Ellie enters inside Jesse's house and approaches the kitchen. His house was very bright and it had shades of red and brown in his house. They had nice looking furniture and it was quite spacious in his house. His parents weren't at home, but Tommy was there helping out Jesse with something.

"Ellie what's wrong?" Tommy was sitting down at the kitchen table, seeing the tears streaming down her face.

Ellie sits down at the table and tries to calm herself. "I can't tell you, Tommy." She was afraid that Tommy was going to judge her too.

"Where's Dina? Did she know what happened?" Jesse joins the two at the table.

Things began to feel a lot worse when Jesse brought up her name.

"It's something that I did. Joel's going to be upset at me." Ellie was trying to contain herself from crying again.

"Joel cares about you, Ellie. Whatever you're going through I'm sure he will understand and will be there for you." Jesse was trying to cheer up Ellie.

"I just think it will be better to avoid him"

"You're going to have to talk to him eventually. Sooner than later, or he's going to go on a manhunt to find you." Tommy chuckles.

"Yeah." Ellie sighs, "Can I have a glass of water?"

"Sure thing." Tommy gets up and hands her water. He begins to stretch for a bit. "Well Ellie, I have to go. If you need anything you can come by my place"

Ellie nods her head. Jesse gets up and leads Tommy to the door. Ellie couldn't help, but to wonder what's going to happen when they confront each other.

Jesse sits back down at the table with Ellie, he notices that Ellie wasn't drinking her water she was just staring at it instead.

"What happened?" Jesse wanted to ease into getting Ellie to talk. He noticed the pain in her eyes.

Ellie stayed silent.

There was a sudden knock on the door and Ellie begins to freak out. Jesse tries to calm her down, but Ellie begins to think of the worse case scenario. What if it was Joel knocking? She quickly hid in a nearby closet. Jesse walks over and opens the door.

"Is Ellie here?" Dina was a bit concerned about what happened earlier.

Ellie heard her voice and never felt so relieved, she comes out of the closet and gives Dina a tight hug.

"Hey Ellie." Dina carefully kicks the door shut and she pats her on the back.

Ellie felt a bit better having Dina hug her.

"Joel didn't follow you did he?" Ellie asks walking back at the table to sit

"No Ellie, it's just me."

"How did you know I was here?"

"Well I knew after what happened that you weren't going to go back to your house and you were going to try and avoid him" Dina joins Jesse and Ellie at the table.

"I don't know how to tell him." Ellie couldn't help but to think of the many possibilities of his reaction, her worse fear is that he would disown her.

"Ellie, you knew this day was going to come sooner or later." Dina was rubbing Ellie's back to comfort her.

"Yeah, but I didn't know that it was going to be this soon." Ellie felt like this was all going too fast.

"Maybe we should stop talking about this" Jesse suggests "Ellie can tell him later. Are any of you two down for a drink and perhaps some movies?" he offers.

"We're down." Dina nods her head, "Isn't that right?" Dina should buds Ellie.

"I'm down" She clears her throat.

"Good." Jesse gets out of his chair and begins to head towards the living room.

Ellie and Dina sat in the living room, while they watch Jesse find a movie to watch.

"Hey how about we watch Savage Starlight" Ellie suggest.

"How about we watch Savage Starlight" Jesse mocks Ellie. "There's other movies down here you know"

"Hey who are we trying to cheer up here and besides don't act like we didn't watch the same movie twice in one day" Dina throws her shoe at Jesse.

"Alright fine here." Jesse puts on the movie for them to watch. He comes to the couch and sits with them.

Ellie cuddles under Dina's arms, Dina began to play with Ellie's hair. Jesse tried not to pay attention to them while watching the movie.

Meanwhile Joel had return to his home after his short search for Ellie, he had no idea on how he would react when he sees her. He just wanted Ellie to be okay. He felt like he has been dabbling in her life a little bit too much and this was the result of dabbling. There was a sudden knock at the door distracting Joel from his thoughts, he rushes to the door in hopes that it was Ellie, but he was greeted by his brother instead.

"Hey Joel, everything okay?" Tommy notices a unpleasant look on his face.

"No." Joel says in a firm voice. "Have you seen Ellie?"

Tommy knew if he would of told Joel where was Ellie then his brother would have marched straight over there and it wouldn't be good for any of them. "No I haven't"

"God damnit" Joel sighs.

"She's okay right?" Tommy was pretending that he didn't know what happened.

"I don't know, can you come inside?"

Tommy goes inside his brother's house and they both sat at the kitchen table.

"What happened?" Tommy was waiting for us brother to reply.

"Don't tell Ellie I told you this, but Dina's mom and I walked in on Dina and Ellie having sex" Joel was still trying to wrap his head around the whole situation. "I tried to talk to Ellie and she stormed off, I don't even know if she's going to come back home today"

"Well Joel I think that you should give her time to come to you."

