Since Dad had to work late the next Thursday evening, he enlisted Josh and me to do the grocery shopping after hockey practice. We were both tired and Josh was trying to get through the aisle as quickly as possibly while I slowly dragged my feet behind him.

"Where the hell is the lemon juice?" Josh said in frustration as he scanned through the items on the shelves.

"Maybe if you slowed down a little, you'd be able to find it," I muttered, Josh turning around to glare at me.

"Maybe if you were actually helping me, we'd be getting out of here quicker," he said in a sharp tone.

I sighed and plucked the lemon juice off the shelf he had just passed, tossing it into the carriage.

"Oops," Josh said with an innocent looking smile. "Why are you so down today?"

I knew he had noticed my sour mood by the looks he had given me all day whenever he saw me. He was able to refrain from saying anything while we were at school, but it was obvious his curiosity got the better of him.

"My mom called me yesterday," I admitted, causing Josh's eyes to widen.

"You need to tell Dan," he replied.

"I know."

He didn't respond, though I could tell he had more to say.

"What's that on your neck?" Josh asked after a few moments of silence between us, poking the bruise I had tried to cover.

"Nothing," I immediately replied, shoving his hands away.

Josh's eyes widened again. "Who have you been kissing?"

I rolled my eyes. "No one."

"You're a liar," he said. "But I already knew that."

I just scoffed and ignored his words.

Josh squinted in confusion at the list Dad had given us and then looked over at me.

"Do they even sell tampons at the grocery store?" he asked, scratching his head.

"Yes you idiot," I replied, walking ahead of him to direct him.

"Well I don't know," he defended. "I don't usually grocery shop."

That much was obvious.

Admittedly, when we got to the aisle even I was overwhelmed. There were so many different kinds and sizes. I had thought I'd just be able to pick up a box and that would be it, but it turned out to be much more complicated.

"What kind do they like?" I asked Josh, staring at the shelves filled with every type of tampon known to man.

"How should I know?" he replied.

"Well does it say it on the list?" I questioned in an annoyed tone.

"No."

The two of us stared at the shelves for at least five minutes before I just picked out a box that said regular.

"Do you think these are good enough?" I wondered.

"Probably?"

"If Ava is pissed about it then I'm telling her you picked them," I said as I threw the box into the carriage.

"Whatever."

After we finished getting everything on the list, we quickly checked out and headed home. We were the only two there when we got there so we put all the groceries away before Josh told me he was going out with Emma.

When he left, I headed up to my room to sit on my phone.

I wish I had the will power to stop myself from checking my messages, but it seemed like it was all I could do when I was alone. All I could do was just read the hateful things being sent to me. It was masochistic, but I couldn't control it.

It was the same old stuff they had been sending the last few days, calling me slurs and trying to scare me out of going to the hockey tournament in two weeks. Even if I wanted to, I could never back out of it. My team wouldn't let me. Fox wouldn't let me.

I was distracted from my thoughts when I hear my father raising his voice downstairs. He must have just gotten home.

Even his stern voice managed to sound gentle. I went downstairs to see what the commotion was about.

"I'm not happy with you, Ava," he said as my younger sat on the couch as he stood in front of her.

"I know, Dad," she replied in a similar tone to his.

"You are in no position to be giving me attitude right now."

"What's going on?" I asked in a curious tone, causing my father to look over at me.

Ava sighed and turned around to face me. "I got in trouble at school and now I'm going to get in trouble at home too."

"You didn't just get in trouble," Dad interjected. "You hit somebody. That's unacceptable."

"He was being an ass!" Ava defended.

Dad sighed and shook his head at her as if he didn't know what to say.

"I told you don't talk like that," I reminded her, moving to sit beside her on the couch.

She narrowed her eyes at me. "I'm not in the mood to be lectured by you."

She was never in the mood, but I wasn't about to add fuel to the fire. Ava was very easy to piss off and she already looked beyond pissed.

