You are not alone

First day

The next morning, I sat in the bed with Jupiter until she woke up. There were many people living in this small, disheveled, and broken house. Soon, I saw Jupiter start to wake up.

"Good morning." I said to her, as she sat up.

"How long have you been up?" She asked in a hoarse, raggedy voice.

"Never went to bed." I said, simply.

"Why not?"

"I couldn't. I just stared out the window, and watched the others that live here."

"Oh, well let's go down for breakfast or you'll be buying your own." She informed me.

"Ok." I said as I stood up. Still having my bag with me.

"You can set your stuff down, no one's going to steal it."

"I'm ok." I said, it's not that I didn't trust them, I didn't know why but I didn't want to set it down.

"There's usually breakfast from whatever fast food place they went to today. They wait for them to throw out what's left and they bring it back." Jupiter explained as she walked down the stairs, with me closely following.

"We're eating breakfast from the trash?" I asked.

"They wait, till they are going to throw it out, and get it from the workers. Before it goes to the trash." She clarified.

"Oh, you really seem to know your way around this place." I mentioned.

"I've been coming here for a long time. I know how it works here."

"I'm sorry." I apologized.

"Stop apologizing, it's not your fault."

"Yeah, but no one needs to go through what you did."

"You went through it too." She paused. "At least, the whole being kicked out and queer thing."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't know everything about me."

"So tell me." I urged her to tell me more.

"Hold on, let's grab some food first." She said as she walked up to a table with breakfast sandwiches on it. She grabbed one, and I grabbed one.

"You can get another one later. If there's any left."

"It's ok, someone else can have it. I don't need two."

We walked back up the stairs, and sat in our room to eat.

"Why are we up here?" I asked.

"We can mingle later, but I like to eat in smaller crowds."

"Ok, so tell me about yourself."

"Fine. My name's Jupiter, I'm pansexual-"

I interrupted her. "I know all that, get to the stuff I don't know."

"Fine. My dad, despite being religious, drinks sometimes. He always asks God for forgiveness afterwards, but I can't forgive him." She paused. "He gets a little angry when he's drunk. He could get abusive sometimes.

One time when I brought a girl home, I told him she was a friend, but he came upstairs and caught us kissing in my room. He took me into the hallway, and said he'd show me 'what kissing the right gender feels like.' I tried to resist as he kissed me, but he hit me and pinned me to the floor. It didn't last long, but it felt like forever. I wished my mom would come home and stop him but she didn't."

"I'm so sorry."

"It's ok."

"No it's not! You don't have to finish if you don't want to." I offered.

"My girlfriend and I," she started again anyways. "We tried to make it work, but she refused to come over to my house. She was who I was meant for.

Eventually I got her to come back over, at night when my dad was supposed to be asleep. She snuck into my window, and we fooled around in my room. It was the best night I ever spent with her, until my dad burst through the door, and threw her out of our house and told her never to come back.

The next day, she texted me and said she couldn't do it anymore. And like that, we were over. I miss her, and I no doubt would've married her, but it wasn't meant to happen and I found someone else."

"Well, at least you found someone else." I said, trying to comfort her.

"Thanks Ari, I'm glad I found you."

"I'm glad you found me."

"We finished our breakfast, so if you want I can introduce you to people now." She offered.

"Maybe another time, I want to hear more about you."

"More sad stuff, blah, blah, blah."

"Tell me about this person you met. After your girlfriend."

"They're pretty cool. They actually live here."

"Oh, you should show me them sometime."

"Sure, they won't be here until later though."

"Ok, we can hang out then."

"Until then, do you want to go out? We can walk around."

"Sure." I said, as we got up, and we got ready to go.

"You ready?"

"Yep."