Open Your Eyes

by someofthissomeofthat310

My take on what could happen if there's a season 3. *Summary inside because I don't want to take the chance of spoiling the second season for someone that hasn't seen it yet*

5. Creekwood Gonna Creekwood

~ Chapter 5: Creekwood Gonna Creekwood ~

Victor's POV

Being grounded was getting old fast. It had been over two weeks, and I was starting to feel antsy. Who was I kidding? I was so far past starting to feel antsy and was full-blown succumbing to an isolation-induced restlessness that was quickly taking over my life and sanity until the only thing I could think about was how trapped I felt in my apartment.

I was fine. Totally fine. I wasn't spiraling without Benji. If I was being honest, it wasn't just that my time with Benji was limited. I never got to see Felix or Lake or Lucy or anyone. I doubted I would even be able to see Pilar and Adrian if we didn't all live together. I was pretty sure both of them were getting sick of me.

Felix had attempted to see me after he hung out with Pilar one day, but he barely got my bedroom door open before my mom caught him and reminded him that I was very grounded (she used those words and everything because calling me grounded didn't drive home her point; I was very grounded).

I saw Benji more than any other person, but I still missed him like crazy. We got an hour at lunch, time together at work, and whatever mornings I didn't have basketball practice, but it wasn't the same.

I tried not to complain because the last thing I needed was to somehow get in more trouble. I was just over being grounded and I was only at the halfway mark which wasn't helping me feel any less dejected about my sentence. I was going to go crazy by the time my four weeks were up.

I was just tired of missing people. And yeah, I was really tired of missing Benji. Today in particular. We'd been on a long streak of being unable to connect. We'd been scheduled for separate shifts this past weekend because Sarah couldn't work on Sunday, so Benji had been off on Saturday, and I'd been stuck at home the entirety of Sunday while he'd been working. Then, I'd gotten a text from Benji late on Sunday telling me that a family thing had come up, so he wouldn't be in school. Which meant I had to spend a miserable day in school without him yesterday, and Courtney had covered his shift at work, so I didn't even get to see him there. He'd tried to call me last night, but we'd had a random rush of coffee orders, so I missed his call; he didn't answer when I called back and that launched a frustrating game of phone tag that eventually ended when he found me at my locker after Homeroom this morning.

I think he was as desperate to spend some time with me as I was with him because as we walked to PreCalculus, he suggested we skip lunch. I hadn't actually seen him since we left school on Friday and I'd barely talked to him since Saturday. Maybe that didn't seem like a lot of time, but it felt like it lasted forever. Benji told me I was getting dramatic without him. He was right. We didn't have a chance to say a word to each other in PreCalculus because Mr. Lowe surprised us with a pop quiz. I thought I did okay on it but, if Benji's frustrated expression was anything to go off of, he did not feel that same confidence. Because we sat next to each other and I was way better at math, it would have been easy for him to cheat, but one of the things I loved about Benji was that he'd rather earn an F than cheat and get an A.

I pulled him to the side of the hallway right outside of our PreCalc class. Benji didn't have much time because he needed to get to the music rooms on the other side of the building, but he had a minute. "What did you want to do for lunch?"

"Meet me in the lobby. We can figure it out then."

I gave him a quick kiss before he took off.

When I met Benji in the lobby, he wordlessly took my hand and we walked right out of the front of the school. "We have an hour," he said. He set his alarm on his phone. "We're just cutting lunch. I know you can't cut school or you can't play in your game tonight."

"Lunch sounds great." He could've suggested just about anything, and I'd have been on board with it.

We ended up walking to the shopping plaza down the street. It was maybe half a mile from the school and was where a lot of seniors ended up for lunch, so when we walked into the pizza place, I expected to see a ton of seniors. I was unprepared to see a bunch of teachers. They must've been grabbing food on their lunch breaks, and I hoped they wouldn't look too closely and notice that we'd technically snuck out of school.

We conveniently found an empty table tucked away in the corner where we could eat our pizza. We sat on the same side, and I was about to take a bite of my pizza when Benji got a nervous look on his face. I nudged him with my elbow. "What's up with your face? Did you poison this?" I teased.

He rolled his eyes but didn't smile. "No. But I did need to talk to you about something." He twiddled his thumbs.

"What's going on?" I tried to quell the instant anxiety that filled me. I knew this wasn't about us. If I'd done something to make him mad, he would've told me right away but, obviously, something had happened.

"I got a letter about reinstating my license. It's why I wasn't in yesterday. My mom and dad took the day off and we figured out everything I need to do to get my license back. My eighteen months is up. It won't be right away but within the next few weeks…"

I wanted to tell him that it was so exciting and it would be nice for him not to have to keep pretending that he failed his test a bazillion times, but something about his expression made those words die in my throat. "And we're not happy about this." I thought if I'd gone eighteen months without driving, I'd be excited to get back behind the wheel, but I guessed his circumstances for not driving were a little different.

He sighed. "You told me you wanted to hear about this stuff, but are you sure?"

"Yes. Tell me," I encouraged.

"Whenever I think about getting my license, I think about that night," he said quietly. "It, uh, I dunno. It really gets to me. There's nothing about it that should scare me, but…" he sighed. "I don't even know what I'm saying right now."

"What scares you about it?" I pressed.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Did you find out before your meeting on Saturday? Did you have a chance to talk to them about it?"

He shook his head. "No. My mom didn't tell me about it until Sunday. I texted you right after I found out."

"Maybe you want to go this weekend instead of waiting two weeks," I said slowly. I didn't want to sound pushy, but I thought he needed to talk about this with people that could understand him. I respected his choice to only go to the meetings every two weeks, but this felt like a good exception.

"Not a chance. I plan on coming home with you after work and getting down on my hands and knees and-"

"Benji!" I hissed. I glanced around, but no one was paying us any attention. We were reasonably far from the next table, so they'd probably have to be intentionally listening to overhear us.

He laughed. "Will you let me finish? I was going to say that I'm going to beg your mom to give you a one-day break from your punishment so we can celebrate your birthday, but it's good to know where your head's at."

"Oh." I looked down at the table. I was mortified. "Um… we were talking about your license."

He snickered and for a second, I didn't think he was going to let it go. Then he shrugged. "Yeah. I guess I'm just scared to drive again. I had my license for nine months before I totaled my dad's car and it wasn't the first time I was… you know."

I grabbed his hand. "But it was the last," I said gently. "I know that and you know that. You're not going to do something like that again."

"I know I won't, but…" he trailed off and let out a frustrated sigh.

"But?"

"I guess it's hard to believe that when no one else seems to believe it."

"I believe it," I reminded him.

"I know," he said softly. "And you have no idea what that means to me."

"But I'm one person?" I guessed.

"Yeah. And I spent the entire day with my parents while they asked me if I was sure I was ready to drive again and asked me how AA was going and told me what a big responsibility it is…"

"It's nice that they wanted to check in with you."

"It didn't feel like a check-in; it felt like an interrogation. I mean, they pulled out the pictures from my accident and kept saying that one slip-up and it could happen again." I winced. I hadn't seen them, and I never wanted to. "What if they're right? What if I'm not ready?"

I wanted to tell him that I thought he was ready, but I wasn't sure he was in a place where he could hear that. "If you're really freaked out about it, don't drive yet. Getting your license doesn't mean you have to drive. It just means when you're ready, so is your license."

He looked uncertain. "So, you'd be okay with that? I know it's not fair that you always have to drive us places, or we're stuck taking the bus."

"I don't mind. I kind of like being your chauffeur. I should invest in a hat." He rolled his eyes. "I'm serious. Not about the hat, but the driving. It's fine with me and what's a few more months? Plus, it gives me an excuse to drive your dad's car." I'd driven it three times to date and… wow. It was the fanciest car I'd ever driven, and it was such a smooth ride. It didn't drive itself, but it got about as close as a car could without actually reaching that milestone. And his dad considered it his backup car, which kind of blew my mind. It would probably have been Benji's car if everything hadn't happened.

"I knew you were just with me for the car."

I couldn't help my laughter. "Can we eat now? My pizza's getting cold." I was about to take a bite when I realized how I sounded. "Unless you want to keep talking. I can eat and listen at the same time."

"No, that's okay." He reached for the parmesan cheese shaker. "I feel okay now."

"Good," I said quietly. He had a small smile on his face, so I hoped he said everything he needed to say. I watched as he essentially dumped the entire shaker on his pizza. "Would you like some pizza with your cheese?"

"Nope," he said. He laughed as he saw my expression as he rolled up his slice of pizza like a burrito. "This is the only right way to eat pizza."

"You know, I think I've heard that before. On a documentary about serial killers."

He snickered. "Yeah, okay." He looked thoughtful. "Though, if I was a serial killer, I'd probably pretend to eat my pizza normally and would only do this in private."

"If you were a serial killer," I muttered. "I suddenly feel really safe with you." I thought about his words. "You said you'd eat your pizza normally. So, you admit that it's weird."

"It's only weird if you make it weird."

"You're the one making it weird, weirdo," I tossed back.

"How many times do you think we can say 'weird' in one conversation?" Benji grinned and took a big bite of his burrito slice.

It was one of those perfectly ridiculous moments that I kind of lived for with him.

- . - . - . -

Mia's POV

Four weeks in Texas seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. My mom started off in San Antonio before her exhibit went to Austin then on to Dallas. There were so many interesting people that my mom had met in Texas. They all seemed to hold a piece of the puzzle. I wondered when everything I learned was going to come together because it felt like my mom had secretly been about a dozen different people.

Portland had painted my mom as this responsible and conscientious student but that hadn't been the mom I knew. In a way, the people that she'd met while her artwork moved knew a different mom as well. They knew someone that was fiercely protective of her family. I hadn't seen her artwork yet, but I'd picked up that one of her paintings was of me because enough people had recognized me from it. In Chicago, there had been a man who described a woman so full of life and ambition. In Tulsa, a group of artists had called her focused and fresh. In San Antonio, there had been a musician that said she inspired him to keep trying for his big break. In Austin, a pregnant woman days from her due date couldn't stop talking about all of the maternal advice she'd gotten from my mom. Inspirational. Motivated. Selfless. Ambitious. Maternal. Compassionate. Creative. Kind. Everyone had something different to say about her.

Those words didn't seem to fit in with the woman that took off in the middle of the night leaving me to wake up on my twelfth birthday without a mom. My wish that year, and for the next three years until I accepted she was really gone, was for her to come back. How was that woman maternal? How was she selfless? How was that compassionate or kind?

For the past week, we'd been staying with a woman and her daughter in Dallas; my mom had stayed with them for nearly a month. They were the most unbelievable part of her story. The part of her story that had everyday acts of heroism where my mom saw a woman sobbing in the corner of a Walmart and asked her what was wrong. Where the woman, Maranda, explained that she didn't have enough money to buy food for her four-year-old daughter. Where my mom took the money she would have used to stay at a cheap motel and bought her as many groceries as she could afford. In exchange, Maranda let her stay with her. I thought it was kind of risky to let a complete stranger stay with her and her child, but she said she'd sensed a 'kindred spirit' in my mom. She was kind of weird but nice.

Maranda's four-year-old was adorable. She was a bundle of energy. She'd liked me and Andrew right away (though I was pretty sure she had a bit of a crush on Andrew because she kept calling him her Prince Charming).

Maranda didn't know where my mom had gone after her exhibit had stopped in Dallas. She'd seemed surprised to know the exhibit even existed, so Andrew and I had spent the last week scouring about a dozen art galleries to find out which one she'd been at.

It wasn't until this morning that we'd figured it out and found out that this had been her last stop on the exhibit. She'd stayed here past when she was supposed to leave and the exhibit had moved on without her. At the beginning of October, she'd come back to pick up her work. She'd left behind a single drawing of a woman holding a little girl's hand.

It was a pretty simple drawing, but it was beautiful in its own way. The gallery owner told me that it had been one of her most popular pieces, and I believed it.

"Do you think it's supposed to be you? Maybe when you were little?" Andrew asked.

"No, I don't think so," I told him. "Even then… we were never like this."

"So, maybe it's not something that happened, but what she wished had happened. You never know. This could be her love note to you," he pointed out.

"Yeah, well, I'd rather have had her around," I said bitterly.

"Of course. But it's something, isn't it? Maybe she's different now."

I didn't know what to say to that because I would love nothing more than for my mom to regret what she did and for us to start the process of figuring out how we move forward from this, but I had so much trouble believing that. I thought it was partially because there was a very real possibility that after everything we'd gone through to find her, she didn't want to be found. I needed to be prepared for that worst-case scenario because I would never bounce back if I allowed myself to hope just to be crushed by that hope.

"Do you know where she went after she left here?" I asked the gallery owner without taking my eyes off the drawing. We knew she'd gotten here at the end of September and hoped that we hadn't hit our dead-end.

"She said Vegas, but you know those starving artist types. Who knows if she ever got there?"

I felt insulted on behalf of my mom. If she said she was going to Las Vegas, I was sure she was going there. "That's where she went."

