A/N: OOO! DRAMA! Haha thank you to everyone who reviewed. I can't do individual comments right now, I'm getting ready to go to school on Monday. I still have like nineteen chapters of Little Women :/ But I'll try to get another chapter up before all gets hectic, because when it does I won't be able to update for a while. (Like, a week. Not a month or any of that, so bear with me.)

"Dylan, hon, it looks like a barren wasteland in here," Paige eyed her brother sitting on his naked mattress, staring at the opposite wall.

"It might look like a barren wasteland, but it's my barren wasteland." He rubbed his hand caressingly along his mattress.

"Okay, that made no sense."

"Made sense to me." He grinned his shiny, perfect teeth at his sister.

"Stop acting like an Abercrombie model. It doesn't wear well on you." She crossed her arms in front of herself and looked around the one-bedroom apartment. It wasn't much, but it had been her brother's home for the past three years.

"We'd better get going. I'm supposed to be there tomorrow for some special orientation."

"I still don't get why you picked Vancouver." Paige stooped down and picked up one, lone sock on the ground. "Ew." She tossed it on top of Dylan's athletic bag.

"I dunno. It might not have as good a hockey team as Toronto, but it's a different place. New settings." He walked out of his bedroom and continued into the living room, taking last looks at the little things he knew he'd miss; the microwave that never closed properly, the fridge which actually froze things, and the carpet with a stain next to where the couch used to be.

"Dylan, stop staring at that stain. It'll just make you depressed for the ride over there."

"I guess you're right." He checked his watch, took one last look around his apartment, and then stepped out the door. "We're gonna be late if we don't beat it out of here." He twisted the key in the doorway until the lock clicked inside, and slid it under the doormat for his landlord to come pick up later.

---

I couldn't sleep that night. I couldn't handle all of these things flowing into my head all at once, plus the fact that I had finals in two days. But mere pieces of paper and writing utensils seemed so mediocre compared to everything that was flowing into my head.

These were my emotions and who I was as a person. And the fact that I had lied to everyone. Even myself, even though in my heart, I've always known who I am. The only person who ever knew that besides me, was Dylan.

Yeah, sure, Ellie understood that I was gay. But she never really grasped the concept. It was as if being gay was a label, a stereotype. Which it is, but she just used it as a word. She didn't really get that being gay meant that I had completely different feelings than straight people. Of course she didn't understand. She wasn't gay. Dylan was.

"Dammit!"

I heard Kevin kicking his foot and flinging himself onto the door. That only meant one thing: he was drunk.

"Zack, do something about him, will you?" I scowled at Zack, who had his pillow protecting his head from Kevin's moans.

"Yeahashad," he mumbled. He got up, revealing a pair of plaid boxers and a rival college's t-shirt. How pleasant.

Zack banged his fist against the door. "Kevin, go away." He locked the door and turned on me. "Happy?" It wasn't as if he cared about my reply, since he flung himself onto his bed the second he finished the 'y' sound.

"God." There was no way I was getting any sleep now, so I decided on food. Something to wake up my body.

Although, crawling into a hole would get me some sleep. I'd have to look into that.

The cabinet where we kept all the dry foods was open already, revealing that there is no food in there whatsoever, except for some stale goldfish. Great. The one food that makes me throw up.

I open the fridge and freezer at the same time, also opening to nothing, except for expired milk and molding cheese. Now I'm getting pissed.

"Zack, where the hell is all the food?" I looked back at him, pissed off as ever.

"... ate it," was all I could make out, due to the oh-so-wonderful face-in-mattress.

"Who?"

He flung the pillow off of his head and looked back at me with an angered face. "Who do you think, Marco? I'm all skin and bones!" He lifted up his shirt and pulled at what little fat he had. No wonder I wasn't attracted to him. He was a male Mary-Kate Olsen.

"Kevin ate all of the food??" I stood there, looking surprised and disgusted in the same face.

"Sure as hell wasn't me."

"Zack, I spent thirty dollars on that food three days ago. I can't believe you let Kevin eat all of that!" I slammed the fridge door shut.

"I didn't let him! He has a key, for gods sake."

He has a key? Oh lord. This could not be happening to me, not now.

