The drive to the drugstore was the most awkward five minutes Maura had ever experienced with her friends. Stash and Roxie were giving each other the silent treatment, but if the silent treatment prevented them from arguing, Maura was willing to accept it. When she turned the radio dial to a pop music station, Maura expected a comment from Markie about pop music, but when she was too busy staring out the window to notice what song was playing it dawned on Maura that what they experienced during fall semester was over. BCU had been their utopia, but when they were forced to leave it for the holidays and return to their hometowns, they realized how much their lives had changed since high school and how unwelcoming people could be outside of their little social circle.

Christmas had passed and her parents had assumed she would be okay as long as they had given her gifts. They knew nothing of her life now nor did they care enough to ask and she imagined Roxie's family was the same way. There was no problem that money couldn't fix and no love that money couldn't buy. Maura had always imagined Stash came from a loving family in the south and maybe they were to those with the same religion as theirs and similar views on homosexuality but, at that moment, Maura knew nobody in that car was in a situation as dire as Markie's.

She was her best friend and Maura wished she could come up with something brilliant to say to ease her worries, but all that came to mind was a comment about Jane and how she had kissed her while listening to the song that was currently playing on the radio.

"I really don't want to hear about Jane and your perfect little marriage," Markie snapped at her. "None of us do."

"Sorry," Maura mumbled, her eyes focusing more intently on the road as she tried not to cry.

"Froom, it's not your fault," Markie pointed out. "I'm the one who should be sorry. If you want to talk about Jane, you can talk about Jane. Maybe we need to listen to something happy."

"Speak for yourself," Roxie interjected.

It was the end of their conversation and they rode in silence until Maura pulled into the drugstore parking lot. The four of them went directly for the chips and candy aisle, waiting for the nerve to walk over to the pregnancy tests.

"Dort, let me wear your ring," Markie asked urgently. "It'll look better if I'm wearing a ring."

Roxie grabbed Maura's hand. "Maura, don't. It's bad luck to let someone else wear your ring."

Maura was aware of the stigma associated with unwed teenage mothers and, as much as she wanted to let Markie wear her ring, she couldn't bear to see the ring Jane had chosen specifically for her on another girl's finger even if that girl were her best friend.

"Give Dort the money," Stash ordered. "If you give her the money, she can go to the register and buy it and because she's married nobody will give her any shit for it."

"I wish you would have chosen a more responsible-looking outfit," Roxie said as she looked at the jeans and oversized flannel shirt Maura was wearing. "What has Jane done to you?"

"In my defense—" Maura began to say until Markie interrupted her.

"This is bullshit," she scoffed. "Why are we doing this? It's fucking 1994, not the '50s. We shouldn't even be having this conversation. I had sex and I might be pregnant. So what? I shouldn't have to be ashamed of myself and I'm not going to be."

And just like that, she was back—Maura's best friend, the girl who educated them on reproductive rights and gave Maura a flavored condom on her first date with Jane—was back and she could no longer resist the urge to hug her.

The four of them continued to talk in the candy aisle until Maura had the nerve to walk over to the aisle with pregnancy tests. She knew nothing about the different brands or which test was better than the others, so she considered asking another customer who was standing across from her in the diaper section of the aisle with an infant in her arms. She's a mother, so she might know which test to use.

"Use that one," she told Maura before she even had a chance to ask. The box she pointed to was the box Maura had in her hands and she was relieved that this woman had offered information without her having to ask. "Sorry to intrude. You just looked confused." Maura noticed the woman look at her ring. "Congratulations! You and your husband must be so excited."

Maura wanted to tell her that was married to a woman and the pregnancy test wasn't for her, but when her baby started crying, all Maura could do was say a quick 'thank you' before the woman headed to the register.

Roxie was the first of her friends to join her in the aisle with Stash and Markie following slowly behind her. "Dort, you picked one?" Roxie asked.

"This test was recommended to me," Maura informed them. "It shows the results in fifteen minutes. One line means you're not pregnant and two lines means you are."

"That's simple enough," Markie shrugged.

"Hey, have any of you ever noticed how strategic the items in this aisle are placed?" Stash pointed out. "First, there's condoms and lube. Then there's the pregnancy tests and on the other side are the diapers. It's like all the natural progression of your young adult life. Sex, sex, sex, then pregnancy, and then diapers for your baby. It's kind of beautiful in a way."

"First there's fucking and then life fucks you over," Roxie added.

Markie glared at her. "Fuck you, Roxie." She'd have pushed Roxie against the shelves had Maura not grabbed her hand.

"We should pay for this now," Maura urged.

The cashier who completed their transaction was a girl around their age who gave Markie a sympathetic look instead of passing judgment on her like they had feared.

"It's pregnancy, not a death sentence," Stash reminded everyone as they sat on the carpet in Jane and Maura's room.

"You can still go to school," Maura reassured Markie. "You can move into family housing like Jane and me."

"Until I take this test, it's all just a hypothetical situation and we're wasting our time," Markie pointed out. "I can't wait anymore."