"Sweet!" Andrew said. "Finally, we get to go somewhere cool. Viva Las Vegas. This is gonna be so much fun!"

- . - . - . -

Adrian's POV

"You are crazy if you think Skittles are better than Starburst," I told Jeffrey. We'd been arguing about this all lunch. Jeffrey reached his reading benchmark, so he got to pick a treat from the treasure chest, and he picked Skittles. WHEN THE OPTIONS WERE SKITTLES OR STARBURST! I didn't eat a ton of candy, but I didn't realize anyone would think skittles were better.

He ate another Skittle. "And you wonder why I won't share," he tossed back.

"I don't want your Skittles. Starburst taste so much better!"

"But with Skittles, you get so many more," Jeffrey pointed out. "And there are more flavors."

"All Skittles taste the same," I argued.

"Do you think all fruits taste the same too? They clearly taste different."

"You're just wrong."

Jeffrey laughed. "We may need to just agree to disagree with this one. Oh, the temptation to ask my dad to put Skittles in your birthday cookies." He suddenly frowned. "You have three weeks to forget I said that."

"Your dad's making me cookies?" I asked excitedly. His dad honestly made the best cookies I'd ever eaten.

"I dunno," Jeffrey muttered.

He was saved when lunch ended. "Throw out your lunch. Third graders can line up against the wall. Once everyone else is gone, we'll head to Gym. Everyone else, line up and wait for your teacher to walk you back to class," Ms. Gallagher called.

I groaned. "Whose idea was it to make us go to Gym after lunch?" The very last thing I wanted to do was play basketball right now.

I didn't know why Victor liked basketball so much. When we still lived in Texas, one of our neighbors had put a basketball hoop in front of our apartment complex and every time Victor babysat me, he got me to play with him. I never got any better at it. I enjoyed going to his games, but I never had any interest in playing myself. Maybe it was better when it wasn't gym class basketball, but I hated this.

Not everything was bad about it. On the first day of our basketball unit, Ms. Taylor had told us to pair up and practice passing back and forth. Jeffrey and I had partnered together. We were okay with it when we first lined up but every time Ms. Taylor blew her whistle, we were supposed to take a step back and the further we got away from each other, the worse our aim seemed to become. I thought about asking Victor for help, but I didn't care enough about basketball to try to get better at it. I was more than happy sticking to watching Victor's games.

Today was our first day playing as a 'team'. We'd been assigned to teams and Ms. Taylor, in an annoying attempt to get us to 'work with different people' had split up every friend group, which essentially took all of the fun out of gym class. There were two other third grade classes and they all had gym at the same time, so I was with two other kids from my class and seven kids from the other classes. At least we only had to do this twice a week. In Texas, my school had gym class every day but, here, we were spared that daily torture.

They'd put down the divider in the middle of the gym so we were playing with half of the court. Girls were on the other side of the divider. I didn't know why they'd split us up like this; it felt unnecessary to me and not just because it meant that I didn't get to spend as much time sitting in the bleachers as I would have if there were double the teams. There were way more girls than guys. We only had four teams of 10 players whereas it looked like the girls had made six teams. Three games were scheduled for today and my team got the short end of the stick because we had to play two of them. At least it meant we'd only have to play one on Thursday and, according to Ms. Taylor's schedule, we wouldn't have to play any next Tuesday. I was already looking forward to it.

My team was playing the first two games and our second game was against Jeffrey's team. He had Connor on his team. Connor was quite possibly the biggest sore loser I'd ever met. I'd been on his team during our soccer unit and when we'd lost one of our games, he threw the soccer ball at the wall so hard, I swear, I thought it was going to pop.

I had Diego on my team, and he was ridiculously good at anything sports-related. He could win this game on his own without us (and he essentially was). Connor got increasingly angry as the game went on. I wasn't surprised by what he was saying. When we'd lost one of our soccer games, he'd asked me why I sucked at soccer when it was the sport of my 'people'. There were so many things wrong with that, but it was easier to ignore him.

Which was why, when he called Jeffrey 'Manly Mandy' and told him he should be playing with the girls, I was surprised Jeffrey didn't let it go. He shoved Connor hard before he ran from the gym.

When I got back to our classroom, Jeffrey wasn't there. I wasn't sure if he got suspended or something. I hoped he hadn't. School kind of stunk without him. He wasn't even there to laugh when Peter got into an argument because he insisted dolphins had gills and that our teacher was wrong about this. She pulled up Google because she got so frustrated with him, and he just told her that his parents told him that he shouldn't believe everything he read online.

It would have been so much more enjoyable if Jeffrey had been there.

- . - . - . -

Pilar's POV

My dad popped out into the hallway. He was in the process of rolling up the sleeves of his shirt when he noticed us. "Oh, hey. I've been meaning to talk to you." I thought he was talking to me until he walked towards Felix. We'd been sitting on opposite ends of the couch while we worked on our homework. "Pilar filled me in on your… situation. I'm sorry, but we don't have money in our budget to take on anyone full time right now."

"Of course. Yeah. I totally understand. I appreciate you looking into it."

My dad continued as if Felix hadn't spoken. "But I asked around at PFLAG, and one of the dads there is a partner in a law firm. They're looking for a data entry clerk, I think he called it." He went into the kitchen and shuffled through some papers. He returned with a folded piece of paper. "It's a full-time position, and he works in Midtown. It's not a sure thing, but she'll get an interview if she calls."

He handed the paper to Felix. Felix looked at it as if my dad had given him a lump of solid gold. Felix opened and closed his mouth several times before he jumped to his feet and hugged my dad.

My dad looked startled. Comically startled. I would have laughed if I wasn't just as surprised. Felix seemed to realize what he'd done because he took a step back. "Sorry. I just… you have no idea what this means to us." Felix obviously hadn't realized my dad had been sitting on that for a week. I knew that his PFLAG meeting had been last week because he and my mom had the same showdown before every single meeting. Every two weeks like clockwork.

My dad got a weird look on his face. "I might understand more than you think."

I glanced at Felix before I looked back at my dad. My mom came out before we could ask about it. "Right. We're running errands and then we're gonna grab dinner. There's money in the kitchen. I need you to feed Adrian. I left some coupons on the counter, so take your pick."

"Yeah. Got it. We'll probably order a pizza. Rahim was going to stop by." It was his first time coming over in months, and there was no way I was going to turn down the chance to have him over, even if it was only for a few hours.

"That's fine, but don't forget that Victor's game is at 7," my mom said as she walked into the kitchen. "We're not coming back before the game, so you need to get Adrian there."

"I don't see why you have to run errands now," I muttered. "What do you even have to buy?" They usually ran all their errands on Sundays. Not on random Tuesdays.

"Trust me. We need to run errands," my mom said. She'd been in a pissy mood the last four weeks. At first, I thought it was because Victor had lied about Valentine's Day, but this was excessive, even for her. "Ready?"

"Yeah. Let's get this over with."

"That was weird," I said to Felix once they left. When he didn't say anything, I turned to face him. He was still staring at the paper my dad had given him. "Felix?"

"Huh? Yeah. That sounds great," he said.

I put aside the weirdness with my parents. Their weirdness would probably still be there later, and Felix had possibly just received a life-changing contact. I needed to focus on that right now because Felix needed to focus on that right now. "Do you need to run up to your apartment?" I asked.

"No," he said slowly without ever taking his eyes off of the piece of paper. "Of course not. I can wait until after Victor's game." He started to tap his foot impatiently.

I rolled my eyes. "Go. I'll see you at the game."

"Thank you," he breathed. He kissed me before he ran out of my apartment.

"Adrian!" I called. He ran out of his room. "What kind of pizza do you want?"

"Plain please."

"Kay. Let me call Rahim and see what he wants."

"Rahim's coming over?" Adrian asked.

"Yeah. Is that cool with you?"

"Yeah, of course!" He looked way more excited than I expected. Sometimes I forgot how quickly Adrian could get attached to people. He'd probably missed Rahim.

I called Rahim and could hear his phone ringing in the hallway. "Um… come in," I called.

Rahim opened our front door. "That wasn't awkward at all. I swear, I wasn't loitering in the hallway. You just have really bad timing."

I snickered. "Sure. We're ordering pizza. What do you want?"

"I'm fine with whatever. Why are you eating so early?" I looked away. "Right. The game."

"Yeah. You could always come with us."

He laughed. "Oh. You're serious. P, even if things were completely back to normal between me and Victor, I wouldn't be caught dead at a high school sports game."

"It's not that bad," I told him. "Plus, Victor's really good so he makes it interesting."

"I just don't see the point of watching a bunch of sweaty guys fight over a ball." He brought his hand to his forehead. "You know it's bad when I-"

"You remember my little brother. Adrian," I said quickly. I didn't know exactly what he was going to say, but I was sure Adrian shouldn't hear it.

Rahim looked startled to see him. "Of course. What's up, little man?"

"Where have you been?" Adrian asked. "You haven't come over in ages."

It was such an easy question, but Rahim instantly stiffened. He decided to deflect. "Your sister lured me here with the promise of pizza, but look… no pizza." He tilted his head and shot me an accusatory look.

I held my hands up. "I'm ordering it now."

- . - . - . -

Armando's POV

Isa didn't bother sitting down when we walked into Carmella's office. She stood at the edge of the rug with her arms crossed; by the look on her face, you'd think I was the one that did something wrong. It was what we'd been fighting about. She felt I was out of line, and maybe she was right, but I also thought I was right. I took up my usual position on the couch. Today's stress ball looked like a teddy bear and it was in my hand before I fully sat down.

Carella looked between us uncertainly. "Is everything okay?" she asked cautiously.

"Sure. Don't we look okay?" Isa asked. Her voice sounded like she was condescendingly talking to a toddler rather than our therapist.

"No," she said slowly. She looked at Isa before she looked at her coffee, then looked at me, then back at Isa. "I'm gonna sit down. You're welcome to stay standing, but there have been studies that show that sitting down and uncrossing yourself makes you more open to communication." Isa just glared at her, and Carmella held up her hands defensively. "Or not. It's your choice. I'm just telling you what I know. Isabel, you have the floor."

Isa motioned towards me and grunted. Yeah, that's roughly what I'd been putting up with for the past four weeks. She was so angry, she didn't know where to begin. That made two of us.

I had no idea how to start this fight. "Well, first off. Congratulations. How was it?" Carmella got married last weekend and was gone on her honeymoon when we normally would've met with her. It was the whole reason we had to wait so long to talk about our disastrous Valentine's Day.

Carmella's answer was hesitant. "It was a lot of fun. We got really lucky with the weather, but we're not here to talk about me. I'm guessing there's something you want to talk about."

I nodded and squeezed the teddy bear so hard, I could feel my fingers digging into my palm through it. "We haven't been in a great place," I started. "We've been fighting… a lot. Or we've been ignoring each other. There hasn't been much of an in-between."

"What started this?"

"Valentine's Day," Isa answered immediately. "Our son went away with his boyfriend, and Mando knew but didn't think I should know." There she went with the accusations.

"I didn't know for sure," I argued. "I just… had a feeling."

"A feeling you didn't share with me. Our son is only sixteen. He's too young to be..."

"What?" I interrupted. "Having sex with his boyfriend? He's been with Benji for almost ten months! How long did you think they were going to wait?"

"I didn't expect them to wait. Do I wish they weren't having sex? Of course, but they obviously are. That doesn't mean Victor gets to sneak around and lie to me!"

Once again, I knew she had a point, but I felt like she was missing the obvious. "He wouldn't have to sneak around if he could talk to you!"

"He can talk to me!"

"Obviously, he feels different or he wouldn't have lied to you! And now you have this absurd punishment-" It was another thing we'd been fighting about. I didn't think that Victor should have no punishment, but it was so hard to justify it to him when I felt it was unfair.

"Absurd? He lied. He snuck away for three days. Three days," she repeated. She gestured with her hands to emphasize that. "Then, he lied some more."

"Is that really what you're upset about? Or is it that he lied so he could be alone with Benji?" I challenged. "You've had a problem with Victor having sex since you found out that he's having sex." Admittedly, I didn't think I would be particularly thrilled to walk in on that, but I doubted I'd have as much of a problem with it as Isa.

"I don't have a problem with him having sex. Sure, I don't want to think about my son having a sex life but that's totally normal. I never talked to my parents about sex."

"Yeah. And look how well that worked out for you! You haven't exactly had the healthiest relationship with sex." Most of the time, I almost convinced myself that I'd forgiven her, but times like this reminded me that part of me hadn't and that part was always ready to rear its head in a fight.

She looked like I'd slapped her. "How long are you going to hold that over my head? It's been nearly a year and a half! I've apologized and moved on."

"Must be easy to do that when you're not the one that was betrayed," I snapped back.

"What about you and Shelby?"

That was completely different. She must see that. We'd officially separated, and I didn't ask Shelby out until Isa knew that I wanted to see other people. She had no right to be upset about that, especially when the separation was her fault. "We were separated!" I protested. "And do you know why Shelby and I clicked? Because she didn't spend six months making our son feel terrible because he's gay."

