"How big is his penis?!" Sage interrupts the stale silence in the room. Everybody looks at her and she realizes that I'm not the only one in the room. "Wait, what's going on? I didn't say that. What penis? I said wenis. It's an elbow thing. What's going on?"

"Dex and Yasmin are together," Amber angrily fills her in.

"What? No they aren't," Sage scoffs, but then she looks over at me standing kind of close to Dex and then asks me, "Are you?"

"No," I finally find my words again. "No. No."

Unfortunately, that is the only word that I can find.

"What are you doing here?" Dex asks, but I don't know who he's talking to. I live here, so probably not talking to me.

"I went to the school to talk to Amber, to convince her to talk to Yasmin so that they can work out what happened," Javier starts to explain. "She had to stay late to file some paperwork and we couldn't get here any sooner. So, here we are."

"Were you talking about Dex's penis?" Amber looks at Sage for an answer. "Because I've told you about that before. And why would Yaz know? Have they slept together?"

"No," Both Sage and I answer together.

"Wait, you talk about my penis?" Dex speaks up.

"No," Amber and Sage say in unison. We almost sound like a musical, the way that we're repeating words and speaking in unison. It almost all sounds rehearsed, but I don't think that anybody could make this up.

"This was a mistake," Amber decides. "I appreciate the mural, Yaz, but if you think that a painting is going to make me forgive you for getting together with Dex two days after we broke up, you're insane."

"Amber, wait," Sage stops her. "I wasn't talking about Dex's, I was talking about his."

Everybody turns to look at Javier, who Sage has pointed to, and he looks down at his feet. He then looks up at Sage and asks, "Why do you want to know how big it is? You guys seriously talk about that stuff?"

"So you're just kissing Dex?" Amber ignores Javier and turns to me to get an explanation for the kiss that she walked in on.

"No," I say again, only louder this time.

"Say something else, Yaz," Sage urges me.

"I... I didn't finish the mural to apologize for getting with Dex. I did it to apologize for ambushing you with the whole 'your boyfriend is a pig' thing. I'm not with Dex, I'm with Javier. At least, I hope so. That look on his face isn't looking very promising," I start to do my best at explaining what is coming into my mind. I decide to compartmentalize the situation as best that I can. First, I'll deal with Dex, since he was first here.

"Dex, thank you for the folder, I appreciate it. But you can't just choose me and then have me, like I'm a toy. I don't choose you. I never chose you. I had a crush on you, but I never loved you. I was infatuated with you, and it was ridiculous and childish and stupid. I don't want to be with you," I inform him quickly before I lose my words again. I then look at Amber, who has her arms crossed and her face almost as red as her hair because she's so angry.

"Amber, I have nothing going on with Dex. I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you that he was sleeping with somebody else but as I have just embarrassingly admitted in front of so many people, I had a crush on him and I didn't want to disappoint him by revealing this secret. And it was before the carnival that I found out, before I realized how unbelievably amazing you are."

Next is Sage, because I want to leave Javier for last so that we can have our conversation privately.

"Sage, please assess a situation before asking a question like that. Also, pick a different question," I tell her. I know that it's been almost exactly twelve hours since she asked me her first question, so this was her second question and she was apparently so determined to know the answer that she just blurted it out without looking into the room first.

"We'll talk later, Yasmin," Amber decides. "I can't be in the same room as him anymore, and I need some air."

She leaves the house and it's so crowded that I let her go without saying anything.

"I'll go too," Dex follows her lead. He looks at Javier, and then back to me. I wonder if he's going to take his file with him now that I've rejected him, but feel relieved when he just starts heading for the door. "Good luck with your brother."

"Thanks," I choke out just one word.

When he's gone, that just leaves me with Sage and Javier.

"What a night, huh?" She wonders with a short laugh. "Well, you two have some talking to do. And some defining of a relationship to do."

"Subtle," I mumble sarcastically.

"Oh, babe. I think subtlety went out the window a long time ago," She assures me. "Anyway, I will have my new question ready by the time that I get home, it will be sent in the form of a text."

"Goodnight, Sage," I sigh, watching her leave the house as well. It's just Javier and I now, but I don't know what to say to him. I just look at him and wait for him to say something.

"Well, that was bizarre," He finally mumbles.

"I'm so sorry," I quickly apologize. "I really wasn't kissing Dex. And I never gave Sage too many details about what happened. She's just... invasive, I guess, and she's not used to having boundaries."

