Life isn't fair. A hard lesson, but one that Rigby Patel had to learn at a very young age. The girl was only four when both of her parents died in a car crash that involved black ice, highway speeds, and a semi. Rigby, at home with a sitter, was suddenly all alone in a big city and not able to understand why her momma and papa weren't coming back home for her. The girl named after her father's favorite Beatles' song eventually was packed up by her grieving grandmother and flown east to New York.

Bernie Robertson was Rigby's mother's mother, and at 59 she hadn't been planning on having to raise any more children. Her daughter had moved away for college, after all, and had never come back after meeting Graham Patel. She'd met Rigby before, of course, and knew the child to be well enough behaved, but the transition from visiting nana to a permanent living arrangement wasn't easy for either of them. There were plenty nights where one or both of them would end up in tears, wishing that Alexandra was still around. Eventually as time passed they were able to accept the pain for what it was and develop a sort of routine.

Things became easier as time went on. More often than not Rigby would have company in the shape of her cousin, Jason, a boy that was a year older and fiercely protective of the little girl. It wasn't long before they were attached at the hip and getting into trouble, driving their poor grandmother mad in the process. It was from Jason that Rigby learned to love video games; it was with him that she tried her first cigarette, her first beer, her first joint. And it was also thanks to JJ that Rigby fell in love with the sciences.

Living with an elderly woman meant that Rigby knew better than most about how many drugs were out there. By the time Rigby was a teenager, Bernie's prescriptions were built into the family budget. The cost could range from a few dollars to a hundred, but they were necessary. Rigby became fascinated by them-- the shapes and colors, the chemical makeup that could produce life-saving effects in the human body. By high school the young woman was taking as many chemistry classes as she could, and along with her extra curricular activities she was also job shadowing as a pharmacy technician just down the street. It wasn't long before she started looking into schools with pharmacology and Pharm.D programs, though with Nana getting up there in age Rigby kept the search close to home.

At age 21 Rigby found herself visiting her grandmother at the New York Presbyterian Hospital. It was a warm summer day and she'd brought her grandmother flowers to keep her from just staring at the white walls while she recovered from a hip surgery, but even so she didn't think anything special of the day. And for the most part, it wasn't any different. But when Rigby wandered down to the cafeteria line, her iPod stuck in her ears, a chance encounter would change everything else. Doctor Nathaniel Irving, a pediatric oncologist. The flirting was mostly just something to pass the time between the mashed potatoes and the salad bar, but by the third day of running into him the suave and classy older man had managed to get her number. Rigby was swept off her feet.

By the eighth month of her relationship with Nate, he had somehow managed to slip a ring onto her finger. Some people thought that she was too young, there was too much of an age difference, they were rushing things. Neither of them paid any heed to the warnings and set the date for February 23, 2013. She's got her hands full between graduate school, work, daily living, and all the planning, but Nate is all she needs to remind herself that the added stress is worth it.