June 1985

"Now, you see, Keith and I became best friends. We'd run around on the ports together and play even more Shadow Tag. At some point he started to come over to my house. My family loved him." Lance explained. "I told him all about my life. About how my Papá worked in those factories and how my Mamá worked as a housekeeper. But, Keith never told me about his family until I asked."

"Do you think his family had something to do with his suicide?" The lady questioned.

"Oh, no, if they did it would have happened long before now."

July 1959

"Hey, Keith?" Lace called as the sped away from the docks.

"What?" Keith called back. He slowed down as they ran into the park.

"You want to come over to my house tonight? If my Mamá doesn't have enough food to feed you, you can always have some of mine. Maybe Camilla will be staying with her boyfriend again and you can have hers." Lance said. Keith nodded with a 'sure'.

So, they started down to Lance's house.

"Mamá. I brought Keith with me, can he stay over?" Lance called loudly. Keith walked behind him, shutting the door and putting his hands behind his back.

"Of course, mijo, it's always nice to have Keith over." Mamá said. She came out of the kitchen, giving Lance a hug and then giving Keith a small pat on his head. "Keith, are you going to be here for dinner."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm gonna need your phone, though, if you don't mind. I gotta call my Aunt Aya and tell her where I am." Keith replied. Mamá smiled, bringing Keith over to the rotary on the living room table. She left Keith once he started to put his aunt's phone number in.

Mamá went back to the kitchen, making Lance follow her so he wouldn't snoop. He'd been known to listen in on conversations he wasn't supposed to listen to. He had gotten into some serious trouble with what Mamá called his 'sneaky ear'.

Keith walked into the kitchen after a few minutes had passed. He told Mamá that his Aunt Aya had said it was okay but to make sure he was headed off home before noon the next day. He said it was because he had some work to do with the chickens. They were laying eggs like crazy and a few were hatching.

The two boys ran up to Lance's bedroom. Anton had moved out, so it was just him and Axel, but his younger brother was with Papá at baseball practise. He wouldn't be home until the sun was gone.

"Hey, Keith, I've told you all about my family, but you never tell me a thing about yours. Where are you from? You're definitely not from Florida." Lance said, getting up on his bed, Keith following suit. They were both getting taller and had to dodge Lance's collection of model planes. His copy of the Azul Cielo had been finished and was hanging proudly in the centre with some good wire.

"Well, I'm from Eufaula. It's a tiny little town in Alabama. It's full of old ladies, but they were all nice. I lived there with my Daddy for a while." Keith said.

"Is that why you talk the way you do?"

"Yep, everyone there talks like this unless they came from someplace else."

"What was your Daddy like?" Lance asked. That question made Keith squirm a little, but he answered anyways.

"My Daddy wasn't too kind. He seemed nice when I was with him, but now I know that he wasn't. He was always kissin' all up on me. He'd always be touchin' me, too. I know it made me feel real dirty, but he always said it was okay. I used to pray to God about it, but it took so long for Him to actually do anythin'." Keith said.

"What did you say to God?" Lance questioned.

"I prayed to Him the same way my Mama did. She would always say 'Dear God, make me a bird, so I can fly far, far away from here', and then He did make her a bird and let her fly all up to Heaven. I said the same thing, but I guess I was too little for Heaven, because He sent the police to my house instead." Keith explained. "The police took my Daddy away and brought me all the way down here to come live with my Aunt Aya and Shiro."

Lance didn't know why a father holding their child was wrong, but apparently it was so bad that God sent the police there. He guessed he'd never know. It wasn't his place.

"Do you ever think about going back to Eufaula?" Lance asked.

"Well, I miss my Daddy, but I don't know if I ever want to see him again. He sends me letters sometimes, but Aunt Aya doesn't let me see them. She reads 'em, but then she rips 'em up and throws 'em away. She starts cryin' and says I shouldn't ever reply to him. Even the letter I got for my birthday." He said. Lance would be so mad if his family members ripped up his birthday letters, so he found it curious that Keith seemed so okay with it. Lance guessed it had something to do with his Daddy.

Then, Mamá called them down for dinner. Lance hopped off the bed, but Keith grabbed his arm before he could speed out the room.

"You can't tell anyone about that. It's a secret." He said. "If you tell the secret, then bad stuff'll happen. The police might come and take me away to go live with somebody else."

Lance nodded before his arm was released. Keith yelled 'Race you!' as he sped through the house. Lance lost, but he wasn't the one who collided with Axel, knocking them both over. Keith apologised, but he seemed more hurt. He had smacked his head on the floor but Axel had just fallen on his back.

"You need to cut your hair, chico. You can't see anything." Papá said, giving Keith's hair a firm ruffle.

"I don't wanna cut my hair, Mr. Julio. Aunt Aya ain't good at it." Keith said, straightening his hair back out to the way it was.

"You need to get it cut sometime." Papá replied. "Go to the barber's."

"They won't take Aunt Aya's money. I'll see if I can get Shiro's girlfriend to do it. She wants to go to hair cuttin' school. She's been stayin' with us since Shiro went off with the army." Keith said. Papá nodded with a smile, going to the kitchen. Mamá was setting bowls down on the table. There was one for Papá, Lance, Keith, Axel and Victoria, but none for her. Lance asked her about it and she said it was because she wasn't hungry.

