Esmeralda laid on her bed, feet on her pillow, as she watched tv. She had been lucky enough to get her own dorm room. Sure, it was only about two-thirds the size of a regular dorm room, but it was still her own. There were a bunch of New Years Eve parties going on, but she didn't feel like going out to any. Well, more like she didn't feel like dealing with drunkards trying to pick her up in a club tonight. So instead she sat at home... in her dorm room... eating popcorn and watching movie specials that were still playing even though Christmas had passed. Nothing extravagant tonight, just cozy pajamas, slippers and junk food. She considered calling up her brother and asking if he wanted to hang out, but decided against it. Mason was probably busy with his boyfriend, Abe. She didn't understand how her parents couldn't understand that Mason was happy with who he was. That, and him and Abe just made the cutest pair.

She figured that she should get up and stretch, so her muscles wouldn't get too stiff. She rolled off the bed... literally. She ended up face-planting the floor. She sat up, rubbing her nose because it hurt from the force of impact. She stood and looked in the mirror, seeing that a large bruise was forming on her nose bridge. "Well, that wasn't my brightest idea," she muttered to herself.

Good thing she had no plans to see anyone tonight.

Mason couldnt believe his eyes... stop calling me! I obviously dont want to talk to you. Leave me alone. How could abe say that?! he called a few more times just to actually hear Abe say it.... he gave up eventually. Mason was embarrassed. he left the bar with his head hanging. his friends tried to stop him from leaving but he ignored them as he pushed his way through the crowds of drunk annoying people. he wasnt even nice about it. he pushed some guy down to the floor on accident. normally he would have stopped and asked the guy if he was okay and helped him up and all that nice stuff but no. not tonight. He was in no mood. he couldnt even tell if he was sad, hurt, mad... there were endless ways to describe how he felt but not one could pin point it exactly. he just walked away from the bar with no expression at all. he wanted to go to sleep. maybe this was just a dream. when he wakes up it wouldnt be there... he'd wake up next to Abe, kiss his cheek then make breakfast for the both of them like he'd been doing since the first year they met. they had been friends for so long how could Abe just.... what did Mason do? Mason thought that he made up for sleep with Luke... he hadnt been with anyone since then. what did he do wrong?

Luke completely spaced out thinking of everything he's done in the past week. he could hardly remember anything. when he focused on where he was walking he looked up and saw the school. he hadnt realized that he was walking to the dorms. he stopped right in the middle of the boys and girls dorm. he took one step towards the boys dorm but decided no. he needed to talk. he wanted to be comforted. he wanted his sister... so he was the older sibling but since he couldnt run to his mother for comfort he needed his little sister. he wanted his mom but he knew what she would say. "thats what you get for being gay. All guys, not matter who, will tear your heart into pieces. thats all they do." he rolled his eyes angrily just at the thought of her voice.

he walked up the dorm room stairs and knocked on his sister's door. she had her own room, luckily. he hoped she was there. people like her would normally be out partying since it was new years eve and thats kind of what people do. he stood there with a blank expression waiting for her to open the door. he figured if she wasnt there he'd sit at her door until she came home like a dog that was left outside and desperately wanted to be let back in.

Carmen threw a bandage on her nose to cover up the bruise. That would do for the night. She wasn't going out, but she just didn't want to see the bruise on her nose. She heard a knocking at her door and looked at it. It was New Year's Eve and someone was kncking at her door? She wondered who it could be as she walked to it, throwing her hair into a ponytail. She opened the door to reveal a very depressed Mason. She was taken a bit aback by how depressed he looked. He had never looked so sad in his life, not even when their parents kicked him out and shipped him off. "Mase, what are you doing here?" she asked as she pulled him inside. She knew that even if it was her brother, boys were just not supposed to be in the girl's dorm.

