Author's Note: Hey there. School just started for me, so I apologize for any lack in updating that may occur. It's nice to see my friends after being out of class for so long though! Enjoy the chapter.

This chapter is dedicated to my new host Mom Magda, who has taken me in and made me feel like I have been loved and saved me from a big mistake I almost made. A mother, who lost 3 children to miscarrage, has stayed strong in her faith and for her family.

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I sighed and opened a third pattern book entitled 'Proms, Weddings, amd other occasions: Get the look!'. I was with Bulma, Maron and Rini at the craft store looking at prom dress patterns. Bulma scoffed. My head lifted up.

"Who would wear this?" She asked pointing to a purple, long sleeved dress. The model had long blonde hair and a grimace on her face. Even an idiot could tell she didn't enjoy displaying her beauty by being put in it.

We all looked silently for a few minutes, occasionally sighing from either boredom or frustration. Maron stopped on a page and poked me. "What about those kimono style dresses? The shorter ones with no sleeves?"

I shrugged. "I like them."

She smiled and wrote the pattern number on her hand. "I think I found my dress." She closed the book triumphantly and walked over to the pattern cabinet. Rini sighed loudly and pulled a bookmark from one of the pages in her book. I smiled at her weakly as if to tell her not to give up. I had assumed that the bookmark she pulled out was marking a kimono style dress.

I closed the book and rubbed my eyes in frustration. I had officially gone through three pattern book and found nothing even remotly interesting. I wanted simplicity. I hesitantly picked up the next book and browsed. I must have been 10 page until the end and about to give up hope on EVER finding a dress, when there it was.

The model was wearing it in gold, which I personally thought was an awful color, but that can always be changed. It had no straps and was lightly figure fitting until the hips where it flaired out gracefully and brushed the floor. I close my eyes and imgined myself walking into the ballroom with the dress on and I smiled at the result. Cha-ching!

"Whatcha thing guys?" I asked pointed to the picture. Bulma nodded silently and Rini said "Change the color and I'd love it."

I stood up and my knees popped as I walked over to pick up the pattern. As I took it out, I yelled over to Bulma and Rini that I was going over to look at fabrics. They nodded with their heads still buried in their books. I walked over to the formal fabrics section and saw Maron touching various silks.

"I like this one!" Maron said fingering a bright yellow silk.

"Pul-lease." I said, now touching various fabrics myself. Reds, black, browns, whites, and blue were the most predominant of the colors. I sighed again . I felt like I was starting all over again with my dress ideas. Silver was out. I had already worn my silver homecoming dress. I hated the idea of bright colors for some reason. I was looking at the blues when an out of place bolt of fabric caught my eye. It was a deep emerald, almost black until the light hit it right. It was beautiful.

Rini had joined us by now and was looking at a scarlet silk. "Yes?" She asked pointing.

"Yes. Yes?" I said pointed to mine.

"Yes."

Maron held up a navy blue with a wavy line texture to it. "Would it clash with my hair?" She asked, holding it up to her head.

I shook my head. "It'd be cute." She smiled.

"Now all we have left is Bulma." Rini said looking at her watch. It was getting late and the store was going to close in less than an hour.

"Why the hell is she looking anyway? She has a dress." I said walking over to the cutting tables.

"Have you seen that thing?" Maron said in a gossip like voice.

"No."

"Then you couldn't possibly understand."

I smiled lightly. "That bad, huh?"

Bulma had given up her search by the time they went to the cutting table. "I had an idea but they just don't have it." She said unhappily and picked at her lime green nail polish.

After leaving the fabric store, we continued onto the dressmaker's store. She measured us every which way then said to come back in a week.

We all sat on Maron's red Saturn. I glanced a my watch. "It's getting late and it's a Saturday. Do you guys feel like going out and doing something?"

"Definitely." Rini said. "I just want to change." She looked down to her baggy t shirt and dirty pants.

We all piled into Maron's car and made a quick pit stop at Maron's house, Bulma's, then to Rini's. Since Goku had gone to Vegeta's country house with the guys and Mom was on a business trip, my house was officially declared as home base.

