A/N: Here's the first of 8 new chapters I wrote starting this summer. Not sure what motivated me to start writing again, but I'm glad something brought me back. It's been so much fun, writing is a great outlet. I'd actually started this chapter back in 2016, it had a word count of roughly 700 words, so I edited that back in July of 2021, and then started furiously writing the rest of this chapter, and the next 7 that will soon follow. I hope you all enjoy it! I'd love to hear your thoughts at the end in the form of a review. Thank you so much! And thank you to my wonderful beta Cainc3! Any mistakes in here are mine, and only mine! And DiegoRedeemedLover, who is new to the VM world, welcome. I hope you like all the new stuff I've been bending your ear about these days! Now, on to the story...

Chapter 26—Rich People Breakfast

Saturday, September 26th, 2009—Mackenzie house

The shrill beeping of the insistent alarm intruded in her dreams, dragging Mac out of sleep before she was ready.

The teddy bear with the gauze bandage wrapped around its head, that Dick and her friends had given her in the hospital, was still tucked in her arms. She wasn't ready to go public with the bulletin that she slept with a teddy bear these days, but it was a habit she'd picked up during her three week stay at the rehab facility. It reminded her that she had a full team of people rooting for her to recover, and that as much as she wanted to give up at times making a new life was well worth the exhaustive effort. If there was ever a day that Mac needed comfort and support, it was today.

Her past, present, and probably her future too, were about to brutally collide at brunch at the Sinclair's house. Her dread and anxiety towards the brunch had eclipsed any excitement she might have felt otherwise about her big date with Dick later that night. She just wanted to bury herself in a cocoon of blankets and sheets and not get out of bed until nighttime. She could fake a migraine, though it wasn't really shaping up to be faking, she felt the pressure building behind her right temple. She had more headache triggers than fingers these days, but stress was definitely the culprit this morning.

Just as Mac was contemplating committing alarm clock homicide by throwing the still beeping torture device against the wall, her mom knocked once, and then opened the door.

"Wakey, wakey, fake eggs and vegan bakey."

Mac's only response to her mom's faux-chipperness was to groan and put the pillow over her head. It had to be forced, there was no way her mom was any more excited about this brunch than she was. Then again, maybe her mom was looking forward to getting to know her biological daughter better, too. If that were the case, she was in for a major let down.

It was so easy to get caught up in thinking only of herself in this whole mess of epic proportion, but really, there was a whole mass of causalities left in the wake of the Neptune Memorial baby switch case.

Everyone in both the Mackenzie and Sinclair families were collateral damage.

The beeping stopped; her mom must have turned the alarm off. She hadn't heard the thump of it hitting the wall, or anything murderous like that.

"Ellen knows you're a freakball vegan, so she said she'd make sure the menu was tailored to freakball vegans, and normal eaters alike," her mom continued, still in that upbeat tone. "Come on Cindy, you need to get up and get ready, hon. After all, you're the guest of honor."

Mac detected the faintest tremor in her mom's voice; only at the very last sentence though, the part where she called Mac the guest of honor. Proof positive right there that her mom wasn't anymore enthused than anyone else. Maybe Natalie Franklin Mackenzie missed her calling as an actress?

Mac felt the pillow being lifted off her head, and the duvet being yanked off. It was a flashback to her school days. She had always been a night owl in a family of morning people.

"Mom," Mac screeched an automatic response to being forced out of her cozy bed.

"Cindy," her mom matched her tone for tone. "Come on, up and at 'em." The tremor was gone now.

"It's too early for clichés."

"It's never too early for clichés, hon."

She watched her mom cross over to the closet and open it with a flourish. In approximately three nanoseconds a black dress with a gold belt was thrown across her bed. The grade school flashbacks continued.

"I am capable of dressing myself," Mac grumbled. She seemed to be reminding people of that a lot these days.

"Cargo pants and combat boots aren't appropriate attire for today."

"Combat boots are always in fashion."

"Only if you are at Boot Camp," her mom retorted.

That sounded like the better option.

With the outfit selected, Natalie turned around and exited the room, uttering one last admonishment to hurry up and get dressed.

Mac slowly forced her aching body out of bed, and dutifully put on the dress. She grabbed her glasses off the bedside table and put them on. Her hair was still short and choppy, a side effect of the head injury and subsequential lifesaving procedures, so brushing it was a quick affair these days.

