Broken

Chapter 11

Dad came into my room earlier than usual and sat down at the edge of my bed. "If you want, you and Anri can stay home from school today. I was going to have to pick him up early anyways to talk to the caseworker about what he wants and feels, a bit like therapy. And the caseworker has to check the house as well."

"Ok." I said laying back down. He put his hand on my leg for comfort before getting back up.

"Call me if you need anything." He said leaving the room with the door open. Why does he always leave the door open?

Anri came into my room with a smile and jumped onto the bed next to me. "Does your dad know I'm gay?"

I gave him a once over and pretended to think about it. "No. We should probably tell him." I sarcastically said. As if dad hasn't seen Kian and Anri around each other.

Anri laughed and got underneath the blanket with a sigh. "You can talk about it if you want. I'm assuming Xavier is the reason you're so indecisive about Ryder."

"Yeah, well I'm not indecisive, I just don't know." I whispered turning towards Anri who was leaned against the bed frame. "It's complicated."

"I have all day." He said shrugging his shoulders. I smiled and looked down at my palms before sighing.

"It started in freshman year." I said with a small smile on my face. Looking over to him, I remembered Xavier's face and how it feels to be in his arms like it was yesterday. "He had really nerdy braces, so nobody really talked to him. He was skinny and lanky too, this was before he joined football. We used to sit next to each other in class because of the assigned seating. He was new to the school and I remember, it all started when he asked me...

"Do you have a pencil?" The kid next to me asked. It's the first day of high school and he didn't bring a pencil?

"Yeah." I said reaching into my backpack and offered it to him only to see he already had one. "What's it for?"

"You see, this pencil just doesn't have the right angle. So I need a new pencil." He said and showed me his paper with a large smile that could fill the darkest room with light. "I'm Xavier by the way."

"I'm Athena." I said confused as to why he stuck out his hand. "We're not adults."

"Doesn't mean we can't shake hands or are you more of a hugger?" He asked putting his hand back onto the desk. He was dressed in a sweatshirt and sweats. He really didn't come prepared for high school at all.

"I don't know, a hugger I guess since I don't go around shaking the hands of every person I just met." I said shrugging my shoulders and watched as he laughed. Whys he laughing?

I'm probably never going to talk to this kid ever again. But, I was wrong when he sat down at my table for lunch. I had planned on being a loner all of high school, well a loner except for swimming and cheerleading.

I tumble and sometimes if they want me to, I'm a flyer. But I mainly do competitive cheer since the sideline cheer season is during swim season. The cheer coach, however, asked if I could do both. Mainly just show up to the games and do a couple tumbles and learn a few of the cheers.

Of course, I was down for that. And the swim coach didn't mind since meets were on Monday's and Wednesday's.

So there I was sitting alone at the table when a chair gets pulled out. It was Xavier. "Why are you sitting alone?"

"Shouldn't a conversation start with a hello?" I sarcastically responded back, not really feeling in the mood to talk.

"And when a person asks a question, shouldn't they be given an answer instead of being asked another question?" He quickly stated which got me a bit off guard since people usually don't answer so quick and usually leave.