"That's not fair. It took me a little while to get there, but I got there. Victor understands that. Why don't you?"

"Because I still watched you treat him like trash for six months!" I shouted. "That kid would forgive you for murder if you asked him to, and you know that. This is what you always do whenever you do something wrong. You think you just deserve forgiveness and try to move on like nothing ever happened. These things happened. You cheated. You didn't support Victor. He may have forgiven you, but I can't. Because he deserved so much better."

"Don't you think I know that?" Her voice cracked. "Don't you think I know that he deserves the world? Don't you think I feel guilty every single day for what I put him through? I can't change the mistakes I made. I just want to put it behind me."

"You can't! Those things don't just go away because you want them to!"

"Okay. I think we just put a lot out there. Give me a second to catch up," Carmella interjected. She closed her eyes and tilted her head side to side as she thought.

I was tempted to switch to Spanish so we could keep talking about this because I knew she wouldn't understand me but speaking English was one of her only rules in this office. Something about how she couldn't help us if she didn't know what we were talking about.

"Why do you want this to work?" she asked after a long silence.

"What?" I asked. I was taken aback by her question.

"As both of you have said, you've been through so much? Why are you here? Why do you want this to work?"

Isabel looked at me. Her face was full of pure anger for a couple of seconds before it softened. I felt like the fight left me as I watched her. "Because I love him. I've made mistakes… lots of really serious mistakes, but at the end of the day-" she sighed and looked down at the carpet for a few seconds before she looked up at me. "You are the love of my life. Everything I've done has only reminded me of how much I love you. I love our weird inside jokes and how we used to be so in sync. I love that you know me more than I know myself. Maybe it seems like I've just moved on, but I haven't. Mando, I will never forgive myself for what I did to you, but I know it doesn't change how much I love you. That's why I want to move on. I believe in my heart that we're meant to be."

Carmella turned to me. "And you?"

"For all of the reasons she said but also because… because I've never felt so connected to another person before," I said after a moment.

"I want to fix this, but you need to give me something. We can't go on if you can't forgive me," Isa said softly.

"I don't know how, but I want that. I want us to work."

"Good," Carmella said softly. "If you've been through the ups and downs that you've been through and you still feel this way, that's a really good sign. I've worked with a lot of people over the years and the relationships that don't work out are the ones where their first answer is that they want to make it work for their kids or their dog or because they've cosigned a mortgage. You want to make this work for yourselves."

For the first time since we'd started therapy, Carmella put her clipboard aside. I glanced at Isa who looked as surprised as I felt. "We've been meeting for several months now. We've talked about how you pick little fights, the stress of having children, how difficult it is to balance being two working parents with your family, how you feel like you're different than when you met and fell in love at seventeen, but this is the first time I'm hearing about an affair or that you have a gay son or that you had… differing opinions about your son. Those are major things to happen in your relationship. Therapy isn't a magical solution. It's a space to talk and practice skills and try to be better than the people that walked into my office. I can give you the tools to do that, but you need to make the choice to use them, and you need to decide whether you can trust me. If you're not ready to talk about something, that's fine, but you need to move in the direction of being able to genuinely explore your relationship in here. That's how this works. It's not gonna be easy. Eventually, it'll come easier, but not at the beginning. We've spent the last four months practicing communication and trust without ever talking about the most significant parts of your relationship. Knowing that it's eventually going to require you to open up about the hard stuff, do you want to keep doing this?"

For a moment, we just stared at her. It had been so unexpected, and I felt a little anxious at her words. In so many ways, we'd gotten so much out of therapy, but she was right. We'd avoided talking about the big stuff in here just as much as we avoided talking about it outside of this office. What we'd talked about today had been born of four weeks of repressed anger that was bubbling out of both of us. I let out a deep breath. "Yes. I want to."

Isa looked torn for a minute before she finally sat down. "Yes, of course, but… our problems aren't little," she said. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second.

"No, they're not," Carmella confirmed. "And if you can't forgive each other, you're never going to have the chance to find out if you can work through them. I'm going to give both of you the chance to say whatever you need to say about the affair or your son or anything else you feel like you want to talk about. Then, I think I want us to talk more about forgiveness. Are you ready for this? Are you ready to commit to this?"

I looked at Isa. "I'm ready to try," I confirmed.

- . - . - . -

Lake's POV

"The thing about dating is it's kind of like eating a pizza. You don't know what toppings you like until you eat them," I started.

"You cannot use that analogy," Lucy interrupted.

"Why not?" I asked. I thought it was pretty clever.

Lucy flushed. "Just trust me. You cannot tell Victor and Benji that we're together by comparing me to pizza toppings that you eat."

I groaned and flopped back on my bed. "What if we just kiss in front of them? That seems so much easier."

Lucy chuckled. "Because Victor's grounded, so the only time we see him is at school and we both know you're not ready for everyone to know." I thought it was nice of her not to point out how much I was freaking out just at the prospect of Victor and Benji knowing.

I groaned. Why did Victor have to get himself grounded? It was really inconvenient for me. The fact that I even had to make a big deal about telling them was ridiculous. Though, Lucy pointed out that if we could casually tell anyone that we were together, it was the two of them. I covered my face with my pillow.

Lucy ran her fingers through my hair. "What's going through your head?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know. I know that it should be really easy to tell Victor and Benji that we're together and part of me wants everyone to know that you're my girlfriend, but… I'm so scared. I thought I'd done the work to accept myself before I met you, but… I don't know. This feels so much bigger than that."

"It doesn't have to be," she said quietly.

"It shouldn't be," I corrected. "But you've seen what happens. You can't tell me you don't remember how weird things got when Victor came out. Or when Benji came out? It was a nightmare."

Lucy's face fell. "Of course, I remember Benji coming out at school. More than that, I remember him coming out to me."

I sat up. I never thought about how Lucy probably knew before Benji came out at school. "You've never talked about that before."

"You never asked." She shrugged. She brought her knees to her chest. "I've been friends with Benji forever, it feels like. Our moms met at a mommy and me class when we were babies." A smile danced on her lips.

"Wow, so literally forever," I said. Maybe I should've asked because I never gave much thought to it; I guess I just figured they became friends in middle school or something. As much as I joked about it, I knew she was Benji's best friend and Benji was hers, so I probably should have shown more of an interest. "Were you friends right away?"

She shrugged. "Not really. A couple of times a month, our moms would use us as an excuse so they could get together to catch up. My mom used to joke that I used to only like him for his playroom. My first memory is of that playroom. It was totally decked out with toys. He had this play kitchen that took up an entire wall and had everything you could imagine; he was obsessed with it. He used to get really defensive if I got anywhere near it and had this little checkered apron. When he put on that apron, I knew to leave him alone, and I usually ended up playing with something else. One day, he let me wear it. I remembered feeling like he promoted me. Instead of doing our own separate things, we worked together in that play kitchen. We've been best friends ever since. After that, we weren't forced together by our parents. We essentially started to see each other every day. His mom moved him to my daycare so we could be together. My mom always called him my boyfriend and until he came out, I think his mom was convinced we were gonna end up together. He was my first kiss, you know. Sixth grade. We kissed on the bench swing in his backyard."

"Wait. What?" I asked incredulously. "Tell me more."

Lucy chuckled. "There's not much to tell. We were… twelve. I think it was before he turned thirteen. We wanted to know what the big deal was."

"How was it?"

Lucy looked thoughtful. "Like kissing a padded wall," she told me. "We both just laughed and agreed that we never wanted to do that with each other again."

"So you were never interested?" I confirmed.

"Never. I think when I was really little, I might have thought about it in a vague little kid way, but when I got older? Never. I guess we both had our secrets."

"Does he know? That you're bi?" I asked. It was another thing we'd never talked about. Did Benji know she liked girls or was he going to be blindsided by this?

She nodded. "Yeah. I told him a week or two after he came out to me."

I shook my head. "Right. We were talking about that. Sorry, I feel like we kind of went in a circle. How'd he do it."

She chewed on her lip. "He'd been dating Derek about four months when he came out to me. I'd texted him one day because I needed to talk to him about how I'd made out with this girl that was staying with her grandparents across the street from me. It was terrifying, but I felt like I needed to talk about it. He never answered and, after a few days, I stopped by his house and…" she squeezed her eyes shut. "There's some stuff that only he can tell you. I can't be the one to share his secrets, not even with you, but it was the most scared I've ever been for him. He had a breakdown and he told me that he was gay and that he had a boyfriend." A tear slipped down her cheek. "I'd had no idea. I know some people aren't surprised when their best friend comes out, but I was. I knew he never liked me, but… he kind of had a reputation with girls, and he earned that reputation. He explained that he was trying to find something with those girls, but he couldn't. He could only find it with a guy. When I was sitting on his bed, I asked him why he hadn't told me, and he said he was terrified to lose his best friend. He didn't want things to change between us. The guy that was cocooned in his blankets and sobbing because he was afraid that our friendship was over… he's not going to be fine with this; he won't make a big deal about it."

"Wow. That's intense."

"Yeah, it was," Lucy agreed. "But it's why I'm not scared for him to know. He'll be nothing but supportive. Other than you, he is the person that I am closest to, and I hate keeping stuff from him. When he came out to me, I promised him I would be a better friend, and I don't feel like I'm holding up my end of that promise right now."

"I get that. And we will tell them; I promise. We'll tell them tomorrow. No more putting this off."

"Thanks. I don't want to push you to do this before you're ready, but…"

"But you're not pushing me. I'm ready for them to know; I'm just scared, but I'll get over that. We need to be able to tell people. That's part of this whole thing. I don't want to keep you secret forever," I told her.

She smiled this half-smile at me. "You're kind of amazing," she said quietly.

I grinned back at her. "I know." I leaned over and kissed her. "But are you sure I can't use the pizza analogy? I have this whole idea of explaining that I like pepperoni and sausage pizza, and I might like other toppings, but I haven't met those toppings yet."

Lucy snickered. "Why don't you go for a nonedible analogy?"

I frowned. "Victor does sports. I could always say that I like both basketball and… I don't know. I think I've seen Victor watch soccer. Or music. There are multiple genres of music."

"Or… and here's a thought. You could just tell them that you're still figuring out who you are, but you know you're my beautiful girlfriend," she suggested. Her hand trailed down my cheek and I couldn't help my smile. "I love that you're overthinking this, but you don't need to give them some long drawn-out metaphor for them to understand that you're learning about this as you go along."

I knew she was technically right, but planning it made me feel better about it.

- . - . - . -

Felix's POV

I was sitting with Pilar on the bleachers. She'd left by the time I was done with my mom, and I was catching her up. I didn't think I was ever going to stop smiling.

"So, she's going to call in the morning?" Pilar confirmed.

I nodded. "Yeah. She's excited and nervous, so I'm going to be late for school tomorrow. I'm going to make her breakfast and be there when she calls."

"You're gonna miss school?" she asked surprised.

"Not much. I should be in by the end of first period or the beginning of second," I told her. "I just… I know she's doing better, but-"

"But you need to make sure she makes that call. I get that," she assured me.

"Yeah. If she gets this job, it's going to be life-changing. Between that and the proofreading job you found me, I think I'll be able to stop my homework side gig by her first paycheck."

I thought Pilar was going to cry for a second. She leaned over and kissed me. Her lips had barely pressed mine before her dad coughed uncomfortably as he took his seat. "How were errands?" she asked.

"They were good." They must have been really good because Armando and Isabel both looked so much happier than they'd been when they left the apartment.

Adrian had a huge smile on his face as he looked in between them. Pilar looked suspicious. "Errands, my ass," she muttered. "Adrian, do you need to go to the bathroom?"

"No."

"Go to the bathroom. You don't want to miss any of the game."

Adrian stood up and grumbled as he walked away. I thought I heard him say that he wasn't a baby as he stomped down the steps of the bleachers.

Pilar turned to her parents. "You don't have to lie and say you're running errands," she said. "You could have just told me you were going out for a date."

"It's not like that," Isabel said.

"Then what's it like?" Pilar demanded.

Isabel and Armando looked at each other. "Can we talk about this later?" Armando asked.

"Fine. Whatever," Pilar said grumpily. She crossed her arms and moved to the other side of me so she was further from her parents.

"Hey," Benji said as he walked over. He stood in front of us for a moment and seemed to read the weird tension permeating from Pilar. "You okay?"

"Sure. Except my parents are liars," she muttered.

"What do you mean?" Benji asked cautiously.

"They said they were running errands and that's obviously not where they were. You don't get that happy running errands."

"Running errands. Uh. One second." Benji turned towards Armando. "Armando." He shook his hand. "Mrs. Salazar. It's good to see you again." There was the slightest edge to his words because this was the first time he was seeing Victor's parents in weeks, and we all knew that Benji thought Victor's punishment was unreasonable. Honestly, I loved Victor's parents, but I was kind of with Benji on this one. "I, uh, hear you were running errands." He and Armando made some eye contact that was weird even by my standards before Armando nodded.