Less than fifteen minutes later the entire Mackenzie family was in her mom's old blue Honda minivan heading towards Shady Springs Court. It was an address she had covertly stalked for years, but this was the first time since her Neptune High school days she'd been an invited guest. Truthfully, this was the first time ever she was actually invited, that time in her junior year of high school she was a party crasher, not a party invitee. Madison's 17th birthday party had come on the heels of the monumental discovery that it was she who was a bio Sinclair, not Madison. The temptation to see how the other half lived, since she technically was the other half, had proved too great.

Mac took a deep breath in, mentally counted to 15 and then slowly exhaled.

She felt like she should name the elephant who had been living with her since the confessional dinner on Tuesday, which felt like four months rather than four days ago. She'd began to tell her mom countless times that she'd known the Gothic secret of her birth for the past four years, but the words stuck in her throat every time. There was a battle being fought inside, part of her felt guilty for not telling them it was less earth shaking of a declaration than it could have been, the other part of her, her rational side, thought their crime of covering it up for 16 years was much worse than hers ever could be.

The trip didn't take nearly long enough in Mac's book. They were pulling into the driveway of the Sinclair's McMansion before Mac's deep breathing exercises had taken effect.

Colony Place and Shady Springs Court were less than four miles apart—3.75 miles to be exact—but being that they were in different zip codes, the lower middle class '02'er and the upper echelon '09'er, that short distance was closer to 100 miles apart in terms of lifestyles.

Everyone quietly piled out of the van. The whole trip had been pretty much devoid of conversation, which was not the Mackenzie clan's default setting. As they gathered at the front door—an elaborate affair built around a stained-glass centerpiece that reminded her of The Starry Night by Van Gogh—Mac watched her mom paste on a smile. It was funny the thoughts that crossed your mind in times of strife and stress. Instead of focusing on her nerves, Mac mused that the door alone probably cost more than their van did, even when it was brand new.

Her dad reached out a shaking hand to press the doorbell. Mac rolled her eyes as she heard a snippet from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture chiming in the background, alerting the Sinclair's to the Mackenzie's arrival.

The door was quickly opened, as though the person on the other side had been stationed there in waiting.

"Do come in," replied an older lady with a faint lilt in her voice. "Everyone is in the dining room." She smiled warmly and stepped aside so they could enter the vast foyer. One hand was on the door, the other hand smoothed back one of her black curls that had grazed her forehead. A black and white cat peaked out from behind the housekeeper.

Mac recognized the woman right away; it was Lucille, the maid from dreamland, and she knew the cat had to be Fritz. She felt flush, as though a fever had come over her. "Lucille," she muttered, not fully aware she was doing it. There were so many things in coma-land that she just could not explain.

"That's right, dear, I'm Lucille, please call me Lucy. I've worked for the Sinclair's for fifteen years. And my shadow, here, is Fritz. Is anyone allergic to cats?"

"No," Mac's dad said just as her mom sneezed.

Lucy gestured to the room just off the entryway. "I'll just put this guy in the mud room. Please sit down. There are name cards by the plates."

Fritz mewed in protest, as Lucy picked him up. Mac didn't even have a chance to gauge his reaction in this reality. It took a few weeks for him to warm up in dreamland, but they became good buddies and confidants eventually.

Ellen, Lauren, and Mr. Sinclair (Bob?!) were already seated around the oversized, ornate dining table. Only Madison was missing. Mac presumed she'd planned to make a grand entrance once everyone was there to witness it. She fervently hoped that Madison would behave, for her mom's sake, for both moms' sake.

Mac wondered what her parents, the ones that raised her, wanted to get out of this whole brunch. It was her experience that everyone had a motive. As for her bio family, well, she could only guess at Ellen's agenda. She suspected it was to get to know her better, and perhaps absolve her guilt about lying to Madison all these years.

Mac's mind rewound back to high school, real high school, not dreamland high school. She had been doing that a lot lately. She remembered spotting her bio mom parked on Colony Drive, just watching her as she was getting ready to leave on one of their biannual camping trips. She had known at that moment that Ellen loved her from afar. However, she'd never got a very good read on her own mom's feelings, did she harbor similar feelings for Madison? She never saw any signs Nat was pining for her bio daughter, but then again maybe it was a secret longing that simmered in the chambers of her heart, that no one else knew about, especially not the daughter she was raising.

It was hard, however, to think of anyone else's pain when she was drowning in her own. She had discovered a selfish side to her personality since the accident, but she suspected it was an outcropping of primal survival mode latent in her species.

