A/N: I'm a huge fan of fan fictions, but this is my first attempt at writing one. Please be patient with me.

At one point in time, sitting with my best friend on our way home from school, I began to ponder our existence. He smiled and waved my question away, but I never forgot. I never forgot to question why he didn't wonder why we were put on this earth…

"Hey, what's wrong?" I looked up at Tanner, my unfinished homework on my lap. "What happened?"

"Nothing, Tanner." I replied, turning back to my homework.

"You always do your homework. What happened?" My pencil stabbed my paper, breaking part of the way through my folder. "They were arguing again, weren't they?" I barely nodded. I could smell the announcement my parents were trying to ignore, maybe for my sake. Tanner didn't need to know exactly what happened this time, but for some reason, I was aching to tell him. "It's fine to tell me, what happened?" I shook my head, letting the loose tendrils of ashen blonde hair fall from my hastily made ponytail.

"They were just angry. You're lucky, yours are together forever."

"That just makes the fights worse. Dad spent the night in the lab again, and Mom got so mad at him-"

"She wouldn't think about leaving him, would she?" I tossed my homework into my backpack, trying to ignore the way he was staring again. "They both want to leave, but they are acknowledging, at the very least, that they can't both take me."

"So you're keeping them together?" I let the bus rumble through the city streets in silence for a few minutes, he knew me well enough to know when to drop it. One of his girlfriends got on the bus, giggling and bending over to kiss him. I looked away, and I heard something along the lines of 'lesbian' but I'd learned how to hide my emotions behind a bored mask. Tanner shoved her away, glancing back at me as if to see if I'd heard. Maybe I was too tense, but Tanner glared at the girl. I'd never bothered to learn her name, he'd be tired of her in a week or two. However, I couldn't blame her for thinking I wasn't straight; I hadn't worn anything besides jeans and t-shirts, or oversized sweatshirts for years. Since my parents had started arguing.

"Sorry about that, she really should learn some manners."

"Or she should just adjust her gaydar to pick up less confused signals." He gritted his teeth; of course he'd take it hard. We were friends, always had been. However, I was happy the school rolled into view, allowing me to avoid sounding like a mother who didn't approve of his slutty girlfriends. I ran inside, our lockers were far apart, but after that, we had most of our classes together.

I sat incredibly still in English Class as we talked about Macbeth. It disgusted me, but after hanging around Tanner for so long, I understood every dirty joke the porter made after the Macbeths had killed King Duncan. A bit unfortunate, actually, when you're one of two people who think the jokes are funny. Tanner even cracked a smile, but soon, the bell rang, and it was time for Calculus.

My mother had joked that he was the only reason I was passing. She was right. I hated math, I was horrible at it, and yet this was my best class because Tanner was helping me after his super advanced college level math classes. He rarely explained it in a way that I couldn't understand, unlike the teacher, who purposefully used long, unknown words and cumbersome definitions to confuse me. I survived and was walking to Chemistry when Tanner caught up.

"Hey! How was Calculus?"

"Hell, as usual. Your class?"

"I've had worse." He was smiling again, his ruffled black hair glinting in the fluorescent lighting. It was good to have the day be back to normal, but of course, that was when my day had to, somehow, get worse.