Benji nodded back before he sat next to Pilar. "I'm sure it's not what you think."

"Or maybe it's exactly what I think."

"It could be, but you could be wrong," Benji pointed out. He earned himself a glare from her. "We're here to root on Victor for his last game of the season before playoffs. Don't let drama get in the way of what could be a fun night."

Pilar sighed dramatically. "Fine," she grumbled. She got a mischievous smile on her face. "Only if we get a reprise of the Go Grizzlies dance."

Benji ran his hands through his hair. "Yeah, no. That will never happen again."

"I don't know. I think P's on to something," I said. "Victor has called it a great tragedy that no one got it on video."

"Actually, that was you," Benji pointed out.

"Yeah, well. In defense of me, Victor talked about it nonstop for like a month."

Benji grinned big. At first, I thought it was because of what I said, but then I realized that the team had run out onto the court to start warming up, so Benji had eyes on Victor. Those two were hopeless.

The game was sort of brutal. Creekwood was obliterated by the… purple team. I knew that Victor had told us who they were playing, but I honestly couldn't remember. It wasn't even close. They lost by nearly thirty points. At least Victor had made a bunch of baskets.

When the game was over, I expected to wait for Victor to come out of the locker room, so I was surprised when Armando and Isabel asked us if we wanted a ride back. "Don't you have to wait for Victor?"

Armando shook his head. "No. Whenever he has a loss like this, he needs a little space. He'll shower and take the bus when he's cooled down."

Benji declined a ride, which worked out because we'd probably be cramped with him. As it was, the five of us squeezed in.

- . - . - . -

Victor's POV

I hated losing. I probably wouldn't have minded as much if they were genuinely better than us, but we'd played terribly. Our passes had been sloppy, our blocks too late, and our shots too short. I'd joked with Andrew that I was the best player on the team, and I was definitely the most skilled, but Andrew had been the glue that held our team together. Without him, we were drowning. This had been a disappointing season. There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to lose our playoff game next week. This sucked.

I was especially annoyed with myself. I'd had no reason to play so poorly, but it was like I had been moving in slow motion while the game had raged around me. Even Coach didn't have words for us. He just said we'd talk about it at practice tomorrow.

I was moping as the locker room emptied out around me. I still needed to change and shower, but I didn't have it in me to deal with how weird my teammates were about the shower situation on top of how poorly I'd played. They never actually said anything about it, but it was always weird. It was like… they made me so aware of how aware they were of my every move when we showered. I sat on the bench wrapping my jersey around my hands. It wasn't until I was sure I was alone that I let out a frustrated cry and punched my locker. "Does that help?"

I turned to see Benji and quickly stood up. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I was waiting for you outside, but a bunch of your teammates left and told me you seemed pretty upset." He shrugged. "Ugh. It smells like sweat in here." He grimaced. I honestly didn't even notice it.

"Well, it's a locker room," I pointed out. "And we did just play a game. Badly, but we still played. You don't have to be in here." I had so much trouble seeing Benji in the locker room. I knew he took gym freshman and sophomore year, but he looked out of place in here.

"It's worth it. I wanted to make sure you're okay. Are you?"

"I'm fine." He raised his eyebrows at me. "I really am fine; I'm just annoyed with myself, that's all. I played like shit out there."

"You looked pretty good from where I was sitting."

I rolled my eyes. "You have to say that. You're my boyfriend." I rested my head in my hands and groaned again. "I was bad."

"You're really upset about this," he said. He looked a little surprised. He walked up to me and stood behind me. He wrapped his arms around me so his hands rested on my stomach. I leaned back into him and slouched so my head was resting on his chest; I let my eyes flutter closed. "Tell me about it."

"I don't know what it is. I just… I've never played that badly before. Never. But…"

"But?" he pressed.

"I've never been okay like this before," I admitted quietly. "Every other season I've played, I've had something that… I dunno. Made me a fighter, I guess. The first, like, four years that I played on a school team, I was questioning. Then there was everything that happened when I came out and for a while, we weren't in a great place. Now, everything is fine, and I've had such a run of shitty playing. It's been the whole season. What if I've never really been good at basketball and I've just been good at channeling my anger or something?"

"That's ridiculous," he told me. He moved so he was crouching in front of me. "I don't know what's been going on but you are a good player. I can say this because I've been to fifteen high school basketball games this year." I chuckled quietly; he had been to almost every single home game we played and our very last away game of the fall season to make up for the one he missed while we were on our break; he was kind of amazing about watching me play. He studied me for a moment. "Maybe the team is off without Andrew. Think about everything he's done as captain. It's like if I tried to play a guitar that didn't have the string pegs. It would be terrible. You're missing a huge part of your team. Besides, you're not exactly the happiest you've ever been. You've been texting me for two weeks about how miserable you are, and… I know you miss Mia and Andrew. Life hasn't been all great for you."

I sighed. He was technically right, but all that stuff was temporary. "But it has been great," I said. "I may miss them, but I talk to them all the time… usually." I thought Mia was tired of hearing about how grounded I was because she hadn't called me since a few days after I got grounded. I didn't want to call her and bother her if she was doing something important. "And I do kind of deserve to be grounded. This is the best I can remember feeling… ever."

"I know that you're upset about how you played, but I love that you're so happy."

I smiled despite myself. "I am happy," I confirmed.

"Then we'll figure this out," he told me. "I think it's more likely you had an off season or that the team is struggling without Andrew but if this keeps happening, we'll find a way to get that spark back."

"And if we don't?"

He brought his hand up to the side of my face. "Do you love basketball?"

"Yeah."

"Then the spark won't be gone," he told me. He brushed his lips against mine. "Speaking of sparks… you know, this is the first time we've been in a room alone…"

"In a long time," I finished. It had gotten bad. We were getting dangerously close to leaving school during lunch or feigning a sick day to go back to Benji's house while his parents were at work because this was getting ridiculous. I knew it was partially my fault because I'd gotten grounded, but it was still really annoying. I missed Benji like crazy all the time, and FaceTime just didn't do him justice. It wasn't the same as being able to be with him. It wasn't even about the sex. I just missed being around him. Our lunch today hadn't been nearly enough to sate this need for him. "My parents aren't going to expect me for a while, so we could walk around for a bit and enjoy a few minutes before I have to go home. I just gotta shower real quick."

"Do you want company?"

Boy, did I. When he brought his lips to mine, I didn't hold back. It had been too long since we'd had any kind of privacy. Since I was grounded, I never saw him outside of work and school, but this really started after Valentine's Day. I think my parents thought if they never left us alone, we couldn't have sex, and… it was working. The most action we'd gotten was in the back room of Brasstown after we'd closed and, even then, we had to be so careful and couldn't do anything more than kiss.

I grabbed a towel from my locker and my shower bag. Benji pulled his bag over his shoulder before we made our way to the showers.

When he started to pull up my shirt, I was eager. Once we pulled it over my head, I was working his shirt up. "Why are you wearing so many shirts?" I grumbled. Literally, three layers. Like, why even? I finally rid him of his undershirt.

"It's cold outside," he protested. "Mmm, but it's getting hot in here."

I smiled into his kiss as my hands worked on his belt buckle. It wasn't until his pants were down at his ankles that I realized we had a problem that we couldn't really work around. "Wait. We don't have any-"

"I have some in my bag," he interrupted. His lips made their way to my neck.

I fully pulled back. "You have lube in your bag?" I asked skeptically. Part of me wasn't sure if I was understanding him correctly or if he'd understood me.

"Yes."

I wanted to ask why because lube wasn't exactly a thing he normally carried around, but I was beyond caring. When he brought his lips back to mine, I let myself get lost in this moment.

- . - . - . -

Lake's POV

I was scrolling through creeksecrets on my laptop while I got ready for school. At first, it was just a few pictures that some people had posted while they were getting ready for school. After I finished brushing my teeth, I scrolled to the top of the page and froze.

"Oh shit," I said. I instantly called Lucy. "Have you looked at creeksecrets?"

"No, why? What's happening now?" she asked curiously. She didn't sound worried at all. Admittedly, this wasn't the first time I'd started a conversation like that. "There's a video of Benji and Victor. Damn, Benji has back muscles."

There was a long pause. "Why can you see Benji's back muscles?"

"That's not all we can see of him. Have you ever seen his butt before?" I whistled.

"I feel like you think about Benji naked more than Victor does."

"That seems unlikely," I muttered. "Oh my God." I couldn't help the sound that escaped me. "The first five minutes was just them making out, but now… I should probably stop watching it. They're like full-blown doing it in this video." I couldn't look away though. I wasn't getting anything out of watching it other than a growing feeling of nausea.

"Wait, are you serious?"

"Yeah. They did it in the showers in the locker room, I think. They look like the showers in the girl's locker room. I can't tell if it was this morning or last night."

"Well, was Victor in his uniform?"

"Victor wasn't wearing much clothing. The video started like ten seconds before Benji took off his boxers. I kind of always thought Victor was a tighty whitie guy, but he wears boxer briefs."

"How much time do you spend thinking about his underwear?" Lucy asked.

I didn't answer that question. "Whoa."

"That much time?"

"No. This is just a lot."

"I can't believe I'm asking this, but how much can you see?"

"Honestly? Not that much. You can tell exactly what they're doing, but you can't see below the belt for either of them… if they were wearing belts. Which they're not. They're not wearing anything. Ouch… how does that not hurt?"

Lucy made a noise. "You know what? I don't need to hear anymore."

"No, it's just Victor is like pulling Benji's hair. That can't feel good." I frowned. "Or maybe it does because it doesn't look like Benji is stopping him." We were silent for a minute until I gasped.

"Come on. Are you still watching it?"

"Don't judge me. Oh my God. It's like… Oh my God. Luce, they're having sex."

"Yeah, you said that before."

"But they weren't having sex like this before. I can't believe what I'm watching right now."

"Then stop watching it. You're gonna be late to school," she pointed out.

"I know, but… do you think they know?"

"When was it posted?"

I looked at the time stamp. "An hour ago, but there are already nearly two hundred comments. It blew up quickly." I scrolled through some of the comments. "At least they're not all bad. Some people are saying it's hot. If you don't think about the fact that it's our best friends and they were recorded against their will, I guess it kind of is. Do you think they went into school early to get some alone time?"

"If it was an hour ago, it would've been too early, I think. Was this one of their meetup days? I can't remember if Victor had practice today," she started. "I just texted Benji. Hopefully, he'll see it." She waited a few minutes. "He's probably with Victor; he hasn't even read it yet."

I put Lucy on speakerphone and sent a message to Victor. "I texted Victor."

"I'm gonna head to the school now. See if I can catch them," she told me. "You coming?"

"No. There's still five minutes left of this video."

"That's a long video," Lucy said surprised.

"I know. Way to go, Benji."

"You're really weird." Her voice had an affectionate note to it, so I knew she didn't mean it in a bad way.

"I'm just saying… this is impressive. And I've never seen Victor so expressive before. He's enjoying every minute of this."

"I'd hope so. You don't have locker room sex if the sex isn't good," she pointed out.

"You do if you're kinky."

"Yeah, because Victor and Benji scream kinky," Lucy scoffed. I heard her front door shut.

"If the shoe fits. Though you might be right because this is the most PG sex I've ever seen."

"Do I want to know how sex can be PG?"

"You can't see anything. It's the angle. It's like kind of from behind but also from the side All you see now is the back of Benji and Victor's face. They're on one of those benches in the shower where you can leave your stuff. It's like… you know what they're doing… you can tell exactly what they're doing, but you can't see them actually doing it. Which, thank God. This is bad enough."

"I can't believe someone recorded them. That's so messed up."

"Creekwood gonna Creekwood," I said bitterly. "And, it's over. The last minute is just them breathing heavy. It's somehow worse than the sex." I scrolled below the video. "People have already taken pieces of this and turned them into GIFs. Do we really need to see them having sex with the colors of the rainbow flashing? Why is that necessary? Aww, this meme is kind of cute."

"Is it?" Lucy asked skeptically.

"It says find someone that looks at you like Victor looks at Benji. I'll show you when I get to school. They picked a good still; it's actually pretty cute."

"I don't need to see it. I've heard enough."

"I gotta finish getting ready. I'll see you at school. If you find them… I don't even know what you can say to make this better."

"I don't think there's anything. I just need to make sure they know." She sounded frustrated, but I didn't blame her. This sucked.

- . - . - . -

Benji's POV

"Benjamin Campbell?" I glanced up at the front of my classroom to see Ms. Albright standing in the front of the room. My homeroom class, which had just been filled with whispers, went silent. "Grab your stuff and follow me."

The whispers started up again and one person 'ooh'ed as I pulled my bag over my shoulder. Ms. Albright led me, not to her office, but to the principal's office. I was confused when I saw Victor sitting in front of Ms. Knight's desk. He glanced at me then immediately looked away. He looked like he'd been crying. I'd been with him just a few minutes ago. We'd had to run to get to homeroom on time, but he'd seemed okay when I left him. What could have happened in ten minutes? The answer came to me after a moment. Someone must've brought up his game, and he lost his temper. But what was I doing here?

