When Christmas Eve morning unfortunately rolled around I escorted Allen out of the sub shop before giving him a long kiss. I didn't care too much about which early morning people were going to see our PDA. Well except for my family. Allen left just in time because as I started to walk back up the stairs exciting the shop I heard them enter.

"Oh hey, Justin. You're up early. It's winter break, why didn't you sleep in?" my mother said as she shut the doors behind her.

"Does it really surprise you. He's such a dork." my dad gave Alex a look but didn't say anything.

Max immediately piped up telling me about all of the amazing and fun things that he did and then presented a billion of pictures on his phone that he took. I did my best to seem interested and like I cared, but honestly, it was just a bore and Allen was the only thing on my mind. It was probably, no definitely unhealthy the amount that I was getting attached to him. Was your first love supposed to be like this. Absolutely scary and terrifying and yet you can't help but becoming dependent on that person. Not only that but Allen was the only person who really allowed me to be myself. I wasn't sure why he was so easy for me to warm up to him.

As I thought about that a worrying thought popped up. I started thinking about how absolutely perfect and amazing Allen was and how lucky I was to have him and how I was becoming so reliant on him. What if something happened. What if our relationship ended? The question wasn't how had I lived without him, it was how in the hell would I survive without him? By now I had completely tuned Max out and was occasionally nodding until I realized he was done talking.

"Justin, are you alright?" Dad asked. I once again nodded my head then retreated up the stairs. I then went into my room and tried to focus on my math homework.

A bit of College Algebra. Cakewalk for me. As I sat at my desk and tried to work through the problems, my phone buzzed. I practically jumped out of my skin and grabbed my phone as quick as I could to read the text. It was just from Zeke wishing me happy holidays. I threw the phone at my bed in distress. Maybe what I was feeling was just because of how intimate I'd gotten with him and now he had just left. Yeah, that had to be it. I tried to calm down a little bit and work out the last ten problems. I had to rationalize denominators. I'd been doing this since I started talking. But for some reason I was stuck on one problem for fifteen minutes. It was as if every minute spent thinking about math, I spent four thinking about Allen.

After a while I gave up, crumpled up the worksheet into a ball then tossed it into the waste bin. Oh well, I could afford a few bad grades and I already had all the credits I needed to graduate. I could have graduated early if I wanted to but I decided to just graduate with everyone else. I didn't need to be setting more impossible standards for Alex. Maybe that's why she wasn't always the nicest to me. I would be pretty pissed to if I was expected to fit someone else's standards.

Dinner that night was a feast that Mom had cooked. It tasted ok but I just couldn't really get myself to eat. When I sat down at the table I immediately felt a pang of guilt remembering how badly Allen wanted me to tell my family about cutting. My appetite had just disappeared. I kept getting looks from my parents and eventually I returned to my room without saying a word. Almost immediately I heard a gentle knock on my door.

"Can I come in?" Dad asked.

"Yeah."

"Are you feeling alright? Are you coming down with something? You hardly eat anymore." he slowly came over and sat on the edge of the bed.

"I'm fine."

"Care to tell me what's up then."

I didn't say anything. Silence filled the room. I was getting an opportunity to tell him something. I felt myself losing the chance.

"Justin," he said sternly, "tell me what's wrong."

I took a deep breath. Did I have the courage to do this? Hell no. But I had to. As I reached for the sleeves of my shirt I felt nervous butterflies in my stomach. It was now or never. I had to do this. It was getting pretty bad in just the short month or so I had picked up this habit. As soon as my sleeves were up I thought I was going to throw up the non-existent contents of my stomach. I regretted my decision. I didn't care if it had to happen.

"Oh my god," he whispered to himself. He lifted up my arms and examined the cuts and scars. "Justin... These, these are bad. I don't know what to say. Why, why on Earth would you do this to yourself. Is it all the stress we put on you. No it can't be. These are too recent. We told you if we're ever putting too much pressure on you you just need to let us know. What started making you do this? Sorry, you can talk now."

"It's, it's not the stress. Well not directly. I just have all these things going on and running around in my head, and it won't shut up. I can't silence all these things and I hate myself and I just needed a way to relieve it."

"Normal people don't do it by cutting themselves. Why do you hate yourself. You have a family who loves you and a roof over your head and you get phenomenal grades."

"I'm gay." The words came out hoarse and almost inaudible. But it echoed and ripped through the silence room. I could hear my heart pounding in my ear drums. Why were my hands wet? They were shaking slightly. I rubbed them on my jeans to get rid of the sweat and to hide the shaking.

"Excuse me?" A look of disgust was on his face.

"I'm gay, Dad." The words were definitely loud and clear now.

