A Year at Maxwell's

Arrival

**Grayson's POV

My body went numb as I grabbed my final bag from the trunk of my parents car. They told me moving out here for a little bit would be good, but in all honesty, I was scared. Living with new people I don't even know, so what if they were friends of my parents from when they were in high school, it just felt weird to me. I waved to them goodbye as they drove away wishing me 'good luck', but I knew any luck I'd be getting here wasn't going to be good. Why did they have to send me to live with their friends?

I walked up to the door of the average sized house and rung the doorbell. As soon as the bell went off a woman who looked to be in her mid thirties opened the door. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, "You must be Grayson right?" I nodded, which made her squeal in happiness. She grabbed two of my bags while I carried the other two and my bookbag inside. "Honey! Brandon! Grayson is here!" She yelled out. Moments later a man who appeared to be the same age as the woman and a boy who appeared to be around my age appeared behind her. "I'm Debra." She held out her hand and I slowly took it. "This is my husband Eric." He flashed me a smile as I shook his hand next. "And finally this is our son, Brandon. He's the same age as you and you'll be going to school together while you stay here."

"Hey, wassup?" Brandon held his hand out for a fistbump. I hesitated and reciprocated the movement, earning a chuckle from him. "Here, I'm gonna help you get situated, we don't have an open room at the moment, but when we clean one of the guest rooms up, you'll be in there." I nodded. "So, until then, you can sleep in my room." I felt my face start to get warm.

I turned towards Debra and Eric. "Thank you for letting me stay here." I spoke softly. Debra walked over and gave me a big hug. I followed Brandon through the house, which was huge on the inside, I stopped to look at all of the pictures, some of them were of the three of them, some just of Debra and Eric and a lot of them of boys in a swimming team. The boy must have been Brandon. Brandon came up behind me and tapped my shoulder making me jump. He laughed and nodded his head to the stairs. I followed him up to the second floor, which was just a medium sized platform that had five or six doors. Brandon opened the door to his room that was decently sized.

There were two beds, two desks and two dressers, I felt bad that they spent money on me just so I could stay here for some time. There were movie posters up all over the room, it made me sort of uncomfortable. I put down my things on the unoccupied bed and sat down quietly. I fished my headphones out of my bag and plugged them into my phone. I turned my music on shuffle and closed my eyes. I listened to a few songs before I was tapped on the shoulder. I paused the music and took the headphones off. When I opened my eyes, Brandon was looming over me, staring directly at me. "Hey, I thought we could go to this burger joint down the road, I hear it's pretty good." He shrugged. I nodded and he smiled.

We got into his car and we drove off. "You're not much of a talker are you?" I bit my lip and stayed quiet. He tried to make small talk, but I guess it still felt a little weird to be around him, considering I just met him today. Tomorrow I'll try to be more social. We pulled up to a small restaurant and up to the counter and placed our orders. I got a bacon cheeseburger, because who doesn't like bacon cheeseburgers, and Brandon got a regular cheeseburger with tomatoes. We sat down at a booth and started to eat when a familiar voice rang out.

"Hey look, it's that faggot I was telling you all about!

My face went white, recognizing the voice, and I sunk lower into the booth that I sat in. Brandon turned around, the half eaten burger in his hands dripping grease on the black and white tiled floor. Jack Sharrin walked in through the doors with a bunch of other boys, each wearing blue and red letterman jackets. I felt a knot growing in my stomach, my palms started sweating and I felt like puking.

Next to me, Brandon swallowed and quickly turned back around, his eyebrows raised as if to ask a question. I couldn't find any words to say, my throat was dry and the knot in my stomach started to grow bigger and bigger. I could literally feel Jack stalk up to me, the sound of his footsteps pounding in my ears. He put a finger in between my shoulder blades and I flinched as he pushed it into my back, "I know you heard me, you faggot." I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, I dropped my burger, got up and ran out of the restaurant and out to the car. Brandon came out a few moments later and unlocked the car. The drive back was quiet as I tried to hold the tears in. As soon as we got back to his house and he opened the door, I flew up to his room and curled up onto my side on my bed and cried for what seemed like forever.

A while later the door creaked open and I pretended to be asleep, I felt Brandon walk over to where I was, and then he stopped and walked back to his bed. Not long after that his breathing got heavy, he was asleep. I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I was too afraid of the nightmares.

**Hey Howdy. Sorry for taking down all of the stories, I just didn't like the setting of the original and thought it would be better at a normal high school. Thank you everyone, friends, and fans. Please Comment, Like, and Share this with your friends. Thank you!