The Sinclairs were sprinkled around the table, leaving seats open for the Mackenzies to assimilate among them. Mac was happy to see that it didn't appear to be set up as a Sinclair vs. Mackenzie interrogation. She unsuccessfully tried to bite back a smirk when she noticed place cards at each setting. She had been strategically placed beside Ellen, who was at one head of the massive table. Lauren was on Mac's other side. Madison's empty space was across from her. Her mom was placed next to Madison, so they were caddy corner from each other. Ryan flanked Madison's other side.

Mac took her assigned seat, sitting down in the high-backed green and white stripped chair. She looked around the ornate room, the teardrop crystal chandelier catching her eye. She wasn't ready to make eye contact with anyone yet, her singed nerves making her shy. She reached out to grab one of the coffee carafes sitting in the middle of the table. She poured herself a cup, and took a big, fortifying gulp. She burned her tongue in the process, but it didn't matter, she needed the effects of caffeine pulsing through her body. The coffee was strong, just like she remembered it from her coma dreamlife. Was remember the right word? She wasn't sure, but then again, she wasn't sure of anything in light of her current state of mind.

Mac wasn't ready to make eye contact with anyone, and by anyone she meant the Sinclairs, at least not at that moment. Instead, Mac pulled her gaze down to the expansive red and gold Persian rug that covered the gleaming hardwood floors, a twin to the one in the entry way. It was exactly like she "remembered" from the coma dreamlife. She mentally amended expansive to expensive, though both adjectives adequately described it. That was a much more comfortable thing to focus on, rather than how closely her dreamlife tracked with the Sinclair house in real life. A noise in the hallway startled her back to reality.

Madison entered the room very subdued; it was not her usual grand entrance. Mac looked up, and met Madison's eyes, the only one in the room she could look at. In that single second they were no longer enemies but had become teammates instead. Mac was certain it would not last long; Madison didn't live her life by anyone's script but her own, and she certainly didn't care about anyone else's needs either. However, at least in this one confusing moment in time, Mac was no longer the only one whose entire life was flipped upside down by a single mistake made by an overworked, underpaid staff member of Neptune General Hospital. No, the shrapnel had hit another family just as hard.

Mistake, that was a funny word to describe the error that caused two families such upheaval. It wasn't a big enough word to describe the damage that was done all those years ago on that December day in 1988.

Mac was lucky, she'd had four years to make peace with the circumstances of her birth, Madison hadn't had that luxury, she had maybe four days maximum to process that soul-destroying piece of news. The joke was on Mac though, that four-year head start she had did not bring peace at all, only secret heartache.

Apparently, Madison hitched a ride on the same thought train as Mac, as evidenced by the fact that she went over to her assigned seat, grabbed the chair, and dragged it between Mac and Lauren. That little bit of rebellion sent a message loud and clear to the moms, they were forming an alliance. That one little gesture overrode thirteen years of animosity that had started in kindergarten when Madison took Mac's purple crayon away and refused to give it back. Their art class territorial struggle festered and simmered through the years as more and more grievances piled up adding mass to the weight of Madison's crimes and misdemeanors. It wasn't that Mac forgot the past, it was more that nothing else weighed down her soul at that particular atom of time like the exclusive club she and her nemesis were now card-carrying members of. It wasn't a club she wanted to belong to, but with the secret out in the open, she was now partnered with Madison. This wasn't a club she'd wish on her worst enemy, who, as fate would have it, was none other than Madison Sinclair.

Irony was a vindictive bitch!

Ellen was silent as Madison put a wrinkle in her carefully plotted seating arrangement, after all with the life-altering news Madison was still trying to digest, it would be hard to find fault with that.

Mac continued to ruminate on the irony of fellowship she was suddenly feeling for Madison. This link was big enough to make their turbulent past temporarily irrelevant, it was now the two of them against the world. Well, okay, not the world per se, and not even them vs the rest of the family, after all Ryan and Lauren were just as much "victims" as they were, perhaps even more so since the events of the switch were in motion well before either of them were even fetuses.

Against wasn't even a word Mac felt comfortable assigning to the situation, this was not a war, instead it felt more like they were pawns on a giant game board, like the life size Chess board at the luxury vacation house the Sinclair's had rented in Mac's coma dreamland. Only, in this game, there was no instruction book. She was in Jumanji, a favorite childhood movie. Her childhood-self had wanted to wake up inside the Jumanji game world, it seemed like escapist paradise, a one-way ticket away from school bullies and the pervasive feeling that she didn't belong in her own world, that she was a stranger in her own family. But now, back to the present, she was no longer finding comfort in her real-world Jumanji. No, right now all she wanted was to level up and get out of the funhouse maze and back into the world where those family meeting discussions in the Mackenzie and Sinclair houses had never happened. If she could find a lesson in all this, it was to be careful what you wish for. This funhouse maze was now her reality, there was no going backwards.