"What's going on?" I asked slowly.

"Take a seat. Please," Ms. Albright said. I did as she told me to. Victor shot me a slightly panicked look and mouthed something to me that I couldn't discern before Ms. Albright started. "Ms. Knight is not in today, so I am acting on her behalf. I'm sure, by now, you're aware of the creeksecrets post."

"What creeksecrets post?" I asked.

Ms. Albright looked at Victor with her eyebrows raised. "I tried to text you. I didn't know until I got to homeroom. Someone recorded us last night." His voice sounded so small, and it took me a minute to understand.

"Wait, how?" I asked. "We were alone."

Victor shook his head and I watched a single tear slip from his eye. "I thought so too, but we must not have been. There must have been someone else… maybe someone that came back for something. I don't know. I swear, all of my teammates left. They were all gone." His voice cracked and he squeezed his eyes shut. "They posted it to creeksecrets this morning. The whole thing."

I was stunned. I hadn't known what to expect when I saw Victor. Maybe that he got into a fight this morning. This revelation made me feel dirty and slimy.

"And we are investigating," Ms. Albright assured us. "But… it was posted anonymously. The post has been reported, and new posts that are being made are being reported as they pop up, but there's only so much we can do." A stony look crossed her face, and she nodded at someone that walked in the office. I was expecting our parents, so I was surprised when I saw a middle-aged balding man. "This is Mr. Fredrickson, he's going to talk to you about what happened last night."

The world kind of stopped making sense when he started to talk to Victor. I only heard a few words, but I got the gist of it. I was eighteen. Victor was 16. It wasn't technically a crime for us to be together because Victor was 'of age to consent' but, since we were recorded, it could still have legal consequences.

"Wait," Victor said suddenly, cutting off Mr. Fredrickson and silencing the beating in my head. "Are you trying to say that you think Benji took advantage of me? I consented. Enthusiastically. Benji has never made me do anything that I didn't want to do."

"You were recorded. You have grounds to press charges." He went on this whole spiel about child endangerment. I could only stare at him. I felt like I was watching this happen in a movie. It didn't feel real.

Victor seemed just as overwhelmed as I felt. "I am not pressing charges against my boyfriend," he said. "Do you hear how crazy that sounds?"

"Let's calm down," Mr. Fredrickson said. "We just wanted to make sure you are aware of your resources."

"Well, I don't need them," Victor snapped. I reached over instinctively and wrapped my hand around his wrist. When he turned to look at me, I could see how scared he was. He shook his head. "Sorry. I don't mean to shout. I will not be pressing charges." He started to play with the bracelet I got him for Christmas. His fingers traced my initials in the little charm.

"Okay. If you change your mind, I will leave my information with your parents."

"Wait, why?"

"Your parents are going to be notified about this, of course. You're a minor, so they have the right to pursue this on your behalf," Mr. Fredrickson said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Victor stared, and I could see the utter panic that flashed across his face. Mr. Fredrickson was seemingly unaware of it as he put some papers into his bag. "It was nice meeting you, Victor." He shook Victor's hand and didn't say a word to me as he walked out.

"What the hell was that?" Victor demanded once the door shut behind him.

Ms. Albright pinched the bridge of her nose. "To be blunt, it's a cover-our-asses move," she said with a sigh. "We have a legal responsibility when something like this happens. We needed to make sure that you… that both of you were aware of your options." She opened her eyes and looked over at us. "I am very sorry. It is completely unacceptable that your privacy was violated in this way. I don't want what I'm about to say to invalidate that this never should have happened."

"What are you about to say?" I asked slowly.

"No one tells you about this part of the job. It's not all fun and games. Sometimes, I have to do things that really, really suck. Did you have to do it in the school?" she asked quietly. She didn't give us a chance to answer. "What you did is against our sexual misconduct policy. Given the circumstances, the school has opted not to press charges. It was after hours and, while still not ideal, took place in an area where students are permitted to change. Though, you will still face disciplinary action here."

I stared at her; I felt empty and a little disoriented. "What?" Victor asked, outraged.

"I have spoken with Ms. Knight and our superintendent. We have agreed that a seven-day suspension will be sufficient. We're counting today as your first day of suspension, so you'll be able to come back to school next Friday. You can ask a friend to bring you your schoolwork, or we can have your teachers drop it off at the office for someone to pick up."

"You're kidding," Victor said. "We're recorded and we're the ones that are getting in trouble? That's bullshit."

"What could have happened?" I asked. "If you chose to press charges?"

"Public indecency," she answered. "You'd have a fine, maybe some probation. It would have been even worse for you, Benji, because you're already on probation and you're an adult." Ms. Albright froze and looked at Victor anxiously. "I mean…"

I waved her off. "He already knows."

She relaxed a little but still looked troubled. "I know it's not ideal. Believe me, I don't want to be doing this. I know how messed up it is, but my hands are tied."

Victor looked like he was about to lose it, so I said in a quiet voice, "don't fight this. Please."

He looked at me and his face softened before he slumped back in his seat. Ms. Albright gave us a whole spiel about how she supports us, but we needed to be careful because there were still laws and rules about where we could have sex, and she didn't want us to get in trouble. She told us we could stop by our lockers to get our stuff. Usually, we would have had to wait for our parents, but I think she felt really bad for us because she got permission from our parents to let us leave on our own.

We got to the hallway just as the bell rang dismissing everyone from first period. We'd spent the entirety of PreCalculus in her office. I hadn't been listening to the chatter before school but, as we walked to Victor's locker, it was obvious that it was about us.

Some guys made lewd gestures towards us as he shoved his books in his backpack.

I grabbed my stuff from his locker as well. Lake found us before we got very far. "Let's go," she said determinedly. "I'm giving you a ride." We followed her out to her car without complaint. I probably should have told her not to cut school for us, but I was too preoccupied. I kept shooting Victor furtive, nervous glances, but he never spoke. "Oops. I left something inside. I'll be right back out." I noticed that she didn't go back inside. She walked towards the school and took a seat on the stone steps in front.

- . - . - . -

Felix's POV

I'd barely sat down before Pilar walked into my classroom. "Mr. Diamond, Ms. Albright needs to see Felix Weston. There's some kind of… DJ emergency. He needs to bring his stuff." Pilar nodded her head the way she always did when she thought she'd told a convincing lie.

I looked up at Pilar. A DJ emergency? There was no way.

Mr. Diamond didn't seem to believe her, but he also didn't seem to care. He was one of the most chill teachers in the school. It probably helped that Genocide Studies was an elective class… and I had an A… and I was a major suck up so he liked me. I grabbed my bookbag before I followed Pilar out. She led me to an empty classroom. She must've scoped it out earlier because her bag was already in here.

"What's the big emergency?"

"There's a sex video of Victor on creeksecrets, and I'm not about to watch my brother have sex, so I need you to watch it and tell me how bad it is."

"A sex video? I didn't know Benji and Victor were into that."

"I don't think they are. They did it in the locker room after the game yesterday and someone recorded them," she told me. "I saw Benji's butt… which was surprisingly nice to look at, but I'm not willing to chance that I'll see any more of Victor." She passed me her phone.

"Wow. You weren't joking. Benji's just like… totally out there." I frowned as the video started. I'd never watched two guys having sex before and it was incredibly uncomfortable to watch my best friend. "This is weird. Who sees two people having sex and thinks it's okay to record that?"

"Apparently some asshole on Victor's team."

"I can't believe that. Are we sure it was someone on his team?

"Who else could it have been? No one else would've been in the locker room after the game."

"But they did that whole thing with the pink hair last season," I protested.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again. The world is full of fake, shitty people. They'll dye their hair pink to show solidarity but, at the end of the day, Victor's still a sideshow to them." Wow. She was really upset about this. Rightfully so, I realized as the video continued.

It was probably a good thing I never needed to use the showers. I thought maybe they were just making out sans clothes (and I hoped for that), but about ten minutes into the video… I guess they settled on who bangs who. "Wait. Do gay guys not need to use condoms?" I tried to remember if Victor ever said anything about it, but we'd never talked about it because I just assumed he needed them too.

"What? Of course, they do."

"They're not," I told her.

"Are you sure? Maybe you're just not… seeing it?"

"Yeah and maybe they never pulled out a condom. I'm like 99% sure. If I could see him pull out the lube, I think I'd see a condom." I frowned. "They kind of got lucky. We really can't see much other than Benji's butt and back. Their…" I glanced at Pilar and chose my words carefully, "areas were hidden."

"Please stop talking." She grimaced. I thought that was the best way to describe it. "How bad is it?"

"I mean… it's not great," I admitted. "Wow. I've never seen two guys going at it before. Is it homophobic to say that I didn't know gay guys could do it facing each other?" I also didn't know they could do it in that position, but telling Pilar that felt like it would cross a line.

Pilar put her hands over her ears. "I don't need to hear details."

"I'm never going to be able to look at the showers in the locker room again."

Pilar winced. "Do I need to call my parents? Like, is this something they need to know about?"

"Honestly? They had sex in the school. That can't be legal. I'd be surprised if someone didn't already call your parents."

"You think they're gonna get in trouble?" She looked like she hadn't considered that.

"Probably. Freshman year, Liza Martinez got suspended for three days for walking out of the locker room in her bra when Hattie threw her t-shirt in the toilet. And that wasn't even sex."

Pilar frowned. "That's really fucked up."

"Yeah," I agreed.

- . - . - . -

Victor's POV

"Are you okay?" Benji asked.

I stared at him. I didn't know how he seemed so cool about this. "No. How can I be? The entire school saw us…" I trailed off.

"How bad is it?" he asked me quietly. "How much can you see?"

"Honestly? I haven't seen the video. My homeroom class couldn't shut up about it. 'I didn't think you'd be the girl of the relationship'," I mimicked. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself.

"Shit. They saw that much?"

"I guess so." I didn't want to think about what everyone saw.

Benji fumbled through his bag to find his phone. "Oh, look. You texted me." I didn't smile. "So did 129 of our closest friends."

I groaned. "Of course they did." My phone started blowing up during Homeroom, but I hadn't looked at the texts. I watched as he pulled up creeksecrets, and I grabbed his phone. "You're joking. You're not going to look for it."

"I don't know about you, but I want to know what everyone saw," he told me seriously. He held out his hand, and I reluctantly passed him his phone.

"We lived it. I don't think we need to watch it," I argued.

"It's not the same. If you really don't want to know, I'll close this right now, but I kind of want to know what they're saying…" he trailed off and I closed my eyes. "What is it?"

"Do you think it might be better not to know?" I asked.

"Do you think avoiding this is going to make it go away?" he pressed.

"No, but… we've never… seen us do what we did on that video. What if we watch it and you're totally repulsed?"

Benji started laughing. "That's what you're worried about?" he asked. I knew it didn't make sense, but I kind of was. It was something we wouldn't be able to unsee, and I thought everything about us was going to be complicated now; I didn't want to add to that complication. It felt like it would add insult to injury if, on top of the whole school seeing us have sex, Benji decided he never wanted to have sex with me again. Some part of me knew that was completely irrational and probably wouldn't happen but, once upon a time, I hadn't thought a video of me having sex would be circulating around school so I thought that said a lot about my jdugement. He kissed my forehead. "I don't think it's possible that I could be repulsed by you. I don't know if you know this, but you're really hot."

I snorted. "I know you think that, but I also know that… neither of us knows what my face looks like when we are together. What if I look like that guy from that video we watched?" We thought it would be a good idea and… it wasn't. We ended up laughing through the video which was not a great way to set the mood.

He smiled and looked down. "What an opportunity to find out." He put his phone in his pocket. "We don't have to watch this right now, but I do want to know what people saw. They're going to be talking about it."

"Can we talk about this later? I just want to get as far away from here as possible." I was fully ready to wave Lake over and let us drive us anywhere she wanted, but Benji had other ideas.

"What did you say to the people that made those comments during Homeroom?" he asked.

"I, uh, didn't," I admitted. He looked at me incredulously. "I know. I know you would've said something, but I wasn't expecting it and by the time I figured out what was going on, Ms. Albright was pulling me from class." I'd only been in class about two minutes, but it had been the longest two minutes of my life before she came to my rescue.

"And when we get back to school next week?" he asked. "What are you going to say then?"

"I don't know. I never thought something like this would happen."

Benji let out a frustrated sigh. "And we're just going to fall back into the pattern of avoiding it, right? I feel like we take one step forward and two steps back."

"That's not fair. I'm trying, Benji. I really am. Just give me a second to catch up with this."

"How many seconds? We agreed that we were going to stop turning everything into a monumentally big deal."

"This is different! This would be a big deal even if I'd been out for years or if we were straight," I protested. "Benji, not only did someone see us doing… that, they recorded us. The whole school has seen us."

"Jesus. You and your mom. Honestly. We had sex. We didn't do that." He motioned way more exaggeratedly than I had. "That makes it seem like a bad thing."