"You know what? I'm not even going to ask how he got one of those. But I am wondering how Kevin has a key, when the last time I checked, only two people lived here!" I was getting hysterical.

"I don't remember how he got one. I just know he has one. End of story, okay?" Then he went back to his rabbit hole under his corn-chip stained sheets.

"No, that's not end of story! I can't go to my French final on Monday morning without having any food for two days!" I ripped the sheets off of his limp body, making him slightly shiver.

"Will you quit obsessing over your damn grades for once? It's like you have no life!"

The room got really quiet after that. What he said didn't necessarily hurt me; it was just a shock having Zack insult me like that. It was as if those words came straight from Kevin's mouth.

"Oh god, Marco, I'm sorry..." he sat up and addressed me for real this time.

"Uh, yeah. It's not a big deal. But I need food. Quick." I remembered the ten dollars I had. I grabbed a pair of those too-tight jeans and dug out the money and flashed it in Zack's face. "Got one of these?"

"I think so." He dug through the crevices of his mattress and pulled out five dollars. "I think that's the best I can do. Sorry."

"It's fine. I'm going to go to the campus store, it might cost more, but I don't have any gas in my car either."

"Yeah. Okay." I pulled on a jean jacket, since I was still in jeans from yesterday. "Oh, and, Marco?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh... I'll try to get that key back from Kevin."

"Thanks." I smiled. Zack was sweet, but he was no Dylan. And there is always that part about him not being gay. "At least he didn't have it this morning; we could have gotten a gun to the head or something." I imitated a gun with my fingers and put it up to my head.

"Don't joke about that shit, man." Then he threw his pillow at me, but not before I could escape into the hallway.

---

"Plus side to flying: free peanuts and coke. Down side: jet-lag," Dylan breathed.

"God, I can barely walk." Paige was almost out of breath after lugging her cream-colored roller suitcase up two flights of stairs. "Haven't these people ever heard of elevators? I mean, hel-o?" She noticed few beads of sweat on the tip of her nose.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Dylan banged his suitcase and athletic bag onto the floor, holding open the door for Paige.

"That's what you say, Mr. I'm-here-to-be-a-big-hockey-star." She gave him her signature evil eye.

"Come on." He wanted to ruffle her hair, but knew that she would be a bitch for the rest of the day if he did.

"What number is yours?"

"Uh..." He checked his room key. "219."

"Great. At the end of the hallway." She pointed to a number sign next to a coke machine.

"Stop whining or I'll be forced to carry you there." He pushed her in the direction of the room, forcing her to walk in front of him.

After what felt like walking on coals, Paige banged on the front of 219 in salvation of finally getting there.

"They better have put that couch in the right direction, because I'm charging at it." She waited for her brother to open the door to his already-furnished dorm room, one of the perks he got for switching over to Vancouver.

"Just don't break anything. You're here for a week. I'll be here for the next seven months." He opened up the door and let it swing itself open.

"Oh my god," Paige gasped. Despite the building's dreary brown coded hallways, Dylan's dorm room seemed fit for a god. Perfectly white carpet, pristinely tiled counter top, and a very nicely sized TV.

"They really are desperate," Dylan said, referring to the college's hockey team.

Paige placed her suitcase in the hallway and plopped down on the couch. "Now I'm hungry," she pouted.

"I'm not. Oh well. Sucks for you," Dylan grinned.

"Dylan!"

"Okay, fine. I give you money, you go retrieve food. Simple enough?"

Paige desperately groaned, but in the end, accepted. When she began to the door, she accidentally tripped over one of Dylan's moving boxes, and knocked it over.

"Oh, damn. Sorry, Dylan." She looked back at the mess she made. There were a couple of statues scattered on the floor, and underneath books nicely fanned out. She picked up one particular book.

"Oh my goodness..." she smiled, fanning through the book's pages. She stopped at a certain page, one that made Dylan frown.

"Paige, could you put that away please? I'm suddenly getting hungry."

"Fine, Mr. Grumpypants." She turned on her heel and glided down the hallway.

Dylan was left there, holding the book open, staring at the black and white pages. He let himself fall onto the couch while what he stared at stung his blinding blue eyes.