The three girls threw their bags onto my floor and took out different sets of clothes and make up.

"Chi? Can I check out what you have in your closet?" Bulma asked.

"Go for it."

All the girls began to change their clothes in front of one another, not really caring about acidently flashing on another since they all knew what each other had anyway. Maron was feeling giddy enough to moon us all. We all groaned then disolved into a fit of laughter.

"Hm…" Bulma said over in her corner. I glanced over her way and saw that she was wearing my homecoming dress and I must say that she looked completely amazing. She filled it out a lot better than I had last fall.

"Oh my god Bulma you look to pretty!" Rini squealed.

Bulma walked over to the mirror hanging on the back of my door. She spun around, taking special notice to her butt and cleavage.

"Hey Chi? Can I borrow this for prom?"

Around 8:30 all of us were ready to go. The night was warm considering that it was April so we all went without coats. When we all got into the car, Rini who was sitting in the front seat turned up the the heavy bass techno CD that was playing. The whole car bumped to the beat. Bulma and I who were sitting in the back seat smiled, looked at each other, and rolled down the windows.

"Hey baby." Bulma shouted out the window at two very fine looking guys in a teal Volkswagen next to us. "Going our way?"

The driver smirked and nodded his head approvingly. The light turned green and Maron hit the gas and lost the two guys in her dust. We erupted into laughter.

We were headed to a kareoke bar on the outskirts of town. It was busy tonight with a small line-up outside the door. At 10:00 the place turns into a disco and intensely gourgeous and horny guys try to grind with you. It's aussured that you'd have a good time.

We entered and paid five dollars each. We found a table over by the right side of the dance floor. A young girl who seemed barely old enough to enter was singing Britney Spears 'Toxic'. Her face was heavily made-up and her brown roots were showing through her dyed blonde hair. She was trying to do some sort of hip hop dance.

"Wow," Bulma said staring at her. "Why is she trying to kill that cockroach?" Obviously she was refering to the way she was dancing.

We all giggled and Maron grabbed the song book from off the table and shuffled through it. She got up from the table and went over to the stage where the man was taking kareoke requests. He nodded and Maron winked at us from the bottom of the stage.

When the blonde girl finished her song, the DJ got on the mic and said. "Thank you very much! Next up, we got a local girl. Her name is Maron. GIVE HER SOME LOVE!"

The crowd went wild and a few guys whistled and shouted some rather sexual things at her. The music started and her voice wasn't perfect, but it sounded twenty times better than little miss toxic.

Memories of boy bands, crushes, and braces filled my mind when the music started.

"Baby when the lights go out, every single word can not express the love and tenderness. I'll show you what it's all about, babe I swear you will some come to me, so baby come to me, when the lights go out." She sang.

Bulma grabbed my hand and Rini's and we were dragged to the dance floor. Bulma and I knew the whole song's dance moves from the concert and surprisingly enough so did Rini. Maron did the choreography on stage while the three of us did it on the empty dance floor.

When the song ended, cheers completely exploded from all over the room. Maron bowed and pointed to us on the dance floor. We bowed too.

We arrived at the table in a fit of laughter and after 5 minutes, four martinis arrived at our table.

"From the two young men over there." The waiter said, pointing to the guys we blew off at the stop light. They waved with smiles on their faces.

"But we're underage…" Bulma whispered when the waiter left.

"So?" Rini said, smiling and winking at the two guys as she ate the olive.

"My sentiments exactly." I said raising my glass. "To friendship."

"Cheers!" We all said in unison and chinged our glasses together.

We watched the rest of the acts until 10 and the DJ got on the mic again. "The dance floor is open! Get the party staaaarteeeeeed!"

Christina Aguliera's 'Dirty' came on the speakers. The girls and I downed the rest of our drinks in one gulp and walked to the rhythm of the music to the dance floor. We created our little 4 person circle and danced while giggling every once and a while.

I realized that the last time that Maron, Bulma and I had all been together to go out dancing was last summer when we went to the summer solstace dance in the park. It was an all night party and we had left at 4 am. We had each tried smoking there for the first time and Bulma nearly threw up from being so nauseous. I was insanely dizzy and Maron coughed like the average amateur. We made a pact that night never to smoke again.