She shut the door and sat next to him on the bed, examining his downcast eyes. They sat in silence for a few minutes until she decided to ask him what was wrong. She grabbed two of her stuffed dolls and handed one to Mason to hold, while she hugged the other. This was sort of their thing when one of them was depressed. "Mase, what's wrong? Did something happen between you and Abe? Or to Abe?" she asked, her voice full of concern. She hoped nothing happened. She liked Abe. He made Mason happy. The happiest he's ever been. She had a pretty good guess that something was up, though. Mason would'nt be this depressed if something concerning Abe didn't happen.

Mason made his way to her bed and slummed down like he was made of goo. he was so numb by shock. he didnt know how to react. he didnt say a word. he accepted the stuffed doll and laid back on her bed staring at the ceiling, still not talking. when she asked what was wrong he STILL didnt talk. he didnt want to say it because if he did he knew he was going to cry. he couldnt cry. he... he just couldnt. he didnt want to feel that pain. he wanted to keep it away for as long as he could. he took out his phone and opened the text that came from, the presumably insane, Abe and gave her the phone. he waited for her reaction without looking at her. did he want to talk about it? He didnt really. but he had to eventually right? he turned on his side away from Carmy and sighed. he shut his eyes tight and opened them again. he was hoping that when he opened them again that it would all go away. he obviously knew what came next.. what was usual for him... he was going to run away from his problems... again. he would be gone for a few weeks, come back and be the old Mason that everyone loved. the emotionally detached, the hungover at school, the different guy every night, Mason. he didnt want to be that Mason anymore. he was different now. he had changed for Abe and now Abe.... he couldnt even think about Abe leaving him... again.

he took a deep shaky breath as he hugged the tall tighter, burying his face into it. "I didnt do anything wrong.... I didnt... I didnt leave. I didnt cheat. I actually changed for him. just like he wanted me to. I dont know what i did wrong... but I know its my fault... its always my fault." when he said it was always his fault he didnt mean just the drama he caused with Abe... he meant the whole his life thing. it was his fault that he was gay. it was his fault his parents didnt want him. it was his fault he was never going to be king. Everything was just always his fault. he truly believed that, thanks to Abe. everything Mason couldnt explain was suddenly all his fault. he felt like a pathetic person. everywhere he went he destroyed it. he ruined plenty of relationships. he broke so many innocent people's hearts. he took too many people's virginity. he was an awful person and he knew that. "I really suck dont I?" he said turning around facing his sister. "Dont lie to me, Carmy." he said with red eyes knowing that she would only say he wasnt because she had to. because thats what sisters do. they say nice stuff because they want to make you feel better. just because it makes you feel better doesnt make it true.

Carmen look at the phone screen in shock. How could Abe just send a text message like that to Mason and make him self destruct like that? She was confused. That didn't seem like a very Abe-ish thing to do, though. Especially not when Mason had don nothing wrong. She looked at Masons's back since he was turned away from her and knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about running away again. Disappear and reappear later on, as the old Mason he used to be. Loose, drunk, and a new lay every night. Not that she was one to judge, considering that she did the same thing, only with both guys and girls. She didn't want him to go, though. Things had been going good for him and Abe. She wanted to get them to meet together and work things out. She wanted to see her brother happy again. Not the fake happy he was before he committed, the real happy he was when he was with Abe.

Her eyes saddened when Mason turned back to her and said those words. He was emotionally collapsing. He did change for Abe. He stopped randomly skipping out of town. He no longer slept around. He changed so much, that if one was to look at Mason before and after Abe, they would see two completely different people. He was nothing like the Mase he was before he committed himself to Abe. And Abe loved him. He wouldn't just dump Mase like that. He's not capable of that. Or at least she didn't think he was. Carmen could clearly see what Mason was doing. He was doing what he did when bad things happened. He blamed himself. It always depressed her when he did that. It wasn't his fault he was born gay. It wasn't his fault that their parents were homophobes. It wasn't his fault that when their parents gave him so much crap for being gay that he turned to self-destructive practices to try to feel better. It wasn't his fault he was bullied and that pushed him further over the edge. But he felt like it was. And Abe abandoning him like that didn't help. She scooted closer to him, pulling his head onto her lap and stroking his hair. It was something they did for each other whenever the other was upset. "You do under no circumstances suck, Mase. It's not your fault that you were born the way you are, to parents like ours, around the type of people we know. You were pushed over the edge, and that is in no way your fault," she told him firmly. She knew he probably wasn't going to listen, but she contiued anyways, "You changed who you were completely, and you loved him. A person who sucks doesn't do that for others."

