Progress

Connor is asleep at his desk when the bell rings for school to be out. He stands up, grabbing his bag on the way out. He’s surprised he managed to stay through the whole day, with every one of his teachers talking to him about mental health and all that shit. He starts to walk through the hallway, he doesn’t have a locker, well, he does, he just doesn’t know which one it is. He’s heading to Evan’s locker, he doesn’t want to, but his mom wants to invite Evan to dinner. He approaches Evan at his locker, Evan shrinks back a bit. Is he really that scary? He leans against the wall “Hey, my mom wanted me to invite you to dinner tonight.” Evan looked shocked “Uh, sure, I’ll go, if that’s okay?” Connor raised his eyebrow “You were invited, why wouldn’t it be okay?” Evan was picking at his fingernails, a nervous thing? “Right, sorry” Connor shook his head “You don’t have to apologise, you didn’t do anything. Anyway, do you want me to drive you after school?” Evan looks up, and stops picking at his fingernails “Uh, sure? I don’t have a car, if it isn’t any trouble for you” Connor shakes his head “It’s fine, we can go now if you want.” Evan nods. Connor leads him to his car and opens the passenger side door for him, Evan awkwardly gets in the seat and buckles in. ____________________________________

Dinner at the Murphy’s was pretty uneventful, until they started yelling. Cynthia set down her fork and looked at Connor “I’m so glad you have a friend, but how come you never told us about him?” Connor slammed his fork down on the table “Maybe I would have if you took more of an interest in my life rather than acting as if zoe’s your only child!” His father stood up “Connor Murphy! I will not tolerate this sort of behavior in my household.” Connor stands up “I hate this family!” he turns around and storms out of the dining room and up the stairs, Evan sets down his fork gently “Where is the bathroom?” Cynthia looks distraught “Up the stairs and to the left.” Evan excuses himself and goes upstairs, but instead of walking into the bathroom, he walks to Connor’s room, there isn’t a door. He knocks on the door frame “Can I come in?” Connor is sitting on his bed “Yeah” he grumbles. Evan sits down next to Connor "I'm sorry." Connor looks at him, perplexed "what are you sorry for?" Evan hesitates "That your family doesn't really care, that I pretended to be your friend, that I'm here, a lot of things. It's just, right now, I'm sorry you and your dad were arguing." Connor smiles "it's fine, that's a normal thing around here." Evan starts picking at his fingernails, definitely a nervous thing "If you ever want to get out of your house for a bit, you can just tell your parents that you're with me, if you want." Connor nods "sounds good, how about we go now? I can guarantee you that if we go back it will be exactly the same as before." Evan nods "we can get pizza if you want, my mom always leaves some money to get food." Connor smiles and stands up "we can do that, anything is better than my mom's vegetarian lasagna." Evan laughs, he can't recall the last time he laughed genuinely "okay, my house is at the other side of the block, do you want to walk?" "yeah, that sounds good."
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Evan only now noticed that he has the same english class as Connor, it makes sense that he never noticed, because he only ever saw Connor once at school until now. But today they got assigned a group project, and his group is made up of him, Connor, and Alana Beck. He cannot stress how much he dislikes group projects. Group projects mean he has to work with other people and either do the least amount of work so that he doesn't mess things up, or do the most because everyone else has no idea what they are doing. Connor and Alana agreed to meet in the library during lunch, and Evan feels like he would be disappointing them if he just went to lunch so he's going along. When he gets to the library, Alana is already there. Evan sits down across from her, not knowing what to say. Connor walks into the library and sits next to Evan, setting his bag down next to him "Hey, so what do you want me to do?" Alana shakes her head "nothing right now, i was just gonna ask if we could go to your house to work on our project after school. If that's okay with you?" Connor nods "that would be fine if you're okay with Zoe bothering us every two minutes." Evan nods "that's fine, I can walk to your house." Connor shakes his head "not with it raining like this, you would drown before you could knock on the door. I'm gonna drive you." Evan sighs and nods "Okay"
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It's late at night when Alana goes home, leaving Connor and Evan alone. It's uncomfortably hot, and Evan wishes he hadn't worn pants today. He notices that Connor is still wearing his sweatshirt "Connor? How come you wear your sweatshirt all the time?" Connor turns around to face Evan "Im skinny, i don't have as much insulation." Evan raises his eyebrows, Connor sighs and rolls up his sleeves "I used to cut myself." Evan looks at Connors arms, there are scars up and down his arms, some look newer than others "used to?" Connor flops on his back "I still do it, but y'know, I don't have a door as you can see." Evan looks over to his doorway, not noticing that there wasn't a door before "how come?" Connor sits back up "They found out I was gay, I used to have a friend, and I told him I was gay, big mistake." Evan cocks his head to the side "why?" Connor stands up and grabs his phone, and turns his phone screen towards Evan, it was a picture of a boy, no older than ten "His family is super catholic, and the first people he told were my parents. So, that's my dark secret, what's yours?" Evan starts to fiddle with the edge of his cast "I cut myself too, on my legs, and, uh, I'm bisexual." Connor nods "Does your mom know? That you're bi, I mean." Evan nods "Yeah, so far only you and my mom know, she took it pretty well." Connor stands up and puts his hands together “No more sad shit, lets get some snacks” Evan stands up and follows Connor upstairs “I thought your mom was doing a vegan thing?” Connor continues upstairs “I snagged some of the snacks before she got rid of them. There in this cabinet over here.” he moves a few boxes out of the way and unveils a few bags of potato chips and a box of cheez its. Evan smiles "You're a criminal" Connor snorts “I’m more like robin hood, you know, take snacks from the rich and give to the poor?” Evan grabs one of the bags “I’m pretty sure that’s not how the story goes. As they walk back downstairs to Connor’s room, Evan looks over at Connor, watching his dark hair sway back and forth as he walks down the stairs. Maybe this didn’t turn out so bad after all.