Mac had no idea how to act, what move to make next, and that was not a place she liked to dwell, that's exactly why she was a math nerd, quadratic equations made sense, it was always ax2 + bx + c = 0, there was comfort in that formula.

Mac sneaked a side glimpse at the unusually quiet Madison, there was a faint trace of a scowl. She was slightly hunched in, looking like all she wanted to do was curl up in the fetal position. Mac could relate, she was feeling the same way herself. Neither of them wanted to start talking first. This was a plan cooked up by the moms, though it seemed to be mostly driven by Ellen, so the verbal ball was in their court now.

Mac's mind drifted back once again to the coma dreamland, where she'd taken to calling Natalie 'Mom1', and Ellen 'Mom2', it was probably time to dust that naming convention off and revive it for her current reality.

Though they'd only been sitting at the table for a couple of minutes, it felt much longer than that.

Ellen ('Mom2') cleared her throat and channeling her inner hostess, finally said "Thank you all for coming." She angled her head up slightly, searching out Lucy, her household assistant, and gave her a brief nod. Evidently that was the signal for brunch to commence.

Lucy brought out the silver serving plates heaping with assorted brunch foods including an egg casserole, spinach quiche, pancakes, Belgian waffles, bacon, fresh fruit salad, and croissants. Mac thought back to the definition of brunch that her mom ('Mom1') gave Ryan, it really was a rich person's breakfast. Mac was happy to see that all guesswork regarding what was safe for her to eat and what to avoid had been taken out of the equation, several of the dishes had a little tag hanging off the edge that had been marked with a V. It was a classy touch.

Ryan was already helping himself to bacon and waffles. Lauren, on the other hand, took a small piece of the vegan quiche. Mac wasn't really hungry, but she followed Lauren's lead and also took a small wedge of the egg-less quiche, plus some fruit salad.

Once everyone had the chance to load their plates, the discussion got underway. Bob Sinclair, ('Dad2') took the conversational reigns. He recapped a lot of what Mac had found out four years ago. His cliff notes overview took a few minutes to mull over, and then to Mac's surprise, Madison was the first to speak up.

"I don't understand why you didn't just switch us back. We were, what, 4? I would have got over it." Then as an afterthought, she added "I'm sure Mac would have, too."

Mac gave a terse nod of agreement, that déjà vu feeling she was becoming intimately familiar with once again coursed through her. That was the exact same question that she had asked Veronica back in high school. She looked back and forth between both sets of parents, hoping for an answer this time around.

No one spoke for probably 10 seconds, at the most, but it felt much longer than that.

'Mom1' finally said, in a soft voice so unlike her usual upbeat tone, "We love you. A blood test changes nothing."

Ellen ('Mom2') nodded her agreement, but it seemed like she wanted to say more on the subject but didn't. Mac suspected the slight shake of Bob's head ('Dad2') was what silenced her. She wondered for probably the 225th time if perhaps 'Mom2' had been less sure about continuing to raise a kid who wasn't hers genetically, but how can you shatter the heart of the daughter whose tears you'd spent two decades soothing away?

"Blood test?" This time Mac asked the question. She was too shell shocked to ask Veronica the how's and why's the first time around if the blond PI even knew the fine details to begin with.

"You were severely anemic, Cin," 'Mom1' explained. "We couldn't get you to eat meat, you never liked it, and it affected your iron levels. At 4 you needed a transfusion, and for that they needed to find out your blood type. I'm O+ and so is your…dad. There would be no genetic possibility of having an A negative child."

"A lawyer for Neptune General contacted us about a week later," 'Mom2' added. "That is one call I was completely unprepared for."

Bob ('Dad2') nodded his agreement. He sat across from his wife, at the other "head of the table" position. Mac caught him studying her, but he averted his eyes when he noticed her looking back at him.

"So why now?" Madison asked. "Since you all had made the decision to keep us, why not just take this secret to the grave? Seriously, what changed? Why did you guys find it okay to screw with our lives now, but not when we were 4? Are you less attached now?"

Seeing Madison pissed off wasn't anything new for Mac, but she'd never witnessed it to this extent before. Of course, little slights at school were one thing, this was a whole new stratosphere altogether.