"Gay? You think your gay? How on Earth would you know. You're just a teenager. Don't throw your life away because of curiosity. You're just confused."

"Dad, please. This is hard enough for me as it is. Please treat me like enough of a person to accept who I am. Don't try to tell what I am and what I'm not."

"I don't know what to say. We didn't raise you this way Justin Russo." He stormed out of my room leaving me feeling horrible. I immediately texted Allen.

J: I just told them about cutting and I came out. I can't believe it.

He replied a few minutes later.

A: how did it go?

J: No. My dad took it horribly. First I told him about the cutting and he was so concerned and then I told him I was gay and he flipped out. Maybe that was just his initial reaction. Maybe he'll be better tomorrow. At least he won't bring it up for a little bit because of the holidays.

A: Oh no, baby I'm so sorry. I wish I could make it better.

J: If you were here you could ;)

I decided to go to bed after that. I awoke to bright light and my stuff being taken out of my room.

"What? What's going on." The people taking my stuff out of my room then picked me up and brought me downstairs and out of the sub shop.

"You're parents aren't going to allow a homo to live in their house. It's gross. Get lost."

Wait, what? What the hell is going on? Did I just get kicked out of my house?

I fell down to my knees and started to bawl. People walked past me and were laughing and pointing. I was an exhibit in the museum. Broken and out of tears I started to walk aimlessly, no clear direction. After a while I was standing in front of house. It was totally unfamiliar to me but somehow I knew; It was Allen's house. I knocked on the front door a few times. The door swung open a few inches. I waited for a few seconds and then stepped into the house.

The front room, living room, and kitchen were empty and the walls and ceilings were painted a painfully bright white color. I noticed a flight of stairs that hadn't been there before in the front room. I slowly made my way to the second story and walked into the first room. It was empty and white like the first floor. I exited the room and searched all of the rooms. Each was the same as the last. Empty and white. I turned around to go walk back down the stairs, but they weren't there anymore.

I started to sprint down the hall but it was going on forever and ever. Each room was exactly the same.

"What the fuck is going on here?" I screamed on the top of my lungs. I was frightened, terrified. I couldn't leave. The hall wouldn't stop. As I was running I noticed that one of the doors to the rooms was shut. All the others had been wide open to reveal nothing. I walked up to the door and placed my hand on the cold brass door knob. Inside was a white bed with a lump under the blankets.

When I pulled it back I saw Allen. He was laying there. It looked as if he was just sleeping. I even checked for a pulse. It was there. But he was dead and I knew it.

Tears started to stream down my face, staining my cheeks. I placed my hand on his forehead. It was cold, so cold, like ice. His entire body was ice cold. I collapsed onto him and sobbed into him. My head hurt and my chest ached. He was gone. My Allen was gone. I felt very faint. I had to get out of there. I sprinted out of the room and down the flight of stairs that was now back in its place. Once I was outside I felt like the whole world was spinning. I collapsed onto my hands and knees and slammed my fists into the concrete over and over again.

A small puddle of blood was now forming. I punched and punched. Suddenly one of my hands slipped into the puddle. It was deep. I continued pushing my arm into the puddle of blood until my shoulder down was submerged in it. I realized what had to be done. I stood up and then leaped into the puddle of blood. I sank down deeper and deeper. There wasn't a bottom. I kept sinking deeper and deeper. I noticed that it was starting to become colder and when I opened my eyes I was sinking down to the bottom of an ocean. I looked up and could barely make out Allen, looking down. He was gesturing for me to come back up. His movements were frantic.

I tried to swim up to him but as I started to push off the ocean floor something tugged back at my ankle. I noticed that a weight was tied to my foot. I swam as hard as I could to try to swim up to him. He was just out of reach. I couldn't make it to him.

He was just out of reach.

I couldn't make it to him.

My eyes flicked open. I shot up in bed. It was dark and I couldn't make anything out. I felt around, relieved to find that I was in my bed.

The dream felt so real. It felt so real. It felt like I had really lost my Allen. My cheeks were wet with tears and I quickly soaked my pillow while trying to silence my cries. I realized I was breathing in his scent. I was breathing in Allen. He was real. He had been here less than 24 hours ago. My mind kept racing with thoughts. I couldn't calm them. I couldn't make them stop. I inhaled the pillow as deeply as I could but it wasn't helping. Nothing was working.

I reached over into the drawer of my bedside table while pulling down my sweats.

The bite of the blade over my thigh hurt slightly more than it did on my arms. I couldn't think straight. As soon as I had made a few cuts everything was silent and the only thing that made sense was that the blade was calming me down. I kept cutting over and over until my entire thigh was covered. I was tempted to move to my inner thigh but instead I put the blade back, gingerly pulled my pants up and fell back asleep.