Opal's Pov

It'd been a few days since I'd found Pearl's phone, and she still wasn't talking to me.  It was even worse because it was Sunday, so she'd be back at school the next day and Jasper would be able to talk o her without Mom or I knowing. Luckily, that night Mom planned to bring me and the person who wasn't talking to me over for dinner at the house of someone else who wasn't talking to me.

Rainbow had pretty much ghosted me since our last phone conversation a week or two earlier. It wasn't like anything particularly bad had happened either. She'd just... stopped.

"Tahitia!" Her Mom said, hugging my mom at the door.

"Lisa! How are you"

"Not much different than I was this morning," She joked. "Please, come in." I'd been inside their house almost a million times. I'd spent the night there before, I was practically another member of the family. There was no reason whatsoever for me to have felt uncomfortable stepping inside, but I found myself having to force myself inside.

The house just felt... empty. How obvious was it that it was just Lisa living there? It felt weird to be calling her Lisa, but I couldn't just call her 'Mrs. Quartz' or 'Rose's mom' because neither of those things applied to her anymore. 

"Rainbow darling, could you get the meatloaf from the oven please?" I turned to realize that Rainbow was standing in the kitchen. It was clear that she'd been forced into the nice top she was wearing, and definitely wasn't interested at all in my presence or the idea of meatloaf.

"Why can't I get the salad?" She asked, finally making glaring eye contact with me.

"Because," Lisa said firmly. "Being vegan doesn't make you exempt from helping your mother when she asks you to." Rainbow interacted with her mother like she was twelve. Although who was I to judge how adults act around their parents?

Needless to say, I felt extremely uncomfortable. Rainbow seemed to have no intentions of speaking to me, and I could tell Pearl felt like the fifth wheel without Rose. The dinner, for the most part, was Mom and Lisa talking about divorced life and how hard it was for them to adjust to Rainbow and I being away at college. They were the only ones who spoke unless they asked one of us about school. Lisa actually succeeded in tricking me into blabbing about psychology for a bit, but Rainbow and Pearl gave the shortest possible answers, usually either just 'good' or 'it's a lot of work'. For not the first time, I was begging for the topic to change to something that excited Pearl so she'd go on a rant. 

It wasn't until we were practically finished with dinner that the conversation became unbearable. Somehow the topic had switched to Rose, specifically her death. Pearl excused herself to the bathroom and Rainbow stood up and headed for the living room. I followed her.

"Hey." I followed her until we were far enough from earshot. "What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" She turned to face me.

"Why haven't you been talking to me?" She sighed.

"This dynamic isn't working for me, Opal."

"What do you mean, Rainbow?" I asked. I had no clue what she meant.

"I've been talking to Morgan lately. And as shitty as a person she is, she's right about one thing. I can't be around you."

"Why the hell not?" She shook her head.

"Do you remember that party we went to?" I shrugged. "You got drunk and tried to start kissing me." I scoffed and crossed my arms.

"You'd think you'd be happy seeing as how you've acted in the past." Rainbow groaned.

"That's not the fucking point, Opal. You have a girlfriend. And I don't feel comfortable in the position you've put me in. And I don't give a shit about what happened between us. I apologized. And you said you forgave me. And however I acted then shouldn't dictate how I act now." I sighed and leaned against the wall.

"Rainbow, why can't we just be friends again? We used to be so close, what happened?" Rainbow sighed and looked at me.

"Let's be real, Opal. Nothing's been the same since the accident. As much as you try to deny it, it affected all of us. Have we really been friends since then?" I thought about it. 

"We haven't really been friend's since freshman year," I said quietly. Rainbow looked at me.

"Exactly. And I don't think we can ever go back." I looked at the floor. From the kitchen, I could hear Mom and Lisa starting to open a bottle of wine.

"This could go late, I should get Pearl home," I said. "Text me when I should come back to pick Mom up." Rainbow nodded and I turned to go, stopping at the doorway. "I know you don't think we can be friends again, but we can. I just wanted you to know that." And if Rainbow said or did anything after that, I wouldn't know.

(A/N) Hey guys! Sorry this took so long, I've been busy as usual. But I get out next Friday so this book should wind down a bit as we reach the height of the story! Just an fyi I have book three planned ;)

Question Of The Day: Book three takes place fourteen years after book two concludes. If I were to reveal any characters(new, current, or those who are currently children) for the new book, who would you most like to see?