"Hey honey." Dad said, walking down into the basement, eyes widening as he saw my small setup. "Wow, is this for Y.A.K.S. tomorrow?"

"Yeah." I said, connecting my dad’s old Nintendo Switch to the spare TV he had connected down here. I had already brought down a bunch of blankets and pillows to try and make things more comfortable. "Nothing like getting a group to work together by crushing everyone in Mario Party."

Dad laughed happily. "That’s my girl, trying to fix some friendships by forcing her friends to play a game that is notorious in ending friendships."

"It’s out of the box thinking. I thought it would work." I said as we headed back upstairs. I plopped down on the couch.

"It might. You never know." Dad shrugged, looking over at Koda, who was sleeping on the other side of the TV. "And how are you doing, Koda?"

"I’m good." Koda said, getting up and stretching.

"God, I am never going to get used to that." Dad said to himself.

"I still haven’t gotten used to that." I admitted.

The two of us laughed as Dad touched my shoulder. "How about we order pizza for dinner tonight?"

"I’m cool with that." I said happily as the three of us walked back up stairs. I grabbed the TV remote and turned on a movie.

"Bacon and pineapple on your pizza?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." Dad said, quickly ordering the pizza. As soon as he was done, he sat down next to me, smiling at the TV as Koda got up and laid his head down on Dad’s lap. "Indiana Jones. Nice choice."

"Better than what happened at school today."

"What happened at school today?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"I’m confused."

"We did absolutely nothing. You know how Friday happened?"

"Yeah..." Dad said cautiously. "What exactly does you getting shot have tp do with school?"

"Erika’s parents mentioned me and Erika on the news this weekend. Today, it seems like all of my teachers gave up on teaching because we either watched a movie or we had a talk about guns."

"All you did was watch movies?"

"Yup."

"Did they at least have something to do with your class?"

"If my teachers twisted it to be like that, then yes."

"As long as your science teacher didn’t force you to watch The Phantom Menace because of the Midichlorians, I think you’re good." Dad said, laughing a bit. My eyes widened when he said that and I quickly adverted my gaze. Dad stopped laughing as he looked at me. "He didn’t..."

"He did."

"Why would he do that!" Dad asked exhaustedly. "Midichlorians are the biggest bunch of bull I have ever seen! They could have shown you Rise of Skywalker for the Force healing, but no! They had to show you the politics induced Midichlorian filled pool known as The Phantom Menace."

"And now you know how I feel." I said exhaustedly.

"What other movies did you watch?" Dad asked, then held up a hand. "Wait, don’t tell me. In Art, you watched a Brie Larson movie."

"Captain Marvel after a brief gun talk. Needless to say, lunch was the funnest period of the day."

Dad laughed. "Hopefully things will be better later this week so that you can actually, you know, learn something."

"God, I hope so."

Dad laughed. After a couple minutes, we heard a knock at the door. Dad gave me a confused look. "The pizza can’t already be here, can it?"

"And don’t the pizza people usually use the doorbell?" I asked, getting off of the couch. "I’ll get it, Dad. You have Koda on you. That’s a rare honor."

"I love you, honey." Dad said jokingly. "Get me a beer while you’re up and about?"

"You and I both know that you don’t do alcohol." I said, opening the door to see Callum, school uniform a mess, things haphazardly flying out of a small duffel bag on his side, blood dripping out of his sleeve and onto his hand, his right eye turning black from a bruise. The sight of him scared me. "Oh my God..."

"Can I spend the night here?" Callum asked, his voice strained.

"O-Of course." I said nervously, letting him inside the house. "Dad, where’s the first aid kit?"

"Why are you- Oh, Callum, what a surprise..." Dad said uneasily, seeing Callum, then quickly went to the bathroom to go get the first aid kit.

"You guys don-"

"Callum, sit down." I said sternly. Callum did what I said, taking off his blazer and unbuttoning his white collared shirt, the sleeve stained with blood.

"You know, you can be kinda scary when you want to be." Callum said nervously. His arm was bleeding from three little cuts, blood trailing all the way down to his hand. The cuts weren’t deep, thank God, but they did produce a lot of blood.

"What happened between the time that school ended and now?" I asked. Callum remained silent, not meeting my eyes. I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. "God damnit Callum, answer me! Who hurt you!"

"My parents." Callum muttered.

I froze, trying to sort through what he had just said. "What do you mean?"

"I got home and my mom told me to give her my phone. I did that, and then my father told me that I wasn’t allowed to live with them anymore. I yelled back, my mom scratched my arm with her nails, my dad punched me in the face, and then they threw that duffle bag at me and told me I had ten minutes to grab whatever I wanted before I called the police on me. I grabbed whatever I could, my school uniforms, my belongings, that flag above my bed, and then I left. I thought of places I could go, realized that you were the closest, and I walked here."

"You walked!" I asked.

"Not all the way. I got a ride after the first two hours."

"Here’s the first aid kit." Dad said uneasily, handing me the white box. "Callum, do you want me to call anyone?"

"My aunt." Callum said uneasily. "She mentioned that you have her phone number."

"I can call her." Dad said, nodding. "Anna, answer the door when the pizza gets here. I’m gonna take Koda outside to talk to Beth."

"Okay." I said, grabbing a baby wipe from the first aid kit and started cleaning Callum’s arm. I sighed heavily. "Why did they kick you out?"

"You know why they kicked me out."

"Okay, but why now? They’ve known you were gay for-"

"They kicked me out because I have a boyfriend." Callum said exhaustedly. "It’s a new thing, we went on a date Saturday, my parents asked what I was doing, I told them about it on Sunday, and when I got home from school today they told me that they were kicking me out. I… I guess that even though they knew that I was gay, they just didn’t accept it until it was… Right in their face, I guess."