"Did you hit him to defend yourself?" Dad asked with a thoughtful expression.

"Yes and no."

"What does that even mean?"

"He made me mad because I was talking with my friends about how I wanted to get back into hockey and try out next season for the school," Ava started to explain.

She had played hockey when she was younger but decided to quit because she didn't like getting up for the early morning practices.

"And he butted into our conversation and said that I couldn't try out because we don't have a girls team," she continued.

"Of course you can try out," Dad said. "Some boy can't tell you that you can't."

"I know that," she replied. "But then I started arguing with him and he started saying girls are too weak to play with guys and Dad, I swear, I was keeping my cool but then he started talking about Elijah."

The air left my lungs at her words. Dad stared down at her with a shocked expression, willing Ava to continue.

"Apparently his cousin plays on Elijah's old team and he knows that he's my brother so he started saying some really awful things about him," Ava said with an angry expression. "I told him to shut up and he wouldn't so I punched him."

Neither Dad or I had any idea what to say. I didn't want my little sister to have to go around punching people for me and I didn't want her to have to listen to people say vile things about me either, especially if it made her that upset.

Instead of saying anything, I got up from the couch and went back upstairs to my room. I heard Dad say something to Ava before his footsteps followed behind me.

"Elijah," Dad called out just as I entered my bedroom. I nodded at him, letting him know he could come in.

The two of us sat side by side on my bed while I stared at the wall and he stared at me.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a gentle tone.

"No," I replied. He seemed taken aback by my honesty, but he didn't let that show for long. "I don't want Ava getting in trouble because of me."

"She's not getting in trouble because of you," Dad assured me. "You didn't make her hit someone. That was a choice she made."

"But it was because of me," I said, looking toward him.

"It was because of that nasty, sexist, homophobic boy, not you," he replied.

"I just don't want her to have to hear that stuff," I admitted with a sigh. "It's one thing for me to hear it, but Ava shouldn't have to deal with that."

"Neither should you," Dad told me, placing his hand on my shoulder. "Elijah, the things people have to say about you should not influence the way you think about yourself."

I nodded, looking down at my lap.

"I know you feel badly about yourself because of what others have to say and I'm partially to blame," he continued.

I scoffed. "No, you're not."

"I am," he insisted. "If I had spent more time with you when you lived with your mom, I'd like to think I would have known about your sexuality before her and I would have been able to get you out of that situation sooner."

"It's not your fault. She kept me from you," I told him.

She truly wanted to keep me from my father as much as possible and I let her because he had his perfect family with Mindy, Josh, and Ava. Throwing me into the mix would've just made all their lives harder.

"I could've fought harder," Dad argued. "But I didn't because I thought you were happy with the way things were. I wish I would've known better and I'm sorry that I didn't."

I didn't say anything.

"Elijah," Dad said, catching my attention again. "When people say these awful things to you or about you, that is a reflection of the person they are, not who you are."

His words got me thinking of the countless messages I had been receiving over the last few days. I didn't actually believe the horrible things they were saying to me, but they were effective in making me feel like shit.

"I need to tell you something," I said.

"What is it?"

"Mom called me the other day," I confessed.

Dad looked disgruntled by my words, letting out a sigh.

"What did she say?"

"I didn't answer. She left a voicemail," I told him. "She basically said she wanted me to go back with her and go to church twice a week instead of some camp."

Dad nodded. "Thank you for telling me."

I knew I had to tell him because he had made it clear he wanted me to if she were to ever contact me. I owed that much to him. I probably should have told him about the countless other messages too, but there really wasn't anything he could do about those that wouldn't completely embarrass me.

"Maybe we should change your phone number," he suggested.

I shrugged. "I don't even know how she found this one. She would probably just find it again."

Dad let out another sigh. "I'm going to talk to her. She shouldn't be contacting you."

I just nodded, not knowing what to say. Dad let the frustrated look fall from his face, looking toward me with a smile and tossing his arm around my shoulder.