"Hey, it's fine. I don't have any right to be upset about you kissing anybody else. As Sage just oddly pointed out—we haven't defined our relationship yet."

"Yeah, I know," I sigh. "Anyway, thank you for getting Amber here to talk. That was really nice of you. Even if it didn't go exactly as planned. Hopefully, she'll talk to me later once everybody cools down. It's been a chaotic few days."

"It definitely has been," He confirms, eyeing the folder on the TV stand. "Is that what Dex came over to give you?"

"It's some stuff about my brother that might help his case," I explain. "Dex got it from the girl he was seeing. I'll have to drop it off at Robby's lawyer's office tomorrow to see if it'll help anything."

"There's really nothing going on between you two?" He sounds skeptical.

"No, there's really not," I promise him. I want to bring up our relationship, and what he wants from it, but I'm nervous. I'm also feeling a bit overwhelmed about everything that's just happened and I don't want to start another intense conversation. "I think that we need to talk about what we are. But I'm tired of talking right now, so do you want to spend the night? And then we can talk in the morning."

"Won't your father mind?" Javier asks me.

"He won't know. He comes in late and goes out early," I say slowly as I take the folder from by the TV. "You don't have to, if you're busy or something. I just figured that it'd be easy."

"No, it's not that. Just-- I don't have anything..." He trails off and gives me a 'you know what I mean' kind of look in a way to be subtle.

At first, I don't really know what he means until it hits me that he's talking about condoms. "Oh, I have some," I quickly answer once I realize what he's talking about. I really don't have any, but that's too embarrassing to admit. Even though he knows that I don't have any experience before him, so I don't know why I'd be embarrassed to admit that.

Lucky for me, Robby went through a slutty phase a little while ago, so he always kept a plentiful stock of condoms in the bathroom.

"Okay. Good," A smile starts to find its way onto his face, but I can tell that he's trying to hide it. "I'd love to stay then."

I'm not wearing nice underwear. I haven't put deodorant on since this morning, so I probably smell too. I shouldn't have given him this idea to spend the night; I'm not prepared. My legs are getting prickly with hair too.

But then Javier starts kissing me and I start to forget about all of my worries. However, Zero starts barking to quickly put an end to our kissing before it can go too far.

"He doesn't like people kissing in front of him," I explain, patting my dog on the head a few times so that he knows that Javier isn't trying to murder me. "He'll be fine if I just give him a bone to distract him."

I walk into the kitchen and get to the shelf where we keep our dog food along with Zero's treats and bones. I grab one of the big ones and take it into the living room where Zero is sitting on the couch. Javier isn't in the room anymore, so I give Zero his bone and then head back toward my room. I grab a box of condoms from the bathroom before following him into my bedroom.

He's standing near my bed, looking at my wall of sketches very intently. Sitting the box down on my desk, I stand beside him.

"I don't really let people come back here that often."

"Why not? You're a really good artist," He assures me.

"It's not that. Just that I draw what I'm thinking. I don't like people seeing what's inside of my head," I explain to him. "Freaks me out. I know that if I want to keep them private, maybe I shouldn't put them up on my wall, but I like looking at them."

"So I'm getting a look into your mind right now?" He wonders curiously as he continues to scan the wide wall of all of the sketches that I have up. I'm grateful that I have taken down the few drawings that I drew of Shaw. Especially after tonight, I don't want him worried that there's anything going on.

"Not an updated version. I haven't had much time to do any drawing lately," I add, because I don't have any of him up there, so I don't want him to think that I'm not thinking of him. I'm thinking about him more than I'd like to, but these past few days—these past few weeks, even-- have been so hectic that I haven't really drawn all that much.

"It has been pretty crazy these past few days," Javier agrees with me. "I think that things will settle down soon though."

"Yeah. I hope so," I sigh.

"So, Sage really talks about guys in that much detail to you?" He changes the subject and turns to face me instead of the wall.

"She does," I reluctantly admit. "But I don't want her to, she just does. I didn't tell her anything about us. Just what happened, but no details. She's just excited though. I'm pretty sure that she thought that I would be alone forever and end up with a thousand cats in a tiny apartment somewhere," I mumble, crossing my arms over my chest. "She's a good friend—always worried about me. But don't worry. My lips are sealed."

"Hopefully not permanently," He says in a low voice before he kisses me and wraps his arm around my waist. I would have laughed at his joke if I wasn't too busy kissing him back, but he definitely has all of my attention now. I can't focus on anything other than his lips against mine, and how nice this feels.

