And Then There Was Victor

Chapter 22

When Mercy's car pulled up, I noticed there was no Rosalind. Didn't they live next to one another? Mercy looked much the same despite the bob she now wore. Her hair was still that rich jet black and her eyes were still clear and green, her legs were so smooth and strong showing off all the soccer she was playing for Georgia. When she rushed up the stairs we embraced one another letting out a squeal of excitement.

"Becka!" Mercy pulled back to look at me. "Oh my god, you've gotten so hot!"

I pushed at her. "No, I haven't."

"Yeah, you have, I can't wait for you to go to Chicago and get the heck out of this town," Mercy followed me up to my room. She had been one of the few people to know about Chicago, I didn't want to tell anyone since I had not officially gotten accepted.

"Where the heck is Rosalind?"

Mercy stopped and looked at me with a raised brow.

"What happened?"

"She didn't tell you?" Mercy said.

"I called you, I assumed you understood when I said we need to assemble the girls," I said rather frustrated.

"Becka, Rosalind moved, she dropped out." Mercy shook her head. "She's in Miami, engaged with that guy."

"Are you serious?"

Mercy nodded and sat on my desk chair. "As a heart attack, happened maybe like two months ago."

I plopped down on my bed and realized that the friendship that had been forged in high school was a mere illusion. I didn't even know my friends anymore. Yara pregnant by a married guy and now Rosalind engaged. She hadn't even called me to tell me when in the past buying a new pair of jeans had required a conference call for moral support.

"People change, Becka," Mercy said slowly.

Mercy saw it in my face and I turned to look at her with a tight smile.

"What about you, how have you changed?"

Mercy shrugged; her pretty face nonchalant. "I'm in a sorority now but most of them are a bunch of bitches. I get along with two of them and we've become the three musketeers."

Pain shifted in my stomach at that statement. The Patty Girls had been the team, the lifetime team, sisters for life, godmothers to our kids, and when our husbands all died, the Patty Girls would take over retirement homes.

"It's all changing, isn't it?" I said.

Mercy gave me one of her cynical smiles. "Couldn't last forever. There's still Yara, you, and me."

I grimaced. Might as well say it and deal with it. "Yara's pregnant."

Mercy's eyes widened comically. "You're shitting me."

"This was the emergency."

"By married army guy?"

"Coast Guard and yes, the same," I said.

Mercy sat back with an open look of utter disbelief. I realized right then that Mercy was too damn quick to ever get pregnant mostly because her Mom had been a teen mom. Mercy always swore it had messed her up, her mom never got to live out all the stuff you're supposed to get out of your system in your 20s. I remembered the time that we had run into Mercy's mom outside of a club with the newest flavor of the week. Granted, her mom was still hot, she had been in her early 30s when this happened, but Mercy had been so embarrassed. She had cried in the car while we tried to reassure her that we wouldn't think less of her.