"We had sex in a public place. That is a bad thing!"

"You didn't seem to think so last night."

"I clearly wasn't thinking last night! Maybe you're super comfortable and casual about sex, but not all of us are. Some of us take sex seriously and didn't sleep around while we were trying to figure out who we are. Some of us would like to keep our sex lives private, and you never seem to have a problem letting the world see us." He rolled his eyes at me and, yeah, it probably was a ridiculous question, but it really pissed me off that he instantly dismissed it. "I never should have let you convince me to do something like that. Did you want this to happen? Is that why you had lube in your bag?" Even as I said it, I knew I crossed a line. I knew Benji would never have intentionally put us in that position, but I was so angry right now and Benji was in front of me, so he was bearing the brunt of it.

"Let me," Benji asked incredulously. "You make it sound like I pressured you. I didn't see you putting up much of a fight. As you told what's-his-face, you consented. Enthusiastically. I'm not some villain that made locker room sex seem fun. I didn't want this to happen either. And just because you're a prude about this shit doesn't mean that sex is a bad thing. Yeah, maybe I slept around while I was figuring my shit out, but at least-" He cut himself off and fully took a step back from me. His face was red, and I knew he was close to crossing a line. As it was, I was mentally filling in the blank.

"At least what?" I pressed. "What did I do? I waited to have sex until I was in love. Sue me. That doesn't make me prude; it makes me cautious. You knew exactly what you were getting into with me, so enlighten me. At least what?"

"Victor, please," he whispered. "Drop it." I could see the desperation in his face; whatever he was going to say must've been really bad, and he didn't want this to get worse.

My instinct was to snap. I wanted to push him until he said exactly what he was thinking; I wanted the excuse to let out everything that had been brewing inside of me since one of my classmates in Homeroom asked me if that was my preferred position but, even if I'd crossed a line, I couldn't force Benji to cross one. It was one of our unspoken rules; we didn't bait the other person. We fought, but we didn't intentionally try to escalate a fight. I wasn't sure if I could fight this out right now without making it worse. I didn't think I was ready to. Every part of my brain was screaming at me to push him as if my fight or flight instinct was only a fight or fight right now. I brought my hands up to my eyes. "Do we have to talk about this right now? Can we just… not? Can we do anything but think about that stupid video?"

"I don't know," he said slowly.

"I can't fight about this right now. I can't. I know we're supposed to, but I can't. Benji, if you think you've seen me stressed before-" I shook my head. I didn't think I'd ever felt this out of control. Not even when I thought we were breaking up. "I can't talk this out right now. I'm only gonna say more shit that I don't mean because I can't even begin to figure out how I feel or how to talk about this. Benji, I-" I felt like part of me was broken. I didn't see how we were ever supposed to come back here. How were we supposed to walk through these halls knowing that everyone saw us or at least heard about it? How was I supposed to move past this? How were we supposed to move past this? This wasn't the kind of thing that would go away. This would follow us around for the rest of our lives. Could our relationship survive something like that? "I'm sorry. I'm just…"

"Pissed off and scared and embarrassed?" he guessed.

"And then some."

"I am too."

My phone started to vibrate, and I glanced at it. I looked at him desperately. "I know that this is serious and we need to at least figure out when we're going to talk about this, but…"

"But what?" he asked. "What could be so important?"

I held up my phone. "It's Mia."

Benji's POV

The fight left me. "Answer it."

"Are you sure? I don't want to leave things here."

"We won't, but it's Mia. She's… God knows where. You haven't talked to her in almost two weeks. Answer her. Make sure she's okay."

He tapped his screen and held his phone to his ear. "Hey, Mia," he said softly. His face scrunched up. "You're still in Texas?" There was another pause. "Uh, no. I lived in Graham." He frowned. "I guess it's kind of close to Dallas, but it's still a couple of hours from there." Victor chuckled. "No, I promise. You're not missing anything if you don't go through Graham. Though, you will miss the chance to see where Victor Salazar grew up and that's a pretty special experience." Another pause. "So, how are you?" Victor frowned. "You saw that, did you?" Mia spoke for a long time. "Yeah, we're suspended until next Friday. I agree! That is bullshit." Victor looked confused then incredulous then hopeful. "Wait, are you serious? Actually… I need to talk to Benji about it, but it kind of seems great. Andrew won't mind?" He looked over at me. "I'll text you soon to let you know."

He hung up his phone.

"Is she okay?" I asked.

"Yeah." He tapped his phone on his palm rapidly. "Hey, I know we're kind of in the middle of a fight, but do you want to get away for a few days?"

I thought it was very nice of me not to immediately say no. "Where?" I asked.

"Mia and Andrew are about to spend some time in Vegas," he told me. "It's their next lead and… they invited us. I thought… maybe we could use the time away to figure this out."

"Vegas? Like in Nevada? Like the other side of the country?" I asked. "Are you insane? We can't just take off and go to Vegas."

"Why not?" he challenged. "Give me one reason. We're out of school for the next week. What's to stop us?"

"Oh, you want reasons? How about your parents will never say yes to that; we need a way to get there; we both have work; you're still grounded from the last time we snuck away and stayed in the state of Georgia; Las Vegas is on the other side of the country; your mom won't even let you go to your mailbox right now, and she's not going to let you go to Nevada; my parents breathalyze me after band practice, and they're not going to let me go off to a place that's known for being a hotspot of drunken escapes when they can't watch my every move; have I mentioned your parents yet?"

"None of those things have to do with us," Victor protested. "We can call in sick, and we'll tell our parents once we're on the road. I know I'll be grounded forever but if it means we get to figure this out, don't you think it'll be worth it? If there was a direct route to New York City, I'm sure we can find a bus route to Vegas." He grabbed my hands. "I know that this is probably stupid, but don't you want to get away from this? We can fight just as well in Vegas as we can if we go back to your house, but maybe some distance will give us perspective. It'll give us a neutral space to hash out this stuff and figure out what we want to do."

"You're talking out of your ass right now."

"I know I am, but I really want to go. I think it could be good for us. Please. Besides, school, parents, work. They're all just noise. All that matters is you and me."

"That's not fair. I can't argue with myself." I looked away from him. "I thought we agreed that your parents weren't noise, and we needed to accept them as a significant part of our relationship."

"Don't use my words against me. Are you really trying to say that you don't want to do this?" He asked. He pointed at the school. "Maybe this doesn't have to be a complete shitfest. Maybe something good can come out of what happened." I looked down at the ground. There were a million and one reasons to say no, but the words that came out of my mouth were, "okay."

"Really?" He kissed me. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can't believe we're going to Vegas!" That made two of us. What did I just agree to?

"Did someone say Vegas?" Lake asked as she walked over.

- . - . - . -

Rahim's POV

The entire school was buzzing about Victor and Benji. I couldn't take two steps without hearing someone's opinion about it. A significant number of people were disgusted that the video existed but, ironically, didn't want to stop talking about what had happened in it.

"Did you watch it?" Ryker asked as they sat down across from me during lunch.

"Not you too," I complained. Jesus.

"Sorry. I can't help it. If they'd gotten caught making out in the locker room, that would have been news, but this? This transcends news. It's gonna be something for a long time."

"I know," I groaned. Even when the next piece of gossip dropped, this probably wouldn't go away. It was gonna follow them until they graduated… and probably after that.

Ryker took a bite of what looked like chicken fingers but made a face that made me doubt that. "Ugh. Don't eat these. They taste like… bleh."

"What does 'bleh' taste like?"

They shrugged. "Inedible. That's what it tastes like." They pulled a bag of goldfish out of their bag before they glanced up at me. "So, did you watch it?"

I'd only watched enough to know what was happening in the video and that had been more than enough. "Just a little."

"Have you talked to him?"

"I've typed and deleted a text to him about a hundred times, but what's the right thing to say? 'Sorry someone recorded you having sex with your boyfriend' doesn't seem like the right way to start a conversation."

"You could just check in with him. See how he's doing with this," they suggested.

I sighed. I was going to text him eventually, but I didn't want to overwhelm him right now, especially when his phone was probably blowing up with everyone that had an opinion about what happened. We'd texted a few times since we talked two weeks ago, but we hadn't talked about anything as serious as this. We'd spent about an hour talking about the weather one day so that's where we were at. "I'm gonna let things calm down before I reach out. Can we not talk about it anymore?"

"Sure. Why don't we talk about your date with TJ?" they suggested. "You're going out on Friday, right?"

"Yeah." I was really, really excited, but I didn't want to look too excited. It was my first real date. "He's picking me up at 5:30. He's borrowing his dad's car."

"What are you love birds doing?"

"I don't actually know. Since I apparently took forever to ask him out, his words, he's had a lot of time to plan what our first date would look like and he wants it to be a surprise. I think that's backwards, but he insisted."

"Aww, that's so sweet." Ryker practically swooned. "I told you! I told you TJ was a catch."

"He is pretty great," I conceded. "Do you know what he said last night? He said I inspire him to be brave. Me. Basically the least brave person to ever exist."

"You came out to people that grew up in a country where it's literally illegal to be you. And you asked TJ out. That took balls. Give yourself some credit."

I shrugged them off. "We should go to B's tonight," I said. "I think I need a night."

"You know I'm always down for that. You should invite TJ. If he's not too busy doing Advanced Calculus or pulling an all-nighter at the star place."

"One, that was one time and there was something special happening that he was looking at with his Astronomy Club. Two, TJ doesn't have a fake ID because he's not a delinquent. And three, do you really not know what a planetarium is called?"

"There's a reason I don't go to brainiac school and it's because I'm practically illiterate. I can say that; you cannot agree with me," they warned.

I snorted. "Freedom of expression. I can agree with you if I want to. I just don't agree," I told them.

"I think you mean free speech," they corrected.

I stared at them. "You are aware that free speech falls under the freedom of expression amendment." They looked surprised to hear that. "I can't with you."

"It's not my fault. I've lived in Shady Creek my entire life, and I don't think we've ever studied the amendments."

"You learn them freshman year. This school has failed you."

They grinned at me. "I'm cool with blaming the school. How do you know the amendments anyway? You skip school more than anyone I know."

"Yeah, but I get all my work done. I may not be an A student, but I know enough to get by." I didn't add that my parents were constantly reminding me of all the rights I have in this country that they didn't have growing up. "Anyway. What time do you want to meet up tonight?"

"Why don't we say 6?" they suggested. They threw a goldfish cracker in the air and caught it in their mouth. "I'll text the degenerates."

I chuckled. "Sounds good."

- . - . - . -

Lake's POV

I ended up taking Victor and Benji to the same park that Lucy and I frequented. They'd filled me in on their plans to go to Las Vegas, and I was on the precipice of deciding to do something reckless. Victor and Benji were lying on the grass. Their arms were just barely touching, but it somehow seemed like an intimate moment. For a few minutes, I just watched them as they argued about how they were going to split the cost of the trip to Vegas. Victor had already found a bus that would take them to Las Vegas with one stop to transfer busses. I was a little grateful that Benji and he were currently looking up motels in Las Vegas that we wouldn't get murdered at (that was Victor's actual search), so they could price check and figure out what the whole thing would cost before they bought the tickets.

"Okay," I finally said. "I'm coming with you."

Victor's eyes flew open. "Are you sure?"

"I have been missing Mia for four months. I need to see her," I told him. "I just have to call my mom and then I have to try to convince Lucy to come with us."

"Lucy? Really?" Victor coughed to clear his throat. "So you, uh, want to go on a road trip with her?"

The poor thing. He was trying so hard to look casual, but it was really obvious that he was phishing for something. It was probably the perfect opportunity to tell them that Lucy was my girlfriend, but the words got stuck in my throat. "You think I'm about to third-wheel with you two? I love you both, but there's only so much of you that one person can be expected to take."

"We're fun to be around," Victor protested.

"People that are fun to be around don't have to say they're fun to be around," I pointed out. I stood up and pulled out my phone. "Wish me luck."

It was surprisingly easy to convince my mom that I should go see Mia. I'd expected a resounding no, but she let me plead my case and agreed. She told me that four months of me moping over Mia was her limit (I still maintained I wasn't that bad). Lucy's brother was on board almost right away; we still hadn't told him about us, but he told me to have fun, just not too much fun, so… yeah.

Victor slouched down in his seat when we pulled up to the school to find Lucy. He almost made it more obvious that he was in my car because he looked shady. Lucky for him, we spotted her right away.

"Lucy!" I called out my window. Lucy looked surprised before she ran over to me. She didn't ask questions as she climbed in.

She waited until we were out of the parking lot to turn to Victor and Benji. "Are you okay? I tried to find you this morning to warn you, but I couldn't find you anywhere."

"We were almost late to school this morning," Benji admitted. He sighed. "I don't know if either of us can say we're okay right now, but we're hoping we'll get there. I think Lake has something she wants to talk to you about."

Lucy turned to look at me and I could almost see the hope that I'd come out to them. That was so far from my mind right now. They needed time for everything to quiet down with their video before they were ready to know about me. "Okay, so here's a crazy question."