We continued dancing and the boys who bought us drinks came over and danced with us too. "That was some pretty sweet stuff you pulled ealier." One of them said to me. He held out his hand. "I'm Madison."

He was tall and thin with very blonde hair the color of corn silk. His eyes were dark blue and he was very pale. I took his hand and shook it. "Hey, what's up?"

He smiled. "Got a name?" He shouted over the music.

"Oh!" I said bushing. "Yeah, my name is Chi-Chi."

The other girls had let the other guy join our circle too. His name was Brad and he was average height with black, spiked hair and dark brown eyes. He wore a pair of baggy jeans and a black t-shirt. Rini was staring at him romantically. I smiled at her and winked. Her face turned bright red.

Brad had taken Rini over to our table for a while so our circle was down to four again. The bass pumped through our veins like a drug. I gently pushed Madison into the middle of the three of us girls and tag-teamed the handsome young man. He smirked and danced between us.

We danced until midnight when we decided to go home. All of us got into Maron's car and drove to my house. We all got into our PJs and sat on the floor eatting popcorn and swapping secrets.

"I got Brad's phone number." Rini said smirking.

"Wow! Good catch! He's super cute." Bulma said.

"Wasn't Madison so sweet though? He was such a little cutie." Maron said. "Definitely not boyfriend material in my opinion, but he's definitely 'chill worthy'. Maybe we could all get together again sometime."

I nodded in agreement. "It was really respectable how he didn't hit on all of us."

"That is the most important quality in a guy." Bulma said while throwing some popcorn into her mouth. "That he isn't a womanizer. Like he's interested in something other than what's underneath your clothes."

"Hear, hear." Rini said, eating some popcorn herself.

We moved our little sleep over into the living room with our sleeping bags and pillows. We had chosen the unforgetable classic of Dirty Dancing as that nights feature.

"For an old guy, Patrick Swazey isn't too bad in this movie." I said apprasingly.

Bulma and Maron had fallen asleep by the end of the movie so Rini and I stayed up talking a bit. It was amazing how close of friend we came to be in the short time we knew each other.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Rini asked. "What was it like for you to miscarrage?"

I thought a bit and was surprised that it didn't hurt to think about anymore. "It was really sad." I said to her. "I blamed myself for the longest time for getting pregnant in the first place, then when I was actually happy to get the baby, I was so upset about it. It's weird. All your emotions get mixed up. You're happy you're still alive, sad that you don't get to share it with a baby, completely livid that this happened, incredibly depressed, and even somewhat joyed. After a while I was thankful because I really learned a lot from that baby. Like to be careful next time and to know when and if I'm ready."

She nodded wisely and looked down at her hands.

"Is something wrong?"

"That's not how it was for me at all." She said in a whisper.

I was lost for words. What did she mean 'for her'? Was she….did she…?

"I was happy the whole time that it happened. I felt awful for being so overjoyed, but I didn't even know who the father was." I stared at her and she finished what I was thinking. "I was raped."

"Did you think of abortion?" I asked.

"Yeah, but it was really expensive and I can't afford something like that. I could hardly afford car payments at the time on my 2,000 dollar car, and my parents weren't willing to help me. I remember the day that they told me I lost the baby too. Actually, the reason why I transferred schools was because of that. My parents wanted me to have a new start. I remember telling my Mom that I wasn't upset and he looked at me like I was a disgrace because I didn't care. It kind of numbed me."

I nodded and completely understood. I couldn't blame her for not wanting the baby. Everybody has different circumstances.

She laughed shortly and softly. "Maybe that's why we hit it off so quick. We know what it's like."

I hugged her. "Maybe."

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Author's Note: I should really work on my homework. I have to copy one of my classmates notes for tomorrow, but honestly I don't know if there is school tomorrow. Argentina is a very Catholic nation, and since the Pope died, we've been having random days of mourning.

Hehe sorry about that. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'll write again soon.

Annie Bacchi