I didn’t know what to say. Just the fact that his parents did this to him was making my skin boil. Electrical sockets around me started exploding. Callum gently put a hand on my knee. I looked up, and Callum was smiling at me despite how hurt he looked. "I’m fine. You don’t need to get revenge for me."

"Callum, they-"

"I know, but you can’t control what happens to you, right? This happened, I got punched in the stomach, I’m moving on."

"Callum, I am so sorry."

"Anna, it’s not your fault."

"I know, but-"

"Don’t apologize for my family. Let’s just move on, okay?"

I nodded, grabbing some gauze and a little pad of fabric to stop the bleeding as I tried to dress his injury. "So who is this boyfriend anyway?"

"You are going to think I’m crazy." Callum said, laughing a bit.

"Not as crazy as what happened to me after school today." I said, shrugging. "Just tell me."

"I’ll tell you if you tell me what happened after school."

"Fine."

"It’s Damian."

My eyes widened with surprise. "Damian as in Edward’s friend Damian?"

"Yeah..."

"How did that happen?"

"Remember when he and Edward came to that band competition?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, when we went to go get food, we started talking, one thing led to another, and he gave me his phone number. We’ve been texting back and forth ever since then and last week, he asked me out."

"Well, that’s great!" I said, tearing off the last of the gauze and walking over to the freezer to grab a bag of frozen peas. "I’m happy for you."

"Thanks." Callum said happily, taking the peas and placing the bag on his black eye. "So… What happened to you after school?"

"Well… I may have… Had my first kiss." I said awkwardly.

"Really? You just had it?"

"Are you gonna make fun of me?" I pouted.

"No. I’m just surprised that you haven’t kissed a guy yet. Thought that guys would be all over you."

I rolled my eyes. "Sounds like you’re making fun of me..."

"Okay, okay. So who was the lucky guy who took your lip virginity?"

"Well, you already mentioned him once in this conversation."

Callum’s eyes widened. "Edward? Really?"

"What?" I asked, giving Callum a confused look. "Is there something wrong with Edward?"

"No. I just didn’t realize that you and Edward were romantically involved."

"We’re not. At least, I don’t think that we’re romantically involved."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we were talking after school, and I started freaking out, and at some point, Edward kissed me to get me to shut up."

"Was it enjoyable?"

"I don’t know. I guess it was before I sparked him."

"Sparked him?" Callum asked, trying to hold in a laugh.

"He surprised me, I freaked out, and somehow I managed to spark him through my lips."

"Whole new meaning to ‘sparks fly’." Callum said, bursting out into laughter.

"Callum, I am gonna murder you." I said, pushing him further into the couch as Callum kept laughing. The doorbell rang as I got up, grabbing the pizza since Dad had already paid for that with his credit card. I set the pizza down on the table, nervously looking over at Callum. "Sorry we didn’t get you a specific pizza. We kinda didn’t know that you were coming."

"It’s cool." Callum said as I opened up my pizza box, giving it a disgusted look. "Pineapple on pizza? Really?"

"I like pineapple on pizza! You know this already!"

"You’re disgusting!"

"Fight me Callum!"

Dad walked back inside, Koda running over and jumped onto Callum’s lap. "Okay Callum, I just got off of the phone with your aunt."

"What’d she say?" Callum asked nervously.

"First off, she hopes that you’re doing okay. Second, she’s extremely angry with your mother and father and I had to talk her out of sending an army of unicorns to go and rip your family apart."

"That’s Aunt Beth, alright." Callum said sadly.

"Now I understand why your mom calls her Crazy Aunt Beth." I said understandingly.

"Don’t fuck with Beth’s family."

"Anyway, she said that she has room in her house for you, but that she needs to actually get you a bed and stuff." Dad explained, walking over and grabbing a slice of his regular cheese pizza. "She thinks that you should stay here tonight so that she can get your new room ready and whatnot. I’m actually meeting up with her now because she’s not comfortable with you not having a cell phone. She also wants to go get bed sheets and stuff like that, so she asked me to come with her for help, though I really don’t know how much help I’ll be since we recently did some rearranging."

"Rearranging?" Callum asked.

"Since Mom left, I got to move into her old office." I explained.

"No way! You got out of that skinny room?"

"Yup. I have way more room now..."

"Anyway, I’ll try to get some cool stuff. You two just control yourselves while I’m gone. Feel free to have some of my cheese pizza if you don’t like Anneliese’s pineapple thing." Dad said casually. He shot finger guns at Callum. "Any color you would prefer?"

Callum and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. He assumed that Callum was straight and that we were dating, for some reason, which would make the future ten times more creepy. "Well, I like yellows and oranges, but I also like rainbows, so go wild."

"You like rainbows?" Dad asked cautiously as I dug into Callum’s bag and pulled out his pride flag.

"Dad, Callum is gay." I said, shaking the pride flag in my hands as I tossed it onto Callum. "He likes rainbows. We don’t judge."

"Right, right, just got surprised. I... Um... I’ll be back later." Dad said, waving goodbye as he left the house.

As soon as he was gone, I smiled at Callum as I found a movie on the shelf. "I got a movie we could watch."

"As long as it’s not the fucking Midichlorian movie, I’m good with just about anything."

"It’s an old movie, but it fits with our current situation." I said, popping the DVD in.

"What’s the movie?"

"Love, Simon. It’s based on this book my grandma had, Simon vs. The Homosapiens Agenda. They both make me cry."

"What’s it about?"

"Emails between two gay boys and one of the gay boys, who’s in the closet, is getting blackmailed into helping this dick into getting with one of his friends."

"You had me at two gay boys." Callum said, smiling happily. I put in the movie, sitting down next to Callum. He looked over at me. We didn’t even have to say anything to each other as we peacefully watched the movie, trying to forget this entire day.