"I love you, Elijah," he said, squeezing me to his side.

I couldn't help but smile. "I love you too."

"Now, I have to go finish dealing with your sister," Dad said, standing up from the bed.

"Good luck with that."

He let out a laugh before leaving my room and shutting the door behind him.

Once I was alone again, the masochist in me went straight back to my messages. In that moment, my father's words were forgotten and I was taken by the words of my tormentors again.

***

"Elijah... Elijah!"

My eyes sprung open and it took me a second to realize I was sitting in my English class, Nadia waving her hand in front of me.

"Shit," I muttered, rubbing my eyes.

"Are you okay?" she asked me, giving me a look of concern. To say the least, I was surprised she even cared.

"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night," I admitted with a yawn. I was too busy being kept up by the dark thoughts swimming around in my head.

"I can tell," Nadia replied with a strange look. "Are you doing anything this weekend?"

"Just some team building thing Coach wants us to do before we do the tournament," I responded. "Why?"

"Because you haven't hung out with us in a while and I might miss you," she said, though her expression was hard and didn't match her words.

"Do you?"

"I might."

"Where's Lexa?" I asked, noticing she wasn't in the room.

"She's sick. She's got some gross cough," Nadia replied with a disgusted look. "I'm going to go over and take care of her later, but if she makes me sick..."

I laughed. "If she makes you sick then she can take care of you."

Nadia chuckled. "I guess."

At the end of class, Fox brushed by me, sending a smirk my way as he left the classroom. I couldn't help but smile back as I felt heat rise to my face due to his touch.

By the time lunch rolled around, Trevor was the only one at the table when I arrived.

"Hey," he cheerfully greeted me.

"Hey," I replied, sitting down across from him. "Can I talk to you about something?"

Seeing him reminded me of what Josh had said the other night when we saw Trevor at the restaurant. I wanted to talk to him about it while we were still the only two at the table.

"Of course," Trevor instantly responded.

"So Josh told me about what happened with you two freshman year and he seems pretty guilty about it," I told him.

Trevor's eyes went wider than I had ever seen him. The shocked and nervous look on his face looked so strange coming from him.

"He told you?" Trevor asked in a hushed tone.

"Yeah. I think he feels pretty bad so if I convince him to apologize do you think you'd be able to forgive him?"

I knew it was a big ask, but I didn't want to convince Josh to apologize if Trevor wasn't okay with it and it would only make matters worse.

"I already forgive him," he said. "I understand why he wanted to distance himself."

"He's really a good guy," I said. I never thought I'd be defending Josh like this.

"I just can't believe he told you we kissed," Trevor said, shaking his head.

"What?" I shrieked, gaining the attention of some people around us.

Trevor and I must've looked crazy staring at each other with matching expressions of shock and fright, our eyes wide and mouths hung open.

"I thought you said he told you!" Trevor whispered in a forceful tone, leaning closer to my face.

"He told me that you liked him and that he said some mean stuff to you and made you leave him alone!"

"He did," Trevor said, leaning back now that people had stopped paying attention to us. "After we kissed."

I didn't know what to do with this information. It wasn't like Josh owed me the whole truth about the situation, but I couldn't help but feel strange about why he omitted it.

"He's not gay, if that's what you're thinking," Trevor chimed in to interrupt my thoughts. "At least I don't think he is."

"Then why did it happen?"

"We were young. He was confused. It happened one time and then he has avoided me ever since," Trevor explained.

I stayed quiet, not knowing what to say.

"Please don't confront him about it," Trevor begged with a pleading look. "He obviously didn't want you to know about it."

I couldn't say anything else on the matter because we were then joined by Johnny, Austin, and Nadia.

"Elijah your brother is looking dashing today please make sure he knows it," Austin said as he sat down beside me.

Nadia rolled her eyes. "You think he looks good every day."

"That's because he does."

After the conversation I just had with Trevor, I was done talking about my brother.

**