[Mary Anne] [10 years]

Title: Start Anew

Author: Sweet Piglet

AN the First: Hello, all! Disneyland was wonderful. It really gave me a chance to relax. If anyone wants to know, I ate lunch at Club 33, which is this really high-class joint inside the park. Email me if you want to know more about it.

Enough of the commercial break. Time for Answers from Sweet Piglet. becca, thank you very much for your description of your friend. It is very nice of you to dedicate your cameo to her. It will help me very much. SUNNYEXISTENCE, I have no problems with you not guessing. Especially since you are the HONORED REVIEWER OF THE CHAPTER!!!!!! Woo-hoo! You were chosen because you reviewed every single chapter. Katerina, thank you for saying so. I wanted to give you all a little something before I left for DL, so I had to rush it a little. That's why it is so short compared to the others. Also, I'm sorry to hear that you had trouble posting. FanFiction.Net really ought to do something about the review system. It says that I've only 27 reviews, when in actuality I have 28. Not that I'm counting, or anything. . . teacherchez, I'm glad you like it, and here's the more. Banana_Split, thank you. I wanted Kristy to have a confrontation with Mary Anne on her own turf (Astro?) so that she wouldn't feel overly threatened, which is how they ended up at Kristy's house. And thanks for agreeing to review again. JeN, yes, I try to be unique in everything I love, which is why I was the only one in orchestra with a practice buddy at the scroll of her violin. CNJ, as for the others' reaction, here it is! greer, believe me. I know how weird it must seem to have a lot of them stay in Stoneybrook and vicinity. But I thought that a lot of them would want to stay near their families, you know? And when it comes to marrying people from middle school, I did it for one reason. I liked the couples. I thought that Sam and Stacey were cute together, and same for Mal and Ben and Jessi and Quint. Plus, I don't like to make up characters. I like to use the ones AMM gave us and twist them around for my own twisted amusement. And, finally, to Shannon, thatnk you. I fully intend to go on.

This chapter is dedicated to The Rogues, a Celtic band from Florida, merely because they are really, really, really, really, REALLY cute. It is dedicated to them because they are cute. They are not a band because they are cute. Just wanted to clear that up.

Now on with the show!

Back at the house, Mary Anne was busy packing what was left to take with her to Columbia. Her favorite books she had left to the last day, along with her scripts, and that unfinished novel she kept meaning to pick up and scribble in.

Mary Anne knew what dorm she would be in, but not who her roommate was going to be. She had her fingers crossed that the two of them would get along.

She knew that people thought she had changed, that she wasn't easy going, that she had grown hard, and was too harsh on life.

Mary Anne was okay with that. After all, she figured, it had to be better than her old self, the one who let others walk over her, who never took control. She liked the new Mary Anne a whole heckuva lot better.

There were only a few things left in the room that she was taking with her. For kicks, she planned on bringing along the plush hippo that Alex had won for her in Sea City, when she went with Stacey and the Pikes. She'd been thirteen then.

No, not thirteen. She was twelve. God, had she ever been twelve? It didn't seem like it. She had to have been though. She was twelve when Kristy started the BSC, twelve when she met Dawn, twelve when she met Logan. She was thirteen when Kristy disbanded the BSC and restarted it, thirteen when Dawn's mom and Mary Anne's dad got married, thirteen when Dawn moved to California, then back to Stoneybrook, the back to California, thirteen when she and Logan broke up, got back together, and broke up again.

But she wasn't thirteen anymore. She was eighteen, a high school graduate, about to give birth, about to graduate high, about to start at Columbia. About to start the rest of her life, however cliché that sounded.

"Knock, knock," Dawn said, snapping Mary Anne from her thoughts.

"Oh. Hey," Mary Anne replied.

"Do you need help with anything?" Dawn asked, clearly meaning something more important that packing up.

"Nah. I'll be okay. With everything."

"Are you sure? You looked pretty upset when you came out of Kristy's house."

"Well, I was. And I still am. Dawn, how could she do this to me? This is, like, the hardest decision that I will ever have to make in my entire life, and she thinks that I'm doing it for fun!"

"Mary Anne, Kristy is going through some hard times, just like you. Only, unlike you, she doesn't know how to deal. I mean, her father's new wife just had a new baby, and Patrick is telling Kristy all about little Tony, and how wonderful children are, like he had never raised a baby before, and for once Kristy can't control her anger that her dad walked out on her, her mother, and her three brothers."

"That is no excuse!"

"You're right. She had no right to take out her anger on you. That is why I suggested she start seeing Dr. Reese."

"You told her she should see a therapist?" Mary Anne was flabbergasted. Kristy thought herself to be the most stable individual on the planet. "How did she take it?"

"If you take into account her throwing Emily's wiffle ball and plastic bat in the general area around my head, very poorly."

"Well, she's not the only one who disapproves of me. Everyone else is acting like I've managed to break every major sin in one go."

"Abby doesn't."

"No. No, she doesn't. It's because of her dad."

"Her dad?"

"Yeah. She told me that it wouldn't have been right for me to take on the challenge of raising a baby by myself. That if something would happen to me, she would have no daddy to take her in. And she was right."

"Yep. But I still can't believe everyone else turned their backs on you."

"Well, if they want to play 'Let's Shun Mary Anne,' they're welcome to do so. I managed quite nicely without them."

"I'll say. Man, I can't believe how popular you became after getting pregnant. You are getting calls every three seconds."

"It isn't popularity, Dawn, it is curiosity. Some of those girls are only going to college to get their M.R.S., with a minor in mothering. I was Pregnancy 101. 'Mary Anne, what does it feel like when the baby kicks?' 'What are the pros and cons of not taking any pain medication during labor, do you know?' 'Is it better to get, like, five months clothes, and nine months clothes, so you get your money out of them?' I should have charged tuition."

"What about the guys?"

"Well, they were nice enough. The basketball team, especially, took good care of me. Did you know that RJ made them carry my stuff when I started to show? They worked out a system. One would wait at my locker before school, escort me to class, then escort me back to my locker, where I would be picked up by another basketball player, and the whole thing would start again."

"Why would RJ make them carry your stuff?"

"Because he was afraid that I'd blab who the father was. He was trying to buy my silence."

"Who does he think he is, Danny Santos?"

"Probably. Anyway, like I'd want to suffer the humiliation of having to admit that I slept with. . . him."

Dawn burst out laughing. "Too true. But didn't you say that there were other guys who flocked to you?"

"I wouldn't call it 'flocking,' per se. But yeah, Cary and Alan-"

"Alan Gray?"

"No, Alan Rickman. Yes, Alan Gray. Don't give me that look, Dawn Read Schafer, he grew up. And Pete and Dave and a bunch of others that I can't think of off-hand. Everyone was nice to me. With the blatant exception of my ex-friends."

There was an awkward silence, filling the room, and Dawn had to get out. "Well, if you don't need anymore help packing. . ."

"No, I've got it under control. Thanks, Dawn."

"No prob, sis."

"Oh, and Dawn," Mary Anne said as her stepsister was about step out into the hall.

"Yes?"

"I'm really glad that your school lets out early. I don't know what I would have done about Kristy if you weren't here."

"I'm really glad, too."

Mary Anne sat in the silence of her room, not even noticing that she was still squeezing the big purple hippo.