Returning from the school, a downcast Stan entered his house. He waked up to the couch and dropped his backpack on the floor. Shelly was already sitting there, reading a magazine. He sat beside her and rested his head on his hand.

"Hey, turd." She greeted, without shifting her eyes.

"Hey."

She noticed the sorrow in Stan's voice. At first, she ignored it and continued reading, but after a few seconds, the cloud floating over his head started bothering her.

She sighed. "Are you really gonna make me ask?"

"Ask what?"

She put her magazine down and sighed again, exasperated. "Alright, you won. What's the problem?"

"Uh…"

Stan didn't know how to answer that. He felt that he shouldn't tell Shelly about what he learned about her boyfriend, but he couldn't come up with anything else.

"Wait, don't tell me. It's the Eighth Graders again?" She cut in. "Dammit, turd, I thought you had got over that already!"

"I did." He replied. "You said that you didn't care about them, and I'm trying to ignore them, just like Mom told me to."

"So what's the problem!? You've been like that since I've got a boyfriend, and…"

At that moment, Shelly had an epiphany.

"Oh. It's because of that, isn't it? You're bummed because I'm going out with some other guy."

Stan was caught by surprise. "N-no, don't get it wrong! It's just…" He was still unable to tell the truth to her, so he created an excuse. "You got lucky in dating. I think that reminded me that I'm not so lucky."

"Hmph. That's so?"

Disappointed by Stan's motive, Shelly picked her magazine up, wanting to go back to reading it. But she felt that something wasn't right. She put the magazine back down and turned back to him.

"What about that girl, Wendy? Didn't you two use to date?" She questioned.

"We broke up long ago. Guess it just wasn't working out."

Shelly was surprised by that answer. "Well, you were still better than me. Remember how lucky I was with relationships back then."

And she remembered back when she was 13. She remembered about how one of her previous boyfriends was too old for her. How another one lived too far away. How another one died.

She now looked sorrowful as well, and fell into silence. A few sighs from her caught Stan's attention.

"Shelly?" He called.

"Oh." She snapped back into reality. "Anyway, just… don't give up, alright?"

She let out a faint smile, in an attempt to reassure him, and left. Stan stood there, still depressed. The problem hadn't been solved.

Later, at the dinner, Stan hadn't eaten any of his meal. Instead, he was just poking at it with his fork, clearly showing that his mood hadn't improved. On the other hand, his mother and sister were eating normally, without noticing him. They stayed like this for a minute a so.

"Say, Shelly, how's things with your boyfriend?" Sharon asked, finally breaking the silence.

"Awesome! He's pretty smart and caring. We have a lot of fun together." Shelly answered, excitedly.

"Well, that's good to hear! I'm glad for you!"

Stan rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Good thing that your father isn't here." Sharon added. "He'd probably be losing his mind." Or even kill the boy, she thought, remembering what happened to one of Shelly's previous boyfriends.

At that moment, she noticed Stan's gloominess. "Anything wrong, Stanley? You're so quiet."

"Uh?" Stan came back to his senses. "N-no, I was just… distracted, that's all." He then started eating, trying to convince his mother that he was fine. Sharon still had her doubts, though.

"If you're feeling uncomfortable with our talk-"

"No, I… really don't mind."

Silence fell again. Shelly frowned at Stan. She was excited to talk to her mother about her new boyfriend and have a good time at the table for once, but his gloominess ruined that.

But at the same time, she could feel that there was something wrong with him, and that he wouldn't tell her what was it.