We Go Down Together

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except Emerald.

Thank you for reading and reviewing. I never planned on this being longer than ten chapters, so this is it. I hope it's been enjoyable!

Chapter 10: Good Luck

AfterI came home from the park, I spent the remainder of Thursday night weighing the pros and cons of telling my parents the truth before I went to dinner with Alex's family. I didn't want to have to make up any kind of lies about where I was or that I was going out with Daniel. After feeling that good on the bench, I was tired of the lies; I didn't want to feel that stressed anymore.

I sat on my bed, trying to decide what I would want to pack up, because I wanted to be ready. I took inventory of my belongings, making a list and packing the items into my duffel bag as I went. I set the outfit for Friday in my desk chair and then waited until my parents went to sleep.

I dialed Alex's number and she greeted me with an excited "Mitchie!"

"Alex," I said, glancing at the door. "I'm going to need your help. Meet me at the backdoor of my house in an hour. Take the shortcuts we used to when we were little; it's faster. Don't knock or make any noise; I'll text you."

"I'll be there. But hey, are you okay?"

I paced between my room window and the bed, peeking out into the night. "Yeah, never been better actually. Emerald and I had a really good talk today; I'll explain later."

I heard footsteps on the stairs and slid the duffel bag under my bed, before jumping under the covers fully dressed.

"I don't understand why you're doing this to her." My dad's voice was quiet as he got to the top of the stairs. "Her finals are in two weeks. You can't seriously think this is a good idea."

"Honey, you'll understand later. She's sick; she doesn't need to be at that school anymore. Now let's just talk to her."

I felt goose bumps breaking out all over my skin as I listened to them. I swallowed the nerves trying to sneak into my mouth. My stomach did flips as my door creaked open.

"Mitchie, are you awake?"

I lifted my head off the pillow, feigning sleepiness. "Mom?"

"We'd like to talk to you about something."

Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes. Stretching, I yawned. "What is it?"

They opened the door all the way and stood, looming in the door frame. My dad coughed and looked down at his bare feet. My mom gave me the same smile she'd been giving me since the center.

"We're pulling you out of school on Monday." My mom clamped her hands together. "We're going to move to a different school district."

"What? Why?" I stared at her, then glanced at my dad.

My mom bowed her head, her smile falling just a little bit. "I came to pick you up from school a few days ago and I saw you getting into your car with Alex. We just think your progress may be faltering a little bit."

I licked my lips and looked at my dad, waiting for his input.

He just held up his hands and said, "I support your mom's decisions."

My eyes narrowed and I shook my head. "You guys are fucked up, sorry excuses for parents, do you understand?" I threw the blankets off me and pulled the duffel bag out from under my bed. I grabbed my outfit from my desk chair and shoved it into my backpack. I slung the bag onto my back and grabbed the duffel bag by its handles.

"What are you doing?" My mom had finally gotten over her shock from my words.

"I'm leaving, because I can't take another minute with either of you!" I shoved past them, which was easy since they were both still slightly dumbfounded by this outburst. I threw my duffel bag to the bottom of the stairs and rushed down the steps, as my mother came after me, yelling words I couldn't understand through the noise of my heart in my ears.

Her shrill screams were giving me a headache as I pulled the front door open. I tossed my bag outside and then turned around to face her on the porch.

"Mom, that's great that you think you're doing what's best for me or whatever, but this is who I am, and you can't fucking make me be any other way." I threw my head back and cackled. Taking a deep breath, I let the words Emerald had tickled out of me fall from my lips. "I'm gay and I don't give a fuck who knows it!"

My mom's face had lost all its color when I looked at her in the soft lighting of the porch. "You're making a mistake, Michelle." My mom took a step towards me and I backed up. "Let's just sit down and pray and discuss this with God."

"My god, Mom! Drop the fucking act. Before you caught Alex with her hand in my underwear, we never went to church, and you still don't fucking go. You send me on my own. You think church is just for sinners that need correcting, is that it? I've got news for you. When I was going to the church, they were promoting love and self-acceptance, everything you're not. Between you and me, you need more help than I do."

She took another step towards me and as I backed up, I tripped over my bag and that gave her the opening she apparently needed. She kneeled down in front of me and grabbed my knees. "Michelle, listen to yourself, the devil's wormed his way so deeply into you."

"Connie." My dad's voice startled both of us. He ran his hand over his mostly bald head. "Just stop. Come inside and just let her go."

My mom's fingers wrapped around my clothes and tangled in the straps of my backpack. "Come back inside with us, baby. Please." She begged and pleaded and I just tried to crawl over the bag and get back to my feet.

My heart was racing, my breathing was becoming uneven and I saw little pricks of light tearing into my vision. I would never have guessed she'd be so crazy if I tried to leave.

