"But she's a Cheerleader" (gxg)

31: They're family

Dylan's pov:

When I walked over to my table at the far end of the courtyard after talking to Maddie, none of my friends bothered asking me questions. By now they weren't surprised when they saw me interacting with her, and they knew I'd get pissy if they said anything.

Kacey lightly smiled at me though. After all, she was the only one who knew about everything. I didn't know what to think of it though. I mean whenever we talked, I would say something stupid and Maddie would give me a snarky line in return. That's how it was...up until this year. I don't know why she was suddenly being semi-nice. And I definitely didn't know why she was hanging around me. I really thought she didn't like me.

But hey, I'm not mad about having another friend.

At the end of the day I went home by myself. All of my friends were too busy or too tired to do anything. I wasn't mad about it either since I knew my mom would be there when I got back.

As soon as I opened the front door, I could hear her coming down the stairs.

"Hi" she said to me with a smile on her face. "How was school?"

"Fine. I'm going to get a snack" was all I said before I walked past her to the kitchen.

I didn't like school, and she knew that. I did fine in it...I just didn't like it.

I sat down at the counter after I got a bag of chips.

"You should really eat some fruit" she said, walking into the kitchen behind me. I shrugged my shoulders and kept eating my chips.

"I think I'm gonna go up to my room, I'm pretty tired" I said as I stood up. I looked over at my mom and she had a sad look on her face. She walked around the counter, closer to me, and leaned her arm on the edge.

"Is that okay?" I asked, confused as to why she was looking at me like that.

"Look I know this is difficult" she said to me. I furrowed my eyebrows and just looked at her.

"what?"

She looked at me confused and I did the same back. I had no idea what she was referring to.

"Your dads birthday is Sunday"

Shit. My heart drop and I continued to just look at her. I had known his birthday was coming up, I just kept pushing the thought away. I forgot it was this Sunday.

I nodded and lightly smiled at my mom. "I know. I'm fine"

I waited for a response but she didn't say anything back. She just nodded before going back to whatever she was doing.

I walked up the stairs to my room and sat down on my bed.

It was my dad's first birthday since he passed. We've never celebrated without him. Well except when he was on shift.

My dad was a firefighter. He was for 22 years before he died.

My parents met because of their jobs. There was a house fire 18 years ago just around the block from where I live now. It was a family of three, 2 parents and a young boy. My dad was one of the firefighters who responded to the scene. My dad pulled the boy out.

The next day he went to the hospital to check on the family. The parents were fine and the boy had minor smoke inhalation, but was otherwise okay. On the way out, he met the boys doctor, my mom.

It was weird growing up with 2 parents who both had jobs with weird hours. When I was younger I had a lot of babysitters. As I got older I just had to learn to be on my own.