Carmen was pissed on the inside. Something was up, she could feel it. Call it woman's intuition, or whatever. She was going to find out what was really going on with Abe. No one hurts her brother like this and gets away with it.

Mason shook his head. he wasnt listening to her. how could he?! he was just saying stuff that sisters were suppose to say. he wouldnt believe it even if someone else was saying it. he was doomed. he literally just broke. he went through all that trouble of changing and even singing in front of the school like a dimwit.... all for Abe and this is what he does?! now that Mason was thinking a little more clearly now that the shock was completely gone. he was mad. he was really mad. He went through so much for Abe and for nothing? What utter bull-- Mason couldnt believe it! he was always right about stupid committed relationships. he should have just let Abe move out and be mad. who cares right? Mason didnt even want abe anymore. Mason sat up. "forget Abe. I dont care anymore." he said with a clearly mad expression. he was sick of being let down. he had enough! he was going to just be exactly what his parents wanted. he was going to date a nice girl. a nice smart girl with obvious queen material and he was going to pretend to be happy. if he couldnt have Abe he was going to have someone and he fixated on his parents. if changing was so easy to do for Abe, it could be just as easy to do for his parents.

He sighed, still hugging the stuffed doll. he was unsure of what he had decided but he had nothing better to do. If he couldnt have Abe he didnt want any guy. sure most people in Mason's position might have just thought about committing suicide or something. sadly Mason only thought about how he could make things better. "He was a waste of time. a waste of effort." he said with slight irritation. "Relationships are sucky... you should stay out of them." he said patting Carmen's head with a half-hearted smile. she did make him feel better. just her being there made him feel better. he could never tell her how much he appreciated her. of course what he said wasnt very good advice. in a way it was but it sounded more like he was implying that she should just stick to sleeping around because its easier that way.

Carmen returned his half-hearted smile. She knew what he was doing. He was simply giving up. That frustrated her to no end. She didn't want him to just give up. She wanted to scream at him that if he just gave up, it would be the biggest mistake he ever made. She wanted to tell him that quitters never win. She wanted to lecture him that someone he loved so much to change who he was for, is not a waste of time, and most definitely not a waste of effort. She wanted to kick him out of the room and tell him to go find Abe now to work things out. She wanted to tell him that she had this terrible sinking feeling in her stomache that something was wrong, and he had to go see Abe now. She couldn't, though, because she knew that he wouldn't listen. She knew that he would just tune it out and do whatever he thought was right.

That idea scared her. She knew he wouldn't kill himself, or resort to self-mutilation, but she was scared of what he might do to himself, psychologically. She could see it in his eyes already that he was re-evaluating everything in his life. She didn't want him to do that. She didn't want him to become their parents' puppet. She wanted him to be happy with who he was truly happy with. she wanted him to be with Abe. He may have been good at faking emotions to everyone else, but not to her. She didn't want to have to see fake smiles and laughs again. When Mason was was with Abe, it gave her hope. She never believed in love until she saw it between those two. And now Mase was just running from his problems again. He may have not been running away physically, but he was running away from his heartbreak. He wasn't facing the real problem again.

Still, for the sake of right now, she smiles and laughed a teensy bit at his "advise". "That's not the best advise you've ever given, Mase," she said with a small smile. She had her resolve now. Mason want going to grow up and face this problem on his own, so it was up to her to do it. She wasn't going to let him destroy who he was over this. She'd find out what was really up.