She started crying and praying and saying "Jesus" a lot as I tried to scramble to my feet.

My dad sighed and slowly walked out to us. He kneeled down and broke her arms away from me and lifted her over his shoulder. "Let's just go to bed. How does that sound?"

I assumed he was talking to her, but I stayed where I was, shaking. Did my mom care? What was this? I took a shaky breath. "Dad?" I cleared my throat.

He turned around and looked at me. "Good luck." He went inside without another word.

I blinked, unsure of why I wanted to cry, uncertain if I should really be trying to leave or not. I pulled out my phone and texted Alex, telling her not to come. I pulled myself up onto the top of the duffel bag and cried.

"I'm already here."

I looked up and saw Alex standing at the street, her cell phone in her hand.

Her eyes roamed over me and I wondered how I looked. She came and kneeled in front of me. "Are you okay? What happened?"

I sighed and shook my head. "I don't want to talk about it right now, but can I stay with you tonight?"

"Yeah, definitely. Let's go." She took my backpack off my shoulders and slid it up her arms. "So, do you want to take your car, too? Or not?"

I sighed and shrugged. "I don't want my mom to do something crazy like report it stolen."

Alex's eyes widened. "Oh my god, would she do that?"

I yawned as we turned onto the next street. "I don't know. I just really want to go to sleep. This was exhausting."

She slipped her hand into mine and squeezed. "I know this isn't the most romantic time in the world to tell you this, but…" She stopped walking and took the duffel bag from me. She set it down and took off the backpack. She took my hands and looked into my eyes and I thought I knew what was coming. "I love you."

I smiled wide and pulled her into a hug. "I love you, too, Alex." I loved the warmth of her body against mine, the way her kisses lingered on my lips for days, her melon shampoo and vanilla body lotions, her soft hair; I loved how she could look at me and know what I needed most in the world, the way she could read my mind.

She spoke into my hair as she pulled my hips into hers. "I think you're a lot stronger than you think you are."

#

Alex wrapped her arms around me and kissed the back of my head. "Good night, beautiful."

I blushed in the dark and snuggled deeper into the bed.

We lay there in the dark for a while; neither of us sleeping. Ever since we'd started having our sleepovers again, the electricity between us in the dark could charge a whole city. I twisted around in her arms and kissed her slowly. Her tongue ran over my lips and I opened my mouth. Gripping her hips, I repositioned us so that I was on top of her.

"I think my mom rudely interrupted us last time," I whispered between kisses.

She smiled. "Oh yeah?" She flipped us. "If I remember correctly, you weren't on top that day."

I giggled as her hand worked its way up my torso, bunching my shirt up as it went.

Forty minutes later, we lay side by side, naked and out of breath. She kissed me gently and as she wrapped her bare arms around my middle, I reveled in the way her skin felt when it touched mine. "Are you happy?" Her voice tickled my shoulder.

I turned my head and kissed her forehead. "Yes. Are you?"

"Over the moon." She tightened her arms around me and I slid my arm behind her head and turned onto my side, so I was facing her.

I grinned and buried my head in the crook of her neck. I kissed her lightly along her collar bone. "I'm sorry we've wasted senior year being so fucked up."

She chuckled. "Even though, I had to date the biggest douche I know, I think I'd do it all again if it meant bringing us to this moment."

I sighed and closed my eyes, tracing my fingers along the silky skin of her back. "My mom was going to take me out of school and move to a different school district, because she saw us standing at my car together one day." I traced hearts and circles and random designs as I felt sparks with every new movement.

Our legs tangled together as she tried to pull us together so tightly there weren't any gaps between our bodies. "I'm sorry." She kissed my ears and nose and eyelids. "I wish I could change things in her head."

I pulled away from her a little, kissing her as I detached. "It's okay that you can't. I don't expect that from you, or anyone else. Emerald told me that people will always find a reason to dislike someone when they want to, so even if you made her understand and love me for being gay, I'm sure she'd find something else to criticize me about."

I slid to the edge of the bed and grabbed my clothes from the floor. I tossed Alex her shirt before walking to the bathroom. I walked back into her bedroom a few minutes later and found her sleeping. I quietly climbed into bed and wrapped my arms around her. I kissed the back of her head and thanked God for the people who really did love me.

#

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Alex glanced at me once more before taking my hand as we walked into the kitchen. "I mean, we can still just wait until dinner tonight, if you want."

I shook my head. "No, it's okay. I'd rather not spend the day ready to vomit."

She laughed and squeezed my hand. "Okay." We walked downstairs into the kitchen/living/dining area, holding hands. "Mom? Dad? We've got something to tell you."

Justin brought his head up from the morning paper and Max poked his head in from the balcony as Jerry and Theresa both looked up from the breakfast they were putting together.

"What is it?" Jerry said as Theresa's eyes narrowed in on our hands.

