Me Too *Mcpriceley*

Chapter 11 - Happy or Sad? That's a Question With No Answer

*The night before visitation day*

~~Micheals' POV

Micheals sat on his bed with a book open in his hands. He was looking down at it, but he couldn't focus on the words on the page. He didn't even know what book it was, honestly. He let out a huff and slammed the book closed, falling back on his bed to face the ceiling.

"Are you nervous too?" A voice asked him from the other side of the room. Poptarts was usually cheerful but he sounded more worried now than anything. Dinner had been quiet, all day had been. Everyone's family would be coming to visit tomorrow and the house had gone silent after the reminder was made at breakfast.

"I don't really know, Chris." He replied, staring at his ceiling still. "I mean, it's not like I don't want to see them, I do... I especially can't wait to see my brother. But, I don't know. I've been doing better here, and I'm worried that seeing them will remind me of everything I came here to get away from... Undo everything I've worked so hard to build." He worried aloud as he sat up to face his roommate.

"I understand how you're feeling," Chris nodded and all in the room went silent for a few minutes.

~Chris' POV

Chris's mind was going a million miles a second. He was, for the most part, excited to see his family because he had been doing so well. However, he had secluded himself from his family ever since the loss of his sister. When he was living with his family, he stayed in his room most of the day. That's when his issues had started. He had watched as his sister had become bloated and gained weight before she was diagnosed with stomach cancer and eventually died from it. Though Chris knew that gaining weight and stomach cancer had no correlation, he had become deathly afraid of eating or gaining weight for fear that he might have cancer too.

"I stayed away from my family as much as I could because it hurt not to see my sister with them. That's why I started... well, you know. I don't know what seeing my parents without my sister will do. I love them, I really do. I'm excited to see them, but I don't know how it'll feel to see them without her." He said. He was mostly talking to himself, but the words were directed to his roommate.

"I'm scared, Chris." 

"Me too."

His own parents weren't the only thing on Chris' mind, though. He was absolutely terrified for James Church.

~James' POV

James sat in his bed cross-legged facing the wall. He heard his two roommates talking in the background, probably about tomorrow, but he didn't join in the conversation. Instead, he sat on his bed and focused on his own thoughts. Tomorrow his parents would be visiting. Parents. Plural. Both his mother and father would be arriving at the house tomorrow. Most of his friends didn't know what to expect from their parent's visitations, but James knew exactly what to expect. His mother would walk in with a face full of makeup, covering her bruises, and probably the pearl necklace his father had gotten her. His dad would act all calm and happy, they both would. They would act like they were the perfect couple with a perfect son that never fought and never argued. The perfect family that had no dark side hiding underneath the makeup and the smiles. 

James knew that they'd walk in as if everything were perfect, probably chatting about how lovely the house was or something of the sort. They'd see James and give him a hug and he'd flinch away from it but act as if nobody in the home knew why. He knew they'd chat with him about his "depression," which was the lie he told his father as to why he was in the home. He'd told his mother that as well, but he suspected that she knew the truth. James found comfort in knowing that he would never be left alone with his father and that Nabalungi would be keeping an eye on them the whole time. He had talked to Mafala about it because he knew that his father couldn't know why he was there because he'd only take it out on his mother.