They had hoped she'd come out of the bathroom while waiting for the results, but she chose to wait in solitude. Maura wondered what was going through her best friend's mind and she imagined her own mother had experienced something similar when she took a pregnancy test nearly nineteen years ago. Maybe she was young and couldn't take care of a baby. It's not that she didn't want me. Maybe now that I'm eighteen and an adult, she'll want to be my mom. Maura quickly shook those thoughts from her head. You know nothing about her and you don't know where to find her. Stop setting yourself up for disappointment.

"Dort? Dort, are you crying?" Roxie asked, bringing Maura back to reality.

"Markie is going to be fine," Stash told her. "There's no need to cry."

"I wasn't thinking about Markie," Maura admitted. She felt guilty for not thinking about her best friend when she needed her the most, but Markie's predicament triggered something in her that she repressed since childhood. "I want my mother."

"Why don't you call her?" Stash asked. "She said she wanted to be a better mother to you."

"My birthmother," Maura corrected her. "I think about her being in a situation like Markie's. What if she was an unwed teenage mother and she couldn't take care of me when I was born? What if she wanted me, but she couldn't afford to care for me? Now that I'm an adult, I don't need any money from her, but I still need her. I still need a mother who loves me because mine doesn't."

"She loves you," Maura heard her wife say from the entryway to their bedroom. "So do I and so does this fur ball right here."

"A kitten!" Roxie said as she rushed over to Jane. "Dort, she's a baby! Can I hold her?" Without waiting for a response, she grabbed the kitten from Jane and lied on the bed with her.

"She was hiding in Tommy's room," Jane pointed out. "Sorry if I interrupted. Mark's right behind me, but he's too chicken shit to show his face."

"What's up?" they heard Mark say. "Where's Markie?"

"What's up?" Maura asked. "What's up? Markie is taking a pregnancy test and you're asking what's up?"

"We shoulda gone to Stuevie's instead of coming here first," Mark smirked.

"You asshole!" Stash was ready to lunge at him but Maura held her back. "How could you take this so lightly?"

"He's not," Jane said in his defense. "But I need to be with my wife right now."

Her Jane was finally there with her and that was all Maura had wanted from her day. With Roxie on their bed with Chrissy, Jane decided to sit on the ground behind Maura and wrap her arms around her. "I missed you, Janewife," Maura said as she nuzzled into her.

Jane lovingly kissed Maura's shoulder. "I missed you, too, Maurwife. Do you want to tell me why you're crying?"

Maura wanted to tell Jane about Markie's situation triggering the need to meet her birthmother, but everyone stopped talking when they heard Markie emerge from the bathroom. They had all hoped for the best, but when she sat emotionless in the corner of Jane's room, they knew the results of the test without her having to say anything.

Jane was torn between wanting to stay with her wife and wanting to talk to her best friend, but Maura made up her mind for her when she gave Jane a kiss on the cheek before rushing to Markie's side along with the Roxie and Stash.

There was the obligatory 'everything is going to be okay' but Markie didn't want to hear it. She freed herself from Maura's embrace and went over to where Mark and Jane were sitting. "I did everything right!" she yelled at Mark. "Why didn't you tell me it broke?"

"I—I didn't know—" he stammered and Jane stayed by his side in case she had to intervene.

"How didn't you know?" Markie asked. "I taught you how to check for any holes or tears in condoms when they're unused and after they've just been used. We've gone over this so many times! You could have taken less than a minute to check and then told me and I would have gone to the drugstore to buy the morning after pill. This could have been avoided and now our lives are ruined because you couldn't fucking check."

"You have options," Maura brought to their attention.

"Yeah, I know," Markie responded. "And I hate all of my options."

"We can do this," Mark reassured her. "If you want to keep the baby, we can raise it together. I'll get a second job if I have to. If you want an abortion, I'll help you pay for that…as much as it'd hurt me for you to kill our baby, I'll help you pay for it."

"She's not killing your baby," Maura pointed out. "Mark, your 'baby' is a fetus developing in Markie's body and she has body autonomy. It's her right to choose whether she wants to terminate her pregnancy or whether she wants to give birth. After she gives birth, she then has the right to choose whether she wants to keep the baby or put it up for adoption."

"She's not putting this baby up for adoption," Mark commanded. "He or she deserves to be with family."

"You can go through the process together," Maura informed him. "There are couples who—"

"Couples like your parents?" Mark interrupted. "How could you suggest this after the way you've been treated by them? They don't even love you, Maura! If I wouldn't have forced Jane to go out with you that night, you would still be alone."

What he said touched upon Maura's greatest fear—what if they hadn't loved her as a child and they hadn't chosen her like she had always believed. "I'm going for a walk," Maura told her friends before they had a chance to see her breakdown.

Jane sat in silence until she heard the sound of the front door shutting. "I'm going with her."

"You're leaving me?" Mark asked. "Jane, we've been best friends since we were born and you're choosing her over me?"

"Things are different now," Jane pointed out. "There's no longer some stupid bro code I'm going to live by. She's my wife and I'm always going to choose her."