Alex swallowed and took a deep breath. "Mom, Dad, I'm happier now than I've ever been, so please, keep that in mind when I say this." She tightened her grip on my hand. "Mitchie and I are dating. This isn't some phase, this isn't something we're going to outgrow, this is what we want." She glanced at me and then looked back at her parents. "I don't know about Mitch, but I know she's it. I just want her. No one else."

Jerry blinked, and glanced at Theresa; they shared a nod and then walked over to us and hugged us both.

"We love you both," her mom said as she pulled away and turned her attention to Jerry.

Jerry sighed and pulled a ten out of his wallet. I glanced at Alex, unsure what was happening. She shrugged as her mom took the money and put it in the pocket of her apron.

They glanced at us; Jerry was growing red in the face. "We may have a tiny bet going since you were thirteen." He coughed and walked back into the kitchen.

My eyes widened and I glanced at Alex who rolled her eyes. "You guys are so weird." She let go of my hand and sat down at the table as Justin and Max went back to their projects, unfazed by the news. "So, you guys okay with this then?"

"Of course, why wouldn't we be?" Jerry turned on the waffle maker and Justin flipped the page of the newspaper. The whole moment was very anti-climatic.

I laughed. Alex looked at me, a question in her eyes. I buried my face in my arms on the table top and tried to calm down as a case of the giggles washed over me.

"Well, Mitchie's mom walked in on us while we were kissing over winter break and then she sent her to a conversion center and forced her to stay away from me for several months, and Mitchie, like, left home last night, for good…I just—we weren't expecting…"

I looked up to see Alex gesturing around the room. "This," I said, fighting off another laugh.

Theresa came up and hugged me tightly. "You've always been a second daughter to me, mija." She kissed the top of my head, sobering me of all my laughter. "You are welcome here for as long as you want to be here, okay?"

I nodded and licked my lips, trying to fight off tears. "Thank you," I said, wiping my eyes. I was so tired of crying, even if this time they were happy tears.

#

"M, I'm really proud of you," Emerald said as she tore up a piece of bread for the birds. We sat on our park bench after school; I'd just finished explaining last night's events to her. "I told you, it would work out."

I exhaled as I nodded. "Yeah, I guess. I mean, I just wish that my mom would change her mind. I mean, maybe over time she will, but it just sucks knowing that she doesn't want anything to do with the real me."

"At least, your dad is sort of in your corner." She tossed a piece of crust and it landed on a pigeon's head.

I shook my head. "No, not really. I think he mostly just wanted her to stop being such a nut job on the front lawn."

"I don't know. He sounds like he was tired of her crazy ass, too. But it doesn't matter right now. They can call you when or if they want to talk."

I flung a piece of bread farther out than our ankles, watching as a squirrel went after it. "I'm just happy that Alex's parents are okay with everything."

She nodded and balled up the plastic bag the loaf had come in. "What are you going to do once school's out?"

I shrugged. "Probably take your advice and get a job and see if Alex wants to work on moving into our own place."

She smiled before getting up and walking over to the trash can. She dumped the bread bag in it and walked over to me, dusting the crumbs off her hands. "Good for you, Mitchie." The black birds flew away with all her movement.

"What are you going to do once school's out?" I stood up and wiped my hands off. The remaining birds took off as I clapped my hands.

"I don't know what I'll do this summer, but I got into some decent colleges back home."

I frowned and grabbed her arm. "You're going back to Ohio?"

She shrugged. "Maybe."

I nodded and hugged her. "I don't want you to go."

She laughed as she wrapped her arms around my neck. "You'll be okay without me."

"I know…but still, I like you, I want you around." We started walking to the sub shop to pick her up from her shift.

"We've always got cell phones, and I don't know, the Internet." She knocked our hips together and laughed. "Unless you forgot how to use technology."

I rolled my eyes. "You know what I mean."

She leaned her head against mine. "I know, M. I know." She sighed and kissed the side of my head. "If you and Alex are ever in Ohio, you can always stay with me."

"Are you going to live alone?"

"Yeah, I think if I do move, I'm going to move into an apartment complex a few streets away from my grandparents."

"Mitchie!" We both turned to see an excited Alex hurrying towards us.

She waved to Emerald and then threw her arms around me, pinning Emerald's arm around my shoulders. Emerald threw her free arm around Alex and the three of us stood there, hugging, and I wished this moment could last forever.

#

I screamed as Alex hit me with a water balloon. We'd gone to the park to feed the birds and have a picnic, but instead of food, Alex had packed the basket full of water balloons.

I grabbed one and tossed it at her, it popped against her chest, soaking her shirt. I laughed and grabbed another, as she hit my side. I felt the edge of my shirt dripping water onto my shoe.

Ten minutes later, she had me pinned to the ground, begging her not to poke a hole in the last balloon as she held it over my face.