"It's probably going to be a while until that happens. I kept on dabbling with her life trying to catch up with her and now I fear I'm pushing her away even more" Joel sighs. "But your right I should give her more time."

"You know how teenagers can get with their busy lives, You should sit down with her and tell her how you feel about wanting to connect with her more. And about the situation try to take it easy on her, she's probably just as stressed as you are with the whole thing." Tommy suggest he wanted to make sure he gave his brother the best advice possible. "Is that all?"

"Yes that is all, Thank you Tommy." Joel gets up and leads Tommy out.

Joel takes a deep breath and decides to watch tv hoping for Ellie to come home that night.

A few hours have passed. Ellie, Dina and Jesse had just finished watching movies. They were laughing it up about the movie they had just finished watching.

"Now that movie was hilarious remind me to tell Dina to pick the movies more often." Ellie chuckles.

"Yeah I used to always let Dina pick the movies." Jesse smiles at Dina.

"Yeah it was because you were bad at picking movies. It was never a dull moment when I picked them." Dina chuckles at Jesse.

Ellie picks her head up from laying on Dina, Ellie looks down at the floor. She knew that Dina was right she would have to come out eventually and the more she waits she felt it would get worse.

Dina notices Ellie looking gloomy "Hey is everything okay?" Dina puts her hands on Ellie's shoulders.

Ellie nudges Dina's hands off her shoulders. "I think I'm going to go home." Ellie gets up, she could feel her palms beginning to sweat, she knew that the time was near.

"Okay Ellie, we're here if you need anything." Jesse reassures.

"Thanks." Ellie said in a soft voice before she heads out of Jesse's house.

It was dark outside and the street lights were beginning to light up the town. Ellie begins to walk down the street, her thoughts were running rapidly through her head. Soon Ellie approaches her house holding onto her finger, she could feel her gut wrenching. She was even hesitant to knock on the door at first, but she knew that she would have to tell him sooner or later, there was no turning back now.

She knocks on the door and there was no reply at first which made her begin to worry, then she heard the locks beginning to turn. Joel opens the door.

It was a awkward silence at first, Ellie couldn't tell if Joel was happy or upset to see her. Ellie decides to quickly break the silence.

"Hey Joel." It was hard for Ellie to utter his name, she breaks eye contact with Joel and decides to look down at the ground. She was still fiddling with her finger.

"Hi Ellie." Joel greets back, he wanted to listen to Tommy's advice so he was waiting on Ellie to talk.

The awkward silence came back for a brief moment

"Is it okay if I come inside?" Ellie bit her lip to keep her voice from being wobbly.

Joel steps out of Ellie's way to let her walk inside, he shuts the door behind them.

"Hey listen about back there- I'm sorry you walked in on that" Ellie felt the guilt beginning to rise up. "I was just being curious"

"Curious?" Joel raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms.

Joel's body language made Ellie more nervous, she could tell that he was buying into what she said.

Ellie sighs. "No I-" Ellie was afraid to admit she was gay. "I don't know what's been going on I-" Ellie's voice cracks, she had tears forming in her eyes.

Joel could tell that she was about to have an emotional breakdown. He places his hands on Ellie's shoulders. "Hey kiddo, you can tell me anything. I won't be upset" he wipes the tear falling from Ellie's eye.

"I'm gay okay, I really like Dina." Ellie felt like she released a huge burden off of her chest. "And if you can't accept me for who I am then I'll go and never speak to you again."

"Ellie, Ellie!" Those words frighten Joel to his core, he couldn't imagine Ellie leaving him. "I don't think any less of you"

She collapses into Joel's arms crying.

Joel catches Ellie and hugs her tightly. "It's okay baby girl" he rubs her back.

Ellie hugs him tighter. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize for who you are."

Ellie nods her head and stops hugging Joel. The two make eye contact again. This time Joel had a warming smile on his face glad that she told him. Ellie sniffles and return the smile.

"I guess I will head to bed now." Ellie was beginning to walk upstairs until Joel stops her.

"Ellie, it's my fault I shouldn't have been looking for you."

"Why were you looking for me? You didn't see the note I laid out for you?"

"Oh I did, I actually want to get something off my chest too."

Ellie walks back down the stairs to face Joel. "Well don't keep me waiting, unlike what I did to you." she chuckles.

"Recently I've been wanting to hang out with you, I know you have a busy life, and I apologize for trying to dabble in your life." Joel also felt relieve to get that off his chest.

"We can hang out tomorrow if you'd like." Ellie smiles.

"I'd love too!" Joel was trying to contain his excitement.

"Alright well I will see you tomorrow." Ellie walks back up the stairs.

"Goodnight Ellie." Joel begins to head to his room.

"Night."

--Hello everyone I know it has been ages since I last published a chapter. I have been so busy with college since I am going to graduate soon. I hope you guys have been doing well and getting ready for the holidays coming up. I hope you guys have a beautiful day and thank you all so much for reading!