It feels right. Comfortable. Like this is how things are supposed to be. Me with Javier, kissing in my bedroom late at night when everything else is quiet. Like it's just us in the entire world, and only the two of us matter.

We take things slow, kissing and just enjoying this quiet moment together. My bed is a full-sized bed, making it comfortable for two people, but my pink floral comforter seems childish now that I'm getting naked underneath of it. I'm glad that we waited until we were under the covers to take off our clothes though, so that he won't notice how un-matching and ugly my underwear are. I don't know why I'm so worried about that, but it's the only thing that I'm worried about. The fact that my underwear is the only thing that I'm worried about right now is a minor miracle for me, considering just a week ago—I could barely stand it when anybody looked at me with all of my clothes on. I would be having a border-line panic attack if I was caught seen wearing shorts because my thighs jiggle too much.

So, I'll allow myself some irrational worrying about my ugly underwear because it seems so miniscule to the other things that I could be worrying about right now.

I think that maybe it's the fact that the bed creaks when it rocks, and that Javier is groaning in my ear, and that my breaths are deep and ragged, and seem really loud to me. It's the fact that all of these things are happening that I don't hear my father come home.

Zero doesn't bark, which he usually does when my dad gets home, but that's probably because he's still lazily chewing on that bone that I'd given him. So, I don't realize that my father is home until my bedroom door is swinging open. Both Javier and I jump out of our skin, he quickly rolls off of me to the other side of the bed and I clamber to pull the comforter up to hide my bare chest.

"Have you seen my flask?" My dad asks as he opens the door. When he sees that I'm not alone in my room, he starts to laugh. I can tell by his slouched shoulders and glazed eyes that he's very drunk right now. For once in my life, I'm thankful that my dad has had too much to drink. If he'd been sober and walked in on this, both Javier and I would probably be dead right now.

"Dad, no, I haven't seen it. Please get out," I quickly plead with him as my face flames a bright red.

"This your boyfriend?" He wonders with raised eyebrows. "You didn't tell me that you had a boyfriend, Yasmin."

"We haven't defined our relationship yet," I mumble under my breath.

My dad gives me an expecting look and then when I don't say anything else, he says, "Well. Aren't you going to introduce us?"

"Can't that wait until we're not naked and you're not drunk off of your ass?" I ask him, feeling completely humiliated about what's happening right now. Javier must be completely freaking out right now beside me-- I can't bring myself to look at him though. My dad doesn't leave, so I give up and just say, "This is Javier."

"It's, uh, nice to meet you?" Javier's voice sounds an octave higher than it usually does and he's clearly very nervous right now. I'm sure he's never had a parent walk in on him having sex with their daughter and then be so calm about it. I'm sure that he knows through the grapevine that my father is an alcoholic, but he probably has never realized that my dad can get so drunk that he doesn't care that he's walking in on his daughter having sex, and that he isn't leaving.

"You really haven't seen my flask?" My father slurs from the doorway, going back to the really important topic of conversation that he had barged in here for in the first place.

"Is it in your pocket?" I ask him slowly, noticing the outline in his jeans pocket.

He pats his left pocket and then his right, and finds it sitting in his pocket—where he always keeps it. "There it is. Don't get pregnant. God knows this family has enough problems already."

"Thanks for the advice, please get out," I try again to get him to leave. Now that he's got his flask, he stumbles out of the room but he doesn't shut the door behind him.

I wait until he's in the bathroom down the hall to hurry to the door and close it, locking it too, before I return to the bed. I'm not sure where all of this leaves us for the night—I don't know what to do now.

"He's taking all of this Robby drama pretty hard," I explain to Javier in a quiet voice. "I'm so sorry about him."

"It's okay," He sighs, obviously still pretty shaken up. "I've always dreamed of meeting my girlfriend's dad like this."

"Girlfriend?" I catch his use of that word, which catches me by surprise because I thought that we were waiting until tomorrow to talk about that.

"Sorry," He says quickly. "Um, if that's okay with you."

"It's okay with me," I confirm. Some of the reason that I wanted to wait until tomorrow to talk about it was because I wasn't sure what I wanted. But seeing him stick around after what just happened with my dad made me believe that he must be a really great, and patient, guy. I really like him, so there isn't anything to think about.

I really want to be Javier's girlfriend. I just hope that I don't mess it up.