"Pick what you want to do today!" She bounced slightly, bringing herself down on my stomach, her bare legs rubbed against my exposed sides. We were laughing so hard and I couldn't think of anything to do other than kiss her.

Summer was two weeks old and we'd done everything we could think of. We'd already gone to the zoo twice, we'd hit the water parks, found a beach, and went on a hike. "Alex," I said, trying to catch my breath. "Do you hear that?"

She froze, listening for a sound I'd invented. I grabbed her arms and twisted, so that I was on top of her. I pried the balloon out of her hand and tossed it aside, kissing her as my hands trailed down her sides. She moaned and reached for the edge of my shorts.

"Alex!" I squealed, jumping up. "We're in a park! Kids could see!"

She laughed and pulled me to her again. "Chill."

I kissed her. "Do you want to take this back to your house?" I mumbled my question against her lips.

She nodded and sat up, breaking the kiss. "Let's go!"

We raced back to her house and found my mom sitting in the sub shop. We both froze and Alex dropped the picnic basket and my hand. We bent down to pick it up, as Theresa nervously backed out of the room.

My mom motioned for me to join her at her table. I let go of the basket and sat down across from her. Alex stood awkwardly in the door way, and I shrugged, biting my bottom lip and raising my eyebrows.

"Could I have a minute alone with my daughter, please?" My mom's voice sounded very tight as if it suddenly killed her to be polite to the girl she'd treated like a second child for the past decade.

Alex mouthed sorry to me as she hurried to the kitchen to stand with her mom. I watched them over my mom's shoulder; they spoke in whispers and I couldn't hear them from here.

I swallowed and kept my eyes on Alex and her mom as I said, "What are you doing here?"

"I came to talk to you." She folded her hands on the table and then spread her fingers across the table cloth, smoothing it out.

I focused on her, my eyes narrowed. "About what?"

"About your…recent decisions." She locked her eyes onto mine.

I tore my eyes away and scooted my chair back a little. "Are you here to accept me or try to convince me I'm making a mistake?"

She sighed and rubbed her fingers against her temples. "Just come home. We can fix this together."

I shook my head and stood up, holding up my hand. "No. I'm not broken."

"Sit down, Michelle."

I scoffed. "For nearly eighteen years, you haven't called me Michelle. Do you really think that a name is what determines who I fall in love with?" Folding my arms over my chest, I sank back down into my chair.

"If this is what you want, let's discuss something else." She slid a paper across the table and I looked at it. "Your father wants to give you your car, but I told him I'd only agree if you put it in your name."

"Fine."

She set another paper on top of the deed to my car. "And the insurance as well."

"Okay." I grabbed both papers and held onto them. "Anything else?"

"We're taking you off our cell phone plan."

I fished the cell phone out of my back pocket and set it on the table. "Take it."

She picked it up with her index finger and thumb as if it were diseased. Gingerly, she placed it in her back.

I shifted in my seat, glancing over her shoulder at Alex who was still standing in the kitchen with her mom. "Is that all?"

I could feel my mom staring at me; I didn't bring my eyes to hers. She sighed and I listened to the chair scrape against the concrete flooring. I slowly turned my head to watch her open the door and walk out without a backward glance.

I swallowed and stood up, nearly knocking the chair to the floor as I tripped over my feet. I ran my hand through my damp hair and Alex met me once I was halfway to the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around me and stroked my hair as I buried my face in her shoulder, breathing in the smell of grass lingering in her wet hair.

Alex took me by the hand and led me up to our bedroom. "Mitchie, I know it's probably not what you want to hear right now, but—"

I kissed her and pressed my forehead to hers. "I love you. And as long as I've got you, I know things will be okay."

She smiled and snaked her arms around my neck. "Things will always be okay then." She rested her head on my shoulder as her hands moved to my waist. "Dance with me."

I rolled my eyes. "Why?"

"Because I think we could both use a little silly right now." She swayed us back and forth in the silence of her room.

I giggled as I looped my arms around her neck. "You're a goofball, you know that, right?"

She grinned and kissed my nose. "Do you love me?"

I nodded. "Always."

"Then I'm okay with being a goofball." She took my hand and twirled me around. "We should go job hunting after we shower."

As she caught me and held me close, I laughed softly. "Sounds like a plan, Stan."

She pulled away, holding me at arm's length, and looked offended. "Do you have a boyfriend I don't know about?"

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, maintaining eye contact. "Seriously, you're so weird sometimes."

She shrugged and pulled me back in. "At least, I'm having fun. You should try it." She laid her head on my shoulder. "I'm tired of leading; you do it for a bit."

I laughed and said, "But I don't know what we were doing."

"Just twirl me." She winked as she lifted her head. "I won't notice that you don't know what you're doing."