Mac thought she knew the answer to this question, and it all could be traced back to her accident. She also figured 'Mom2' was probably feeling guilty about their secret texting relationship, too. She hoped that 'Mom2' wouldn't confess that other part today, there'd be no way for Mac to spin it without having to admit that she already knew the whole story. Even if she did get a reprieve today, and she was keeping her fingers crossed, it would eventually come up. That was a given, her luck wasn't that good. She often felt like Murphy's bitch, he could shove his laws up his ass! But today, well she just couldn't handle an extra helping of drama.

"No! No, no, sweetheart," 'Mom2' quickly interjected, hoping to reassure the daughter she raised. "I love being your mom, Madison, but life is too short. What if something were to happen to either of you? Sixteen years is long enough to hold this in…"

"Too long," Mac muttered as she gave a sideways glance at Madison.

"You girls will be getting married, having kids in the not too-distant future," 'Mom2' continued. Her voice got soft when she mentioned kids.

"What's the plan? Do we have 4 parents now?" Mac's voice started to rise.

"Not the plan," her dad ('Dad1') amended, "but it is the hope."

"Mac was in the hospital this summer," Lauren finally said. It was the first time Mac saw any reaction from her except the small smile when they first arrived. "I was her patient assistant for every shift I worked this summer for Caring Hearts. At first mom's interest in Mac's condition seemed kind of odd, then I just assumed maybe her concern had something to do with the Caring Hearts charity. But now everything makes sense. That's your answer, Mads, that's why they decided it was time to come clean."

"You fucked my life up because of Mac? Everything this week, our heart to heart is because Mac did something stupid, like break her arm, or some shit like that?" Madison's voice could only be described as a shriek.

Mac figured the alliance she and Madison had just forged was over already. That was about as long as she expected it to last.

"Cindy was in a Coma," Ryan corrected. "It happened while I was playing baseball at the park. Some idiot misjudged and hit the ball into the stands. Cin didn't do anything wrong, she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." He had turned bright red; it was one of his tells. Mac figured he was about to go off on Madison, who was a stranger to him, bio sister or not.

Lauren looked like she wanted to add more to the conversation, but then she just shook her head and reached for a croissant instead.

"Oh," Madison said after Ryan's correction. Her flat tone wasn't bleeding empathy. "That was you. I heard someone I went to high school with got hurt pretty badly." She paused briefly before continuing, "It's all your fault," she spit out at Mac, this time with venom seeping through. "You ruined my life; I wish you'd never been born."

'Mom2' was about to interject, probably to chastise the daughter she'd raised, but Natalie spoke up first. "I can only imagine what a shock this is to hear, Madison, but this was nobody's fault. Well, except the nurse at Neptune Memorial, and that was just a careless error. Cindy didn't ask for any of this. You didn't ask for this, either."

"Did the nurse lose her job?" Mac asked, ignoring Madison's last bit about wishing she'd never been born. That was only one small comment in a sea of hatred she'd experienced from Madison through the years, not to mention she understood better than anyone what a screwed-up situation this was. It was a 5-stage circumstance, Madison was obviously on the anger stage. She herself had circled around 4 of the 5 stages of grief for the past four—almost five—years she had known the truth, it was only the acceptance stage that alluded her. Maybe, just maybe, now that everything was exposed, she could work on that final stage.

"I think so," Mac's dad started to say, before being cut off by Bob ('Dad2'). "Yes, she was fired. It was part of the settlement with the hospital."

Mac had been wondering if the lawsuit would come up. She idly wondered if her dad, 'Dad1', she mentally corrected herself, would mention starting Fun Time Motors.

"I hope you sued the shit out of them," Madison said, she ignored the look of censure her mom ('Mom2') was giving her.

"We did settle out of court, our family and the Mackenzie's each got a payout. It was never about the money. We wanted to make sure the hospital changed their policies, so this never happened to another family."

"We started a business with our settlement money, Cindy, Fun Time Motors. Unfortunately, there was a downturn in the market, and we got into some debt. We ended up going into foreclosure, but fortunately the new owner kept me on staff all these years," 'Dad1' said. Mac noticed he kept looking away, like he was ashamed to admit that to her. She had a strong desire to let him off the hook, but there was enough stress with the whole baby switching drama out in the open. It's not even that Mac thought 'Mom1' would be mad that she'd known the truth since high school, it was more that it would make her sad that Mac had any doubts to begin with. There was enough, more than enough, pain to go around as it was.

"Oh, wow, I had no idea you used to own Fun Time Motors, dad," Mac finally said. She didn't like lying to her dad, the one who raised her, but she had to say something. "I'd think it would be rough to work for the owners of your old business."

