas, and they left Holly's grody old parents in charge of me and the kids. Speaking of, the old farts are probably snoring like hell right about now, so they're probably not gonna answer the phone."

"Well, we'll see about that, won't we?" Jewell proceeded to call the Richardson house, only to get no response. She let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, you're drunk, high, and got no place to go. Guess you'll have to stay here for the night. We have a guest bedroom for you to use. It used to be our oldest son Glen's room. Why don't you go sleep it off and try not to puke all over our carpet, okay?"

"No promises..."

With that, Tiffany stumbled off towards the door of the guest bedroom. After opening it slightly, she collapsed onto the floor and promptly went to sleep. Frankie and I weren't sure what to do with her at this point. I mean, this was the girl who'd bullied us back in middle school, and she was drunk and high and she'd just fallen asleep with her body halfway into the guest room. We couldn't help but feel sorry for her. We knew that we needed to help her somehow, but would she want that help?