I rest of the school day was just plain out boring. Isaac and I were stuck walking home since West had practice.

"Are you going to homecoming?" Isaac asked me.

"I don't know." I said honestly. Truth be told, I couldn't imagine going to homecoming here. I always thought in the back of my head I would get to spent homecoming back in Michigan, with well, Melody.

"Have you talked to Melody lately?" Isaac asked me.

"A few days ago, we actually haven't talked too much." I told him honestly.

"You guys ok?" Isaac asked me. I raised an eyebrow. "I meant as friends, as friends." He said raising his hands in the air. I kept having to remind myself that he didn't know what happened the night of that dance thing.

"Yeah we're fine." I told him. I tried to think of a way to change the subject, then I remembered something that had puzzled me on my schedule. "Why is home room period 0?" I asked Isaac.

"Oh, cause you're not required to go to it. You can just use it as a study period or if you need help from a teacher. Each student is assigned one, some people go to it everyday, others go to it only a few times a year." Isaac told me.

"So we've been waking up earlier than needed to get to a class that does nothing for you?" I asked him.

"Well, if you have a home room teacher like ours who actually teaches you stuff then that can go towards credits." Isaac told me.

"But we don't have to go?" I asked him.

"No." He replied.

"So why are we?" I asked him.

"'Cause we get rides with West and West needs to be at school earlier." Isaac said.

"Stupid morning practices." I mumbled.

"Geez, speak for yourself. I'm just enjoying it now. Next year I'm going to be the only guy in the house since West is going to be at college." Isaac said.

"You'll be fine, you're like the most popular guy at school, you can just hang out with your friends more." I told him.

"I guess." Isaac said as we arrived in front of the house. "We should've just taken the bus." Isaac whispered.

"We missed the bus, remember?" I asked him.

"I forgot about that." Isaac said as he unlocked the door.

"Do you know what our family bonding trip is today?" I asked Isaac.

"Laser tagging." Isaac said.

"Oh this should be interesting." I said.

"You say interesting and I say scary." Isaac said. We walked into the house and arguing was already filling the house.

"Come on, we got to go." Alice said from the other room.

"Why can't we just go get our nails done or something? Something like not laser tagging." Jillian wined from the other room.

"Because we also have boys in this house, so no we can not get our nails done." Alice stated.

"Not this argument again." Isaac whispered.

"What else were you expecting?" I asked him. Isaac didn't reply, there wasn't anything else to expect.

"Just get ready, we're leaving in a hour." Alice told her right as she walked out of the room.

"Why didn't you guys take the bus with the girls?" Alice asked.

"We missed the bus." Isaac said.

"You could've called, there's a snake for you both on the kitchen counter." Alice said.

"That's it? No punishment? No yelling or screaming?" Isaac asked me once we sat down to eat.

"She knows if something happened that was terribly bad I would've called, or I would be missing for some time." I told him, shrugging.

"And everyone says that you're being raised wrong." Isaac mumbled. I tried not to pay attention to his words, after all, I knew they were true. I had been told myself a number of times. I just didn't get why I was being raised wrong in the first place, staying in Chicago for four year silent was enough on my count.

•••

An hour and a half later we were all geared up, all ten of us, ready for laser tagging.

"Remember no pushing, no running, no blocking the laser points. Play fair, play nice, and use clean language the whole time." A very tired man told us. "Have fun!" He shouted as he opened the door the door to the laser land. All the rules that we had been told went straight out the window.

The ten of us were divided up into two teams. It was Steve, Freedom, Jillian, West and Nicky VS Alice, Isaac, Mom, Ashley and I. With my blue uniform on I ran around the buildings that had all been set up.

"Game begins in 3....2....1!" A voice shouted through a microphone. The light turned off and we were left alone in the dark. I climbed up one of the buildings and stayed waiting. Jillian waltzed right below me, without a care in the world, looking down at her fingers, probably checking her nails. I aimed and shot. I hit her on the first time, 'causing her uniform to go dark.

"I see you up there Kyle!" She shouted at me.

"You can't do anything about it!" I shouted to her. I ran and hid behind another pillar, waiting for the next person to run by. And just like that the whole game went. Everyone ran around, shooting each other. Even Mom got really into it. After half an hour all our guns went dead.

"Please make your way to the exit, thank you for playing and have a wonderful day!" Another voice said through the microphone. We all slowly made our way to the exit. We hung our uniforms up and went to stare at the results.

Team Red:

#1. Football101 - 503
#2. Nickyyyyyyyyy - 491
#3. Marker - 444
#4. The Dad - 437
#5. Fashionista - 338

West was first, no surprise there. Surprisingly Nicky had come in second place for the red team, and she had been close to first too. Freedom, with the strange code name, wasn't bad ether. Then Steve came in fourth. Jillian came in fifth place, which wasn't surprising since she pretty much gave up halfway through the game.

Blue Team:

#1. Ice - 550
#2. Huckleberry - 549
#3. Wonderland - 540
#4. Runaway Heels - 470
#5. The Mom - 430

"Ha I beat you!" Isaac cried out to me.

"By one point! By one tiny point!" I insisted. Isaac was first, why he went under Ice, I don't know. I was second, loosing first by one point under Huckleberry, because that was the only nickname I could think about at the time. Alice was Wonderland in third place, probably with all the teasing she got in middle school for being Alice in Wonderland I think she finally just excepted. Ashely was in fourth place under the name Runaway Heels, then Mom was last as The Mom.

Red Team: 2,213
Blue Team: 2,539

"And we won!" Mom shouted.

"Nah nah, I demand a recount." West insisted.

"It's simple math, and all the numbers point to the answer that we won!" Isaac cried.

"Rematch!" Steve yelled.

"Yeah!" Freedom yelled.

"No!!!" Jillian screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Again!" Ashley yelled.

"Just one more game." Nicky said.

"Maybe another time, you all still have homework to do. Alice I also think you have your online courses to do." Mom told us all.

"No I finished those while the house was actually quiet." Alice laughed.

"Ether way, we need to go home. I'll order a pizza and we can watch a movie if you all finish your homework." Steve said. We went home and broke apart in all our rooms. I took out my math notebook and started to work out the twenty seven problems we had been given.

"Knock knock?" Alice said as she knocked on the door.

"Come in." I said. She walked in and sat on the edge of my bed.

"So we need to talk." She told me.

"Please don't say I have to stay here longer than December. Or that someone died. Or that you're getting married, cause I just came from the drama of a wedding and I like Max and all but you guys have only known each other like a year-"

"I'm not engaged." Alice interrupted me. I looked at her left hand and there was a ring. An actual ring. How had I not noticed that before?

"There's a ring!"

"It's a promise ring, chill." Alice said. I closed my mouth, and decided to just let her say what she wanted to say. "I think you should stay here however-"

"Why do you have a promise ring?" I asked her, interrupting her.

"Kyle, this is important." She said, getting frustrated.

"So is this." I insisted.

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Authors Note

This chapter just kept going on and on and I'm just cutting it off right here to start a new part.

Thank you for reading this chapter though!!!!!

Word Count: 1503