"Coming from you? I'm kind of scared to know what your bar for crazy is."

"Ha ha. You're hilarious. What would you think about visiting Mia in Las Vegas?"

Lucy laughed before she seemed to realize that I wasn't joking. "You can't be serious."

"Why not? I literally haven't seen Mia in months. She invited Victor and Benji since they got suspended, and Victor turns seventeen on Sunday; I thought it would be fun for us all to go and party it up in Vegas."

"You know I can't just pick up and leave. I have to watch my grandfather this weekend; I have work on Tuesday."

"I already cleared it with Logan. He said you owe him like a month of grandpa duty, but he's willing to cover for you while we're gone. We'll be back in time for you to put on your bowtie and get to work on Tuesday, and your brother's going to call the school pretending to be your dad to say that something with family came up," I told her. "My mom's on board too."

"You talked to my brother?" she asked, taken aback.

"Yeah. And before you get mad, I thought this would be the perfect chance to get to know everyone a little more; let them get to know us."

Lucy understood what I was saying right away. "Okay," she agreed. I apparently should've been using that card a long time ago; who knew that was all it would take to get Lucy to agree to something like this?

"Great. We're going to make a few stops. We all have to pack. Victor, should we start with you and then make the rounds?"

"I can't go home. My mom's there."

"Then what are you gonna do? No offense, but you can't wear that outfit every day. You probably shouldn't have worn it today," I added under my breath. I earned myself a shove from Lucy, but it didn't look like Victor heard me.

"I have some clothes at Benji's, and I asked Pilar to throw some stuff in a duffel bag for me. She said she'd drop it outside our apartment when we get there."

I raised my eyebrows at him. "You keep clothes at Benji's house?"

"Benji has a bad habit of stealing my t-shirts… and pajama pants… and sweaters… and socks."

"I don't steal your clothes," he protested. "You leave them behind and they end up in my laundry."

"And then you don't return them."

Benji muttered something about how they were comfortable. "And you wondered why I didn't want to third wheel with you guys. To Benjamin's house we go."

- . - . - . -

Benji's POV

We went to my place first. I wasn't really surprised to see that my mom was home. She may have been waiting for me, or maybe she just wanted to be home.

Victor climbed out of the car behind me and followed me inside. I hadn't seen my dad's car, so I was taken aback when he was sitting in the living room as well.

My mom stood up when she saw us. She didn't say anything; she just pulled me into a hug. Victor raised his eyebrows at me, and I rolled my eyes. My mom always overreacted to the smallest things, and this wasn't exactly a small thing.

When she let me go, she said, "we are so sorry that this happened to you. It's completely unacceptable."

"We contacted our lawyer-" my dad started to say.

I felt my blood go cold. Nothing screamed 'big deal' more than involving lawyers. "No," I interrupted.

"Sweetie, I think-" my mom began.

"No," I repeated. "I don't want to get lawyers involved. I want to put this behind us, serve our suspension, and move on."

My dad looked like he was going to protest, but my mom stopped him. "Let's sleep on it. We don't have to talk about it right now," she said.

It was probably a reasonable request, but I wanted nothing to do with it. "I'm not going to change my mind," I told her.

Victor cleared his throat. "We agree on this," he said timidly. "Benji can get in trouble for what we did, so we're gonna drop it. We just want to process what happened and find out how we move forward from this."

Victor glanced at me uncertainly. We'd both assumed I'd just text my parents when we were on the road just like he planned to. "We were thinking that we might go away for a few days to clear our heads and figure this out," I said. "We already called out of work." It had been surprisingly easy for Victor to find coverage for our shifts. He cleared us through our suspension which I thought would've been almost impossible but, when he'd posted to our work GroupMe, he'd gotten an answer from enough people within minutes. I hoped our coworkers were just doing it out of the kindness of their hearts but we both knew it probably had more to do with how bad they felt for us. Two girls were picking up all of our weekday shifts and they went to Creekwood, so they definitely knew.

My parents glanced at each other before my mom nodded. "Are you planning on going to Lake Lanier?"

It would be so easy to lie and say yes. So easy. It would probably guarantee that they'd be okay with it, but I didn't want to lie to them. "No."

My mom waited for me to give her more information and, when I didn't, she asked, "then where are you going?"

"We were gonna visit our friend, Mia." I had never told my mom about Mia's current situation; she knew who Mia was because I'd very briefly filled her in when I started dating Victor because I didn't want him to feel weird if she asked him about his previous boyfriends (like she had with Derek). I hadn't told her that Mia skipped the last four months of school, so I was kind of surprised when she looked like she knew. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't be surprised. My mom was really active in the PTA and they gossiped like it was their job; she sometimes knew school gossip before I did. "She's in Las Vegas."

My mom pursed her lips. "Victor, do you think you could give us a minute?"

"Whatever you're going to say, you can say in front of him." I had no doubt that the whole despite-how-proud-we-are-we-don't-trust-you conversation was in my future.

"I don't know that we're comfortable with this," she told me. "It's so far away and Vegas? You're going to be surrounded by…" she trailed off and shot me a pointed look. Yeah, I called that.

I resisted the urge to groan because there were some things I didn't think my mom was ever going to move past, and I'd called this.

To my surprise, Victor picked up on it as well. "With all due respect, he'll be fine," he said confidently. He glanced at me. "He's a lot stronger than you give him credit for."

"He's right. I'll be okay."

My mom frowned. "This is a… unique circumstance. You know how you deal with stress and Hank will be so far away if things get tough."

"But he'll have me," Victor interjected. "I know it's not the same, but I can help, and we both have Hank's number if Benji needs to talk to him. Benji can handle this." He squeezed my hand. "You can handle this."

I nodded. "I know I can." I tried very hard not to smile and failed miserably. I turned to my mom. "I don't want to go without your permission so, please, trust me to go."

My mom closed her eyes for almost a minute. "It's not about trust, Benjamin." For most kids, when their mom used their full name like that, it meant they were in trouble. Not for us. My mom only used my whole name when she was feeling particularly emotional. We had a scale for how she was feeling. Benjamin meant she was emotional; Benjamin Campbell meant she was disappointed. If she made up a random middle name for me, usually a Disney villain… well, that always meant she was pissed with me. Hearing my mom call me Benjamin Jafar Campbell or something like that always preceded a punishment. It hadn't happened in a long time. Once you do something like total a car because you were horribly drunk, other things stop seeming so problematic. I had set an unattainably high bar. She studied me intensely. "We do trust you."

I had to look away because I hadn't heard my mom say anything like that in a long, long time. She'd said she believed me before but hadn't used the 'T' word. The last time she'd talked about trust was when I'd been sober for one month. She had bought a handheld breathalyzer from Target that she had me blow into every day when I got home from work or school or an AA meeting or band rehearsal or the mailbox (I wished I was joking). I'd asked her if she was ever going to trust me again and her exact response, word-for-word, had been, "it is really hard to rebuild trust once it is broken."

I'd thought for such a long time that my parents would never trust me again. I looked up at the ceiling, then at the wall, then at the carpet as I tried to find something to keep me together. Eventually, my eyes settled on Victor who had the biggest smile on his face. "Check in every day," my dad ordered. "We want to know when you get there, or if you change where you are staying. Keep us in the loop."

"And have fun," my mom whispered. She pinched Victor's cheek before she turned to me. "You're in good hands."

"I have to go pack, but I'll stop in before we leave."

My mom nodded.

It was pretty quick. I packed way more than five days worth of clothes because anything could happen and I didn't want to risk being unprepared. It would have been embarrassing how many clothes Victor found that belonged to him if I didn't think he was secretly pleased about it. I also knew if I raided his dresser I'd find some sweaters and t-shirts that belonged to me. He was so much taller than me, not all of my clothes could fit him, but I was sure he'd borrowed some of my looser stuff on more than one occasion.

While I packed, Victor remembered that I needed things like a toothbrush and deodorant. I threw them into my bag and grabbed a spare toothbrush from what Victor called our hoarding closet. I remembered the first time he spontaneously spent the night. Why does anyone need forty-eight spare tubes of toothpaste? We'd been so sleepy that we spent about twenty minutes bursting into spontaneous laughter every time we thought about that closet. Once one of us started to laugh, we'd set off the other. It had been the perfect night.

"I grabbed a toothbrush in case Pilar forgets to pack yours. Do you want to grab anything else?" I asked as I pointed towards our closet.

He pulled a few things out and I tucked them into my bag before I grabbed Victor's birthday gift off of my desk. "You are not allowed to look at this until Sunday," I warned him.

He grinned. "Is that my gift?" He suddenly frowned and pulled out his phone. He typed rapidly on it before he pocketed it again. "Ready?"

When we stopped in to say goodbye to my parents, my mom hugged me for a solid five minutes.

- . - . - . -

Isabel's POV

The phone call from the school came in while I was at work. I hadn't answered my phone the first or the second time they called me, but when they tried for the third time, I'd stepped into the hallway to take the call.

I'd left right away, telling them I had a family emergency. I was so frantic, they hadn't even questioned it. I'd come back to our apartment where I'd spent the last six hours trying to get in touch with Armando. I wasn't surprised that I wasn't able to get in touch with him; he had some kind of inspection at work today and had warned me he'd essentially be inaccessible. Though, I had a feeling our fight this morning was part of the reason he hadn't called me back.

I hoped he would be done soon because I didn't feel capable of handling something like this on my own. I felt like I could still hear the words echoing in my head. There's been an incident. Ms. Albright's was the first of three calls from the school. She'd explained that someone would be in touch to offer resources but that Victor was being suspended. There'd been a buzzing in my ear since she said, 'sexual misconduct'. It still didn't make sense to me. She'd hardly hung up on me before Victor's Coach called to let me know that, since he was suspended, he wouldn't be eligible to play for the rest of the season. Then, the worst of the calls. The school psychologist.

I was still in a daze. It had taken me several minutes to process what he had meant when he said that a video of my son was circulating. It didn't make sense to me. Victor didn't do things like that. Pilar, I had to worry about, but Victor? No. He wouldn't record himself in a compromising position. Then I found out he hadn't. Someone else had.

It was so surreal to know that someone had recorded him. That someone had seen him being intimate with Benji and had recorded him. It was yet another thing about this whole situation that made no sense to me. As someone that had walked in on them, I could attest to the fact that no part of my instinct had been to document that. It had been to get as far away from that situation as quickly as humanly possible.

I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that there had been something to walk in on. Victor knew better than to do something like that in a public place. Maybe I should've been worrying about something like that, but I never in my wildest nightmare thought he'd be so careless. He'd just always had such a good head on his shoulders. What could've possessed him to do this?

There were too many things that didn't make sense. Pilar walked in after school and had taken one look at me. "You heard."

I could only nod. "Can-" I had no volume so I coughed to clear my throat. "Can you walk Adrian home from school?"

Pilar had turned right back around. I would love her forever for not fighting with me on this. When they got back, I was still sitting on the couch. I'd barely been aware that an hour passed. I did my best to act normal for Adrian. He was working on his math homework when Pilar disappeared into Victor's bedroom. When she emerged, she said she was going to see Felix, but I knew.

Pilar was gone nearly two hours. I was making dinner when she came back, and I didn't ask her why she returned without the duffel bag she'd left with. I wasn't a rocket scientist, but I didn't need to be one to know how Victor would react. Victor was a runner. It always gave him perspective and space and, from what I gathered, he definitely needed a little space right now. Granted, when he was in middle school his problems were so much simpler, and running meant he spent three days sleeping on Matt's floor or sleeping in the spare bedroom at my in-law's house. I always knew exactly where he was even if he didn't realize that. Now that he was older, he could essentially go anywhere and that was kind of terrifying for me.

"Pilar," I called. I didn't turn to face her, but I could hear her footsteps.

"What's up?"

"You don't have to tell me where he is, but is he okay?" I turned to face her as I finished washing off the carrots.

Pilar looked down at the floor. "I don't know," she said quietly. "I don't see how he can be." That tugged at my heart. I hadn't seen the video, but the school psychologist had, in an emotionless and disaffected voice, described it in excruciating detail. There's been an incident. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

"Did he tell you how long he'll be gone?" I asked.

"A few days, I think. He's not going over to Benji's."

I nodded but felt my heart clench. "Are they going to break up?"

"I don't think so, but… it's really bad. It's all anyone's talking about at school, and they're being nasty about it. Really nasty. I think that's why they left."

"So, he is with Benji." I felt so relieved. A sex video would add strain to any relationship, but I was glad they were hopefully working through it together.

"Yeah. He said he's going to text you later." She looked away from me. "Is he in trouble?"

I sighed. "I don't know."

Pilar frowned before she walked into the kitchen. "I can chop those up."

Her offer was so surprising, it took me a second to push the cutting board towards her. Pilar never offered to help out with dinner. "Thanks."

I turned back to the stove to flip the pork.

"You shouldn't… ground him or anything," Pilar said when she started cutting the carrots. I didn't know that this was a conversation we should be having while she was wielding a knife. "I know you don't see eye to eye with him on this, but he's been through a lot. And whether you like it or not, what happened to him was messed up. And it's kind of your fault."

