Nearly two months into the summer, Cherry still hadn't regained as much of her memory as she would've liked to. Sure, she had remembered a variety of events from her life before waking up in the hospital, but there was still a lot that was missing. She wasn't too fond of that, due to the fact that school was starting in a month and if her memory was at least ninety percent restored, she wouldn't be able to start the school year with everyone else in town. She wanted her memory back so that when she went for her physical before the summer ended and right before school ended, that he could clear her to go.

Evie had started to show. One morning when she had gotten up and went to the bathroom, she walked past her bedroom mirror, which was as tall and long as the wall that reach the floor and the ceiling. As she walked past, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror. She had to take a double take when she saw that her stomach had grown in size. The bump wasn't huge, ,but it looked as if someone stuffed a smaller, circular shaped throw pillow under the fabric of her tank top.

Evie lifted the edge of her tank top and held the tank top up above her stomach. She placed one hand over the surface of her stomach for a brief moment, then pulled it away immediately. She quickly pulled the fabric of her tank top back down and quickly continued to the bathroom as a result of the newly formed and growing bump.

-/-/-

Esther Smith walked out of her bedroom and toward the staircase. As she walked past the hall bathroom, she could hear her older sister- at least she thought that it was Evie- from the other side of the door. She knocked on the bathroom door. "Evie?" she called through the door, "Is that you in there?"

"Uh, yeah," she heard in her sister's voice, yet it was a bit hoarse, "I'll be right out. Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm fine. I was just curious cause I wasn't sure if that was you or Cherry in there. You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Even though her voice was a bit muffled by the painted wooden bathroom door that was between them, she could tell that there was a slight urgency in her sister's voice, like she had to get her answer out then and there cause of something else.

Esther continued to the stairway and down the stairs to the first floor. As she did, she grew slightly confused and worried about her older sister. She could count on one hand how many times she'd felt either way about her sister- and her present feeling strength triumphed over all of those previous times.

Evie and Esther had never really gotten along too well. There was around a two and a half years in age difference between the two girls- the younger recently turning sixteen a few months after the older one turned eighteen years old. Even though they were pretty close in age, their parents could never figure out why they could never get along. Granted, the two sisters could act like civilized human beings when they would have to, and sometimes they actually would get along, but most of the time one was being annoyed or aggravated by the other. Their parents hoped that it was just results of the cliché teenager attitude and the two butting heads due to that.

As Esther reached the first floor of the house, she saw Cherry in their dining room. The redhead was setting the table with three different place settings- one for herself, and one for each of the two sisters. She stopped when she saw the younger and smiled at her. "Mornin', Esther," Cherry greeted.

"Mornin', Cherry," Esther greeted, "Need any help?"

"No, I'm fine. But thank you for your offer."

Why is she always so polite and kind? Esther thought, and this wasn't the first time. "Alright. Hey, Cherry, can I ask you somethin'?"

"Course. What's goin' on?"

"IS there somethin' wrong with my sister? She's been acting real strange lately."

Cherry didn't really know how to answer. She definitely wasn't going to tell Esther that her older sister was about three and a half months pregnant, it wasn't her place to tell her. It seemed to her that at the moment, her only option was to lie to the younger girl about what she knew about the situation.

"Yeah, she's fine," Cherry answered as convincingly as she could, "Why? Somethin' wrong?"

Esther shook her head. "No, I was just curious, that's all," she answered with a shrug, "I mean, she's just been acting even weirder than usual, don't you think?"

"She don't seem different to me. Though, I haven't lived with her my whole life like you have."

-/-/-

Soda had been feeling guilty about lying to Cherry, more than usual lately. He wasn't quite sure why, but he did have a few hunches about the reason why. One: it had been two months and she didn't really remember as much as she probably should've remembered by now because of his lie to her. Two: Because of that, she couldn't live a "normal" life. These were just two of the many hunches about his full guilty that he had, yet he felt that they were all right.

Because of the ongoing guilt- at least that's what believed it to be- he had been feeling terrible, both physically and mentally. He was always there when he was with someone. It was as though he was a million miles away in some other galaxy, sometimes. He wasn't smiling as much as he usually would, which was completely odd due to his personality and character. And he just didn't feel right, physically; it's not that he felt sick, but he didn't feel good either- he felt somewhere in between feeling sick and feeling healthy.

As this stage of the game, Soda wished that he had never concocted the whole idea. Things like: "I wish I'd never done it" and "Why'd I even do it in the first place?" ran through his head. One thing that really stuck out to him that would run through his head as much as the other things was: "You really like her. That's why you did it. It was the only way you could figure out a way to go out with her at least once."

