Author's Note: Sorry about the whole "refusing to update for a while" thing. My muse was on vacation apparently. But here's my newest chapter!!

Mimi's thoughts shifted as she was brought to another scene. In it, she was exiting her apartment, but it wasn't the one she expected. This must have been the early days in her current apartment; she had moved to a new place around her eighteenth birthday. At that time, she was still roommate-less, but had heard about a bunch of people, mostly aspiring artists of some sort, living in the apartment below hers.

Her two gossipy sorority-girl neighbors were always giggly about how cute one of the guys in that apartment was. "It is such a shame that he has a girlfriend," they often said, "I wish she would just die!" They had always said this jokingly (followed by extreme giggling, of course), but Mimi winced as she remembered these words. Their wish had come true. Roger's former girlfriend, April, had, in fact, killed herself not so long ago. Now she, Mimi, was Roger's girlfriend. Was she in the process of meeting the same fate?

Mimi redirected her thoughts to what was being sown in the tunnel. It was her first encounter with one of these talked about people from the floor below her. She was leaving for work, and as she was exiting the apartment building, she nearly collided with someone who was entering at the same time. They apologized and walked past each other, but then, both stopped in their tracks. Mimi remembered feeling totally taken aback by this stranger. They turned and stared at each other.

"Hi," the stranger said, "I'm Benny." "Mimi," she said, shaking his hand. "I just came home to change," Benny told her. "I'm going out later…I don't mean to be forward, but, uh, do you maybe wanna come?" "I'd love to," Mimi said, "but I was just heading out--I have to work." "Really?" Benny inquired, obviously thinking it strange that Mimi was heading out for work when most people were coming home, "Where do you work?" "Oh, I dance at the Cat Scratch Club…for now." Mimi added the "for now" upon realizing that dancing at a night club hardly sounded like a respectable career, though it was practically full-time, as she was now working six nights a week and helping clean up at the club some days for extra money.

Benny continued, "Well, maybe I'll stop by there and we can go somewhere later." "Yeah, okay," Mimi replied calmly, though she was totally thrilled on the inside.

Benny did come to see Mimi that night, and afterwards, they had gone out to eat. Mimi seemed to be going to restaurants with everyone whom she came across in her life. If Mimi went out to eat with someone, it was sort of a sign that she thought they were worthwhile.

In time, she grew to be pretty serious about Benny. For whatever reason, she was determined to make this relationship work. Most of her boyfriends only stayed around for a couple of months. But Mimi really like Benny, so she let the tings that annoyed her about him go. Besides being slightly shallow and kind of power-hungry, he seemed like a good guy.

They had ultimately stayed together for about a year. Eleven months into the relationship, however, there was a somewhat unexpected twist. Benny proposed. Mimi was shocked. She was still so young, but she loved Benny (or so she thought) and accepted.

Before wedding plans were even beginning to be made, the relationship/engagement ended when Mimi had just turned nineteen, and it ended on rather bad terms. Mimi gave back the ring. She now wondered if that same ring was on the finger of Benny's wife. No, she guessed, Alison Grey would probably desire (and only settle for) a much more ornate piece of jewelry.

Before she knew it, Mimi was being rushed through the tunnel again. She unsure of exactly what would be shown next, but she guessed that her break-up with Benny would be the theme.