"My fault?" I asked incredulously. "How could it possibly be my fault?"

"If you hadn't grounded Victor, he never would have had to… do what he did in a locker room."

"Now hold on. He was grounded because he lied," I pointed out.

"Because he had to," Pilar protested.

"He had to."

"I would have done the same thing. You never made a fuss about me going over to Erick's. You knew what we were doing. We never talked about it, but you knew. Why was that okay? Is Benji right? Is it because Victor's having sex with a guy?"

"Of course not!"

"Then what is it?"

"It's that I never knew for sure what you were doing… until now, that is. I could pretend that you were my sweet, innocent daughter. With Victor, it feels like it's being thrown in my face. I'd barely gotten used to the idea of him having a boyfriend before I…" I shook my head. I knew Pilar knew what had happened because she'd made jokes to Victor about barricading his door, but it wasn't something I was eager to revisit. "It was a lot, and I don't think it's that he's gay. It's hard for me to think about any of you having sex. I know you went and grew up, but you're still my babies. Victor's still my little boy that brought his kindergarten class hamster home and accidentally set it loose in our apartment."

Pilar put the knife down. "I don't think I know this story."

I chuckled. "You probably wouldn't. I doubt even Victor remembers it; he was only 5. His kindergarten teacher got a hamster for the class. A couple of weeks into the school year, Victor learned that the hamster stayed at the school overnight during the week and only went home with his teacher on weekends. He thought his teacher brought the hamster to and from school every day, and he was devastated. Well, the next day, we got a call from the teacher. She was calling every student's parents to let them know that the class hamster was missing."

"Oh my God," Pilar said. Her face lit up. "Victor kidnapped the hamster."

"He said he rescued it," I told her. I turned the flame of the stove down low and turned the oven on. "He'd planned it all out. He found an empty shoebox and picked a bunch of grass during recess to put in the box. He was talking to the shoebox when I walked into the kitchen. You know me, I'm a cool mom, so I didn't accuse him; I just let him know that the hamster was missing. Your brother used to do this thing when he got caught doing something wrong where he'd start to wrap his hands in his t-shirt. I barely had the word hamster out before he was all wrapped up in his t-shirt. All it took was me putting my hands on my hips and he was hysterical as he explained that he didn't want the hamster to feel alone all night. I decided that we were going to put the hamster in one of our old fish tanks. Victor helped me clean it out, but by the time we got back to the kitchen, the hamster had chewed through the box. We looked for it for over an hour. He called me his hero when I found it."

"That's so sweet."

"To me, he's still that little boy. It's so hard to admit that he's grown up now."

"Well, whether it's hard or not, it's a reality. He's in a really serious relationship."

"I know that."

"Do you? Because you kept him from Benji. That doesn't sound like you get that Benji is the most important person in his life." I looked up at her. "We're important to him too, but he chose Benji. It's different. You need to accept that or you don't really accept him."

I felt my heart drop to my stomach. "I hear you." I didn't like it, but I had a feeling Pilar was right. It had been a mistake to keep him from Benji. I studied Pilar for a minute as a new thought occurred to me. I really didn't want to talk about this. As much as I grew up with a very open relationship with my family, my parents had always stayed far away from conversations about sex. Maybe that's what got us into this mess. "Are you sleeping with Felix?" I asked.

"No, I'm not," she said sincerely. She started chopping the carrots again. "I don't know if that answer will change next week or next month, but right now, no. We're just enjoying this part of getting to know each other."

"Okay, good. That's good. Really good," I said, relieved. "Let this part last as long as you want it to. Maybe a few years. Really be sure about Felix."

"Wow. It's really not the gay thing." Pilar focused intently on the carrots. "You know, when I was with Erick, I wanted to be able to talk about it. I didn't know what I was doing or what was normal. At least, not until his mom found out and talked to me about it."

I wanted to tell her that I didn't want to hear this, but I'd always told her she could talk to me about anything. I pushed aside my unsettled feelings. "I didn't know you felt that way."

"Yeah, well, I did. But I at least had books and movies and TV shows that talked about it. I had an idea of what sex should look like, even if sex is totally geared towards guys in those movies and shows. Victor doesn't have that. I can't think of a single movie with a main character like him. Sex was scary for me; I can't begin to imagine what it was like for him. And he can't talk about it. He talks a little to Felix, and Felix has spent a ridiculous of time on Google looking up stuff about gay sex just in case Victor ever wants to talk about it more, but…" she trailed off. "I feel like this got away from me."

"Yeah, I think it did," I said. "What are you trying to say, mija?"

"My point is… Benji is how Victor is learning about sex. He doesn't have everything I grew up with, and we didn't have gay friends in Texas that he could talk to about this stuff. If he can't talk to you, can you blame him for wanting to be around the one person that understands what this is like for him?" she asked. "Victor… would probably talk to you about it if you asked. Maybe."

"I don't know if I want to hear it," I said softly.

"Then don't hear it but accept it because his life is hard enough without stuff like this happening." She passed me the carrots. "I don't like thinking about it either, but I'd rather not have to learn about his sex life with the rest of the school. I have homework to do."

It was late when Armando got home. He'd called to say he was stuck at work and would talk to me when he got home.

"Are you okay?" he asked when he walked in. I shook my head and he walked over to me to wrap his arms around me. I closed my eyes and buried my head in his chest. This was my safe space. We'd been through so much, but he had always been my safe space. I was so grateful for this moment; so grateful that he was willing to put aside his anger for me temporarily because I desperately needed him.

"Where's Victor? I want to talk to him."

"I don't know. He's going somewhere with Benji." Armando pulled back and led me to the couch. He didn't look surprised. "Did you listen to my voicemails?"

"Not all of them. I listened to two to get an idea of what was going on. What can we do? Do we request a meeting with the principal to find out what they're doing for him?"

I instantly felt guilty because I'd given little to no thought to pursuing anything because Victor had been recorded. I'd been so focused on the fact that he'd gotten caught having sex and was suspended.

"We go to the school," I told him decisively. "Tomorrow."

"I can't do tomorrow," he told me.

"Mando."

"No, I know how important this is, but I have a meeting with the big boss tomorrow. I can't miss it. I told you that today and tomorrow were going to be busy days for me, but I can clear my schedule on Friday."

"Okay. Friday, we'll drop off Adrian then stop by the high school," I said. Before I had the chance to say anything else, I got a text from Victor. "He's okay." I wouldn't be happy until he was back in this apartment, but at least I knew he was safe.

"Good."

"What do you think they can do?"

"Victor's a minor. A student recorded him. We need to make sure that they're looking into this and that Victor has rights too."

"The call I received from the school today was about-" I chewed my lip and looked over at him. "It was about Benji. We have the right to pursue something against him."

"Absolutely not. Victor would never forgive us and we both know that Benji would never intentionally do anything to hurt him."

"I agree. It's out of the question, but we need to be prepared for that to be the only thing they tell us we can pursue."

"If that's the case, I wanna see this mama bear you keep bragging about because she needs to come out if they try to pull that."

He kissed my forehead before he left to check in on Adrian.

- . - . - . -

Victor's POV

Everyone being able to say goodbye to their families before we took off filled me with so many confusing emotions. Part of me wanted to be able to tell my parents where I was going, but I couldn't take the chance that they wouldn't let me go. Lake's mom telling Lake to be safe and have fun, Lucy's brother telling her to have the adventure of a lifetime, Benji's mom's whole thing. It made me sad that I couldn't have that with my parents.

Pilar was waiting outside when we pulled up. "Where are you going?" she asked as she passed me my bag.

"Trust me; it's better if you don't know. I'm not telling mom and dad that I'm leaving until we're out of Georgia."

Pilar looked alarmed. "You are coming back, right?"

"Yes, of course," I promised her. "We'll be back before our suspension is up."

"You got suspended. Is that why mom is staring at the door with a pissy expression on her face?"

"She probably thinks I'm sneaking around with Benji." I glanced back at the car. "She's not wrong."

"Wherever you're going, have fun. And if you're not going to be back in time, call me whenever you're free on your birthday!" I froze for a second because I knew my birthday was coming up; Benji and Lake had both brought it up when we started planning for Vegas, but this was the first time it occurred to me that I wouldn't be with my family on my birthday. I already knew we wouldn't be back, and it didn't change anything, but I felt a little sad to think of being away from them.

"I will. I promise."

Pilar hugged me. "It's not fair that this happened to you."

I looked away from her. "Did… did you see it?"

"I made Felix watch it." I didn't know how to feel about that. Lake beeped at us. "Have fun, Vic."

I nodded to her before I ran to the car and slipped into the backseat next to Benji. "No, no, no. We need to get the puffy cheese doodles," Benji insisted.

"Are you still making our snack list? You can just grab some stuff when you run into the store," I pointed out.

"Except, they think we should get crunchy Cheetos instead of the puffy ones."

"But the crunchy ones are better," Lucy insisted.

"Okay, you're just wrong," I interjected. "The puffy ones are amazing."

"That's why you want the puffy ones," Lucy accused. She and Lake had switched positions while I was getting my bag (honestly, we were really lucky to have made it to my apartment in one piece).

He shrugged. "We're about to be in a car for thirty hours. We're getting puffy Cheetos. Plus, Victor's gonna spend half the time driving. He gets to have his snack of choice. So do you, so if crunchy Cheetos will make you happy, we'll get both."

"I can't believe you won't let me drive," Lake said bitterly.

"We can be in the no driving club together. I still can't pass that test." I could hear the faintest strain in his voice, or maybe I just heard it because I knew it was hard for him to lie. He'd once said that the only thing harder than the lie was the truth.

"If I could get my license, how is it possible that you can't? You'd think they'd put a limit on how many times you could take the test. Like, at some point, shouldn't they deem you a danger to society and take you off the road?"

"Lake, you got your license because you cried during your test and told them you needed your license to take your fictional baby brother to his doctor appointments because your parents both worked absurd hours to pay for his medical expenses," Lucy pointed out.

"That's messed up," Benji said. "I'd never be able to get away with something like that. It must be nice to be a girl."

"Okay. I understand that there are some perks like creepy middle-aged men who don't know how to deal with emotions, but no girl ever has thought… wow, it's so great to be a girl. It sucks. We deal with it because we're powerful goddesses, but nice?" Lake asked.

"You probably should have just kept your mouth shut," Lucy said. She had a huge smile on her face. "I can't save you from what you started."

"What did I start?" Benji asked uncertainly.

"Let's talk about sexism, folks," Lake said. I snickered, and she turned to face me. "Something funny?"

"I just can't wait to see Benji's face. Please, start. Let it all out, Lake." When I'd been dating Mia, Lake had once gone on a three-hour rant about how sexist it was to segregate gym class into guys that practiced whatever sport we were on and girls that were almost immediately sent to the bleachers. 'I'm not saying I want to play soccer, but I'd like to be given the chance to say no' had been her closing argument.

"Now, hold up. You know I wasn't trying to start anything," Benji said cautiously. I wasn't going to say it was funny to see him so flustered, but it was so rare that he was uncomfortable about anything.

Lake's rant was kind of amazing and only lasted the ten minutes it took us to get to the local Publix. "Something else, right?" Lucy asked affectionately. Benji was right; Lucy was so gone for Lake. "I keep telling her she should be a lawyer."

"Too much writing," Lake pointed out as she climbed out of the car.

"Did we settle on snacks?" I asked.

"I'll figure it out," she said through the open window. We thought it would save time if only one of us went in, but then Lake spent nearly thirty minutes in there, so we realized we made a mistake.

"Sorry," she said as she climbed back in. "There were only two people working, and the line was ridiculous. I think the cashier thinks I'm going through a breakup because he told me to 'hang in there' while I was leaving." She passed back two bags. "Did you text your parents?"

"I'm waiting til we're out of Georgia. I did turn off 'find my iPhone', so they can't track me just in case Pilar makes it obvious that I'm gone," I explained.

Everyone's parents had been kind of amazing about this trip - like way more chill than I expected parents to be about a bunch of teenagers traipsing across the country without parental supervision, but I didn't think that was going to be my parent's reaction… actually, I knew it wasn't going to be. I had a feeling my mom was going to make good on her grounded-for-life threat, but it would be worth it. I needed to get away. Benji said his mom was only so cool with it because he'd set such a low bar after driving drunk and totaling a car. As long as he wasn't drinking, they didn't care what he did, and he guessed they trusted me to keep him away from the stuff.

"Do you think she'd try to track you down?"

"She's done it before." Following me to a gay bar was probably a little different than following me across the country, but I wouldn't put it past her. "Anyway. It was just a precaution."

"Are we all sure about this?" Lucy asked. She hadn't tried to leave the parking lot yet. "Once we start, we're not turning back. We're all really cool with going to Vegas?"

I looked at Benji. "We're sure," he confirmed.

"Great," Lucy said. "I want to try to get to Mississippi before we stop for gas. We should make it. Buckle up."