"Are you alright? You seemed a little weird on the way home." Jason asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I eat my crackers and avoid eye contact. I want to talk to him, like really talk to him but I just don't know what to say.

"You don't seem fine."

"I am, anyway," I get up, "I have to study before dinner."

"Oh, okay well-"

"Jason," Stef comes outside, "Would you like to stay for dinner?" She can't tell I'm not comfortable with him being here. It's weird, being with Jason and being with the Fosters are two different worlds, I don't know if I want them crossing over. Of course, Jason accepts and pretty soon we're all sitting down for dinner, the table is pretty cramped but somehow it works. Jesus and Jason are talking about some guys in their grade, everyone is hanging off of his every last word like he's Gandhi or something, except for Brandon who's ignoring everyone.

"Brandon, could you pass me the cheese?" I ask, he just swirls his pasta around. "Brandon?"

"Huh? Yeah me too." He doesn't even look up.

"Here." Jude hands me the cheese instead.

"Thanks, Jude."

"So, Jason what's the soccer team like?" Mariana asks. I had forgotten he was even on the team, he never mentions it, seems like he thinks it's beneath him.

"It's fun, girls love it." Everyone laughs, except Brandon again.

"Open relationship then?" He asks us, everyone just stares at him.

"What?" Jason sounds confused; he tries to laugh it off.

"It's probably for the best considering Gracie's gay." I can hear the bitterness in his voice.

"Brandon!" Callie yells at him. I'm humiliated, and angry. I slam my fork down and run upstairs. Lena follows me, but I slam the door behind me. I can't believe Brandon would out me like that, what's his problem?

"Gracie? Are you okay?" Lena asks from the other side of the door. I don't answer her, and she ends up walking away. I go lie down on my bed. Then she comes in through the bathroom. "What happened in there?"

"I don't know. Brandon's just-," I try to fight off a panic attack. "Jason's going to hate me now."

"Well is it true?" She sits down.

"What?"

"Are you gay?" She asks. "You can talk to me, Gracie." She takes my hand. I can be honest with her, right? She's gay, she'll understand. But she probably won't understand the Jason of it all.

"Yes. I do like girls, I've always liked girls, only girls but then I met Jason and now I don't know." I start hyperventilating.

"I get it," She says. "When I was sixteen, I knew I was gay. And then there was a boy, a very handsome boy. Jackson, he swept me off my feet. I know it's confusing and it's scary, but you're just a kid, you don't have to know anything yet, okay?" She rubs my back as I try to take deep breaths. "Jason likes you, and you like him, just see what happens."

"I just don't get why Brandon had to do that." When I came out to him, he was nothing but nice to me.

"I'm sorry." Brandon appears in the bathroom door. He comes and sits next to Lena. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Then why did you do it?" I sit up.

"I just, I've been hurt by lies before. I don't wanna watch you do the same to someone else." Lena leaves the room.

"I'm not lying Brandon, I like him. Why don't you get that?"

"I know, I'm sorry." He looks genuinely apologetic. "I was just trying to look out for you." He gets up and leaves. I'm still mad at him though.

I highly doubt Jason is just gonna forget about this. He won't want me now. He'll think I'm using him as a beard or something. He's sweet and sensitive and this will hurt him. I just want to get away from this house. I pull my phone out of my backpack and start to text Sophia, but something stops me, and I start texting Rae. We arrange to meet in ten minutes on the beach. I wait to hear the sound of Jason's car driving away and I sneak past everyone and get out of the front door. I walk as fast as I can, almost running. Once I get to the beach, I see Rachel sitting alone staring out at the ocean. It's pretty windy out so the only other people here are further down the beach surfing.

"Thanks for meeting me. I just had to get away." I sit next to her.

"Why?" She looks at me.

"They're just, I don't know. They're great but I know it's not permanent, and even if they offered to keep me, it wouldn't work out."

"Something obviously happened, and you obviously want to talk about it otherwise you wouldn't have asked me to meet." She's right. I explain what happened with Jason and Brandon. "I think Brandon is trying to protect you, he obviously sees you as a sister and doesn't want you to make a mess of your life."

"My life is already a mess. But I guess that makes sense." We talk for a while she tells me about her life, when she was a kid.

"I'm Bulimic, started when I was really little. My parents resented me for it, it cost them a lot of money to try and get me better. We almost lost the house, but my dad worked a lot to get us back on track. I recovered, I gained back all the weight I lost. I have it under control now, but sometimes things are hard, and I take my frustrations out on my body." She rolls up her sleeve and shows me her scars. She cuts herself too. "I get some counseling and stuff but it's hard you know. I've just been pretending to be okay John and Mary wanted a perfect daughter and I wanted a perfect life. Things were getting to a breaking point, which is why they decided to start fostering. They thought if I had a brother or sister, I might get better. Eight kids came to stay with us before you. I got an official diagnosis for depression last month, I thought maybe they would stop with the fostering and focus on me, but they didn't."

"Do take any meds for it?"

"Nope."

"Aren't you scared of getting worse?"

"Nope." She sees my confused reaction. "I've gotten to a point where I don't care anymore. If it kills me, it kills me."

"I know what you mean, I've been there."

"Are you on meds?"

"No, I can't afford them." I try to laugh it off. "Let's talk about something else, something less dark."

"Like what?"

"Like, I don't know." She laughs at me. "I guess neither of us has anything good to talk about."

"What about this? I think you look super pretty right now." I feel embarrassed. I'm really bad at taking compliments.

"Uh- thanks." I look at her, really take her in. "You do too." When I met her, I was sure she'd have no interest in someone like me.

"You're just saying that because I did." She smiles, like really, truly smiles.

"No, seriously. I thought the second I first saw you; I couldn't tell if I was jealous of you or if I..."

"If you what?"

"If I wanted to," I take a second to think about what I'm about to do. I take a deep breath and kiss her. She doesn't pull away or seem shocked. She leans into me, laying me on my back. She's amazing at this. I don't think about any of the other crap going on in my life, I just think about her, at this moment right now.