"At first it was weird, but I was just grateful for a job and to be able to keep a roof over our head, and food on the table."

"Oh, yes, that is a good thing," Mac agreed, in a soft tone. She noticed that a large amount of the "rich people's breakfast" was sitting there untouched. She wasn't going to be able to help much to reduce all the waste, the little bit of tofu quiche she'd consumed was sitting like a rock in her stomach, any more food and she was sure she'd just throw everything up. She was still fuzzy on the point of this little gathering. Maybe it was just what it appeared to be on the surface, an unveiling of the secrets of her and Madison's births. But, then again, this was Neptune, there was always an underlying motive.

"I still don't know what we're supposed to do with this knowledge," Mac finally added, ending the silence that fell after her dad had told her about starting Fun Time Motors. She'd already asked a similar question earlier but didn't feel like she got a good answer. Madison, who'd already defected from her team wasn't any help, she was evidently pretty content to glower at Mac after convicting her as a traitor who caused this strife to begin with. Mac suspected that she was feeling jealous, like a left-out toddler who thought no one liked her. She wondered for probably the 999th time if it was nature or nurture that made Madison the way she was. Her best, and only, theory was that 'Mom2's mom guilt was the guiding force behind a lot of Madison's actions, it had made her the spoiled brat she'd always been.

'Mom2' and 'Mom1' exchanged a glance before 'Mom2' spoke up. "We don't have to decide anything today, Cindy, sweetie. We can start slow. Thanksgiving is coming up; we would love it if you all would join us. Neither you nor Madison are minors anymore, there is not going to be a custody dispute, or anything like that. If you want to have a relationship with us, I am open to that, but it is up to you, Cindy. We just wanted the secrets to end, and for you girls to have the choice to get to know your biological family, if you so choose to do so."

"Yes, thank you for the invitation, we'll be here for Thanksgiving," 'Dad1' replied. Mac noticed he looked at her mom first before replying for them both. Apparently, he saw something resembling permission in 'Mom1's hooded expression. "Madison, I know you have a lot to think about, too. Nat and I want to get to know you, too, but it's up to you. We will respect your decision."

Madison made a non-committal noise closely resembling a grunt.

Finally, the subject of Neptune General's baby mix-up seemed to be exhausted. The parents worked hard to change the subject, but no other topic seemed to stick. It was obvious to Mac that outside of her and Madison, the Sinclair's and Mackenzie's had little in common. She tried, and failed, to imagine what Thanksgiving dinner would be like. Her only basis for comparison was what happened in her coma dreamland, but fortunately she could exclude the possibility of Dick bringing Cassidy back in her real life. There would be no need to protect Lauren from the broken boy who had destroyed so much of her soul.

The highlight of the whole breakfast ordeal came towards the end. Lauren had excused herself from the table, Mac presumed it was to go to the bathroom, though unlike Ryan, Lauren didn't seem like the type who needed to broadcast her every bodily function, that seemed to be more of a Y chromosome driven desire. She quickly came back with a piece of paper in her hand.

"Here," Lauren said, leaning back so she could reach her hand around Madison's chair. She handed the folded-up piece of paper to Mac. It brought back memories of passing around notes during class. Maybe Lauren wanted to know if she had a crush on a boy? Check here if you have a crush on Dick Casablancas.

"Thanks," Mac replied automatically. She opened the note and spread it on her lap, trying to be discrete.

If you want to text me, I'd like that. Maybe we could even go to Java sometime?
951-555-5309

Love, Lauren

Mac felt the heat as she started blushing. She reached over and tapped Lauren's shoulder and nodded. "I'd like that, too," she whispered.

Lauren just smiled back. Mac was struck by how much it was like her own smile. That Sinclair DNA hard at work.

Finally, it was time to leave. As Mac was putting her seatbelt on in the aging Mackenzie van, she glanced up at the clock in the dash. The rich people breakfast was less than 90 minutes from start to finish, yet she felt like she'd lived a lifetime in that small span of time. She still had a lot of questions swirling around in her head, but it was a start she supposed.

They weren't even off Shady Spring Court when Mac dug out her cell to add Lauren to her contacts. She fired off a brief text so Lauren could save her phone number, too.

Back at home, Mac headed straight to her room. She saw her mom's hopeful expression fall and shatter. She knew they'd want to rehash everything, but she was lacking the emotional bandwidth, it had all been sucked dry.

Less than a minute after falling onto her bed, Mac was fast asleep.

TBC…