There were only two people that Soda had actually told all of this to, and that was his best friend and his younger brother. "I just hate what I did," Soda said with a slight sigh, "And there's nothin' I can do about it now."

At the moment, Steve and Ponyboy were acting like civilized people, all for the sake of the middle Curtis brother- one's best friend, and one's brother. "I still think that it might've happened for a reason," the youngest of the three said with a shrug.

"For once, I agree with the kid," Steve admitted with a shrug and a sigh, "I mean, think about it: her friend Marcia calls you 'bout her bein' in the hospital. She didn't call no one else."

Soda shook his head a bit. "Yes she did. She called their Soc friends, too. Remember?"

"Yeah, but you were the first one she called, and you told all us. Steve told Evie, Two=Bit told Kathy and I told Lily."

"Then when did her friends get there that day?"

"They came after us, then left before us."

A slight smirk formed on his best friends face. "You really like her, don't ya?"

The middle Curtis brother shrugged a bit. "I'm startin' to think that."

Ponyboy gave a slightly confused look. "Is that such a bad thing?"

At this point, yeah, Soda thought. "I don't know yet."

-/-/-

Marcia walked down the stairs behind her cousin- once removed- to the basement of the house. Her own mother was behind her, then behind her was her second cousin. As the four walked down into the basement, they were greeted by three little boys a little girl with bright red hair.

When the four reach the washing machine and the dryer, the four young children all looked in the direction of the other four now in the room who had come to start washing clothes. Little Eric sat on the once brightly colored couch, the little girl with red hair sat at his left, the little boy with the slightly curly afro was on her left, and on the couch arm was the little boy who addressed himself as "Kelso". He was on the arm of the couch, his body facing the rest of his friends, so compared to them, he was seated sideways.

Kitty placed the clothes hamper down and rushed over to the little boy on the armrest. "Oh, Michael," she said in a nervous tone, "Don't sit on the couch like that, you could fall and hit your head."

"I think that already happened when he was a baby, Mrs. Forman," the little curly headed boy smirked.

The older woman let out her signature laugh, but in a nervous way. "Steve, don't say things like that."

Little Eric held in a laugh and ran over to his teenage cousin and tugged gently on her shirt sleeve, ignoring the whining that could be heard by everybody from the boy on the couch arm. "How's your friend?" he asked curiously.

Marcia held back a slight frown. She didn't how Cherry was doing at all, actually. No one had contacted her, and she hadn't contacted anyone back home since she'd left town. If she was being honest with herself, she was afraid to find out how her best friend was doing. She had been feeling pretty good lately about the whole situation, thinking that all that had happened probably happened for a reason. Her positive feelings had been unintentionally show down by a little boy with one innocent and caring question.

"She's doing alright," Marcia answered with a forced smile.

The little boy smiled up at her. "She's feeling better?" he asked happily.

"A little bit, yeah." She must be a little bit better by now, she thought as the feeling of guilt filled her body.

-/-/-

Throughout the progression of the week, Cherry had this strange on-off feeling of sadness. It was a weird sadness and when she felt it, she couldn't even tell what had caused it. It wasn't like Soda had done anything to get upset, and quite frankly, no one else had either.

Those around her noticed those emotions and grew silently worried. They all knew that she was depressed when she was emitted into the hospital, but as far as they all knew, she had no clue. If there were right, those feeling of depression had begun to resurface due to the fact that she was gaining her memory back. And even though not everything was there, there was enough to rekindle those old feelings.

"Maybe it's some sort of weird, delayed reaction to shock," Cherry mumbled to herself, then shook it off and continued on with what she was doing.

This story is so full of angst and sadness, wow. I feel so dark due to the fact that I was able to write half of this stuff (this story was a request, just so you know). Sometimes I feel like this is the depressing version of "Overboard", and I love that movie. I watched it once with my friend through video chat since we go to different schools now and have since when we started tenth grade.

I'm rambling and too lazy to backspace.

Anyway, I'm going to Alice's Teacup on Sunday in New York City with my two best friend's family (my two friends are sisters). She's turning 22! And no, I don't really have friends my age anymore. It's always a one year or more age difference- don't judge me.

By the way, this story request was a certain amount of chapters but I asked if it could be shorter and they said sure. I think in a chapter or two or three, the biggest disaster that I've been planning different way to happen might happen. I'm running out of ideas for this story, plus I'm taking up another fan fic soon (for the expendables) so yeah.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter- peace from all the hippies of the world =^-^=