Lance nodded, getting up on his stool and grabbing the hands of Keith and Victoria. Papá was the one who always said grace. He always spoke in Spanish for grace, so Keith didn't understand, but he still sat in the circle. Lance tried to translate it for him after they said Amén.

"He said 'Dear Jesus, thank you feeding us. We are grateful to you. We pray that we will be forgiven as we eat your offerings.'" Lance said. Keith would always laugh when Lance added the 'I think'. He'd call him stupid, even if he didn't mean it. Then, they would go silent as they ate as much as they could. Everyone said it was because they were growing boys, but Lance thinks it's because he had a black pit of a stomach. He could eat and eat and never get tired of it.

"I didn't know Shiro had a girlfriend." Lance said once they were outside after dinner. The were sitting on the sidewalk outside of the house. The ground was hot from being under the blazing sun all day, but they didn't mind.

"Yeah, they started just before Shiro got drafted. She was so sad. She was cryin' and tellin' him how she didn't want him to go." Keith said. "Her name's Allura."

"What's she like?"

"She's a dark girl. She has really light hair, too. She said she did her hair so that she could be different, but I think she looks a lot like Marilyn Monroe. She has blue eyes like you do." Keith replied. "She's really nice and helps me with my homework. She acts like she's in the family already, but I'm okay with that."

"She sounds nice. Can I come over sometime and meet her?" Lance asked. Keith shrugged.

"Maybe when Shiro gets back from the army. We wouldn't be able to play if you came over now." He said.

"It sounds like you're always doing work."

"Well, Aunt Aya has a lot of chickens, okay? It's my job to get all the eggs and then feed them." Keith argued.

"Boys, come inside, it's getting late." Mamá called. The two got up and went inside without complaints. The ones that liked to cause trouble were starting to show up on the streets. Lance has never had a face to face encounter with these people, but he heard that they were horrible and would beat people up just because they look a certain way.

And, that night, Lance learned the word 'racism'. Keith said Allura had explained it to him.

"It means that someone doesn't like you because you're from a certain place. So, some people don't like her because she's black, people don't like me because I'm Asian and people don't like you because you're Spanish." He said.

"I'm actually Cuban." Lance pointed out matter-of-factly. "But I know what you mean. Why do you think people do that?"

"I don't know. When I asked Aunt Aya, she said it was because they weren't too smart. That or they're afraid of things that are different." Keith replied.

"I think it's because they're stupid. If people that are different weren't supposed to exist, then why do they? That's like saying a penguin shouldn't exist because it can't fly." Lance muttered.

"That's a weird way to say it, but I guess you're right." Keith laughed. He was spread out across the expanse of the lower half of Lance's bed. When Anton moved out, he had been excited to have a place for Keith to sleep instead of on the floor, but that wasn't the case. Anton took his bed with him. Lance started to feel bad about Keith sleeping on the floor, so they'd both squish up on Lance's twin sized bed. They'd wake up in a sore pile, but it was okay. They'd been in worse shape.

Sometime in the night, they went to bed. They didn't have anything to talk about and they were tired. Lance had kind of wished Keith would have stayed up longer. Keith would have to leave in the morning and he wouldn't be able to hear from him until school on Monday. That was a whole two days with no one to talk to! Camilla was too worried about her girl problems, Axel had baseball and Victoria didn't share any hobbies with Lance. He knew he'd hear Camilla complain when she had to babysit all of the younger ones.

He knew Keith was asleep when the other boy was turned away, breathing evenly. Axel was on the other side of the room, in the same state of sleep. Lance was the only one up. The sounds of quiet, only filled with breathing and the sounds of cars rushing by outside, always made him wonder things he wouldn't otherwise think about.

Lance wondered who watched Keith now that Shiro was off to war. Allura might be there, but he had mentioned that she was going to hair stylist school. Aunt Aya had to have a job outside of her chickens. She'd need something to get money from in order to feed her chickens, and Keith and Allura and herself. That would cost a lot of money. Lance knew his family struggled with money, and he already had plenty of siblings. It wasn't a sad affair when a family member moved out or went off to war. The last one to be sent off was Lance's uncle, Estevan. Anton was kept out for a reason Lance didn't know, but something like 'epilepsy' mentioned the last time Anton had been over. His parents did get upset at that, but Lance has a feeling that part of it had to do with the fact that Anton may become invalid and need to be taken care of again. That would add more cost to the bills that already piled up on the kitchen counter.

Lance couldn't help but hope Anton didn't become an invalid relative.

Hey there, it's me. I'm back sooner than I thought I would be, but it's because I already had this chapter done long before now. Anyways, Keith's sexual abuse situation is very important to this story. It plays a large part in who he is now and who he will become. I'm hoping it wasn't described in any way that would sound like it was romanticisation or anything of the like. I hope it was still respectful, however.

Ok, so an 'invalid relative' is a mentally or physically disabled family member. That's what they were called during this point in time until it was seen as disrespectful. Care for these people was a way to get out of the military,a dn having them almost definitely kept you out. That's an important fact that I took the time to research like a good author. This, of course, is an outdated term. Don't use it or you will be punched, most likely.

Also, the 'make me a bird' thing is a reference to one of my favourite movies, Forrest Gump. If you somehow haven't seen it yet, you should watch it immediately, it's amazing. 10000000/10 would recommend.

Anyways, thanks for reading! I always love to get feedback from you!

-MidnightQuestant